This timeline displays the year-by-year progress of the Human Genome Project in the context of genetics since 1865. Starting in 1990, by 1999, Chromosome 22 became the first human chromosome to be completely sequenced.
By 1982, researchers shared information via punch cards.
The amount of data grew exponentially by the end of the 1980s,
requiring new computational methods for quickly interpreting relevant
information.
Perhaps the best-known example of computational biology, the Human Genome Project, officially began in 1990. By 2003, the project had mapped around 85% of the human genome, satisfying its initial goals. Work continued, however, and by 2021 level "a complete genome" was
reached with only 0.3% remaining bases covered by potential issues. The missing Y chromosome was added in January 2022.
Since the late 1990s, computational biology has become an important part of biology, leading to numerous subfields. Today, the International Society for Computational Biology recognizes 21 different 'Communities of Special Interest', each representing a slice of the larger field. In addition to helping sequence the human genome, computational biology has helped create accurate models of the human brain, map the 3D structure of genomes, and model biological systems.
Global contributions
Colombia
In
2000, despite a lack of initial expertise in programming and data
management, Colombia began applying computational biology from an
industrial perspective, focusing on plant diseases. This research has
contributed to understanding how to counteract diseases in crops like
potatoes and studying the genetic diversity of coffee plants. By 2007, concerns about alternative energy sources and global climate
change prompted biologists to collaborate with systems and computer
engineers. Together, they developed a robust computational network and
database to address these challenges. In 2009, in partnership with the
University of Los Angeles, Colombia also created a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to improve the integration of computational biology and bioinformatics.
Poland
In
Poland, computational biology is closely linked to mathematics and
computational science, serving as a foundation for bioinformatics and
biological physics. The field is divided into two main areas: one
focusing on physics and simulation and the other on biological
sequences. The application of statistical models in Poland has advanced techniques
for studying proteins and RNA, contributing to global scientific
progress. Polish scientists have also been instrumental in evaluating
protein prediction methods, significantly enhancing the field of
computational biology. Over time, they have expanded their research to
cover topics such as protein-coding analysis and hybrid structures,
further solidifying Poland's influence on the development of
bioinformatics worldwide.
Computational anatomy is the study of anatomical shape and form at the visible or gross anatomical scale of morphology.
It involves the development of computational mathematical and
data-analytical methods for modeling and simulating biological
structures. It focuses on the anatomical structures being imaged, rather
than the medical imaging devices. Due to the availability of dense 3D
measurements via technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging, computational anatomy has emerged as a subfield of medical imaging and bioengineering for extracting anatomical coordinate systems at the morpheme scale in 3D.
The original formulation of computational anatomy is as a
generative model of shape and form from exemplars acted upon via
transformations. The diffeomorphism group is used to study different coordinate systems via coordinate transformations as generated via the Lagrangian and Eulerian velocities of flow from one anatomical configuration in to another. It relates with shape statistics and morphometrics, with the distinction that diffeomorphisms are used to map coordinate systems, whose study is known as diffeomorphometry.
Mathematical biology is the use of mathematical models of living
organisms to examine the systems that govern structure, development, and
behavior in biological systems. This entails a more theoretical approach to problems, rather than its more empirically-minded counterpart of experimental biology. Mathematical biology draws on discrete mathematics, topology (also useful for computational modeling), Bayesian statistics, linear algebra and Boolean algebra.
These mathematical approaches have enabled the creation of databases and other methods for storing, retrieving, and analyzing biological data, a field known as bioinformatics. Usually, this process involves genetics and analyzing genes.
Gathering and analyzing large datasets have made room for growing research fields such as data mining, and computational biomodeling, which refers to building computer models and visual simulations
of biological systems. This allows researchers to predict how such
systems will react to different environments, which is useful for
determining if a system can "maintain their state and functions against
external and internal perturbations". While current techniques focus on small biological systems, researchers
are working on approaches that will allow for larger networks to be
analyzed and modeled. A majority of researchers believe this will be
essential in developing modern medical approaches to creating new drugs
and gene therapy. A useful modeling approach is to use Petri nets via tools such as esyN.
Along similar lines, until recent decades theoretical ecology has largely dealt with analytic models that were detached from the statistical models used by empirical ecologists. However, computational methods have aided in developing ecological theory via simulation of ecological systems, in addition to increasing application of methods from computational statistics in ecological analyses.
Systems biology consists of computing the interactions between
various biological systems ranging from the cellular level to entire
populations with the goal of discovering emergent properties. This
process usually involves networking cell signaling and metabolic pathways. Systems biology often uses computational techniques from biological modeling and graph theory to study these complex interactions at cellular levels.
Computational genomics is the study of the genomes of cells and organisms. The Human Genome Project
is one example of computational genomics. This project looks to
sequence the entire human genome into a set of data. Once fully
implemented, this could allow for doctors to analyze the genome of an
individual patient. This opens the possibility of personalized medicine, prescribing
treatments based on an individual's pre-existing genetic patterns.
Researchers are looking to sequence the genomes of animals, plants, bacteria, and all other types of life.
One of the main ways that genomes are compared is by sequence homology. Homology is the study of biological structures and nucleotide sequences in different organisms that come from a common ancestor. Research suggests that between 80 and 90% of genes in newly sequenced prokaryotic genomes can be identified this way.
Sequence alignment
is another process for comparing and detecting similarities between
biological sequences or genes. Sequence alignment is useful in a number
of bioinformatics applications, such as computing the longest common subsequence of two genes or comparing variants of certain diseases.
An untouched project in computational genomics is the analysis of
intergenic regions, which comprise roughly 97% of the human genome. Researchers are working to understand the functions of non-coding
regions of the human genome through the development of computational and
statistical methods and via large consortia projects such as ENCODE and the Roadmap Epigenomics Project.
Understanding how individual genes contribute to the biology of an organism at the molecular, cellular, and organism levels is known as gene ontology. The Gene Ontology Consortium's mission is to develop an up-to-date, comprehensive, computational model of biological systems,
from the molecular level to larger pathways, cellular, and
organism-level systems. The Gene Ontology resource provides a
computational representation of current scientific knowledge about the
functions of genes (or, more properly, the protein and non-coding RNA molecules produced by genes) from many different organisms, from humans to bacteria.
3D genomics is a subsection in computational biology that focuses on the organization and interaction of genes within a eukaryotic cell. One method used to gather 3D genomic data is through Genome Architecture Mapping (GAM). GAM measures 3D distances of chromatin and DNA in the genome by combining cryosectioning,
the process of cutting a strip from the nucleus to examine the DNA,
with laser microdissection. A nuclear profile is simply this strip or
slice that is taken from the nucleus. Each nuclear profile contains
genomic windows, which are certain sequences of nucleotides - the base unit of DNA. GAM captures a genome network of complex, multi enhancer chromatin contacts throughout a cell.
Biomarker Discovery
Computational biology also plays a pivotal role in identifying biomarkers for diseases such as cardiovascular conditions. By integrating various 'Omic' data - such as genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics
- researchers can uncover potential biomarkers that aid in disease
diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment strategies. For instance,
metabolomic analyses have identified specific metabolites capable of
distinguishing between coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction, thereby enhancing diagnostic precision.
Computational neuroscience is the study of brain function in terms of the information processing properties of the nervous system. A subset of neuroscience, it looks to model the brain to examine specific aspects of the neurological system. Models of the brain include:
Realistic Brain Models: These models look to represent every
aspect of the brain, including as much detail at the cellular level as
possible. Realistic models provide the most information about the brain,
but also have the largest margin for error.
More variables in a brain model create the possibility for more error
to occur. These models do not account for parts of the cellular
structure that scientists do not know about. Realistic brain models are
the most computationally heavy and the most expensive to implement.
Simplifying Brain Models: These models look to limit the scope of a model in order to assess a specific physical property
of the neurological system. This allows for the intensive computational
problems to be solved, and reduces the amount of potential error from a
realistic brain model.
It is the work of computational neuroscientists to improve the algorithms and data structures currently used to increase the speed of such calculations.
Computational neuropsychiatry is an emerging field that uses mathematical and computer-assisted modeling of brain mechanisms involved in mental disorders.
Several initiatives have demonstrated that computational modeling is an
important contribution to understand neuronal circuits that could
generate mental functions and dysfunctions.
Computational pharmacology is "the study of the effects of genomic data to find links between specific genotypes and diseases and then screening drug data". The pharmaceutical industry requires a shift in methods to analyze drug data. Pharmacologists were able to use Microsoft Excel
to compare chemical and genomic data related to the effectiveness of
drugs. However, the industry has reached what is referred to as the
Excel barricade. This arises from the limited number of cells accessible
on a spreadsheet.
This development led to the need for computational pharmacology.
Scientists and researchers develop computational methods to analyze
these massive data sets. This allows for an efficient comparison between the notable data points and allows for more accurate drugs to be developed.
Analysts project that if major medications fail due to patents,
that computational biology will be necessary to replace current drugs on
the market. Doctoral students in computational biology are being
encouraged to pursue careers in industry rather than take Post-Doctoral
positions. This is a direct result of major pharmaceutical companies
needing more qualified analysts of the large data sets required for
producing new drugs.
Computational biology plays a crucial role in discovering signs of new, previously unknown living creatures and in cancer research. This field involves large-scale measurements of cellular processes, including RNA, DNA,
and proteins, which pose significant computational challenges. To
overcome these, biologists rely on computational tools to accurately
measure and analyze biological data. In cancer research, computational biology aids in the complex analysis of tumor
samples, helping researchers develop new ways to characterize tumors
and understand various cellular properties. The use of high-throughput
measurements, involving millions of data points from DNA, RNA, and other
biological structures, helps in diagnosing cancer at early stages and
in understanding the key factors that contribute to cancer development.
Areas of focus include analyzing molecules that are deterministic in
causing cancer and understanding how the human genome relates to tumor
causation.
Computational toxicology is a multidisciplinary area of study, which
is employed in the early stages of drug discovery and development to
predict the safety and potential toxicity of drug candidates.
Drug Discovery
Computational biology has become instrumental in revolutionizing drug discovery
processes. By integrating computational systems biology approaches,
researchers can model complex biological systems, facilitating the
identification of novel drug targets and the prediction of drug
responses. These methodologies enable the simulation of intracellular and intercellular signaling
events using data from genomic, proteomic, or metabolomic experiments,
thereby streamlining the drug development pipeline and reducing
associated costs.
Moreover, the convergence of computational biology with
artificial intelligence (AI) has further accelerated drug design.
AI-driven models can analyze vast datasets to predict molecular
behavior, optimize lead compounds, and anticipate potential side
effects, thereby enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of drug
discovery.
Techniques
Computational biologists use a wide range of software and algorithms to carry out their research.
Unsupervised Learning
Unsupervised learning is a type of algorithm that finds patterns in unlabeled data. One example is k-means clustering, which aims to partition n data points into k clusters, in which each data point belongs to the cluster with the nearest mean. Another version is the k-medoids
algorithm, which, when selecting a cluster center or cluster centroid,
will pick one of its data points in the set, and not just an average of
the cluster.
A heat-map of the Jaccard distances of nuclear profiles
The algorithm follows these steps:
Randomly select k distinct data points. These are the initial clusters.
Measure the distance between each point and each of the 'k' clusters. (This is the distance of the points from each point k).
Assign each point to the nearest cluster.
Find the center of each cluster (medoid).
Repeat until the clusters no longer change.
Assess the quality of the clustering by adding up the variation within each cluster.
Repeat the processes with different values of k.
Pick the best value for 'k' by finding the "elbow" in the plot of which k value has the lowest variance.
One example of this in biology is used in the 3D mapping of a genome.
Information of a mouse's HIST1 region of chromosome 13 is gathered from
Gene Expression Omnibus. This information contains data on which nuclear profiles show up in certain genomic regions. With this information, the Jaccard distance can be used to find a normalized distance between all the loci.
Graph Analytics
Graph analytics, or network analysis,
is the study of graphs that represent connections between different
objects. Graphs can represent all kinds of networks in biology such as protein-protein interaction
networks, regulatory networks, Metabolic and biochemical networks and
much more. There are many ways to analyze these networks. One of which
is looking at centrality
in graphs. Finding centrality in graphs assigns nodes rankings to their
popularity or centrality in the graph. This can be useful in finding
which nodes are most important. For example, given data on the activity
of genes over a time period, degree centrality can be used to see what
genes are most active throughout the network, or what genes interact
with others the most throughout the network. This contributes to the
understanding of the roles certain genes play in the network.
There are many ways to calculate centrality in graphs all of
which can give different kinds of information on centrality. Finding
centralities in biology can be applied in many different circumstances,
some of which are gene regulatory, protein interaction and metabolic
networks.
Supervised Learning
Supervised learning
is a type of algorithm that learns from labeled data and learns how to
assign labels to future data that is unlabeled. In biology supervised
learning can be helpful when we have data that we know how to categorize
and we would like to categorize more data into those categories.
Diagram showing a simple random forest
A common supervised learning algorithm is the random forest, which uses numerous decision trees
to train a model to classify a dataset. Forming the basis of the random
forest, a decision tree is a structure which aims to classify, or
label, some set of data using certain known features of that data. A
practical biological example of this would be taking an individual's
genetic data and predicting whether or not that individual is
predisposed to develop a certain disease or cancer. At each internal
node the algorithm checks the dataset for exactly one feature, a
specific gene in the previous example, and then branches left or right
based on the result. Then at each leaf node, the decision tree assigns a
class label to the dataset. So in practice, the algorithm walks a
specific root-to-leaf path based on the input dataset through the
decision tree, which results in the classification of that dataset.
Commonly, decision trees have target variables that take on discrete
values, like yes/no, in which case it is referred to as a classification tree, but if the target variable is continuous then it is called a regression tree.
To construct a decision tree, it must first be trained using a training
set to identify which features are the best predictors of the target
variable.
Open source software
Open source software provides a platform for computational biology where everyone can access and benefit from software developed in research. PLOS cites four main reasons for the use of open source software:
Reproducibility: This allows for researchers to use the exact methods used to calculate the relations between biological data.
Faster development: developers and researchers do not have to
reinvent existing code for minor tasks. Instead they can use
pre-existing programs to save time on the development and implementation
of larger projects.
Increased quality: Having input from multiple researchers studying
the same topic provides a layer of assurance that errors will not be in
the code.
Long-term availability: Open source programs are not tied to any
businesses or patents. This allows for them to be posted to multiple web pages and ensure that they are available in the future.
Computational biology, bioinformatics and mathematical biology are all interdisciplinary approaches to the life sciences that draw from quantitative disciplines such as mathematics and information science. The NIH
describes computational/mathematical biology as the use of
computational/mathematical approaches to address theoretical and
experimental questions in biology and, by contrast, bioinformatics as
the application of information science to understand complex
life-sciences data.
Specifically, the NIH defines
Computational biology: The
development and application of data-analytical and theoretical methods,
mathematical modeling and computational simulation techniques to the
study of biological, behavioral, and social systems.
Bioinformatics: Research,
development, or application of computational tools and approaches for
expanding the use of biological, medical, behavioral or health data,
including those to acquire, store, organize, archive, analyze, or
visualize such data.
While each field is distinct, there may be significant overlap at their interface, so much so that to many, bioinformatics and computational biology are terms that are used interchangeably.
The terms computational biology and evolutionary computation
appear similar but are not identical. Evolutionary computation is a
field of computer science comprising algorithms inspired by evolution in
biology. Algorithms from within the field of evolutionary computation
can be applied to computational biology.
In 1998 and 1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World at number 5 on its list of the 100 Best Novels in English of the 20th century. In 2003, Robert McCrum, writing for The Observer, included Brave New World chronologically at number 53 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time", and the novel was listed at number 87 on The Big Read survey by the BBC. Brave New World
has frequently been banned and challenged since its original
publication. It has landed on the American Library Association list of
top 100 banned and challenged books of the decade since the association
began the list in 1990.
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in 't.
— William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203–206
Shakespeare's use of the phrase is intended ironically, as the speaker
is failing to recognise the evil nature of the island's visitors because
of her innocence. Indeed, the next speaker—Miranda's father Prospero—replies to her innocent observation with the statement "'Tis new to thee".
Translations of the title often allude to similar expressions
used in domestic works of literature: the French edition of the work is
entitled Le Meilleur des mondes (The Best of All Worlds), an allusion to an expression used by the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz and satirised in Candide, Ou l'Optimisme by Voltaire (1759). The first Standard Chinese translation, done by novelist Lily Hsueh and Aaron Jen-wang Hsueh in 1974, is entitled "美麗新世界" (Pinyin: Měilì Xīn Shìjiè, literally "Beautiful New World").
History
Huxley wrote Brave New World while living in Sanary-sur-Mer, France, in the four months from May to August 1931.By this time, Huxley had established himself as a writer and social satirist. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines and had published a collection of his poetry (The Burning Wheel, 1916) and four satirical novels, Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928). Brave New World was Huxley's fifth novel and first dystopian work.
A short passage in Crome Yellow foreshadows Brave New World,
showing that Huxley had such a future in mind already in 1921. Mr
Scogan, one of the earlier book's characters, describes an "impersonal
generation" of the future that will "take the place of Nature's hideous
system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will
supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will
disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to find new
foundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world".
Huxley said that Brave New World was inspired by the utopian novels of H. G. Wells, including A Modern Utopia (1905), and as a parody of Men Like Gods (1923). Wells' hopeful vision of the future gave Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the novels, which became Brave New World.
He wrote in a letter to Mrs. Arthur Goldsmith, an American
acquaintance, that he had "been having a little fun pulling the leg of
H. G. Wells" but then he "got caught up in the excitement of [his] own
ideas". Unlike the most popular optimistic utopian novels of the time, Huxley
sought to provide a frightening vision of the future. Huxley referred to
Brave New World as a "negative utopia", somewhat influenced by Wells's own The Sleeper Awakes (dealing with subjects like corporate tyranny and behavioural conditioning) and the works of D. H. Lawrence.
For his part, Wells published, two years after Brave New World, his utopian Shape of Things to Come.
Seeking to rebut the argument of Huxley's Mustapha Mond—that moronic
underclasses were a necessary "social gyroscope" and that a society
composed solely of intelligent, assertive "Alphas" would inevitably
disintegrate in internecine struggle—Wells depicted a stable egalitarian
society emerging after several generations of a reforming elite having
complete control of education throughout the world. In the future
depicted in Wells's book, posterity remembers Huxley as "a reactionary
writer". The scientific futurism in Brave New World is believed to be appropriated from Daedalus by J. B. S. Haldane.
The events of the Great Depression
in Great Britain in 1931, with its mass unemployment and the
abandonment of the gold standard, persuaded Huxley to assert that
stability was the "primal and ultimate need" if civilisation was to
survive the present crisis. The Brave New World character Mustapha Mond, Resident World Controller of Western Europe, is named after Sir Alfred Mond. Shortly before writing the novel, Huxley visited the Billingham Manufacturing Plant, Mond's technologically advanced factory near Billingham, north-east England, and it made a great impression on him.
Huxley used the setting and characters in his science fiction
novel to express widely felt anxieties, particularly the fear of losing
individual identity in the fast-paced world of the future. An early trip
to the United States gave Brave New World much of its character.
Huxley was outraged by the culture of youth, commercial cheeriness,
sexual promiscuity and the inward-looking nature of many Americans; he
had also found the book My Life and Work by Henry Ford on the boat to North America and he saw the book's principles applied in everything he encountered after leaving San Francisco.
Plot
The novel opens in the World State city of London in AF (After Ford) 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar), where citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programmes into predetermined classes (or castes) based on intelligence and labour. Embryos
in different bottles are treated with chemicals to suit them for their
planned roles; those for the higher classes get chemicals to optimise
them, and those of the lower classes are made increasingly imperfect.
The classes are Alpha (planned leaders), Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon
(menial labourers of limited intelligence). Each caste is indoctrinated to prefer their own class—epsilons are
happy that they do not have the intellectual burden of alphas—and wears a
uniform colour of clothing for easy identification.
Lenina Crowne, a hatchery worker, is popular and sexually
desirable, but Bernard Marx, a psychologist, is not. He is shorter in
stature than the average member of his high alpha caste, which gives him
an inferiority complex. His work with sleep-learning
allows him to understand, and disapprove of, his society's methods of
keeping its citizens peaceful, which includes their constant consumption
of a soothing, happiness-producing drug called "soma." Courting
disaster, Bernard is vocal and arrogant about his criticisms, and his
boss contemplates exiling him to Iceland
because of his nonconformity. His only friend is Helmholtz Watson, a
gifted writer who finds it difficult to use his talents creatively in
their pain-free society.
Bernard takes a holiday with Lenina outside the World State to a "Savage
Reservation" in New Mexico, in which the two observe natural-born
people, disease, the ageing process, other languages, and religious
lifestyles for the first time. The culture of the village folk resembles
the contemporary Native American groups of the region, descendants of
the Anasazi, including the Puebloan peoples of Hopi and Zuni. Bernard and Lenina witness a violent public ritual and then encounter
Linda, a woman originally from the World State who is living on the
reservation with her son John, now a young man. She, too, visited the
reservation on a holiday many years ago, but became separated from her
group and was left behind. She had meanwhile become pregnant by a fellow
holidaymaker (who is revealed to be Bernard's boss, the Director of
Hatcheries and Conditioning). She did not try to return to the World
State, because of her shame at her pregnancy. Despite spending his whole
life in the reservation, John has never been accepted by the villagers,
and his and Linda's lives have been hard and unpleasant. Linda has
taught John to read, although from the only book in her possession—a
scientific manual—and another book found nearby by Popé: the complete
works of Shakespeare. Ostracised by the villagers, John is able to
articulate his feelings only in terms of Shakespearean drama, quoting
often from The Tempest, King Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.
Linda now wants to return to London, and John, too, wants to see this
"brave new world" that his mother so often praised. Bernard sees an
opportunity to thwart plans to exile him, and gets permission to take
Linda and John back. On their return to London, John meets the Director
and calls him his "father", a vulgarity which causes a roar of laughter.
The humiliated Director resigns in shame before he can follow through
with exiling Bernard.
Bernard, as "custodian" of the "savage" John who is now treated
as a celebrity, is fawned on by the highest members of society and
revels in attention he once scorned. Bernard's popularity is fleeting,
though, and he becomes envious that John only really bonds with the
literary-minded Helmholtz. Considered hideous and friendless, Linda
spends all her time using soma, which she craved for so long, while John
refuses to attend social events organised by Bernard, appalled by what
he perceives to be an empty society. Lenina and John are physically
attracted to each other, but John's view of courtship and romance, based
on Shakespeare's writings, is utterly incompatible with Lenina's
freewheeling attitude to sex. She tries to seduce him, but he attacks
her, before suddenly being informed that his mother is on her deathbed.
He rushes to Linda's bedside, causing a scandal, as this is not the
"correct" attitude to death. Some children who enter the ward for
"death-conditioning" come across as disrespectful to John, and he
attacks one physically. He then tries to break up a distribution of soma
to a lower-caste group, telling them that he is freeing them. Helmholtz
and Bernard rush in to stop the ensuing riot, which the police quell by
spraying soma vapour into the crowd.
Bernard, Helmholtz, and John are all brought before Mustapha
Mond, the "Resident World Controller for Western Europe", who tells
Bernard and Helmholtz that they are to be exiled to islands for
antisocial activity. Bernard pleads for a second chance, but Helmholtz
welcomes the opportunity to be a true individual, and chooses the Falkland Islands as his destination, believing that their bad weather
will inspire his writing. Mond tells Helmholtz that exile is actually a
reward. The islands are full of the most interesting people in the
world, individuals who did not fit into the social model of the World
State. Mond outlines for John the events that led to the present society
and his arguments for a caste system and social control. John rejects
Mond's arguments, and Mond sums up John's views by claiming that John
demands "the right to be unhappy". John asks if he may go to the islands
as well, but Mond refuses, saying he wishes to see what happens to John
next.
Jaded with his new life, John moves to an abandoned hilltop lighthouse, near the village of Puttenham, where he intends to adopt a solitary ascetic lifestyle in order to purify himself of civilisation, practising self-flagellation. This draws reporters and eventually hundreds of amazed sightseers, hoping to witness his bizarre behaviour.
For a while, it seems that John might be left alone, after the
public's attention is drawn to other diversions, but a documentary-maker
has secretly filmed John's self-flagellation from a distance, and when
released, the documentary causes an international sensation. Helicopters
arrive with more journalists. Crowds of people descend on John's
retreat, demanding that he perform his whipping ritual for them. From
one helicopter a young woman emerges who is implied to be Lenina. John,
at the sight of a woman he both adores and loathes, whips at her in a
fury and then turns the whip on himself, exciting the crowd, whose wild
behaviour transforms into a soma-fuelled orgy. The next morning, John awakes on the ground and is consumed by remorse over his participation in the orgy.
That evening, a swarm of helicopters appear on the horizon, with
the story of last night's orgy having been in all the newspapers. The
first onlookers and reporters to arrive find that John is dead, having hanged himself.
Characters
Bernard Marx,
a sleep-learning specialist at the Central London Hatchery and
Conditioning Centre. Although Bernard is an Alpha-Plus (the upper class
of the society), he is a misfit. He is unusually short for an Alpha; an
alleged accident with alcohol in Bernard's blood-surrogate before his
decanting has left him slightly stunted. Unlike his fellow utopians,
Bernard is often angry, resentful, and jealous. At times, he is also
cowardly and hypocritical. His conditioning is clearly incomplete. He
does not enjoy communal sports, solidarity services, or promiscuous sex.
He does not particularly enjoy soma. Bernard is in love with Lenina and
does not like her sleeping with other men, even though "everyone
belongs to everyone else". Bernard's triumphant return to utopian
civilisation with John the Savage from the Reservation precipitates the
downfall of the Director, who had been planning to exile him. Bernard's
triumph is short-lived; he is ultimately banished to an island for his
non-conformist behaviour.
John, the illicit son of the Director and Linda, born and
reared on the Savage Reservation ("Malpais") after Linda was unwittingly
left behind by her errant lover. John ("the Savage" or "Mr Savage", as
he is often called) is an outsider both on the Reservation—where the
natives still practise marriage, natural birth, family life and
religion—and the ostensibly civilised World State, based on principles
of stability and happiness. He has read nothing but the complete works
of William Shakespeare, which he quotes extensively, and, for the most part, aptly, though his allusion to the "Brave New World" (Miranda's words in The Tempest)
takes on a darker and bitterly ironic resonance as the novel unfolds.
John is intensely moral according to a code that he has been taught by
Shakespeare and life in Malpais but is also naïve: his views are as
imported into his own consciousness as are the hypnopedic
messages of World State citizens. The admonishments of the men of
Malpais taught him to regard his mother as a whore; but he cannot grasp
that these were the same men who continually sought her out despite
their supposedly sacred pledges of monogamy. Because he is unwanted in
Malpais, he accepts the invitation to travel back to London and is
initially astonished by the comforts of the World State. He remains
committed to values that exist only in his poetry. He first spurns
Lenina for failing to live up to his Shakespearean ideal and then the
entire utopian society: he asserts that its technological wonders and
consumerism are poor substitutes for individual freedom, human dignity
and personal integrity. After his mother's death, he becomes deeply
distressed with grief, surprising onlookers in the hospital. He then
withdraws himself from society and attempts to purify himself of "sin"
(desire), but is unable to do so. His unusual behaviour eventually
attracts the attention of reporters and, later, huge amounts of people,
who arrive in helicopters and make John furious with their behaviour.
Excited by his fury, people start an orgy, which he cannot resist
joining. After waking up the next morning, John is horrified by his
actions and hangs himself.
Helmholtz Watson, a handsome and successful Alpha-Plus
lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering and a friend of
Bernard. He feels unfulfilled writing endless propaganda doggerel, and
the stifling conformism and philistinism of the World State make him restive. Helmholtz is ultimately exiled to the Falkland Islands—a
cold asylum for disaffected Alpha-Plus non-conformists—after reading a
heretical poem to his students on the virtues of solitude and helping
John destroy some Deltas' rations of soma following Linda's death.
Unlike Bernard, he takes his exile in his stride and comes to view it as
an opportunity for inspiration in his writing. His first name derives
from the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz.
Lenina Crowne, a young, beautiful foetus technician at the
Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. Lenina Crowne is a
Beta who enjoys being a Beta. She is a vaccination worker with beliefs
and values that are in line with a citizen of the World State. She is
part of the 30% of the female population that are not freemartins
(sterile women). Lenina is promiscuous and popular but somewhat quirky
in her society: she had a four-month relation with Henry Foster,
choosing not to have sex with anyone but him for a period of time. She
is basically happy and well-conditioned, using soma to suppress
unwelcome emotions, as is expected. Lenina has a date with Bernard, to
whom she feels ambivalently attracted, and she goes to the Reservation
with him. On returning to civilisation, she tries and fails to seduce
John the Savage. John loves and desires Lenina but he is repelled by her
forwardness and the prospect of pre-marital sex, rejecting her as an "impudent strumpet".
Lenina visits John at the lighthouse but he attacks her with a whip,
unwittingly inciting onlookers to do the same. Her exact fate is left
unspecified.
Mustapha Mond, Resident World Controller of Western
Europe, "His Fordship" Mustapha Mond presides over one of the ten zones
of the World State, the global government set up after the cataclysmic
Nine Years' War and great Economic Collapse. Sophisticated and
good-natured, Mond is an urbane and hyperintelligent advocate of the
World State and its ethos of "Community, Identity, Stability". Among the
novel's characters, he is uniquely aware of the precise nature of the
society he oversees and what it has given up to accomplish its gains.
Mond argues that art, literature, and scientific freedom must be
sacrificed to secure the ultimate utilitarian
goal of maximising societal happiness. He defends the caste system,
behavioural conditioning, and the lack of personal freedom in the World
State: these, he says, are a price worth paying for achieving social
stability, the highest social virtue because it leads to lasting
happiness.
Fanny Crowne, Lenina Crowne's friend (they have the same
last name because only ten thousand last names are in use in a World
State comprising two billion people). Fanny voices the conventional
values of her caste and society, particularly the importance of
promiscuity: she advises Lenina that she should have more than one man
in her life because it is unseemly to concentrate on just one. Fanny
then warns Lenina away from a new lover whom she considers undeserving,
yet she is ultimately supportive of the young woman's attraction to the
savage John.
Henry Foster, one of Lenina's many lovers, is a perfectly
conventional Alpha male, casually discussing Lenina's body with his
coworkers. His success with Lenina, and his casual attitude about it,
infuriate the jealous Bernard. Henry ultimately proves himself every bit
the ideal World State citizen, finding no courage to defend Lenina from
John's assaults despite having maintained an uncommonly longstanding
sexual relationship with her.
Benito Hoover, another of Lenina's lovers. She remembers that he is particularly hairy when he takes his clothes off.
The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning (DHC), also known as Thomas "Tomakin",
is the administrator of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning
Centre, where he is a threatening figure who intends to exile Bernard to
Iceland. His plans take an unexpected turn when Bernard returns from
the Reservation with Linda (see below) and John, a child they both
realise is actually his. This fact, scandalous and obscene in the World
State, not because it was extramarital (which all sexual acts are), but
because it was procreative, leads the Director to resign his post in
shame.
Linda,
John's mother, decanted as a Beta-Minus in the World State, originally
worked in the DHC's Fertilizing Room, and subsequently lost during a
storm while visiting the New Mexico Savage Reservation with the Director
many years before the events of the novel. Despite following her usual
precautions, Linda became pregnant with the Director's son during their
time together and was therefore unable to return to the World State by
the time that she found her way to Malpais. Having been conditioned to
the promiscuous social norms of the World State, Linda finds herself at
once popular with every man in the pueblo (because she is open to all
sexual advances) and also reviled for the same reason, seen as a whore
by the wives of the men who visit her and by the men themselves (who
come to her nonetheless). Her only comforts there are mescal brought by Popé as well as peyotl.
Linda is desperate to return to the World State and to soma, wanting
nothing more from her remaining life than comfort until death.
The Arch-Community-Songster, the secular equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the World State society. He takes personal offense when John refuses to attend Bernard's party.
The Director of Crematoria and Phosphorus Reclamation, one of the many disappointed, important figures to attend Bernard's party.
The Warden, an Alpha-Minus, the talkative chief
administrator for the New Mexico Savage Reservation. He is blond, short,
broad-shouldered, and has a booming voice.
Darwin Bonaparte, a "big game photographer" (i.e.,
filmmaker) who films John flogging himself. Darwin Bonaparte became
known for two works: "feely of the gorillas' wedding", and "Sperm Whale's Love-life". He had already made a name for himself but still seeks more. He renews his fame by filming the savage, John, in his newest release "The Savage of Surrey". His name alludes to Charles Darwin and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Dr. Shaw, Bernard Marx's physician who consequently
becomes the physician of both Linda and John. He prescribes a lethal
dose of soma to Linda, which will stop her respiratory system from
functioning in a span of one to two months, at her own behest but not
without protest from John. Ultimately, they all agree that it is for the
best, since denying her this request would cause more trouble for
Society and Linda herself.
Dr. Gaffney, Provost
of Eton, an Upper School for high-caste individuals. He shows Bernard
and John around the classrooms, and the Hypnopaedic Control Room (used
for behavioural conditioning through sleep learning). John asks if the
students read Shakespeare but the Provost says the library contains only
reference books because solitary activities, such as reading, are
discouraged.
Miss Keate, Head Mistress of Eton Upper School. Bernard fancies her, and arranges an assignation with her.
Others
Freemartins,
women who have been deliberately made sterile by exposure to male
hormones during foetal development but are still physically normal
except for "the slightest tendency to grow beards". In the book,
government policy requires freemartins to form 70% of the female
population.
Of Malpais
Popé,
a native of Malpais. Although he reinforces the behaviour that causes
hatred for Linda in Malpais by sleeping with her and bringing her mescal,
he still holds the traditional beliefs of his tribe. In his early years
John attempted to kill him, but Popé brushed off his attempt and sent
him fleeing. He gave Linda a copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare.
(Historically, Popé or Po'pay was a Tewa religious leader who led the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 against Spanish colonial rule.)
Mitsima, an elder tribal shaman who also teaches John survival skills such as rudimentary ceramics (specifically coil pots, which were traditional to Native American tribes) and bow-making.
Kiakimé, a native girl whom John fell for, but is instead eventually wed to another boy from Malpais.
Kothlu, a native boy with whom Kiakimé is wed.
Background figures
These are non-fictional and factual characters who lived before the events in this book, but are of note in the novel:
Sigmund Freud,
"Our Freud" is sometimes said in place of "Our Ford" because Freud's
psychoanalytic method depends implicitly upon the rules of classical
conditioning,[citation needed]
and because Freud popularised the idea that sexual activity is
essential to human happiness. (It is also strongly implied that citizens
of the World State believe Freud and Ford to be the same person.)
H. G. Wells, "Dr. Wells", British writer and utopian socialist, whose book Men Like Gods was a motivation for Brave New World.
"All's well that ends Wells", wrote Huxley in his letters, criticising
Wells for anthropological assumptions Huxley found unrealistic.
Ivan Pavlov, whose conditioning techniques are used to train infants.
Thomas Robert Malthus,
19th century British economist, believed the people of the Earth would
eventually be threatened by their inability to raise enough food to feed
the population. In the novel, the eponymous character devises the
contraceptive techniques (Malthusian belt) that are practiced by women
of the World State.
Reuben Rabinovitch, the Polish-Jew character on whom the effects of sleep-learning, hypnopædia, are first observed.
John Henry Newman,
19th century Catholic theologian and educator, believed university
education the critical element in advancing post-industrial Western
civilization. Mustapha Mond and The Savage discuss a passage from one of
Newman's books.
Alfred Mond, British industrialist, financier and politician. He is the namesake of Mustapha Mond.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first President of Republic of Turkey. Naming Mond after Atatürk links up with their characteristics; he reigned during the time Brave New World was written and revolutionised the 'old' Ottoman state into a new nation.
Sources of names and references
The
limited number of names that the World State assigned to its
bottle-grown citizens can be traced to political and cultural figures
who contributed to the bureaucratic, economic, and technological systems
of Huxley's age, and presumably those systems in Brave New World.
Soma: Huxley took the name for the drug used by the state to control the population after the Vedic ritual drink Soma, inspired by his interest in Indian mysticism.
Malthusian belt: A contraceptive device worn by women. When Huxley was writing Brave New World, organizations such as the Malthusian League had spread throughout Europe, advocating contraception. Although the controversial economic theory of Malthusianism was derived from an essay by Thomas Malthus about the economic effects of population growth, Malthus himself was an advocate of abstinence rather than contraception.
Bokanovsky's Process:
A scientific process used in the World State to mass-produce human
beings. Specifically, the "Bokanovsky Process" is a method of producing
multiple embryos from a single fertilized egg, creating up to 96
identical individuals. This technique is central to the society's
efforts to maintain social stability and control, as it allows for the
creation of a standardized, docile workforce. It's part of the larger
theme in the novel of dehumanization and the reduction of individuality
in the pursuit of a controlled, stable society. It is thought that the
process's name is a reference to Maurice Bokanowski,
a French Bureaucrat who believed strongly in the idea of governmental
and social efficiency. Complementing this, Podsnap's Technique
accelerates the maturation of human eggs, enabling the rapid production
of thousands of nearly identical individuals. Together, these methods
facilitate the creation of a large, standardized population, eliminating
natural reproduction and traditional family structures, thereby
reinforcing the World State's control over its citizens.
Reception
Upon its publication, Rebecca West praised Brave New World as "The most accomplished novel Huxley has yet written", Joseph Needham lauded it as "Mr Huxley's remarkable book",[36] and Bertrand Russell also praised it, stating, "Mr Aldous Huxley has shown his usual masterly skill in Brave New World."[37]Brave New World also received negative responses from other contemporary critics, although his work was later embraced.
In an article in the 4 May 1935 issue of the Illustrated London News, G. K. Chesterton
explained that Huxley was revolting against the "Age of Utopias". Much
of the discourse on man's future before 1914 was based on the thesis
that humanity would solve all economic and social issues. In the decade
following the war the discourse shifted to an examination of the causes
of the catastrophe. The works of H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw on the promises of socialism and a World State were then viewed as the ideas of naive optimists. Chesterton wrote:
After the Age of Utopias came what
we may call the American Age, lasting as long as the Boom. Men like Ford
or Mond seemed to many to have solved the social riddle and made
capitalism the common good. But it was not native to us; it went with a
buoyant, not to say blatant optimism, which is not our negligent or
negative optimism. Much more than Victorian righteousness, or even
Victorian self-righteousness, that optimism has driven people into
pessimism. For the Slump brought even more disillusionment than the War.
A new bitterness, and a new bewilderment, ran through all social life,
and was reflected in all literature and art. It was contemptuous, not
only of the old Capitalism, but of the old Socialism. Brave New World is more of a revolution against Utopia than against Victoria.
Similarly, in 1944 economist Ludwig von Mises described Brave New World as a satire of utopian predictions of socialism: "Aldous Huxley was even courageous enough to make socialism's dreamed paradise the target of his sardonic irony."
Various authors assume that the book was first and foremost a cautionary tale regarding human genetic enhancement, indeed about–as an infamous report of Bush associate Leon Kass states–"producing improved [...] perfect or post-human" people. In fact, the title itself has become a mere stand-in used to "evoke the general idea of a futuristic dystopia". Geneticist Derek So suggests that this is a misunderstanding, however. According to him, a 'more careful reading of the text' shows that:
there does not seem to be any genetic testing in Brave New World,
and most of the methods described involve hormones and chemicals rather
than heritable interventions. Although Huxley wrote that "eugenics and dysgenics
were practiced systematically", this seems to refer only to selective
breeding and not to any kind of direct manipulation on the genetic
level. (The Bokanovsky process does represent a form of cloning, but
this is not ethically equivalent to germline genome editing, and
references to Brave New World may lead some readers to confuse the two technologies.) [...] While it's true that the upper castes in Brave New World
are smarter than the others, this is more because of the deliberate
impairment of the lower castes than because the upper castes are
"perfect". Rather than reducing the number of individuals born with
genetic disorders or handicaps, Huxley's dystopia involves dramatically
increasing their number. [...] Quite the opposite: Huxley thought that Brave New World might come about if we didn't start selecting better children.
Overall, Derek So notes that "Huxley was much more worried about
totalitarianism than about the new biotechnologies per se that he
alluded to in Brave New World." Despite claims to the contrary then, Huxley remained a committed eugenicist all throughout his life, much like his comparably famous brother Julian, and one just as keen on stressing its humanistic underpinnings.
The World State and Fordism
The World State is built upon the principles of Henry Ford's assembly line:
mass production, homogeneity, predictability, and consumption of
disposable consumer goods. While the World State lacks any
supernatural-based religions, Ford himself is revered as the creator of
their society but not as a deity, and characters celebrate Ford Day and
swear oaths by his name (e.g., "By Ford!"). In this sense, some
fragments of traditional religion are present, such as Christian
crosses, which had their tops cut off to be changed to a "T",
representing the Ford Model T. In England, there is an Arch-Community-Songster of Canterbury, obviously continuing the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in America The Christian Science Monitor continues publication as The Fordian Science Monitor.
The World State calendar numbers years in the "AF" era—"After
Ford"—with the calendar beginning in AD 1908, the year in which Ford's
first Model T rolled off his assembly line. The novel's Gregorian
calendar year is AD 2540, but it is referred to in the book as AF 632.
From birth, members of every class are indoctrinated
by recorded voices repeating slogans while they sleep (called
"hypnopædia" in the book) to believe that membership of their own class
is preferable, but that the other classes perform needed functions. Any
residual unhappiness is resolved by an antidepressant and hallucinogenic drug called soma.
The biological techniques used to control the populace in Brave New World do not include genetic engineering; Huxley wrote the book before the structure of DNA was known. However, Gregor Mendel's work with inheritance patterns in peas had been rediscovered in 1900 and the eugenics movement, based on artificial selection, was well established. Huxley's family included a number of prominent biologists including Thomas Huxley, half-brother and Nobel LaureateAndrew Huxley, and his brother Julian Huxley who was a biologist and involved in the eugenics movement. Nonetheless, Huxley emphasises conditioning over breeding (nurture versus nature);
human embryos and fetuses are conditioned through a carefully designed
regimen of chemical (such as exposure to hormones and toxins), thermal
(exposure to intense heat or cold, as one's future career would
dictate), and other environmental stimuli, although there is an element
of selective breeding as well.
Comparisons with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four
In a letter to George Orwell about Nineteen Eighty-Four,
Huxley wrote "Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face
can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling
oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of
satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I
described in Brave New World." He went on to write "Within the next generation I believe that the
world's rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis
are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and
prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied
by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and
kicking them into obedience."
Social critic Neil Postman contrasted the worlds of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World in the foreword of his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. He writes:
What Orwell feared were those who
would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to
ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell
feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those
who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and
egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley
feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared
we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a
trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians
and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to
take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World,
they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared
that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will
ruin us.
The writer Christopher Hitchens,
who published several articles on Huxley and a book on Orwell, noted
the difference between the two texts in the introduction to his 1999
article "Why Americans Are Not Taught History",
We dwell in a present-tense culture
that somehow, significantly, decided to employ the telling expression
"You're history" as a choice reprobation or insult, and thus elected to
speak forgotten volumes about itself. By that standard, the forbidding
dystopia of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four already belongs, both as a text and as a date, with Ur and Mycenae, while the hedonistnihilism
of Huxley still beckons toward a painless, amusement-sodden, and
stress-free consensus. Orwell's was a house of horrors. He seemed to
strain credulity because he posited a regime that would go to any
lengths to own and possess history, to rewrite and construct it, and to
inculcate it by means of coercion. Whereas Huxley ... rightly foresaw
that any such regime could break because it could not bend. In 1988,
four years after 1984, the Soviet Union
scrapped its official history curriculum and announced that a newly
authorized version was somewhere in the works. This was the precise
moment when the regime conceded its own extinction. For true blissed-out
and vacant servitude, though, you need an otherwise sophisticated
society where no serious history is taught.
Brave New World Revisited
In 1946, Huxley wrote in the foreword of the new edition of Brave New World:
If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage
a third alternative. Between the Utopian and primitive horns of his
dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity... In this community
economics would be decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque and co-operative. Science and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath,
they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the
Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them.
Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man's Final
End, the unitive knowledge of immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman. And the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism,
in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the
Final End principle—the first question to be asked and answered in every
contingency of life being: "How will this thought or action contribute
to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible
number of other individuals, of man's Final End?"
First UK edition
Brave New World Revisited (Harper & Brothers, US, 1958; Chatto & Windus, UK, 1959), written by Huxley almost thirty years after Brave New World,
is a non-fiction work in which Huxley considered whether the world had
moved toward or away from his vision of the future from the 1930s. He
believed when he wrote the original novel that it was a reasonable guess
as to where the world might go in the future. In Brave New World Revisited, he concluded that the world was becoming like Brave New World much faster than he originally thought.
Huxley analysed the causes of this, such as overpopulation, as well as all the means by which populations can be controlled. He was particularly interested in the effects of drugs and subliminal suggestion. Brave New World Revisited is different in tone because of Huxley's evolving thought, as well as his conversion to Hindu Vedanta in the interim between the two books.
The last chapter of the book aims to propose action which could be taken to prevent a democracy from turning into the totalitarian world described in Brave New World. In Huxley's last novel, Island, he again expounds similar ideas to describe a utopian nation, which is generally viewed as a counterpart to Brave New World.
Censorship
According to American Library Association, Brave New World
has frequently been banned and challenged in the United States due to
insensitivity, offensive language, nudity, racism, drug use, conflict
with a religious viewpoint, and being sexually explicit. It landed on the list of the top ten most challenged books in 2010 (3) and 2011 (7). The book also secured a spot on the association's list of the top one hundred challenged books for 1990–1999 (54), 2000–2009 (36), and 2010–2019 (26).
The following include specific instances of when the book has been censored, banned, or challenged:
In 1932, the book was banned in Ireland for its language, and for supposedly being anti-family and anti-religion.
In 1965, a Maryland English teacher alleged that he was fired for assigning Brave New World to students. The teacher sued for violation of First Amendment rights but lost both his case and the appeal, with the appeals court ruling that the assignment of the book was not the reason for his firing.
The book was banned in India in 1967, with Huxley accused of being a "pornographer".
In 1980, it was removed from classrooms in Miller, Missouri, among other challenges.
The version of Brave New World Revisited published in China lacks explicit mentions of China itself.
Influences and allegations of plagiarism
The English writer Rose Macaulay published What Not: A Prophetic Comedy in 1918. What Not
depicts a dystopian future where people are ranked by intelligence, the
government mandates mind training for all citizens, and procreation is
regulated by the state. Macaulay and Huxley shared the same literary circles and he attended her weekly literary salons.
Bertrand Russell felt Brave New World borrowed from his 1931 book The Scientific Outlook,
and wrote in a letter to his publisher that Huxley's novel was "merely
an expansion of the two penultimate chapters of 'The Scientific
Outlook.'"
H. G. Wells' novel The First Men in the Moon
(1901) used concepts that Huxley added to his story. Both novels
introduce a society (in Wells' case, that of the Lunar natives)
consisting of a specialized caste system, in which new generations are
produced in vessels, where their designated caste is decided before
birth by tampering with the fetus' development, and individuals are
drugged down when they are not needed.
George Orwell believed that Brave New World must have been partly derived from the 1921 novel We by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin. However, in a 1962 letter to Christopher Collins, Huxley says that he wrote Brave New World long before he had heard of We. According to We translator Natasha Randall, Orwell believed that Huxley was lying. Kurt Vonnegut said that in writing Player Piano (1952), he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We".
In 1982, Polish author Antoni Smuszkiewicz, in his analysis of Polish science-fiction Zaczarowana gra ("The Magic Game"), presented accusations of plagiarism against Huxley. Smuszkiewicz showed similarities between Brave New World and two science fiction novels written earlier by Polish author Mieczysław Smolarski, namely Miasto światłości ("The City of Light", 1924) and Podróż poślubna pana Hamiltona ("Mr Hamilton's Honeymoon Trip", 1928). Smuszkiewicz wrote in his open letter to Huxley: "This work of a great
author, both in the general depiction of the world as well as countless
details, is so similar to two of my novels that in my opinion there is
no possibility of accidental analogy."
Kate Lohnes, writing for Encyclopædia Britannica, notes similarities between Brave New World
and other novels of the era could be seen as expressing "common fears
surrounding the rapid advancement of technology and of the shared
feelings of many tech-skeptics during the early 20th century". Other
dystopian novels followed Huxley's work, including C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength (1945) and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
Legacy
In 1998–1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World fifth on its list of the 100 Best Novels in English of the 20th century. In 2003, Robert McCrum writing for The Observer included Brave New World chronologically at number 53 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time", and the novel was listed at number 87 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.
Brave New World
(opened 4 September 2015) in co-production by Royal & Derngate,
Northampton and Touring Consortium Theatre Company which toured the UK.
The adaptation was by Dawn King, composed by These New Puritans and directed by James Dacre.
In May 2015, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television would bring Brave New World to Syfy network as a scripted series, adapted by Les Bohem. The adaptation was eventually written by David Wiener with Grant Morrison and Brian Taylor, with the series ordered to air on USA Network in February 2019. The series eventually moved to the Peacock streaming service and premiered on 15 July 2020. In October 2020, the series was cancelled after one season.
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