History

'History is bunk' - The Director said this in chapter 3, this was a possible reference to what Henry Ford once said:

"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today." (Chicago Tribune, 1916).

The more I come to read about Ford it gets very clear why Huxley gave him such an important role in his novel.
This one of his famous phrases tells exactly which meaning history has in BNW: It has None!

Stability

Stability is a bit more difficult to describe.
Differing from one world view to another the mere word stability as a self evident term does not exist.
As I do not want to give you a lecture about all the possible social systems (also I do not know enough about it) I just try to give you an impression of what I think stability is.

To me stability is his own opposite, constant change!

Consumption ( in Brave New World )

Referring to my previous post I want to sum up how Aldous Huxley solved the problem in his novel.

At first the human leaders created the World State and were able to overcome all the international struggles and passed global laws.
The second idea was to bring everyone to work, which is also a basis for stability (see following post). To achieve this goal they produce humans by 'schedule' so that there are only as many humans as there are needed.

Consumption ( in general )

What do you think about consumption?
Is it good? Is it bad?
If there are two possible answers, normally both have an element of truth, so it is here.

But of course at first the definition so that we won't talk at cross purposes!
Even though I do not think that would be to difficult or misunderstandable.

Consumption is usually seen as the usage of goods.

But as in every definiton there are words which need deeper understanding or where there is something that stands behind them. To me in this definition there are two: 'usage' and 'goods'.

Name Sources and References

This is a shortened (to the most interesting references) version of the Wikipedia list.

• Bernard Marx, from George Bernard Shaw (or possibly Bernard of Clairvaux or possibly Claude Bernard) and Karl Marx.
• Lenina Crowne, from Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader during the Russian Revolution.
• Fanny Crowne, from Fanny Kaplan, famous for an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Lenin. Ironically, in the novel, Lenina and Fanny are friends.
• Helmholtz Watson, from the German physician and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz and the American behaviorist John B. Watson.
  
  

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

This is again a shortened list this time of the most interesting analyses www.SparkNotes.com delivers.

The Consumer Society

It is important to understand that Brave New World is not simply a warning about what could happen to society if things go wrong, it is also a satire of the society in which Huxley existed, and which still exists today. While the attitudes and behaviors of World State citizens at first appear bizarre, cruel, or scandalous, many clues point to the conclusion that the World State is simply an extreme—but logically developed—version of our society’s economic values, in which individual happiness is defined as the ability to satisfy needs, and success as a society is equated with economic growth and prosperity.

Reading Log (Epic)

This entry not only is a reading log but to me it meant far more.

It was in France when the feeling to write something down took over.
My family and I were there for holiday in a nice, small appartment 500 metres from the sea. For the weather did not play its part very well and also because I took lots of english literature ('Death of a Salesman', 'Long Day's Journey into Night', 'A Streetcar named Desire' – to tell the best ones) with me I brought myself to continue reading BNW. Two hours later I finished it once more, but this time I more understood it! Maybe even the way Huxley wanted me to understand: Not only what is basically written, but to incorporate and feel the connection of the book to your own life.

The structure of society in Brave New World (BNW)

Creation and education of human beings:

People in BNW undergo prenatal methods, which were not invented but popular to Huxley and his contemporaries in order to predestine their development.

So they are produced in Bokanovsky's Process (Gamma – Epsilon) in which the ovaries bod and proliferate from 8 to 96. This technique is the basis of the society for it delivers the workers for the World State.
Furthermore the future members of lower castes are treated with alcohol and insufficient oxygen so their intelligence level is kept only as high as necessary.

Function of Chapter 1

Summary of this chapter:

The novel opens in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. The year is a.f. 632 (632 years “after Ford”). The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning is giving a group of students a tour of a factory that produces human beings and conditions them for their predestined roles in the World State. He explains to the boys that human beings no longer produce living offspring. Instead, surgically removed ovaries produce ova that are fertilized in artificial receptacles and incubated in specially designed bottles.

Function:

The first chapter of the novel gives an impression of the philosophy of the new citizens and is in fact an enumeration of stunning scientific achievements which make it hard to distinguish between what is more valuable: human beings or technologies.