Our Future, or a Man’s Dream?
A Brave New World, the title evokes an image of curiosity and instability. We wonder what our future has in store for us. The book is about the visions of one man on what the world will be like in the future. However, after reading the book, one cannot help but think that some of the changes Huxley mentions have, in fact, already taken place and that more changes are inevitable. Therefore, using the knowledge about the time period Huxley wrote in, and where the world is in the twenty-first century, the dystopian society is an unavoidable destiny for the human race. Even though the world thinks it is headed for community, identity, and stability, it couldn’t be farther from it.
The beginnings of the downward spiral are discussed early on in the book. The Director of the Central London Hatchery is giving a group of students a tour of the building and explaining to them how humans are created in the “World State.” He begins to tell them a story about a boy named Rueben who had born the more conventional way, by a mother and a father. With the mention of the word “parents” the students blushed as any word referring to a ‘mother’ or a ‘father’ had become a vulgarity. Even though the world has become more open with its language, the percentage of children with single parents is on the rise. If this trend continues, the marriage will be almost non-existent, and with the technological advancements of today’s society, a mate isn’t even needed.
The process of invetro-fertilization has successfully impregnated women without them ever coming close to a man. This could potentially evolve into a new way of reproduction such as Huxley’s Bokanovsky process, which can produce up to ninety-six identical humans. Even though today’s methods have yet to produce more than seven humans out of one pregnancy, the world is on its way.