Translation of Epigraph by Nicolas Berdiaeff (20th century
Russian philosopher):
Utopias appear much more realizable than formerly
was believed. And we are currently faced with another anguishing
question: How to avoid their final production? . . . Utopias are
feasible. Life goes towards utopias. And perhaps a new century
will start it, a century when the intellectuals and the
cultivated classes will dream about the means of avoiding
utopias and about returning to a non-utopian society, less
‘perfect’ and more free (trans. W. C. Nielsen).
TIMELINE
- Pfitzner and Kawaguchi devise ectogenesis (47)
- parliament passes law against sleep teaching
- Nine Years’ War in A. F. 141
- Great Economic Collapse (48)
- Simple Life Movement (49-50)
- British Museum Massacre (50)
- Campaign against the Past suppresses all books written before
A. F. 150 (51)
- Crosses replaced with Ts (52)
- World State with 10 World Controllers
- A. F. 178: 2,000 pharmacologists and bio-chemists subsidized
to make soma
- Present day of book = A. F. 632
Group Discussion Day 1
1. Why do utopias deconstruct conventional family structures?
2. What do We, and so far Brave New World, say
about scientific progress? Does science necessarily lead to a
better lifestyle according to Zamyatin and Huxley?
Group Discussion Day 2:
Choose 3/4 questions and discuss in groups of 2-4 people:
1. Do you find Bernard Marx believable? How is it that in a
society that is so carefully planned, Bernard Marx is such an
outsider?
2. What does the motif of water mean? (cf. 41/46, 69/72,
81/82)
3. Why does Huxley choose Shakespeare as the cornerstone of
John's education?
4. As dehumanizing and oppressive as Huxley's utopia is, the
alternative in the “savage reserve” is in many ways
worse—dirty, violent, unhealthy, cruel, uncomfortable. What
point is Huxley making about human nature and the nature of
human communities? Is his vision totally negative—or does the
book hold out some shred of hope, some alternative mode that
fosters both freedom and community?
Group Discussion Day 3
1. Could anything like Brave New World really happen?
Has it happened in some form that we don’t fully recognize?
Group Discussion Day 5
1. Toward the end of the book, the Controller Mustapha Mond
sums up the benefits of living in the “brave new world” Utopia:
“The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they
want, and they never want what they can’t get.” It sounds like
perfection, and yet the world Mond describes is deeply,
intentionally horrifying. Why? What exactly is so bad about this
society of the future? Is there anything good about it, anything
we could learn from and try to adapt to our own uses?
2. In many ways, the main characters of the book are cartoon
figures—Helmholtz Watson the alienated superman, Bernard Marx
the cowardly, hypocritical intellectual, Mustapha Mond the
cynical all-knowing leader, John the doomed idealist. Discuss
the book as an allegory and elaborate on what each character
stands for.
Comparative Questions:
3. In which society, the One State of We or Huxley’s World
State, do women fare better? Why or why not?
4. Compare R in We to Helmholtz Watson in Brave New
World. Are Zamyatin and Huxley suggesting that great
literature depends on great suffering? Why or why not?
5. In We and Brave New World, civilized
societies are defined in opposition to their uncivilized
neighbors beyond the Green Wall and on the Reservation. To
civilize, according to Dictionary.com, means “to raise from
barbarism to an enlightened stage of development; bring out of a
primitive or savage state.” In what ways do Zamyatin and Huxley
suggest that technology has a reverse effect on society, leading
to barbarism and savagery? Or, is technology in these two novels
the absolute path to an enlightened stage of development? Why or
why not?
6. In the futuristic worlds of We and Brave New
World, humans have apparently evolved beyond their
“animalistic” biology. In what ways do Zamyatin and Huxley try
to disprove or prove this statement? According to Zamyatin and
Huxley, is the most “evolved” human someone who denies and moves
beyond her biology or someone who is in touch with the human
organism?
7. We and Brave New World satirize utopian
visions of a post-apocalyptic future. A utopia, as we learned
with Francis Bacon, is simultaneously “no place” and “good
place” (eutopia). What do Zamyatin and Bacon suggest is wrong
with building places with so-called perfect legal, political,
and social structures? Why can’t utopias work (or can they)?
scientists: "the German physicist and physiologist
Hermann von Helmholtz, the French physiologist
Claude Bernard, and the British comparative
anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley, all of whom were
active during the 1860s and 1870s" (Daston and Galison 206).
Shakespeare:
Hamlet: "Nay, but to live / In the rank sweat of an
enseamed bed, / Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love /
Over the nasty sty . . . " (3.4.95; Huxley 123/131, ch. 8)
Hamlet: "When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage / Or
in the incestuous pleasure of his bed . . . " (3.3.90; Huxley
124/133)
The Tempest: "[Miranda:] Oh brave new world that has
such people in it" (V.i; Huxley 130/139 and 148/160)
Troilus and Cressida: "Her eyes, her hair, her cheek,
her gait, her voice; / Handlest in thy discourse O! that her
hand, / In whose comparison all whites are ink / Writing their
own reproach; to whose soft seizure / The cygnet's down is harsh
. . . " (1.1; 134/144, ch. 9).
Romeo and Juliet: "On the white wonder of dear Juliet's
hand, may seize / And steal immortal blessing from her lips, /
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, / Still blush, as thinking
their own kisses sin" (3.3; 134/144).
Antony and Cleopatra: "Eternity was in our lips and
eyes" (1.3.36; Huxley 143/155/ch. 11)
Othello (157171/end of ch. 11)
Romeo and Juliet: "Oh! she doth teach the torches to
burn bright. / It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night, /
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear; / Beauty too rich for use,
for earth too dear . . . " (1.5; 163/178).
"The Phoenix and the Turtle" (a poem): "Let the bird of
loudest lay / On the sole Arabian tree, / Herald sad and
trumpet be . . . / Property was thus appal'd / That the self
was not the same; / Single nature's double name / Neither two
nor one was call'd / Reason in itself confounded / Saw
division grow together . . . " (167/183).
Romeo and Juliet: "Is there no pity sitting in the
clouds, / That sees into the bottom of my grief? / O sweet my
mother, cast me not away: / Delay this marriage for a month, a
week; / Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed / In that dim
monument where Tybalt lies . . . " (3.5.198-203; 168/184).