As I read into Brave New World, I began to see the historical undertones which reflect on 19th and 20th centuries, the time period in which this book was written. Huxley makes many allusions to many important historical figures by including them as his main characters in Brave New World. One of the most obvious characters is Mustapha Mond, who is claimed to be an allusion to Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk) in the first couple pages of the Forward. The majority of the other characters mentioned in Brave New World (in the first few chapters), are with reference to communist leaders. The two most prominent examples are Bernard Marx (a reference to Carl Marx, the founder of communism) and Lenina (a reference to Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the communist revolution in Russia in 1917). The mentioning of these two characters shows how communist leaders of the 20th century became integrated into a utopia, which is not that different from the ideal communist society envisioned by Marx and Lenin. An allusion to Trotsky (Lenin’s assistant in the Russian revolution of 1917) is made in the beginning of chapter three when a little girl in the garden says her name is Polly Trotsky.
The use of the phrase A.F. helps bring these characters into their right time period of focus, the late 19th and early 20th century, but it also adds some confusion. In the first couple chapters of Brave New World, characters exclaim Ford…this and Ford…that, which leads the reader to believe that Ford is a God to the Utopia, and that A.F. stands for After Ford (meaning after the 19th century). However, in beginning of chapter three, Ford is called Freud, which is an allusion to the inventor of modern psychoanalysis, Sigmund Fried. Freud ideas of psychoanalysis are put to use when people of their social classes are taught “lessons” while ideas of Ford’s ideas of mass production are used when large amounts of babies are produced in the Central London Hachery. This shows a possible mixing of two historical people, Henry Ford and Sigmund Freud, and the mixing of psychology and machinery in the minds of the Utopian people in Brave New World. A mixture of ideas from Ataturk, Lenin, Marx, Freud and Ford, is what may have allowed the Utopia in Brave New World to survive over 600 years past the time of Ford (or Freud).
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That’s true. I have found that Huxley’s characters in Brave New World do, in fact, relate to many great figures in history. I believe that many of the characters in the novel possess a similarity to the people from which their names are derived. Maybe Huxley wanted to demonstrate his ideas through their situations.
ReplyDeleteThe novel first appeared during the interwar years, a time when socialism and dictatorship were key concepts. These types of governments believed that having complete power would help them create a perfect utopian society, such as the one pursued in the novel. Karl Marx [Bernard Marx] and Vladimir Lenin [Lenina] are two men who decided to pursue this concept. But, whereas those societies all failed, the one in Brave New World still exists. So yes, maybe the blend of ideas is what allows this society to prevail. But, you must also realize that this society is utopian in concept, but also has many weaknesses, which prevent it from being truly perfect.