Reading Assignments
Brave New World
Reading Assignment #1
Read Chapters 1 - 2 of Brave New World (p. 3-29), and answer the questions:
According to the Director, “the secret of happiness and virtue [is] liking what you have to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social identity” (16). Use the quote below to explain what this means:“Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh, no. I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides, they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta.” (27-28)
What lesson is the Director trying to “rub in […] with a mild electric shock” (21)? Why are the children being taught this lesson?
What is hypnopaedia? What is it used for? Use the quote below to help you:
“'Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too—all his life long. The mind that judges, and desires, and decides—made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions!' The Director almost shouted in his triumph. 'Suggestions from the State!'” (29)
Reading Assignment #2
Read Chapter 3 of Brave New World (p. 30-56), and answer the questions:
How is human emotion viewed by this society? What are the drawbacks of feeling strong emotions? Use the quote below to help you:
“Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder these poor pre- moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn't allow them to take thinks easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty—they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable?” (41)
How does this hypnopaedic saying ensure that individuals will spend their lives as consumers?
“Every man, woman and child compelled (forced) to consume so much a year. In the interests of industry. […] Ending is better than mending. The more stitches the less riches.” (49)
Do you think this society values what we think of as education? Do you think education as you know it is a good value to have? Why or why not?
“You can't consume much if you sit still and read books.” (50)
What is this society's attitude about drugs? Why might a society allow for recreational drug use?
“Six years later it [soma] was being produced commercially. The perfect drug […] euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant.” (53)
Reading Assignment #3
Read Chapters 4-5 of Brave New World (p. 57-86), and answer the questions:
How is Lenina an example of a citizen of the society? Use the quotes below to help you:
“'That is,' Lenina gave him her most deliciously significant smile, 'if you still want to have me.'” (58)
“What a hideous color khaki is,' remarked Lenina, voicing the hypnopaedic prejudices of her caste.” (62)
Why is it significant that Bernard and Helmholz know that they are individuals? (67)
Why do you think Bernard is left unfulfilled by the Solidarity Service? (78-86)
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