Happiness and Freedom
Huxley had an extremely difficult adolescence.
He became almost blind.
He lost his mother and his brother committed suicide.
He lost his first wife.
He also wrote in eternity found: "I never believed in happiness and life of things."
Perhaps that’s why Brave New World present a perfect society where everyone is happy because the aim of Huxley was like all the men to found the happiness.
But this perfect society take away freedom like the freedom to think for one self.
The few characters we see who do things for themselves are unhappy.
So the novel pose a question is it better to be happy or free ?
This question seems dominate the whole Huxley’s life because he travels a lot as if he needs to change always of landscape.
He doesn’t want to be dominating, he has a free relation with his second wife.
In Huxley's society, the particular good is happiness, and government, industry, and all other social apparatuses exist in order to maximize the happiness of all members of society.
But John the Savage rebels against this notion of utilitarian happiness.
He argues that humanity must also know how to be unhappy in order to create and appreciate beauty.
The use of soma is an example of the opposite.
People take the drug in order to go on a "holiday" from any kind of unhappiness.
Because they refuse to experience unhappiness, the drug keeps them from wonder and the appreciation of beauty, as in the scene when Lenina and Bernard fly over the tossing English Channel.
He sees a beautiful display of nature's power; she sees a horribly frightening scene that she wants to avoid.
When Bernard and Lenina have a conversation about freedom.
Lenina insists that everyone has a great deal of freedom - the freedom "to have the most wonderful time." Soma represents this kind of freedom, as it puts people in a hypnotic state.
The name Lenina brings to mind Lenine.
Bernard insists that this is no freedom at all.
Bernard claims that his ideal of freedom is the freedom
October 2013
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