AbstractThis essay discusses the concepts of eugenics and social caste in Brave New Worldin relation to Aldous Huxley, from a biographical perspective. The essay analyzes how events and personal relationships of Aldous Huxley have influenced the depiction of the concepts social caste and eugenics in his novel Brave New World. Using sources which recount the travels and the personal encounters that Aldous Huxley made throughout his life, this essay makes comparisons and draws conclusions as to how these eventsand relationshipshave affected the depiction of social caste and eugenics in Brave New World

Esta dissertação propõe uma leitura do romance Admirável Mundo Novo (1932) de Aldous Huxley sob a luz dos conceitos de Zygmunt Bauman da Modernidade Líquida. A narrativa ocorre em uma Londres futurística no século 26, no ano 2540 de nossa Era Comum, ou – na narrativa no ano 632 AF (Após Ford). Subjacente ao cenário distópico de avanço tecnológico e organização altamente desenvolvida, porém, os temas discutidos no romance remetem à circunstância do tempo e lugar de sua produção, o início dos anos 1930, em um contexto de desenvolvimento industrial, tensão política e crise econômica. Nesta pesquisa, eu busco a resposta para a seguinte pergunta: “De quais maneiras a ficção de Huxley antecipa o tipo de sociedade seus leitores vivem no tempo presente, três-quartos de século após sua publicação? Com ajuda das teorias do Professor Zygmunt Bauman, eu construo minha interpretação das metáforas encontradas no romance, que prognosticam as atuais condições de capitalismo de mercado livre, consumismo, obsolescência programada que determinam a ética, a estética e a forma de pensar de nosso tempo presente. As hipóteses de Bauman concernem a liquidez do mundo atual, no qual nada deve durar muito. Esta premissa gera um grande número de consequências, tais como: fragilidade dos laços humanos, pensamento crítico superficial e supremacia dos contatos virtuais sobre ocontato de fato entre as pessoas. A dissertação está dividida em quatro capítulos. No primeiro, eu contextualizo o conceito de distopia. No segundo, eu trago a contextualização necessária sobre o tempo, a obra e o autor. No terceiro, eu introduzo os conceitos de Bauman sobre modernidade sólida e líquida e os conecto com o estudo de Admirável Mundo Novo. No capítulo IV, apresento minha leitura da obra. Ao final da pesquisa, espero encontrar respostas para a questão proposta estabelecendo inter-relações entre os aspectos ficcionais do romance e os traços sociais de nosso tempo atual. / The present thesis proposes a reading of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) in the light of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of Liquid Modernity. The plot of the novel unfolds in the futuristic London of the 26th century, in the year 2540 of our Common Era, or – in the narrative – in the year 632 AF (After Ford). Underlying the dystopian scenario of technological advancement and highly developed organization, however, the themes discussed in the novel actually address the circumstances of the time and place of its own production, the beginning of the 1930’s, in a context of developing industrialization, political tension, and economic crises. In this research, I pursue the answer to the following question: “In what ways does Huxley’s fiction anticipate the kind of society its readers would be living in at our present time, three quarters of a century after its publication?” With the help of Professor Zygmunt Bauman’s theories, I build my interpretation of the metaphors found in the novel, that prognosticate the current conditions of free-market capitalism, consumerism, programmed obsolescence, that determine the ethics, the aesthetics and the ways of thinking of our present times. Bauman’s assumptions concern the liquidity of the contemporary world, where nothing is meant to last long. This premise generates a number of consequences such as overconsumption, frail human bonds, superficial critical thought, and supremacy of online over factual contacts among people. The thesis is devised in three chapters. In the first, I contextualize the concept of dystopia. In the second, I bring the necessary contextualization about the time, the work and the author. In the third, I introduce Bauman’s concepts of solid modernity and liquid modernity and connect them with the study of Brave New World. Finally. In Chapter IV, I present my reading of the novel. At the end of the research, I expect to find the answers to the posed question by establishing critical interrelations between the fictional aspects of the novel and the social features ongoing in our present time.

This comparative analysis of four different German-language versions of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) shows the correlation between political and socio-cultural circumstances, as well as ideological differences, and translations of the novel. The first German translation was created by Herberth E. Herlitschka in 1932, entitled Welt – Wohin? Two further versions of it were released in 1950 and 1981. In 1978, the East German publisher Das Neue Berlin published a new translation created by Eva Walch, entitled Schöne neue Welt. My thesis focuses on the first translations by both Herlitschka and Walch, but takes into account the others as well. The methodological basis is Heidemarie Salevsky’s tripartite model. With its focus on author and work, commissioning institution and translator, it was developed as a tool to determine the factors influencing the process of literary translation. Within this framework, the translations are contextualized within the cultural and political circumstances of the Weimar and German Democratic Republics, including an historical overview of the two main publishers, Insel and Das Neue Berlin. With reference to letters between Herlitschka and his publisher Anton Kippenberg at the Insel Verlag, secured from the Goethe und Schiller Archiv (Stiftung Weimarer Klassik), titles and subtitles as paratextual elements of the Herlitschka versions are examined. An overview of Lawrence Venuti’s and Hans Vermeer’s approaches to the notions of domesticating and foreignizing provides further theoretical tools to assess the translations. Venuti rejects the technique of domesticating translation as, in his opinion, it constitutes an act of violence against the source language, which is contrast with Vermeer’s perspective, according to which the alternatives are equivalent. In Vermeer’s opinion, both the domesticating as well as the foreignizing translation do not destroy the source culture. Another fundamental theoretical principle is Otto Kade’s claim that the affiliation of a translator to a certain social system and identification with a certain ideology are evident in his or her work. The thesis includes a study of the afterwords in the East German versions, which display an intent to create distance between the society of the novel and that of the translator. These paratexts function as a tool for censorship and at the same time as a means to circumvent it. Chapters 1-4 and 16 is selected for intensive analysis. It becomes obvious that the different socio-political situations influence the outcome of the translations. One of the most striking differences between them, Herlitschka’s translocation of the original setting, is identified as a parodistic device. An analysis of the themes of gender, race and sexuality further answers what kinds of factors influenced the process of literary translation, what kinds of modifications appear and what causes them. Herlitschka’s work displays a tendency to intensify traces of misogyny and racism, and to tone down descriptions of sexuality, phenomena which could not be found in Walch’s text. The conclusion links to Margaret Atwood’s introduction to the most recent Canadian edition of Brave New World and identifies the examination of the two key German translations of the novel as an extension of her argument, pointing to the novel’s relevance for contemporary times, transcending geographical and linguistic borders to include readers in all modern societies and cultures.

This comparative analysis of four different German-language versions of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) shows the correlation between political and socio-cultural circumstances, as well as ideological differences, and translations of the novel. The first German translation was created by Herberth E. Herlitschka in 1932, entitled Welt – Wohin? Two further versions of it were released in 1950 and 1981. In 1978, the East German publisher Das Neue Berlin published a new translation created by Eva Walch, entitled Schöne neue Welt. My thesis focuses on the first translations by both Herlitschka and Walch, but takes into account the others as well. The methodological basis is Heidemarie Salevsky’s tripartite model. With its focus on author and work, commissioning institution and translator, it was developed as a tool to determine the factors influencing the process of literary translation. Within this framework, the translations are contextualized within the cultural and political circumstances of the Weimar and German Democratic Republics, including an historical overview of the two main publishers, Insel and Das Neue Berlin. With reference to letters between Herlitschka and his publisher Anton Kippenberg at the Insel Verlag, secured from the Goethe und Schiller Archiv (Stiftung Weimarer Klassik), titles and subtitles as paratextual elements of the Herlitschka versions are examined. An overview of Lawrence Venuti’s and Hans Vermeer’s approaches to the notions of domesticating and foreignizing provides further theoretical tools to assess the translations. Venuti rejects the technique of domesticating translation as, in his opinion, it constitutes an act of violence against the source language, which is contrast with Vermeer’s perspective, according to which the alternatives are equivalent. In Vermeer’s opinion, both the domesticating as well as the foreignizing translation do not destroy the source culture. Another fundamental theoretical principle is Otto Kade’s claim that the affiliation of a translator to a certain social system and identification with a certain ideology are evident in his or her work. The thesis includes a study of the afterwords in the East German versions, which display an intent to create distance between the society of the novel and that of the translator. These paratexts function as a tool for censorship and at the same time as a means to circumvent it. Chapters 1-4 and 16 is selected for intensive analysis. It becomes obvious that the different socio-political situations influence the outcome of the translations. One of the most striking differences between them, Herlitschka’s translocation of the original setting, is identified as a parodistic device. An analysis of the themes of gender, race and sexuality further answers what kinds of factors influenced the process of literary translation, what kinds of modifications appear and what causes them. Herlitschka’s work displays a tendency to intensify traces of misogyny and racism, and to tone down descriptions of sexuality, phenomena which could not be found in Walch’s text. The conclusion links to Margaret Atwood’s introduction to the most recent Canadian edition of Brave New World and identifies the examination of the two key German translations of the novel as an extension of her argument, pointing to the novel’s relevance for contemporary times, transcending geographical and linguistic borders to include readers in all modern societies and cultures.

Literacy theory, a multi-disciplinary, late-twentieth century endeavor, examines the acts of reading and writing as cognitive and social processes, seeking to define the relationship between reading and writing and other social and cognitive - especially linguistic - acts. As such, literacy theory intersects with discussions of public and individual education and reading habits that surface with the rise of the mass reading public. This dissertation analyzes scenes of reading and writing in the fiction of Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley as implicit authorial discourses on the function of literacy, including properties of written language and the social consequences of literate acts. It argues that reading and writing form important thematic concerns in Modernist fiction, defines fiction that theorizes about reading and writing as "literacy fiction," and proposes fictional dramatizations of literate activity as subjects for literacy theory. Chapter I argues that early twentieth-century Britain is an important historical site for intellectual consideration of literacy because near-universal access to education across social classes influences an increase in middle and working class readers. Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway provides a test case for the analysis of scenes of reading because her democratic concern with education is well established in the scholarly literature. Chapter II argues that in "The Celestial Omnibus" and "Other Kingdom," Forster critiques use of literacy as cultural capital. Chapter III argues that Forster's A Room with a View and Howards End portray the dangers of naive reading and the difficulties of autodidacticism for the working class, respectively. Chapter IV argues that Lawrence's "Shades of Spring" and Sons and Lovers introduce the theoretically unexplored topic of literacy's influence on intimate relationships. Chapter V argues that Huxley's Brave New World responds to the Modernist discourse on literacy by addressing the restriction of individual literacy by the State and elite intellectuals. The conclusion summarizes Modernist representation of literacy, states the significance of the methodology and its further applications, and refines the definition of literacy fiction. Because Modernist writers scrutinize the relationship between external forces and the individual psyche, their anxiety-tinged portraits treat both cognitive and social functions of literate acts.

The early twentieth century saw the beginning of modern environmentalism. Intellectuals dreamed up solutions to the world’s problems and hoped for a better future being made possible by advances in science and technology. However, Aldous Huxley produced Brave New World which, as this essay argues, mocks the enthusiasm of his intellectual peers. The dystopian novel depicts a future in which technology dehumanizes the population, and uses a great deal of animal imagery to make this point. This essay analyses the use of animal imagery from an ecocritical perspective arguing that the “pathetic fallacy” is reversed. By examining the use of biotechnology and central planning in the novel, and applying the ecocritical perspective that humanity and nature are part of a whole, this essay argues that society resembles a farm for human animals, which is partly expressed by Huxley’s use of the image of a bee colony. The argument is presented that Huxley satirizes his environmentally concerned peers by depicting a totalitarian state which, though unconcerned with environmental issues, echoes the eco-fascist methods proposed by the author’s friends and family.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 144-147).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1975. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Esta dissertação propõe uma leitura do romance Admirável Mundo Novo (1932) de Aldous Huxley sob a luz dos conceitos de Zygmunt Bauman da Modernidade Líquida. A narrativa ocorre em uma Londres futurística no século 26, no ano 2540 de nossa Era Comum, ou – na narrativa no ano 632 AF (Após Ford). Subjacente ao cenário distópico de avanço tecnológico e organização altamente desenvolvida, porém, os temas discutidos no romance remetem à circunstância do tempo e lugar de sua produção, o início dos anos 1930, em um contexto de desenvolvimento industrial, tensão política e crise econômica. Nesta pesquisa, eu busco a resposta para a seguinte pergunta: “De quais maneiras a ficção de Huxley antecipa o tipo de sociedade seus leitores vivem no tempo presente, três-quartos de século após sua publicação? Com ajuda das teorias do Professor Zygmunt Bauman, eu construo minha interpretação das metáforas encontradas no romance, que prognosticam as atuais condições de capitalismo de mercado livre, consumismo, obsolescência programada que determinam a ética, a estética e a forma de pensar de nosso tempo presente. As hipóteses de Bauman concernem a liquidez do mundo atual, no qual nada deve durar muito. Esta premissa gera um grande número de consequências, tais como: fragilidade dos laços humanos, pensamento crítico superficial e supremacia dos contatos virtuais sobre ocontato de fato entre as pessoas. A dissertação está dividida em quatro capítulos. No primeiro, eu contextualizo o conceito de distopia. No segundo, eu trago a contextualização necessária sobre o tempo, a obra e o autor. No terceiro, eu introduzo os conceitos de Bauman sobre modernidade sólida e líquida e os conecto com o estudo de Admirável Mundo Novo. No capítulo IV, apresento minha leitura da obra. Ao final da pesquisa, espero encontrar respostas para a questão proposta estabelecendo inter-relações entre os aspectos ficcionais do romance e os traços sociais de nosso tempo atual. / The present thesis proposes a reading of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) in the light of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of Liquid Modernity. The plot of the novel unfolds in the futuristic London of the 26th century, in the year 2540 of our Common Era, or – in the narrative – in the year 632 AF (After Ford). Underlying the dystopian scenario of technological advancement and highly developed organization, however, the themes discussed in the novel actually address the circumstances of the time and place of its own production, the beginning of the 1930’s, in a context of developing industrialization, political tension, and economic crises. In this research, I pursue the answer to the following question: “In what ways does Huxley’s fiction anticipate the kind of society its readers would be living in at our present time, three quarters of a century after its publication?” With the help of Professor Zygmunt Bauman’s theories, I build my interpretation of the metaphors found in the novel, that prognosticate the current conditions of free-market capitalism, consumerism, programmed obsolescence, that determine the ethics, the aesthetics and the ways of thinking of our present times. Bauman’s assumptions concern the liquidity of the contemporary world, where nothing is meant to last long. This premise generates a number of consequences such as overconsumption, frail human bonds, superficial critical thought, and supremacy of online over factual contacts among people. The thesis is devised in three chapters. In the first, I contextualize the concept of dystopia. In the second, I bring the necessary contextualization about the time, the work and the author. In the third, I introduce Bauman’s concepts of solid modernity and liquid modernity and connect them with the study of Brave New World. Finally. In Chapter IV, I present my reading of the novel. At the end of the research, I expect to find the answers to the posed question by establishing critical interrelations between the fictional aspects of the novel and the social features ongoing in our present time.

Aldous Huxley´s Brave New World describes how a totalitarian power has taken control over both body and mind of the whole population. A hierarchical caste system, where a person´s role in society is predetermined long before birth, maintains stability together with brain-washing methods and propaganda. Huxley expressed his fears of what might happen if science was used for the wrong purposes, and wrote his futuristic novel Brave New World in the beginning of the 1930s, inspired by the turbulent world around him. It was a time preoccupied with race and classification of populations, which ended in the disastrous Holocaust. Huxley´s novel is equally important today when eugenics is on the comeback and democracy is challenged by nationalist and populist movements. This essay will consist of a close reading of Brave New World, analyzed from the perspective of the theories of French philosopher Foucault. He launched his concept of biopower in the 1970s, where he linked a negative use of controlling citizens with state racism. The focus of this essay will be to explore how biopower and racism are used by the totalitarian state in the novel to maintain control of the population. The argument will be made that racism, internal division and exclusion are vital tools to achieve that purpose.