How is freedom perceived in Brave New World?

Brave New World largely defines freedom through the structures that prevent freedom. Bernard feels these constraints most acutely, as in a scene from chapter 6, when Bernard and Lenina have a conversation about freedom. Lenina insists that everyone has a great deal of freedom - the freedom "to have the most wonderful time." Soma represents this kind of freedom, as it puts people in a hypnotic state in which they no longer feel as though they should ask questions or defy the structures of society. Bernard insists that this is no freedom at all.

Bernard claims that his ideal of freedom is the freedom to be an individual apart from the rest of society. Bernard strives to be free in his "own way...not in everybody else's way." Huxley argues here that certain structures in our own modern society work in the same way that drugs like soma work in this fantastical dystopia. Huxley often argues against the use of advertising specifically for the way that it hypnotized people into wanting and buying the same products. Such things keep people within predefined structures, and it quashes free thought, which ultimately restricts freedom.