THEMES

Major Themes

In Aldous Huxley's own words, "the theme of Brave New World is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals." The conflict of the novel is between utopianism and primitivism, or between a world run efficiently by science and a human one where culture and spirituality survive, though not without want and misery. The book is also about the dangers and limitations of a totalitarian government and explores the dilemma between science and religion, as well as between mysticism and nationality.

Brave New World, though published in 1932, depicts problems that are still very contemporary. Being a utopian novel that describes the future, it envisages events that probably seemed fantastic to Huxley's contemporaries. Now, however, the things described in Huxley's imaginative and brave new world no longer seem so fantastic or futuristic.

Minor Themes

The minor Themes of the novel revolve around the moral and cultural decay of modern life, the isolation of humans who are not allowed to have real relationships, and the role of sex in human existence.

MOOD

At first there seems to be a happy, almost buoyant, mood in the novel, for at first glance, things in this brave new world seem greatly improved. But as the novel progresses, the mood changes to one of doubt, disillusionment, and despair, as the truth about the brave new world is revealed.

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