Brave New World Essay

Prompt:  1995 Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using
characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender,
race, class, or creed. Choose a play or novel in which such a character plays a
significant role, and show how that character’s alienation reveals the
surrounding society’s assumptions and moral values. ---

In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley the society is broken into a five part class system. The highest social class in the World State is Alpha. Bernard Marx is an alienated Alpha for not physically matching up with the other Alphas. Huxley uses Bernard Marx's alienation to illustrate the World State's attitude toward unique characters.

Huxley introduces Bernard directly in dialogue between two other characters. "'He's so ugly! said Fanny. ... 'And then so small.' Fanny made a grimace; smallness was so horribly and typically low-caste. ... 'They say somebody made a mistake when he was still in the bottle - thought he was a Gamma and put alcohol into his blood-surrogate. That's why he's so stunted.'" (p. 46) By Huxley introducing a character in a negative light by other characters the reader infers that he is on the outcast of society. The World State's society suggests that to be superior is to be physically greater than the other class levels.

Bernard is not only physically different from the other Alphas but mentally different as well. The social normality in The World State is to have multiple partners and begin sexual activity in childhood. This prevalent idea is one Bernard does not agree to publicly share as Huxley represents Bernard's views when Lenina discusses their plans in a public elevator setting. With Bernard's physical difference, shouting at a lower class Epsilon to get an order obeyed was a task he only had to do which Alphas like Henry Foster and Benito Hoover took for granted.

Bernard's significant presence in Brave New World suggests to the audience the societies moral values. "The mockery made him feel like an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects." (p. 65) Huxley uses Bernard Marx's defects to highlight the World State's ideas of society and the way the society works. Bernard's differences create a sense of humanity in a society filled with manufactured people.