Sunday, November 20, 2011

Brave New World first entry


How have they created equality or conformity? How have they reduced conflict, specifically in regards to religion, relationships, and individual rights? How have they created or forced happiness/conformity? Make a claim about this society as either a utopia or a dystopia based the rest of your blog entry.


            In Brave New World, opens to a group of young boys a tour of a factory that makes humans. Bokanovsky’s Process shows “progress” from our modern times. “One egg, one embryo, one adult- normality. But a Bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress.” (chap. 1; pg. 6) There are five castes- Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon- in the new world. The Bokanovsky’s process is how each caste is created equality. They take one egg and make it divide into ninety-six identical human beings. However, Alpha and Beta embryos do not receive the Bokanovsky’s process; making them weaker. The Director is undoubtedly enthusiastic about the Bokanovsky’s process being the basis of social stability; there are Ninety-six identical twins working on ninety-six identical machines (chap. 1 pg. 7).

            Humans can be forced to hate certain objects like books or flowers with mild electric shocks; creating conformity. In chapter two the boys are in the infant nursery and the boys see a group of babies being trained to hate flowers and books. The babies crawl toward the flowers and book and reach out for them. Then, the director, “gave the signal. The head nurse, who was standing be a switch board at the other end of the room, pressed down a little lever. There was a violent explosion. Shriller and ever shriller, a siren shirked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded. The children started , screamed; their face were distorted with terror. ‘And now we proceed to rub the lesson in with a mild electric shock,’ He waved his hand again, and the head nurse pressed a second lever. The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance.” (chap. 2 pg. 21) After this torture the babies fear going toward the flowers and books. Now, all the babies exposed to this hate roses and books. This system could easily be used for larger objects creating conformity because the whole group now hates whatever they were exposed to the torture for.

            By making large groups of identical people hate specific objects conflict is reduced, For example, all those babies now hate flowers. There will be no conflicts of ‘but I like the flower it’s pretty’ and ‘no it’s not a pretty flower’ because no one likes flowers. The level of equality created does not allow they possibility of conflict between groups, or people. Especially since those of different groups, which is easily known by the different outfits, are not allowed to associate with each other. Equality and conformity are easily created in this strict dystopia is maintained by the large groups of identical twins who are tortured together.

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