English Literature coursework

Q. Compare and contrast the importance of lead characters, John the Savage and Marianne in the novels, “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley and “Heroes and Villains” by Angela Carter and to analyse their impact on changes in societies.

Both texts “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley and “Heroes and Villains” by Angela Carter are set in a similar utopian environment. The major characters play important roles in upcoming events and bring changes to societies that they invade and to people that they discover. “Brave New World” is a novel that contains a society that relies on their technology and their culture is based around strict rules and regulations. Whereas “Heroes and Villains” presents a society that seems to be more relaxed and under higher risk of being affected with changes in the hierarchy. I will analyse both novels to show how the writers are able to portray a single individual that makes drastic changes in their fictional societies.

In the book “Brave New World” the advancement of science that is concerned is not affected by the lead character, John the Savage. Instead it is the advancement of science itself. It is show to affects individuals and it is show to be used against humanity which frightens alienated guests that are in a control within the plot and their ideal environment. On one hand John is interested to find out the world where his roots come from. However what he sees he doesn’t understand because it is not how he imagined it would be. On the other hand the heroine of “Heroes and Villains”, Marianne, adapts to new primitive society quite well however her compressed emotions would not show her actual joy and delight to someone less intellectual. This gives her privilege in a barbarian society. This difference between the characters is important because it shows how individuals can change the environment around them regardless of their position and status in society. Angela Carter must have used this idea to make a female leader because of her personal beliefs; bearing a feminist attitude. She is interested in creating magic realism. However Huxley on the other hand presents an unsuccessful male individual who attempts to change the world. Unsuccessful in his pursuit, he demonstrates a character that may convey a resulted view that the writer obtained due to the time when novel was written. Huxley came from a highly educated family of scientist and had knowledge about future technological advances. After authors trip to America he was concerned about wastefulness of American society. He didn’t like how American people spent their spare time in worthless things and did not try to improve their intellect. Therefore his opinion developed to believing that "Nowhere, perhaps, is there so little conversation... It is all movement and noise...”. Experience in the United States made him pessimistic about the cultural future of Europe. He said: "The thing which is happening in America is a revaluation of values, a radical alteration of established standards."

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Advancement of technology, science, and psychology can change humans into a kind of standardized beings, if control over their genes was possible, as it was described in “Brave New World”. If Government morals would reach certain level they would be capable of performing these changes now. World is getting closer to a position where these things can be achieved. It is important to understand this and prevent this from happening. Huxley intention seems to be to pass this message over to people and to make readers recognise what the minority can do.

Also people might have had small ...

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