Ali Field

Brave New World Journal 1

Throughout the first section of Brave New World, motifs such as ‘pneumatic’ are present. Pneumatic, by dictionary definition, means “of or pertaining to air, gases or wind” or compressed air. I do not think of pneumatic as a positive adjective and am curious as to why Huxley chose that phrase. Huxley first uses pneumatic when describing Lenina Crowne by stating that she is “a splendid girl. Wonderfully pneumatic” (44). He uses ‘pneumatic’ as a sexually pleasing term rather than a term regarding air or gas. Huxley later states the people who return from soma-holidays return to the actual world without distractions and spend their time going from “girl to pneumatic girl” (56). He again uses it was a sexual term rather than its dictionary definition. Maybe he uses it meaning voluptuous or beautiful.

Huxley uses great imagery to describe the setting of the novel on the first page. The room of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre had a “harsh thin light [that] glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure… but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory” (3). The setting also incorporates personifications by the lights “hungrily seeking.” The light seeking something through the window and only finding a pristine lab allows the reader to see how people in the novel are going to feel, because they are trapped into doing what they are trained to do and use soma to avoid feeling stress or other negative emotions, which is like finding a pristine lab rather than something that makes them truly happy.

Later, embryos are said to be “like photography film,” which is a simile, (11) because “’they can only stand red light” (11). The students then follow the director into “the sultry darkness” (11) where he “was visible and crimson” (11). I find it peculiar that Huxley would choose to say the darkness was “sultry,” or arousing, when the dark is usually considered to be scary by people nowadays. Possibly, he does this because the darkness is a good thing because they were conditioned to not be afraid of it. Also, the phrase “every one belongs to everyone else” (47) is frequently repeated in the language of the novel. Huxley chose to do this to drill to the reader the difference of the previous society to the new one.

Cultural connections, or history, are often brought up while discussing babies. Babies are no longer “viviparous,” (24) or birthed in the year 632 A.F., they are made in tubes. People do not learn about the past and the topic often causes “blood [to rush] to cheeks” (23-24) because they are embarrassed by the past, which shows that the society has been trained to believe that history is bad and that “historical facts are unpleasant” (24). Later, history is brought up again when the director told the students that “there was something called democracy. As though men were more than physic-chemically equal” (47). The latter sentence has a mockery tone set by the phrase “as though men more than physic-chemically equal” (47) which makes be feel the society laughs at their ancestors for thinking they were important or equal. The controller even states that their “ancestors were so stupid and short sighted” (45) because they wanted to keep their emotions when soma came out. History is never spoken of, accept in the rare occasion where it is mocked, because all books such as “Shakespeare” (51) and bibles were locked away from society. The world leaders keep the books are from the society because it may cause people to realize they are not truly happy and may want to rebel.