Alex+B

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In Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, John gives Mustapha Mond a satirical explanation for the old world reasoning: "But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin." To begin with, the reader knows not to take the quote literally because John is making an exaggeration. He does not actually want sin or danger, he wants the possibility and ability to choose sin or danger. In the context of the argument with Mustapha Mond, John’s whole point he contends for is freedom of choice, which contrasts with Mond’s belief that the government should choose everyone’s destiny in efforts of creating “social stability”.

After examining the quote, the reader can find some satirical techniques. First, the passage is an example of a paradox because the reader first debates whether John really wishes for the “danger” and “sin” he claims to want. The reader, however, knows by looking at the quote in context that John speaks the truth after he or she realizes that John is exaggeratedly advocating for freedom against Mond’s justification for the brave new world. Huxley intends John’s statement not only to describe the brave new world but also our own. Although we might feel that eradicating sin and living a life of complete comfort sounds like an admirable goal, we should consider the quote a second time when we think about the threats to freedom such a state of mind would bring forward. By using a paradox, Huxley is trying to warn us by showing how freedom-jeopardizing views can seem attractive and sensible at first glance. All we have to do is look at the society in Brave New World for examples of how our lives would change in the quest of comfort and “social stability”: conditioning, pre-determined futures, forbidden books, the absence of God, etc.

Already, our society is on the path to what Huxley projected it to be; for example, society has trained its citizens like mice to get through the maze of life, which is essentially the same concept as the conditioning of the Brave New Worldians, but perhaps on a less drastic scale. The foundation is laid, though, and today’s conditioning could spiral out of control of our hands into the government to more closely resemble the brave new world. In addition, people are more than ever ignoring their religions in the pursuit of a life of comfort. Since Huxley anticipated this pursuit of comfort in our society, his book, and especially John’s invective quote, satirically makes a mockery of our society by ridiculing its focus on creating “comfortable” lifestyles, so that we are hopefully inspired to more passionately guard our freedom.