The reservation is shown as an alternative to the brave new world but it too is presented negatively and not shown to be the solution to the problem. This is a primitive, savage world and Savage (John) can’t live in either world happily. No character seems really happy, instead they are drugged and conditioned to be happy. Individuals are created to be in a certain social class- alphas, betas, gammas, deltas and epsilons and they cannot escape the role they have been designated with. The inhabitants of the Reservation are committed to survival and their appalling conditions have little room for true happiness. Here we see disease, aging, hunger, brutality and fear. The Indians ability to feel and have religion is balanced by the misery and suffering. Huxley creates a dystopian from a world which at first glance may appear to be utopian.
Language
Brave New World is a satire. Huxley uses the text to show how science should be controlled by people and not be allowed to take over everyday lives. What makes the satire so strong is that the text takes everyday things such as pregnancy and removes it from the people and gives it to science. This was a possibility in Huxley’s thinking and even more so now with the development of cloning and in-vitro fertilisation. Huxley also shows concern with the materialism of society. He takes the concept of mass production developed by Henry Ford and takes it to the extreme where the only point of life is to consume. Ford is so famous and important that he sets the yearly calendar. The story sets in A.F. 632, which is probably in the middle of the twenty- sixth century.
Huxley also examines the concept of the one party state. In the brave new world there seems to be one rule for the leaders and one rule for the masses. Mustapha Mond freely admits that “But as I make the laws, I can also break them.” Mustapha also knows the truth about society but chooses the path of power and happiness over truth. This examination of totalitarian regimes is also made clear in the names for example, Lenina (Lenin) and Marx are names associated with the totalitarian communist regime that captured the old Soviet Union. Huxley also uses the ideas from these regimes in the text. Totalitarianism is fond of simple slogans that people can chant to feel better and all used them, especially the communists. Huxley gives us the simple ‘Community, Identity, Stability’ slogan which is the basis of society and the World State’s motto.
Blade Runner
This film composed by Ridley Scott is based on the Phillip K.Dick novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which was composed in 1969. BR the Director’s Cut was released in 1992 and is a cult version of the original. The pessimistic view of the future world can be explained with the dramatic changes that the world was exposed to during the 80’s. It is set in Los Angeles in 2019. This is not that far away but the world created by Scott is very different from the one we live today. BR depicts a world devastated by technology, population explosions, pollution and consumerism. The natural world is non-existent and the wealthy can buy it or flee. Male dominated business rules the world and people struggle to survive.
The world in the 80’s reflected many of these ideas. Global warming and deforestation were key issues and the gap between the rich and poor increased rapidly, which was helped by the growth of multi-national corporations that promote consumerism on a global scale. Also technology began to invade people’s lives, as it had never done before. Ridley Scott’s vision is an extension of this world.
Themes
In The Wild:
The natural world in Blade Runner has been replaced by technology and the world seems to have consumed beyond its means. In this text we have the concept that the replicants have evolved to be more human than the people that created them and they show more emotion than the real humans and feel much more. The replicants were designed for the hard and dangerous work in the Off Worlds and are not allowed on Earth. They are physically and intellectually better than most people and thus a threat. It is these worlds which offer a people a chance to be closer to the natural world- even if it is not Earth.
Here on Earth, in Los Angles in 2019, there is overcrowding, decay, pollution and the environment where nothing natural exists. People have replaced the natural world with man-made creations such as the Tyrell building and the huge apartment blocks that house the people. With nothing natural, the people in BR also seem to be isolated and focussed on their own lives. J.F. Sebastian is brilliant but alone; Deckard is alone as is Tyrell who is symbolically a ‘God’ and is the most powerful man in the film. Even people on the street seem hurried and alienated, struggling to survive.
Science and Technology:
In BR the world is dominated by science and technology but at a high price. The advances have been made to the detriment of the natural and human environments. As science and technology have created a lot, the quality of the individual’s existence is taken away. For example, there is a fear that the replicants (created by humans) are superior and perfect in every way, and will soon dominate and take over their ‘creators’ (humans).
The new technology that we see in the film such as spinners that the police use for transport and the videophones are mingled in with some older technology such as the fans that seem to be everywhere in the film. This blend allows us to see how technology has focused on the profitable. For example, the spinners are necessary as the streets are overcrowded and old style vehicles would not be efficient. This efficiency is also used to create replicants. Each one has a purpose and has been genetically designed to fulfil a role. Sebastian even makes his own ‘friends’ and has an apartment full of genetically engineered toys. While science and technology dominate BR it comes at a price for humanity.
Model Essay
In Huxley’s BNW individuals who live in the city are conditioned to hate nature while those that live on the Reservation struggle to exist with it. The cityscape in Ridley Scott’s BR defines people’s existence and science and technology seem to have eliminated the natural world and stripped its resources.
In the BNW nature has been eliminated in the civilised world and individuals conditioned to avoid it. For example, we see babies crawl towards flowers and books; they are conditioned to avoid them by noise, bells and electric shocks. The children are being conditioned because ‘A love of nature keeps no factories busy’. The relationship they have formed with nature is a negative one and psychological training has shaped their attitude. We see the psychological training show its effect in Lenina’s reaction to any form of the natural world. For example, her reaction to Benard stopping to look at the sea. She keeps repeating “it’s horrible, it’s horrible” and just wants to get back to the city. Her reaction to the natural world is repeated when she and Bernard go to the “wild” area- the Reservation. When Lenina sees this she says “I don’t like it” and she is shocked by what she sees, to the extend that when she returns she goes on a soma holiday to forget.
Even the strong spiritually of the place, which reflects some humanity, is brutal as shown in the whipping of the boy. These Indians don’t live in complete harmony in nature; it seems to dominate them as they struggle to survive. Their relationship with nature is like a battle that begins at birth. Rather than living and enjoying it they are trying to tame it without the benefit of any technological advances and their attitude towards it is respectful because of its overwhelming power.
In the Brave New World science and technology have replaced the natural world, and the term “wild” is reserved for the fringe dwellers on the Reservation. The citizens are not allowed to react to anything and they don’t have the opportunity to experience love, hate and passion. Everything is done for then and they have no contact with the natural world. An individual’s humanity belongs to the state and not to themselves as everything is oppressed for the good of society. Huxley has created a world where science and technology dominate both the natural world and humanity and gives little credibility to the concept of “wild”. The wild is shut away by electric fences that kill and keep in anything natural.
This philosophy seems to take place in Blade Runner. The natural world in BR has been replaced by technology and the world seems to have consumed beyond its means. In Los Angeles in 2019, there is overcrowding, decay, pollution and an environment where nothing natural exists. . People have replaced the natural world with man-made creations such as the Tyrell building and the huge apartment blocks that house the people. With nothing natural, the people in BR also seem to be isolated and focussed on their own lives. J.F. Sebastian is brilliant but alone; Deckard is alone as is Tyrell who is symbolically a ‘God’ and is the most powerful man in the film. Even people on the street seem hurried and alienated, struggling to survive. Their attitude to nature is non-existent because for most people the natural world doesn’t exist anymore. Some individuals, like replicants, carry memories but nothing real seems to exist.
People relationship with and attitudes to nature is complex in both BNW and BR. In the BNW individuals who live in the city are conditioned to hate nature and this is life long. Those that live on the Reservation struggle to survive and nature is a complex and difficult part of their lives. The setting in BR has eliminated the natural world and consumed all of its resources. The people have little or no nature to relate to and these determine their attitude.