Huxley's Brave New World: Essays

Book excerpt: Aldous Huxley's prophetic novel of ideas warned of a terrible future then 600 years away. Though Brave New World was published less than a century ago in 1932, many elements of the novel's dystopic future now seem an eerily familiar part of life in the 21st century. These essays analyze the influence of Brave New World as a literary and philosophical document and describe how Huxley forecast the problems of late capitalism. Topics include the anti-utopian ideals represented by the rigid caste system depicted, the novel's influence on the philosophy of "culture industry" philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, the Nietzschean birth of tragedy in the novel's penultimate scene, and the relationship of the novel to other dystopian works.