Brave New World Analysis

Literary Devices in Brave New World

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

Animal imagery is rampant in Brave New World. Just look at the first chapter. There's the repetition of "straight from the horse's mouth," Foster's implicit claim that "any cow" could merely hatch...

Setting

OK, let's start with the time. Huxley establishes in Chapter 1 that the year is A.F. 632. We are told in Chapter 3 that the introduction of the first Ford Model-T was year "zero" for this calendar,...

Narrator Point of View

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley is a fan of giving his readers a ton of information. As such, the point of view is incredibly omniscient. That is, we get to know everything about every characterâ...

Genre

It's pretty easy to see that Brave New World is science fiction. Just read the first chapter. The world in which the novel takes place is highly imaginative and completely different from our own.&#...

Tone

Huxley can get pretty dramatic in Brave New World. Just check out that moment in Chapter 13 when Lenina forgets to give a bottle its immunization. The text is all, "Twenty-two years, eight months,...

Writing Style

By "taunting" style, we're actually referring to the way that Huxley delays the disclosure of important information. For example, in Bernard's orgy-porgy scene, we don't really know it's an orgy un...

What's Up With the Title?

Brave New World is chockfull of references to one Shakespeare play after another. (See "Allusions.") But the most important reference, at least thematically, is to The Tempest. The line in questi...

What's Up With the Epigraph?

Les utopies apparaissent bien plus réalisables qu'on ne le croyait autrefois. Et nous nous trouvons actuellement devant une question bien autrement angoissante: comment éviter leur réalisation d...

Plot Analysis

Meet the World StateBecause the setting is unique in this novel, much of the Initial Situation consists of dunking the reader into this very different environment. There's a reason Huxley spends t...

Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis

John is brought back to the civilized worldIn Brave New World we don't really start this Booker plot until more than halfway into the novel; things get tricky when there's a protagonist shift lik...

Three Act Plot Analysis

The three acts of Brave New World can be marked roughly by the changes in setting. The first act, therefore, runs from Chapter 1 up though Chapter 6: Part 2, and it takes place in the civilized wor...

Trivia

Now that you've read your book, we're sure you'll agree that V for Vendetta was a total rip-off of Brave New World. You've got the same controlling, overpowering society and the same extermination...

Steaminess Rating

Oh, where to start. Women wear belts with contraceptives strapped to them, like Julia Roberts's boots in Pretty Women. Little kids play erotic games with one another. Promiscuity is law, monogamy a...

Allusions

William Shakespeare; referenced by name (3.192, 8.36, 11.65, 13.63, 16.14, 16.52, 17.3, 17.17)William Shakespeare, The Tempest"O wonder! […] How many goodly creatures there are here! How beauteou...