"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. Compares life as Huxley described it in the World State with life in the United States today.

Essay by GonzaloHigh School, 12th gradeA-, January 1997

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Prompt: Compare life as Huxley described it in the World State with life in the United States today.

For more than half a century, science fiction writers have thrilled and challenged readers with visions of the future and future worlds. These authors offered an insight into what they expected man, society, and life to be like at some future time.

A society can achieve stability only when everyone is happy, and the brave new world tries hard to ensure that every person is happy. It does its best to eliminate any painful emotion, which means every deep feeling and passion. It uses genetic engineering and conditioning to ensure that everyone is happy with his or her work. Sex is a primary source of happiness. The brave new world basically teaches everyone to be promiscuous. You are allowed to have sex with any partner you want, who wants you, and sooner or later every partner will want you.

Children are taught through hypnosis that 'everyone belongs to everyone else.' In this Utopia, what we think of as true love for one person would lead to a passion for that person and the establishment of family life, both of which would interfere with the community and its stability. Nobody is allowed to become pregnant because nobody is born, everyone is a 'test-tube' baby. Many females are born sterile.

The ideas and ways of obtaining happiness are not too much different in the brave new world than in our lives here in the United States. The only difference is that these pleasures are looked at in different ways. Sex is a very large part of our society's pleasure and everyone is allowed to have any partner that he/she wants, but this idea is not taught at a young age and everyone in...