Finally completing Brave New World

When I wrote my last blog post, it looked like I would finish my book this week. In my defense, I did make an attempt to read, but there were too many other things to do each day. Maybe I should give you some background first, since you probably have no idea what I am talking about. For the last four days, I have been at a national science competition in Washington D.C., presenting a paper alongside three other representatives from Ohio. I thought I could probably get most of my homework done on the first day, but we seem to have something to do every spare moment; government speakers (all of whom are described as "very special"), team building activities (at the end I don't think I even knew everyone's names), science festivals, paper sessions... you get the idea.

It's surprising how many people have this idea that we have invented everything worth inventing. They somehow buy into this concept that we basically know everything about everything and it isn't worth knowing anything more. Well, this competition really opened my eves toward how little we actually understand about the universe, and how much work still has to be done to help some of the poorest people in the world. In my book, Brave New World, the modernized world has completely ignored this part of the population, leaving them to live like the year is 1000 B.C., themselves living in a fake life in which they constantly give themselves a false sense of pleasure. You probably didn't see that connection coming.

Luckily, not everyone in the book is completely satisfied with this seemingly perfect life. Bernard Marx, one of the main characters, suddenly decides he wants to visit the "savage reservation" to see how they live. In this village, people become old, they get hurt, and have true feelings. They have children who are not part of a grand science experiment, and have no need for drugs to keep them afloat. When he sees this situation, he remarks that "I agree in the Savage in finding civilized humanity too easy, or as he put it, not expensive enough" (Huxley 159).

Unfortunately for Bernard, the government is taking notice. And knowing these kinds of books, I predict that by the end of the book, he will either be dead, brainwashed, or in a forced labor camp.

So far, this book has turned out to be interesting, but the characters just seem too underdeveloped. It's hard to really say who the main characters are until about half the book is over, and even these characters lack anything that makes you feel a connection towards them. 

It's time to get on my plane back home, so I guess that's it for today.

The Ohio Delegation at Washington D.C.

Theme in Brave New World

There are a significant number of people who completely dismiss dystopian literature because it "wouldn't really happen". Well of course it wouldn't really happen. That's the point. Just because there may not be laws against the ownership of books, it doesn't stop Fahrenheit 451 from being relevant to censorship in our own society. And  although there are no omnipresent telescreens watching our every move, 1984 is still relevant in our current condition of government surveillance. In the same way, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley plays upon a single theme to create an interesting story of a society that wants to be controlled by their government. Each character individually may not have the same depth as realistic novels, but put together, they are a small version of the society itself.

Fortunately, it doesn't take a detective to figure out the theme in Brave  New World. It's omnipresent, right from the first page. In their pursuit for a perfect society, this fictional government has made indoctrination through propaganda their way of staying in power. Huxley wants us to be aware that we should think for ourselves and reason even when an authority says otherwise. He wants us to be able to filter the information that we are fed to make a world that is better for everyone.

Just think about all of the mass advertising in the media that you encounter on a daily basis. When people are told something enough times, they start to believe there might just be some truth to that statement. We constantly consume media that spoon feeds us with the messages that will be beneficial to certain companies or political groups. You may wonder why nobody says a word against the government in Brave New World.  After all, wouldn't someone have some sense within this society of chaos? Well, it's for the same reason that nobody says a word when we are being fed consumerist messages on a daily basis. It seems like everything is already perfect. Why disturb the order of society when everyone is happy with their situation?

This kind of fake happiness has engulfed the people of Brave New World. They love their easy  life in which they do what they are told to artificially make themselves seem happy.

We tend to complain a lot about everything we have to do. But if everything was decided for us, life would be much, much worse.

Brave New World

Fahrenheit 451 presented a dystopian society in which books were banned. Compared to the society in the new book I am reading, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 seems like a utopia. To put it into perspective, this novel was published in 1932- that's years before other dystopian literature such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. Huxley's world is startlingly similar to the place that our society is headed toward. It is a society where the universal government keeps its people slaves- but not through violence, intimidation, or laws. Instead, they condition children from birth to think in certain ways. They physiologically manipulate people in the factories where children are produced. Children are sorted into groups- from the smartest Alphas to the lowest Epsilons.  These messages include consumerist propaganda, and ideas about each person's place in society. In fact, this future world worships Henry Ford and encourages activities that would be considered horrific in our own world. As the Director of Hatcheries states in the novel, "...at last the child's mind is these suggestions and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. The adult's mind too- all his life long" (Huxley 29).

 I believe that this book is supposed to serve as a warning for what society could become if we do not stop greedy governments and corporations from controlling us and taking away are individuality. Huxley did not actually believe any of the things in the book would come true, but wanted us to know what could happen if taken to the extreme. I'm still just at the beginning of this book, but it is already intriguing and entertaining.

Suspense builds in the Scorch Trials

I am now completing the Scorch Trials, by James Dashner, and it has turned out to be a much better book than I had expected. The best thing about it is how the author creates suspense- at one moment you think you have everything figured out, and then suddenly that turns out to be a part of something much larger. Many authors often tell you everything you need to know about the characters and the world they live in right away. The Scorch Trials, however, diverges from this formula. Little to nothing is known about WICKED, the organization that is putting the two groups of children into a series of trials to test survival. The few times they are mentioned, people who claim to work for the organization explain that despite the evil sounding acronym, the organization has good motives and is the World in Catastrophe, Kill zone Experiment Department. Upon being "rescued" from the Maze trial, readers are provided with clues as to why the organization exists. They have something to do with a sun flare disease that slowly degrades people until they are no different from any other animals.

This seems strange though, and the sun flare theory might just be a cover-up for something more dangerous going on. There are several holes in the idea that sun flares can somehow give people a disease. First of all, the sun is more than 90 million miles from the earth and has no life at all. What if the WICKED organization truly is what its title describes it as? And what if they are trying to conquer the world by infecting its population? But how does that account for the experiments that are being performed?

Every new possibility in the Maze Runner series opens a new set of questions. I guess I just have to read on to figure out the answers.