Abstract / Description of output
This chapter inquires into Huxley’s use of educational discourse in Brave New World. It draws for that on Huxley’s criticism of formal education, mass literacy and social homogenisation at the beginning of the twentieth century. The superstructure of the elaborate state education machinery in Brave New World, which consists of a mixture of conditioning, drugs and entertainment, sustains the authority of the world controllers and preserves the existing social order in the familiar manner of dystopian discourse. Yet Huxley’s pedagogical discourse in this novel also presents the acquisition of language and literacy as dangerous for the individual, for which Huxley borrowed heavily from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. It concludes with an outlook on Huxley’s further thoughts on education beyond Brave New World.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Brave New World |
Subtitle of host publication | Contexts and Legacies |
Editors | Jonathan Greenberg, Nathan Waddell |
Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
Pages | 51 - 68 |
Number of pages | 17 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781137445414 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 8 Oct 2016 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- education
- utopia
- huxley