Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Brave new world is a science fiction book written in 1931by Aldous Huxley and deals with the way things might turn out to be in the future. The book is set in London of AD 2540 and the book anticipates the changes in the society from the development of both reproductive technologies as well as sleep-learning. In this book Huxley describes the future to be embodied with ideals that are very organized such that one loses one sense of self.

Exile in Brave New World

In the Brave new world the exile experience is common and several characters experience some form and shape of it during the novel. Such form of exile is evident in form of alienation and otherness or the fact of being different from the rest of the group. In his book Aldous use the theme of exile as a way of expressing his ideas and fantasies about the life in the brave new world. The theme of exile has been experienced by various characters in the book either directly as for Helmholtz, Bernard and Linda or indirectly as for John and Mustapha Mond (Postman, 1985).

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To begin with Johns experiences a lot of alienation or exile kind of treatment in the book brave new world and this is evident from the first instance where we find him to be cursed to a life of isolation or exiled from the rest of the society of the savages simply because of his appearance, the values he holds and is outrageous thoughts. Such character of being the other exiled him mentally, physically as well as emotionally both in the savage culture and the world state culture because he finds himself torn between conforming to the society and at same time keeping true to his virtues.

Therefore, being different exiles John to a world of alienation and despite wanting to fit into the society of the savages his different looks from those of the rest of the Indians on the reservation hampers his ability to fit in the savage society and this is evident when he is denied the rites of passage or the rituals where he could give his life to the society. John explains that he could have gone round ten times, twelve and even fifteen but they couldn’t allow him because of his complexion and that has always been the case (Higgins & Higgins, 2000).

This act of denial simply because he is not like them exiles him to world of isolation and he clearly knows that. Being exiled to the identity of the other John has always been shunned, disliked and mocked because, the Indians were dark skinned who fiercefuly looked down on the light skinned people presumably from the ‘other place’. John also experienced exiled from the rest of the Indian boys as a result of the promiscuous actions of his mother and was sometimes referred to as ‘white hair’ or son of ‘she-dog’ and such words crushed his spirits every time he tried to participate with them. The excitement that John shows when Bernard promises to take him and his mother to the brave new world shows that he highly anticipates to be set free from an exiled life he leads in the land of the savages (Huxley, 2005).

Theme of exile in the book brave new world is also portrayed by Linda, mother to John who is very promiscuous and ignores the rules of the reservation lands and such act puts her in constant trouble with the inhabitants who resented her promiscuity and her intake of alcohol. Linda after being abandoned by the director in the reservation land she has never fitted in the society of the savages because she breaks the rules hence being ostracized by the society.

Linda in exiled in the limbo as she tries to live in both the reservation society and her previous new brave world. He teaches his son to read which is against the brave new world but at same time is promiscuous and takes alcohol. Therefore Linda spends most of her life being exiled in the worlds of in-between as she can’t fully fit into either of the societies.

Bernard Marx is another character in the book brave new world that experiences exile as he has an inferiority complex which results from his small height that resulted during his faulty decantation process. His shortens as compared to his caste members make him to be ridiculed and mocked and this sends him to exile from the society as he becomes isolated from the rest.

In addition to that Bernard doesn’t believe in the promiscuous nature which his society permits and is rather aligned to monogamous kind of life which exhibits the nature of man before the Ford and this separated belief exiles him from the rest of the savage society who holds a complete contradictory belief that sex is for recreation rather than for reproduction and that people should have sex with as many partners as possible (Huxley, 1998).

In addition to that Mustapha Mond who is resident of the world controller of western Europe and one of the ten world controllers experience exile in his way of life as he was forced to abandon his once ambitious career in physics and given the choice of training as a world controller. Giving up his science for the censoring of scientific discoveries as well as exiling of people for unorthodox beliefs exiles him from what he has always believed and stood for.

This is clearly evident as he always keeps a collection of forbidden literature in his safe including the Shakespeare’s and other religious writings. All these serve to imply that Mond is leading a life of exile in the brave new world.