Brave New World Lesson Plan

At the time in which Aldous Huxley was writing Brave New World, successful utopian fiction was exclusively optimistic. Huxley’s initial intention was to parody hopeful visions of a perfect future, such as H.G. Wells’ Men Like Gods, but by his own admission he "got caught up in the excitement of [his] own ideas.” Some of the ideas expressed in Brave New World reflect the author’s dislike of mass production, which in 1931 was still a relatively new phenomenon. Huxley, an Englishman, was also inspired by a visit to America, where he developed a distaste for consumerist culture, the glorification of youth, and the works of Henry Ford. Many Europeans shared Huxley’s distrust of...