BNW Response #4

After responding to question three, the answer is quite clear for me: I feel the society presented in Brave New World is bad. I don’t think I could live in a world full of false happiness and brainwashed people. There is no freedom of expression, which makes Huxley’s view of the future horrifying.

In thinking about a Utopia makes me think of the movie, Pleasantville. We watched it on this year’s Diversity Day. It’s about a teenage boy and girl who are completely opposites, and they gets ‘sucked’ into the television and placed into what seems to be an I Love Lucy sitcom. Everything is perfect in this society and needless to say, it’s colorless. The citizens aren’t allowed - or rather they just don’t know - about individuality, emotions, pain, war…really anything outside their perfect world. So to imagine that kind of world and actually live in it seems terrible.

Also, to not be able to feel emotions and to just sleep around with everyone with no consequences is very disturbing to me. It desensitizes the meaning of life.

BNW Response #3

In the discussion between Mustapha Mond and John Savage about civilization in chapter 17, it’s very apparent of their opposite mind sets. Mond’s argument boils down to him thinking society is perfectly fine the way it is. He feels it’s okay to let the leaders in society control people’s emotions and minds, and explains to John why society has no need for God, as the citizens don’t fear death. Mond goes on saying everything negative and bad have been taken out of society. There is no need to leave or question the State because everyone is happy.

John’s argument focuses on being an individual and having the ability to make decisions where they are good or bad. John wants to learn and feel emotion! He feels people should be able to learn from their mistakes and not take soma to make them feel better. When he says, “What you need is something with tears for a change,” John’s argument is clear: feelings are necessary to have a compatible, free society. “Nothing costs enough here,” also hints that when everything is free, only materialistic things are gained; nothing is learned because nothing is given up. John wants individuality and intelligence to have value, and it has to come with a price.

BNW Response #2

Sex, games, and sayings like “ending is better than mending” are used to limit the search for truth, a threat the State’s control. They maintain stability and show everyone is equal by everyone having sex with one another in their respective social class. Additionally, the government encourages no commitment sex to eliminate humans from attaching to each other – thus, building on the idea that everyone is equal to the State, happy and won’t revolt.

This applies to games too; no one wants to be the odd man out, like Bernard for example, and so they stick together as a community. Moreover, games are also used to condition children against questioning. They become accustomed to playing and believe it’s nothing more than fun. It consumes their time and allows the government to have more control.

And lastly, saying like “ending is better than mending” are used to avoid reality. The State is able to maintain control and stability with hypnopaedic sayings by changing what people want; they are used to suppress people and lead them to believe what they are being told. The fact that the saying, “ending is better than mending” translates into it being easier to end something than to fix it, allows the government to control and enforce things like the drug soma. It takes away their ability to challenge anything because they never know better.

BNW Response #1

There are some aspects of Brave New World’s society that are relevant to the present day and some that are far-fetched. Stability, for example, is a word that is very important in most countries today. Leaders and their parties want stability and try to achieve it through different ways. The far-fetched about this idea in Brave New World is the government controlling people in order to preserve its own power. The people are so superficially fulfilled that they don’t care about their personal freedom.

Another example of Brave New World’s society that’s relatable to todays is the idea of class rankings. In the novel, five class systems made up society: Alphas, Betas, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. While there is not a traditional class system anymore, as there have been in previous years, most societies are still divided into classes based on wealth – that is, upper-class, middle-class, and lower class.

An idea that is somewhat stretched in relation in today is the idea of human cloning and manipulating genetics. In Brave New World, babies are developed in test tubes in a lab and are chosen based upon their abilities and appearance. Conditioning is fixed genetically, physically, and psychologically for the social destiny they belong to. During the last few years this idea has come about; couples, for example, pick sperm donors by their appearance or family/genetic history.

I think Huxley’s vision of Utopia world is nowhere near where we are today and I think there is a strong contrast between the two worlds. The birth of a child and being a parent, for example, are some of the most memorable events for a woman (and man). In Huxley’s Utopia, however, the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are unheard of and if one is caught having a child, they will be punished and exiled.

Poetry Response #7

The Coming of Wisdom with Time
William Butler Yeats
(1865 – 1939)

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.


“The Coming of Wisdom with Time” by William Butler Yeats is about a person gaining knowledge as time progresses. The poem itself is like the cycle of life; it begins talking about life and ending it in death. It also has an array of emotions from happiness, to sadness, and grief.

In the first line of the poem Yeats states, “Through leaves are many, the root is one”. A tree is a metaphor for life; it has the ability to live for hundreds of years, surviving on its roots for water and nutrients. As time passes, a tree grows leaves that fall off the limbs in the fall and ultimately wither away in the winter.

The second and third lines of the poem, “Through all the lying days of my youth/ I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun,” relate to a person’s youth. Children do not give much of a care in the world and do as they please; they are set on having fun and don’t figure out (well the majority of children don’t figure out) what death is until they grow older. When Yeats says, “Lying days of my youth” it illustrates knowledge. We know now what we believed in when we were younger was fabricated and realize we were basically lying to ourselves/being lied to.

I enjoyed reading this poem because it was simple and very true. As the years go on a person gets older, their knowledge grows with them. They aren’t seeing the pretend world they saw when they were younger; they are seeing the world for what is really is and that can wither away a person.

Poetry Response #6

For the Sleepwalkers

Edward Hirsch
(b. 1950)

Tonight I want to say something wonderful
for the sleepwalkers who have so much faith
in their legs, so much faith in the invisible

arrow carved into the carpet, the worn path
that leads to the stairs instead of the window,
the gaping doorway instead of the seamless mirror.

I love the way that sleepwalkers are willing
to step out of their bodies into the night,
to raise their arms and welcome the darkness,

palming the blank spaces, touching everything.
Always they return home safely, like blind men
who know it is morning by feeling shadows.

And always they wake up as themselves again.
That’s why I want to say something astonishing
like: Our hearts are leaving our bodies.

Our hearts are thirsty black handkerchiefs
flying through the trees at night, soaking up
the darkest beams of moonlight, the music

of owls, the motion of wind-torn branches.
And now our hearts are thick black fists
flying back to the glove of our chests.

We have to learn to trust our hearts like that.
We have to learn the desperate faith of sleep-
walkers who rise out of their calm beds

and walk through the skin of another life.
We have to drink the stupefying cup of darkness
and wake up to ourselves, nourished and surprised.


“For the Sleepwalkers” by Edward Hirsh is a poem about when people are sleepwalking, their hearts are leaving their bodies to go on some adventure. It describes how amazing it is your heart and body can leave your mind in it’s unconscious state, and always come back.

This poem grabbed my attention immediately as I felt I could relate to the Hirsh’s first line in the stanza. He wants to say something astonishing and wonderful for the sleepwalkers about the invisible faith they have in their legs is. I myself have wanted to say something “profound” and have not been able to grasp the right words. Hirsh does a great job writing the poem.

A reason I also liked this poem was how it utilized the use of imagery. It was used to describe how the sleepwalkers are walking around, and how they are not entirely certain where they are going to end up. In the first stanza Hirsh states, “…For the sleepwalkers who have…/so much faith in the invisible/arrow carved into the carpet…” (Lines 4 and 5). He does this to show that even though they are not awake, the sleepwalker still seems to trust where their bodies take them. Hirsh also uses sensory images in a variety of stanzas to create a vivid picture of the night and what it sounds and feels like for the reader.

“For the Sleepwalkers” by Edward Hirsh has a theme of the body and heart leaving the mind on its own. It’s an engaging theme, one that I don’t seem to find too often. It causes the reader to keep on reading until the end when they find out what really happens, when the sleepwalker returns back to bed. All together, the sensory images, the theme, the diction, and word play are utilized in a great way to ‘walk the reader’ through what’s going on in the poem; I really liked it because of that.

The Awakening, Ch. 35-39

Oh Edna. You exhaust me.

Seriously reading this book was exasperating. I wanted to shake Edna most of the time and get her to 1) wake up and 2) stop being so confused and make a damn decision! While I’ll admit I did enjoy this book most of the time, however her views on what she thinks is freedom, her children, marriage, the three men she became involved with, and the sea just became too much. It was a nebulous book of her whole life.

To talk about the last couple chapters, Edna basically drowns herself in the ocean and that is that. There are many instances of the sea and the word “awakened” is heavily repeated. Edna is so selfish and does whatever she wants, when she wants to. I mean, she is completely not admirable. She see’s her children when she wants, she throws a party when she wants, and hell, she even dies when she wants. Edna really just needed to get help because she has no structure to fall on other than the Creole society that was imposed upon her. She became the opposite of what she was supposed to be and broke all the rules.

This entire book was about feminism and not conforming to what society wants you to be. Edna did not represent feminism very well as she got gratification from breaking the rules. It’s not that she did anything better after she moved out: she hooked up with other men and became very ignorant to herself. When she doesn’t get the reactions she wants, Edna can’t take it and thus, dies of her own fault. And that was The Awakening.