After having analyzed Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World (London, 1st ed.1932) in class in accordance with the conventional methods of text analysis, my students and me decided to have a look at what the World Wide Web might hold in store for Huxley addicts. Thus, we embarked on a little 'BNW and Internet' project with two objectives. First of all, we wanted to find out if it was possible to get access to additional information on the author and his writings without much effort and within a very short period of time. Secondly, all students committed themselves to a piece of creative writing on various aspects of Brave New World. By that time we had already found out about a web site in Los Angeles, California, from where lots of useful articles and other kind of information on Aldous Huxley and his literary oeuvre could be retrieved. So everybody was busy for some time with the target of producing texts which might induce the webmaster Matthew of Soma Web homepage in the United States to post them there. The creative writing results seemed to be quite satisfactory, and so we sent some of the material via e-mail across the ocean and waited patiently for some kind of response. It actually took some time, but finally we got re-mailed, and the reponse was a positive one. So we are in good hope that as soon as all texts have become subject to computer input and e-mail, students of St. Mauritz Hig Fh School will have slightly contributed to the discussion process of Huxleyans from all over the world. However, no matter whether the results of the creative writing project on Huxley will finally be posted or not, this has at least been a first approach to making use of the Internet in the English Foreign Language Classroom at our school. Hopefully, it will not prove to be the last one ...
1. Aldous Huxley: how to supply information on the author and his literary oeuvre
2. Brave New World: how to get access to additional literary criticism
http://www.lycos.com
http://www.infoseek.com
http://www.webcrawler.com
http://www.excite.com
http://www.altav Fista.digital.com
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.lycos.de
http://www.netguide.de
http://www.kolibri.de
http://www.dino-online.de
http://www.yahoo.de
1. The Brave New World in Poetry
2. Essay: Huxley´s Brave New World - Still lightyears ahead?
3. Reading Brave New World at School - Pros and Cons
4. Brave New World, Chapter XIX (Marx's and Watson's island experience)
Useful www-address for Huxley addicts:
http://www.primenet.com/~matthew/huxley/
Good luck and TIA
:-)) Joerg Bartikowski
Subject: Huxley: Brave New World, Chapter XIX
Sent: 09.11.1997 16:09 Uhr
To: soma web homepage, SomaWeb@aol.com
Dear Matthew,
subsequent to reading and discussing the novel in class, my students (17 -18 years old) did some creative writing on various aspects of Brave New World. One of the projects was to write an additional chapter XIX about Bernard´s and Helmholtz´s island experiences. I thought you might like it, so here it is. It would be fine if you gave us some feedback.
Yours, Joerg Bartikowski, D-48155 Muenster, Germany
'You can come out now ',said the guard loudly. He was Bernard's size and obviously a Beta minus. Cautiously the two friends stepped out of the helicopter and took their first look at this mysterious new world.The first thing they saw was the green of the woods and meadows. Cows were grazing freely all over the place.'They must have broken out of the cow-factory', Bernard thought,'but these strange people, sitting in the shadows of their primitive huts, don't even seem to care about this'. There was a noise behind them ,so they turned around and saw the helicopter rising into the air. Now there was no way back. They were totally isolated from the outside world. The two men looked at each other and Helmholtz saw the hysteria arising in Bernard's eyes. A voice interrupted their silent communication. 'Are you from the Far-away land?' A little boy looked at them curiously with big brown eyes.The wind was blowing through his unkempt black hair.He wore leather clothes and was barefooted. Helmholtz wondered why this little boy had been left alone and where his erotic playmates had gone.'Have you lost your group?' The boy glanced at him in friendly astonishment.'What group are you talking about? Ah, if you mean my Mum ',he pointed to a young woman sitting in the shadow of her hut,'she is over there. Come with me.'
'Albert ,I see you've brought some guests.' The woman looked at them with a warm smile of welcome.'So you are the new arrivers. You must be surprised by this view. I am sure you are wondering what will expect you here. Can I offer you something?' Helmholtz was surprised indeed. This lady who, to his eyes, appeared quite beautiful had to be the viviparous mother of the little boy Albert. At once he asked himself if this was just an exception or if all women became viviparous mothers as soon as they lived there. This was too much for Bernard, who looked as if he had gone mad, and even Helmholtz needed a few seconds to recover his speech. 'Yes, we are the new ones. If you don't mind ,I'd like to ask you some questions.'
The dainty woman smiled at him and nodded. 'Just ask me, I hope I can help you. Oh, maybe I should first of all introduce myself to you. I am Sheila Morrison and this is my son Albert .' 'There it is again', Bernard thought nervously,' she really wants to tell us that this is her son and she does not even seem to feel a bit ashamed; more or less she seems to be proud of him.' Helmholtz started talking again. 'Oh, yes, sorry, I am Helmholtz Watson and this is my friend Bernard Marx. Well, it seems so, so, excuse me, but the surroundings really appear to be quite primitive here .Don't you make use of any technology? ' Sheila nodded again, as though as she had anticipated that question .'Of course it seems primitive to you, but this is only a deceptive facade.The best will be if I tell you a little bit about our history. Now, just listen .' The two men sat down and and looked curiously at Sheila as she began to speak .
'As you know, there was a world war in 2336, or in A.F.428 . I'm sure they told you that it lasted ten years, but they never told you the truth about it. Island inhabitants learn much more about history than you do. Well ,the people in 2300 began to go almost insane ,as they invented more and more things and methods to manipulate life. Then in 2330 our government even created a new system, which should be based on cloning .They promised that it would be a very efficient system with different types of human beings whose intellectu al levels could be controlled . When they had got through with this plan and started to clone babies, other countries wanted to fight for the miracle of life . So the world war began . Since the government created more and more deadly weapons and ways of influencing people, they finally won. Many of us were killed, but we were still a danger to them, so they brought us to islands where we could live our own lives.They went on cloning, and that is why we still get our children in the natural way; life is still a miracle, and it is sanctified . People have the freedom of speech and worship, everybody is equal and has the same rights .But I tell you one thing you should really keep in mind ',the softness in her eyes began to disappear,' don't ever even think about cloning anything living here. Some men from the other world started to do so and instigated a brutal civil war in which half of the island population was killed. The rest is up to you ,discover it on your own.'
During the next weeks Helmholtz and Bernard tried to adjust themselves to the new way of life. Two small huts, which were not that primitive as Helmholtz had imagined them to be, had been allotted to them. Bernard even began to like the life on the Island. He was no longer an outsider there ,not everybody looked like an Alpha double plus, and it was normal to look different, for everybody was different. He loved to take walks through the crowded streets on the weekends, just watching people go to their churches and the markets.He read books about the Island's religion and art, which was just normal for the people there. He found out why it had been prohibited to read such books in the other world. The Island also seemed to please Helmholtz .His dream finally came true when a newspaper offered him a job as an editor. Moreover, he often met with Sheila, and it was obvious that they were becoming a couple.
One evening they sat together with Bernard in front of Helmholtz' s hut and were having dinner.Suddenly a boy passed by with his dog. The two men stared at him . 'I could swear I know this boy, but I have never seen him here', Bernard murmured to Helmholtz, 'Yes, I know him too, but this just can't be true'. 'What shocks you? That's Dave Ahpatsum, just a normal boy who lives with his mother and his sister next to my house. His father must be dead.' Bernard and Helmholtz were silent, and they just looked at each other in astonishment. Both knew exactly who this boy resembled, but they did not dare to say it loudly. 'But sometimes ', Sheita continued,'a man comes to visit them. He seems to live somewhere in the woods . He always comes from that direction .' She pointed towards the woods, which could be seen far away on the horizon, where the sun was setting right then. Helmholtz pricked up his ears .'A man? Do you know more about him, Sheila?' 'Hm, well, I have spoken to him just once, but this was long ago. He does not talk v ery much, except to children. I remember that he was reading quite an old book and he seemed to be very educated .Sometimes he gathered children around him and taught them history and told them about former times. At the moment he does not seem to come any more. The last time I saw him was weeks ago.' Bernard and Helmholtz understood one another without saying anything. They knew exactly why the man did not come, but did not lose any more word about their suspicion in Sheila's presence. They changed the topic of their conversation and talked about Bernard's new job. He worked as a real scientist in a science center and seemed to enjoy his new occupation, which had been forbidden in the old world.
'Would he really do this ? Live here with the expellees?' Bernard was upset. 'Well, it's risky, but he likes books, science, art and everything else which is not prohibited here,' Helmholtz reminded him. 'So, you mean they all don't want to live over there themselves, sitting in their world of steel and abusing mankind? Oh, if this should be true, John was really right :'Brave new world'.' Helmholtz nodded, 'But for us it will be better if we let the grass grow over it and don't think about it any longer.'
A few weeks later Helmholtz came from his work to visit Bernard.They wanted to go to an assembly for scientists in exile. The sun was only a small red ball in the sky and it was getting dark.It did not take very long to go into the city,so they went on foot.As they went down the small path which led along the woods behind Sheila's house, they saw Sheila's neighbours sitting on their terrace.Everything would have been fine if there had not been that man among the two children and their mother.He was tall,one arm was put around the woman, and with the other one he held a book from which he seemed to read something aloud to his family. 'Perhaps he tells them how bad the other world is or he reads what John had always liked. Something which this big shot had merely laughed at',Helmholtz remembered, 'Shakespeare'.
Lost in thought he just stood there and watched 'his fordship' with mixed
feelings of disregard, anger and astonishment. Their suspicion had been
confirmed.
By Inga Duechting, Christina Pichlmaier, Nicole Tessmer
Creative writing project (12th grade) on Huxley and BNW at
Gymnasium St. Mauritz (St. Mauritz High School),
D-48155 Muenster,
Wersebeckmannweg 81
Germany
e-mail: joebart@muenster.de
Subject: Re: Huxley: Brave New World, Chapter XIX
Sent: 08.12.1997 1:43 Uhr
Received: 08.12.1997 18:20 Uhr
From: SomaWeb, SomaWeb@aol.com
To: joebart@muenster.de
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Chapter XIX
Thank you very much. I enjoyed the additional chapter! Very interesting twist there. I hope your class enjoyed the novel and learned much.
Question: If I find it appropriate, could I post this on the Soma Web page? Would you mind?
take care
matthew
_____________________________________________
Soma Web - the world of Aldous Huxley
HTTP://www.primenet.com/~matthew/huxley/
"The twentieth century is, among other things, the Age of Noise.
Physical noise, mental noise and noise of desire..."
"...all advertising copy has but one purpose-to prevent the will from ever achieving silence. Desirelessness is the condition of deliverance and illumination. The condition of an expanding and technologically progressive system of mass production is universal craving..."
-Aldous Huxley. The Perennial Philosophy: p.219. (1944)
SomaWeb is maintained on an Apple Macintosh
http://www.apple.com
_____________________________________________
Subject: Re: Huxley: Brave New World, Chapter XIX (creative writing)
Sent: 08.12.1997 19:15 Uhr
To: SomaWeb, SomaWeb@aol.com
Thank you for your comment o n our creative writing exercise. Of course, my students would not mind at all if you posted the additional chapter XIX on the Soma Web page. I hope that there are not too many transmission errors (quotation marks, apostrophes etc. printed as letters) to be found in the text.There is some more material in store (Brave New World in Poetry, i.e. two poems, as well as two brief essays entitled Brave New World - Still Lightyears Ahead? and Reading BNW in the English Foreign Language Classroom - Pros and Cons. In case you are interested, please let me know.
So long
Joerg B.
Subject: Re: Re: Huxley: Brave New World, Chapter XIX (creative writin
Sent: 15.12.1997 8:35 Uhr
Received: 15.12.1997 20:05 Uhr
From: SomaWeb, SomaWeb@aol.com
To: joebart@muenster.de
I would be interested in reading more material from your class.
matthew
_____________________________________________
Soma Web - the world of Aldous Huxley
HTTP://www.primenet.com/~matthew/huxley/
"The twentieth century is, among other things, the Age of Noise.
Physical noise, mental noise and noise of desire..."
"...all advertising copy has but one purpose-to prevent the will from ever achieving silence. Desirelessness is the condition of deliverance and illumination. The condition of an expanding and technologically progressive system of mass production is universal craving..."
-Aldous Huxley. The Perennial Philosophy: p.219. (1944)
SomaWeb is maintained on an Apple Macintosh
http://www.apple.com
_____________________________________________
So here is some more material:
Subject: Re: Re: Huxley: Brave New World, Ch. XIX (creative writing)
Sent: 05.01.1998 13:50 Uhr
To: SomaWeb, SomaWeb@aol.com
In the following, you will find the rest of the creative writing material from our class. I hope you like it.
CU (and Happy New Year)
Joerg B.
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World - Still Lightyears Ahead?
Thinking about the society presented in BNW, the question arises of whether our current society shows a strong and visible tendency towards its realization. Are we as standardized as Lenina, Linda or the DHC? Do we still have individuality? Do we abuse science or can we control its progress? Should we come to the conclusion that we are on the fastest way to BNW circumstances?
We feel that in connection with science and technology, ethical and political aspects should also be taken into account. For example, when you think about cloning sheep today, might it not happen that the same scientists will clone human beings tomorrow, thus confirming the motto 'Today the sheep tomorrow the shepherd!'? And if this comes true, we will possibly not see such an artificially created human body as an individual, but as a mass product useful to the great anonymous body of s ociety. As soon as we start playing God, religious and ethical limitations will become redundant. When we as the people who ought to be in power in a democratic society uncritically accept the statement that 'in science what can be done will be done', unlimited (and, what makes things even worse, uncontrolled) progress will predominate everything, and it is at least open to serious doubt whether it will be the people who are going to profit.
By taking a look at the history of the 20th century, it becomes apparent that there has often been an either open or concealed warfare between a possessive ideology and the rights of the individual citizen to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'. Nowadays, a possessive technology - see, e.g., the Microsoft empire and its monopolistic practices - might endanger the freedom of the individual to almost the same extent. In some way, Bill Gates and the Wintel empire anticipate the anti-individualistic 'happiness is never grand and has to be paid for' philosophy of Mustapha Mond. If there is ever a large-scale fusion of the two concepts of ideology and technology outside the controlling mechanisms of a pluralistic and virtually democratic society, we will not be so far away from the welfare tyranny of BNW. In addition, the current tendency towards globalization makes it much harder to safeguard a technological development in accordance with democratic ideals and beliefs.
The private conduct of many people also shows a tendency towards BNW society. Prior to seeing Lenina's and Linda's habit of taking soma merely as a typical outcome of a remote and sterile BNW 'happiness', we ought to remember the recent development in the field of addiction to drugs, alcohol and medicaments and its social and political implications. We should think of all the men and women who have a 'small drink' every day in order not to be forced to face a fast-moving and harsh reality. Those who 'drop out' like this or in any other way are no longer an active part of the decision-making process in our society and can easily be manipulated whereas the people who are interested in manipulation will definitely remain sober and 'clean'.
With regard to our outward appearance, our way of life and way of thinking, quite a few of us have already become as standardized as the future BNW ruling caste and today's advertising and marketing executives expect us be. And yet, to us who have already put one foot on the bridge to the 21st century, there still remains the individual right to choose between conformity and individuality. After all, we come to the conclusion that every member of society has to be careful and should not react indifferently towards progress in science and technology and the social and political consequences resulting thereof. This taken for granted, the Brave New World of Aldous Huxley is hopefully still lightyears ahead ...
By Joerg Bartikowski, Martina Cwojdzinski, Viola Stahl, Raphael Strels
Creative writing project (12th grade) on Huxley and BNW at
Gymnasium St. Mauritz (St. Mauritz High School),
D-48155 Muenster,
Wersebeckmannweg 81
Germany
e-mail: joebart@muenster.de
Reading BNW in the English Foreign Language Classroom - PROS and CONS
First of all the PROS why the book is worth reading:
You get to know what people (especially Aldous Huxley) thought about the future in 1931 concerning religion, science, art, technology, education and people's sexual life and behaviour. Amazingly, you can say that their ideas of technology in some parts have become feasible today (cf., e.g., the possibility of cloning people, the development in the field of medicine).
It is also surprising that many ideas,e.g. to create an ideal human being, are somewhat similar to what the Nazis in Germany were aiming at during the Second World War. Moreover,it is to be mentioned that Huxley indirectly brings in his ow n experiences (his addiction to LSD and his fear of huge crowds).
With regard to the work in class, one can say that it is very interesting to get to know the different opinions of the classmates on such 'difficult' subjects as, e.g., cloning. Furthermore, it is good to read the book because one can realize how things have changed (or better: how people have changed things).You also become encouraged not to go through the world blindfolded, but to open your eyes and see what is going on and to try to change anything which seems to get worse.
In contrast to that the CONS:
The text deals with many technical terms. Partly, it comes to confusion because some chapters are very strangely constructed and moreover too long (e.g. chapters III and XI).
Moreover, some characters in the novel have trite soap-opera like problems which many people are eager to consume today. For instance, there is the question of the two girls Fanny and Lenina with whom they should go out and r if it is right or not.
Another aspect which is to be mentioned is the problem John the Savage has. He is an outsider, and, at last, he feels so lonely that he only sees the possibility of killing himself. On the one hand, the reader may perhaps feel inclined to identify with John. In case he does, this will hardly have any positive effect on him. With regard to that point, one can say that the reader should develop a strong character to become immune to such desires. On the other hand - and this would make up another pros item -, John's 'career' could perhaps teach people the lesson to be tolerant. Finally, all of the characters in the book take drugs to have positive feelings. If the reader is in a bad mood at the moment of reading the book, he might perhaps take refuge to drugs to feel better (and if it is only a cigarette) even though this is bad for his health.
By Patrycja Kosniewski and Kathrin Schraeer
Creative writing project (12th grade) on Huxley and BNW at
Gymnasium St. Mauritz (St. Mauritz High School),
D-48155 Muenster,
Wersebeckmannweg 81
Germany
e-mail: joebart@muenster.de
Brave New World in Poetry
Lost world ?
The man who wants to, but is not able to ?
An unlucky man, or a happy man?
Really convinced of society, or maybe not ?
A cruel man, or a nice man ?
Does he just live to his advantage, or doesn't he ?
A man to trust, or a man who makes use of everyone ?
All questions about this person are kept in the labyrinth of
BNW
Why such a world ?
Is there anybody who really wanted this world ?
Maybe one made the start,
and it seemed to be good .
- For him -
The others had no chance,
they had to follow him .
Why ?
He had the power,
the control o Wver everything,
but no one knows why .
No one can stop it, everyone feels oppressed
by this one man
his name
- BNW commander -
Why could one person have such an idea ?
Why
Why
Why
Why
Why
Why
Why
Why
The whole wide world seems to consist just out of
(BN)Whys !
By Eva Konietzny and Christina Mennemeyer
Creative writing project (12th grade) on Huxley and BNW at
Gymnasium St. Mauritz (St. Mauritz High School),
D-48155 Muenster,
Wersebeckmannweg 81
Germany
e-mail: joebart@muenster.de
The following persons have been involved in this 'experimental project'
(in alphabetical order): Joerg Bartikowski, Martina Cwojdzinski, Inga Duechting,
Eva Konietzny, Patrycja Kosniewski, Christina Mennemeyer, Christina Pichlmaier,
Kathrin Schraeer, Viola Stahl, Raphael Strels, Nicole Tessmer (LK Englisch
12 Gymnasium St. Mauritz).
