Brave New World

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Examining the Canon”

In this activity, students will examine Brave New World from a perspective within literary theory and criticism to create and present an original argument as to the novel’s continued use as required reading for students.

Brave New World has appeared on banned books lists since its publication. Sex and drug use aside, misogyny, racism, ableism, and classism abound within the book, complicating its canonical legacy as a visionary work of speculative fiction and leading to attempts to replace it on educational reading lists. Choosing a critical lens through which to view the novel, such as a feminist or postcolonial lens, research how others have critiqued these controversial aspects of the novel and then analyze the story on your own for its educational benefits and drawbacks. Construct an original argument with developed reasoning that explains what role, if any, you think the novel serves as part of required reading for students. Your final product will be a presentation supported by both the novel and your research and balanced with visual and textual information.

Students will formally present their arguments to the class.

Teaching Suggestion: Students may benefit from reminders that the prompt, while limited in topic, is open-ended in response and that research and criticism are intended to expose students to academic thinking and offer opportunities to explore claims and counterclaims, not pigeonhole student beliefs. Depending on familiarity with literary criticism, consider revisiting methodologies of relevant schools of thought or providing resources for student reference. Feedback at all phases of project implementation may benefit students, particularly if they are newer to academic research and argumentation.

Differentiation Suggestion:  Students less familiar with academic research, English language learners, or students with organizational or executive functioning differences may benefit from graphic organizers or planning guides for each project phase. Students with organizational or executive functioning differences and English language learners may benefit from curated or pre-highlighted and annotated research and excerpts from the novel. For advanced students, consider increasing the challenge through an authentic audience for their presentations, such as a school board or English department faculty. Alternatively, you might open the floor for debate rather than a formal presentation.

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. If utopian fiction explores how societies organize to achieve perfect social harmony, dystopian fiction explores how societal organizations fail to attain perfection, often due to fundamental flaws or miscalculations by the organizers.

• In what ways has the World State attempted to create a perfect society, and where have they failed? (topic sentence)
• Explain which aspects of social organization the World State has improved compared to a society you are familiar with, and then explain where this social organization of the World State breaks down.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, make an argument as to what overarching flaw is keeping the World State from attaining a perfect society.

2. Brave New World explores the role of consumerism as both a social control and a source of societal stability.

• What role does consumerism play in the novel concerning themes of control and stability? (topic sentence)
• Explain the various manifestations of consumerism in the novel and how they impact individuals and facilitate centralized control and stability.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, make an argument about what commentary Huxley might be making regarding consumerism’s effects on humans and society.

3. Originally written in 1932 in the interwar period, Huxley’s Brave New World can be understood as an exploration or critique of Modernist attitudes and anxieties. Choose only one modernist attitude or anxiety as the focus of this essay.

• How does Brave New World explore this Modernist attitude or anxiety? (topic sentence)
• Explain where this attitude manifests, including through symbolism, motif, and character, and how the attitude connects to larger themes and messages.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explain what views this may reveal Huxley’s view on modernity or human nature.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Topics of motherhood and family are central to the novel, with John and his mother offering a contrast to a society devoid of mothers and families. What effect does eliminating the family, specifically motherhood, have on this new society? Based on the characters’ actions and events, what role does the family play in social stability, control, and authenticity, and what modern anxieties does Huxley explore by removing the family and motherhood from society?

2. Speculative writers cannot see the future but often reveal truths through their plot or indirectly through future reader response and analysis. What aspects of the World State offer analogs and critiques of contemporary Western society? To what extent are these critiques and analogs deliberately created by the author, and to what extent do they arise with modern readers’ value systems and hindsight?

3. Huxley relies on contrast and juxtaposition stylistically as well as structurally. Trace the use of contrast or juxtaposition throughout the novel, examining its relationship to theme and message.

Multiple Choice and Long Answer questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, unit exam, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Which literary device creates tension in the novel’s opening?

A) Fantastical imagery contrasting with mundane subject matter

B) Detached tone and scientific rationale in reference to deliberate dysgenics and abuse

C) Dramatic irony, in which the audience knows what characters do not

D) Unflinching reverence for scientific processes and social achievements

2. What is ironic about the Deltas’ education?

A) Due to dysgenics, they cannot understand it.

B) Their education is incomplete.

C) They do not appreciate their education.

D) Education usually connotes intellectual development and free thought.

3. To what does Mond compare a 20th-century home, and what is the effect?

A) He compares it to a library, implying that there is no more need for homes than books.

B) He compares it to a pack rat’s nest, insulting readers.

C) He compares it to an unhygienic prison, subverting the reader’s associations with home.

D) He does not describe homes but rather families.

4. Which dating norm still appears in the World State despite promoting polyamory?

A) Women still worry about pregnancy.

B) Men do the inviting and planning; women wait around to be asked.

C) People still have bad dates.

D) Religious services still promote monogamy.

5. What is ironic about referring to the reservation as “uncivilized”?

A) They engage in violent rituals.

B) They are as technologically advanced as anyone else.

C) Readers would more likely consider mass dysgenics and abusive conditioning uncivilized.

D) They are portrayed with absolute and unflinching dignity.

6. Why is Bernard so fascinated with the Penitente ritual?

A) Unlike the Fordian rituals, it doesn’t end in an orgy.

B) He is disgusted by the brutality and violence.

C) He loves Linda and cannot take his eyes off her.

D) He has never felt such intensity of feeling.

7. What role does Shakespeare play in John’s upbringing?

A) It is his inspiration and how he makes sense of the world, for better or worse.

B) It is how he learned to understand and accept Popé’s love for him as a son.

C) He uses it to escape into other worlds to cope with the difficulties of his life.

D) He uses it to improve his speech to impress Lenina.

8. What is true about John’s and Lenina’s habit of quoting?

A) Both are commented on as endearing habits by the other characters.

B) Both are a result of intense conditioning through hypnopaedia.

C) Both accept the quotes as truth while lacking complete context.

D) Both are made more eloquent in their speech due to this habit.

9. Why is Linda’s appearance such a cause for shock?

A) Her assertion of motherhood and love for her son conflict with people’s social programming.

B) The Director is well respected, so no one believes she is real.

C) She is simply so loud and vociferous that people take fright.

D) Everyone had missed her, thinking she was dead.

10. How does the trip change Lenina’s inner conflict?

A) She confidently rejects social conditioning in favor of fixating on her attraction to John.

B) She takes more soma to cope with her traumatic trip.

C) She feels sorry for Linda and fixates on her death.

D) She realizes she will never fit in, even though she is very pneumatic.

11. Why does Bernard come to resent John and Helmholtz?

A) He believes that Helmholtz is only using John to attract unfair attention.

B) They reject norms earnestly, whereas he does so out of self-pity or personal gain.

C) He cannot follow their conversations, and this angers him.

D) He believes they are cowards plotting behind his back.

12. The scene with the children playing around Linda at the hospital serves primarily to:

A) Invert the reader’s sense of morality and ethics

B) Show the ironies of death in a collective society

C) Serve as the catalyst for John’s violent downfall

D) Reveal that their conditioning leads to dehumanization

13. In what ways is Bernard’s true infantilism revealed during the riot John causes over some distribution?

A) Helmholtz and John emasculate him by implying fighting is for men, not children.

B) His reluctance to engage exposes his lack of moral conviction, making him childish.

C) His petulance while addressing the officer of peace sounds petty and childish.

D) He cannot live without soma, making him no less infantile than anyone else.

14. Why are art, science, emotion, and technological achievement at odds with happiness?A

A) Work and happiness are incompatible.

B) Innovation requires sacrifice, and sacrifice leads to unhappiness.

C) Happiness is never grand.

D) Unflinching reverence for scientific processes and social achievements

15. Why does Mond not return John to the reservation or Iceland?

A) There is no place for him in any society.

B) Mond has no interest in John’s fate.

C) He faces a lack of resources for an unaccounted body.

D) He has decided to use John as an experiment.

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. What contradictions are evident within the World State, and how might they reveal what Huxley might consider non-negotiable elements of civil society?

2. In what way does John’s death create ambiguity in terms of the novel’s message and purpose?