BNW and Parable Flashcards
Thesis
Competing political perspectives are a vital constant of our society as they are the foundation of an individual’s agency over their own life. Without this tension between individual and institution all the power would be arrogated to the state, the disenfranchised people inherently becoming tools for the state’s end. Both Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Wilfred Owen’s Parable of the Old Man and the Young represent their contextual fears of the depersonalisation and disempowerment of the people if they allow the state to cede total power; composing a warning that competing political perspectives need not only to be present but an undying constant to maintain the freedom of a balanced society.
Para 1- Huxley’s Brave New World
Brave New World serves as a critique to the totalitarian dogma which was gaining prominence in Huxley’s 1930s. Wielding satirical techniques and dystopian convention he masterfully represents the danger this ideology pose to our individualism if uncontested.
-“If we could bokanovskify indefinitely the whole problem would be solved,”
-With the elimination of the individual all that remains is the collectivist will but Huxley illustrates how even this can be controlled by an undisputed state via hypnopaedia
The sarcastic use of reduction ad absurdum in “sixty four thousand two hundred repetitions makes one truth,”
-like chickens drinking,” simile demonstrating Huxley’s disgust in his own prediction
Para 2- Owen’s Parable of the Old Man and the Young
Similarly, Owen’s Parable of the Old Man and the Young cleverly crafts a satirical take on the biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac to lampoon the wartime state of World War One. With this he illustrates the ease with which war depersonalises the masses if they do not offer the necessary resistance
-protagonists symbolise the characters of the ongoing war; Abraham representing the institutional old men of Europe as they offer Isaac, the nation’s people, up to sacrifice
(single boy to represent the masses Owen illustrates the diminishing effect war has on individuality)
- Owen writes in standard iambic pentameter and largely follows the traditional tale to lull the audience
- situational irony is subverted masterfully as Abraham is offered the “lamb of pride” to sacrifice, he refuses “but slew his son, and half the seed of Europe, one by one.” Owen deconstructs his own symbolism in order to shock and disgust his audience
para 3- don’t be fooled
Huxley and Owen use their satirical skills of representation to demonstrate that neither promise is worth the cost of your competing political perspective as the state will invariably utilise this concession of power for its own ends.
In a world on the cusp of a social and economic crisis, the promises of stability and happiness are most appealing and thus Huxley must show the inherent flaws in trusting this to the state
- “a half gram for a half holiday,” feeble notion designed to unnerve & paralleling the oversimplified propaganda used by contemporary groups such as the Nazis.
- Huxley questions whether satiation is worth the cost of your agency, before promptly choosing the negative via the anaphoric monologue of his cipher character, John the Savage, “I don’t want comfort… I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin…”
In the same vein, Owen’s world was in the midst of the Great War and thus the idea of state protection was the fallacy used for the ruling institution to cede power.
-dramatic irony and rhetorical questioning as Isaac speaks, “Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?” outraging his audience into action by demonstrating that if we follow the state blindly we too can become the unknowing sacrifice. And for what? Protection from a villainised “other” symbolised by God, and yet Owen shows us this pledge is abandoned for the states real end of protecting their own ‘pride’
