"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley.

Essay by Jaxon2580A+, November 2003

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In society, people wish and pray that emotions and the pain they cause could be erased from human experience. People don't like being responsible for their emotions. However, in Brave New World, Huxley distorts the concept of commitment to prove that all emotions are necessary to being.

Without commitment to religion, people become shallow and dehumanized. In Brave New World, Bernard doesn't participate in the Solidarity Service because he wants the change that comes with commitment. Instead, he participates because he "feels" that it's "time for him to do something." Bernard is participating in the emotion and tradition of the service. The other participants are "jumping," "shouting," with "twelve buttocks slabbily resounding." To these participants, it's a game not a lifestyle. In regard to commitment, however, Huxley proves through the Indian Ritual, that there is a price to pay for being committed to your beliefs and religion. The Indian Ritual signifies the growth of the Indian boy from childhood to maturity.

The pain from the whip represents the pain that follows commitment to a belief or religion. By comparing the Solidarity Service and Indian ritual, Huxley offers the reader a choice between shallowness and dehumanization or the pain that comes with commitment. In relating this scenerio to today's society, jealousy, responsibility, guilt, frustration, and fear are all associated with commitment to religion. For example, the jealousy people get against others who have a higher calling in the church, the guilt that comes when you sin against God or the church, or the fear that is placed in people of today about Hell. If a person doesn't experience these emotions than he is dehumanized because he feels nothing.

When society lacks commitment to relationships, the result is knowing nothing but the physical. When a person is involved in a...