Basso & Brooke's Spring/Summer 2008 collection took inspiration from Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. The way this novel inspired the collection influenced me to read the novel.
The novel is set in a futuristic, dystopian society, which is under strict control. They live as a part of a totalitarian state, free from war, hatred, poverty, disease, and pain. They enjoy leisure time, material wealth, and physical pleasures. Human beings are created in factories, using technology to make ninety-six people from the same fertilized egg and to condition them for their future lives. Although there is so much control over there lives, there is one individual in particular, Bernard Marx, who strives to break free.
There are many strong themes which continuously appear throughout the novel such as the power of control, sex and technology. One of the main ways the government maintains such a stable society is through the drug Soma. Soma clouds the realities of the present and replaces them with happy hallucinogenic 'holidays' leaving the user in a deep numbness, void of all feeling. Soma is greatly encouraged to be consumed throughout the novel and is considered the norm.
In the foreword of Brave New World, Huxley states its theme as 'the advancement of science as it affects human individuals'. This novel is Huxley's warning over how much of an effect technology and science has over mankind. Huxley wanted the reader to be aware of the rapid development of technology by setting the novel in the future, which almost acts as a premonition to what the world could become if Man becomes subservient to science. The fact that the society is so overrun by technology in the novel portrays how the human race has lost their individuality, freedom and ultimately their identity.
Having great interest in this novel has led me to base my final collection around it.
No comments:
Post a Comment