A Brave new World by Aldous Huxley has many conflicts, indeed it is a book about conflicts of man vs nature, man vs man, and man vs the world that is in this novel.
Man vs Nature; Man vs nature is not such a prevalent theme in this story, as the time in which it takes places is 700 years or so in the future and its a world in which nature has been forced back, away from civilization. That being said nature still plays a great role in this story, it is the ultimatum, the greatest punishment one can incur in the society is to be banished to an island and face nature alone. Now the nature of people is another conflict, that perhaps falls in this group, much of this book is a conflict as will be covered in a later response but it entails that he whole of the book is a conflict between the nature of man and the actions of man. In said conflict one takes the world of this story, which is happiness and stability and control and pits it against what i consider natural, mankind's fight for freedom and individuality.
Man vs Man; this conflict has few large examples in this novel but several little ones. The biggest example is again the argument between John and Mustapha Mond "you've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art." (177), a part of the final argument of this story, in which all the points of the book are argued, freedom and happiness as separate ideals John argues culture and freedom while Mustapha defends the stable happy society, perhaps an oddity (although I feel it was the right thing to do) this conflict is not concluded, it is left to the reader to decide the right and wrong of the argument.
Man Vs World; This is the cream of the crop as far as conflicts go, it is in fact eh vast majority of the plot. John the savage vs the Brave new world, John introduced to the world at a different point as a person faces it much the same way someone from our era might. He sees the pros and cons of the world however, and those positives, namely Lennia (at the end of the day Mr. Huxley makes very "human" characters) force this conflict. Should he live as a part of the society of the controllers, as an Alpha or a Beta, or should he live as a savage, these are the only choices presented John and that drives him to the edge of insanity. John does try to escape his limited choices, he does try to create new ones, but that fails, his speech of liberty and freedom falls on death ears and he is left again with two choices, still does he not choose and he loses his sanity and then his life.
You have identified and described the many conflicts in the novel, but have not really developed fully your ideas as far as their significance to the novel or to you reading the novel.
ReplyDeleteMost of this is your summary (one quotation used) of the events.