There are several scenes throughout Brave New World which can be thought of as humorous and even out and out hysterical. The scene where Lenina first visits the savage reservation, Bernard's erratic behavior and comments, Linda's reunion with Tomakin, and John's reaction to the feelies just to name a few. Do you think Huxley meant these scenes to be funny? If he did, why would he include them in an otherwise nightmarish dystopian novel? If he did not mean for them to be funny, why do we find them so? Is it our culture? Our comedic perception? Or something else.... Please comment.
I believe Huxley meant for some of the scenes in Brave New World to be funny. Some people will understand his humor. Others won't. He placed his humor in this "nightmarish dystopian novel" to explain how ridiculous some situations are like when Lenina first arrives at the reservation. Huxley might be just humoring himself in his own odd way. It really depends on the person's sense of humor because some might find these actions funny while others don't. You know what they say, "Shut up woman get on my horse." That had nothing to do with this, but I love that song. Ha! first again!
ReplyDeleteHuxley meant for certain scenes to be funny. The humor behind some of the scenes, like when Lenina first arrives at the reservation, helps add to how crazy the situation really is. He also includes this humor in this mostly dark and nightmarish novel to help balance the book out for the readers. If the entire book was just set in a serious tone with no true emotions or humor, many people would be very bored with it and not even bother to continue reading.
ReplyDelete-Ashley Collins
I also think Huxley ment to include humor in Brave New World. I think our culture thinks there more funny than others might in different enviroments. He may have included them in the nightmarish dystopian novel to loosin the mood to make the book not seem so horrific.
ReplyDeleteHaley Nicole Rasnick
I believe Huxley meant these scenes to be funny. I think he added humor into the novel to make it seem less serious than it is. In my mind I was thinking this was like really serious and could possibly. The reason being is, during the first half of the book, I took it completely serious, but after the funny parts I came back to the realization that this was book, it's not real, it's just things we deal with now. Also, our generation now don't take everything seriously, so that could be another reason we thought it was funny.
ReplyDelete-Sylvia Williams
I do think that Huxley meant for these scenes to be funny. I think that he did this to keep the book interesting and not to completely horrify his readers. He also wanted to show how basically stupid life would be if his predictions came true. Lastly Huxley was illustrating that just because we find something outlandish and stupid does mean that it can not become a horrible reality. He also shows this when the people of the Brave New World society laugh at John when he beats himself (they also thought it was stupid and funny but never realized how much of a reality it could become).
ReplyDelete-Matthew Greene
I believe Huxley meant to have the humor in BNW. He added it possibly to lighten the mood of the serious nightmarish dystopian novel. You think of the novel all serious in the beginning but then when the humorous scenes come in you realize its not that serious at all. But that could also be because our generation has a lot of humor and is very sarcastic, so we could have thought of it funnier than it was anticipated.
ReplyDeleteThe Brave New World is full of order and organization that any person now would certainly question. in sucah a aerious world there are parts that Huxley adds to the book that actually made me laugh out loud. Especially the parts including Lenina. i do believe that Husley purposely added these funny scenes in order to serve as some sort of comic releif. Along with relaxing the stiff mood of the book the comical parts also lets the reader know that things that we find funny now are actually serious in the Brave New World.
ReplyDelete-Kayla Barrett
I think Huxley Threw those scenes in there to 1. Describe the situation, and 2.To keep the reader intertained. I think that its also the way we precieve things to be funny. He may have not purposly done it, however we laugh at them because in the society we live in now, those scenes are percieved as funny.
ReplyDeleteI think Huxley put those scenes in there to be funny because they ridicule the way the society is, but I think we perceive them funnier than they were meant to be because of our culture. While these scenes are amusing already, our sense of humor is probably a bit different from the sense of humor during his time period so we interpret the scenes as hilarious versus how the people in his time period did. Also, our society is considerably similar in some aspects (but not as extreme) to the Brave New World's society so we can relate to the humor more now than in the past.
ReplyDelete-Krystal Midcap
I think Huxley meant for those scenes/moments to be funny. He is explaining how society truly was, and even though it seems funny and maybe even ironic to us, that was that was it was in their society. They leveled everything out by allowing certain things to occur. Things we find disgusting and irrational, they take a reality, so that may also mean that things we find funny, may not be funny to them, and vice verse. I don't remember them ever laughing in the book, so that must mean that it was an exceptionally serious novel, it just said they had to keep busy, because being alone was looked down upon, and that you were weird if you wanted to be alone. So in this case, Huxley added some humor to keep us reading further into the book.
ReplyDeleteI think he meant for them to be funny, but many people might have not caught the humor like we did. But even though it is funny and humorous to us it was the way the brave new world was. Especially how lenina acted towards linda. But even if he didn't mean for it to be funny it expressed more of how their society was
ReplyDelete--- Taylor
I believe he did that to show that even the serious things are funny. Like, what we are laughing at now is what is going to be the common thing in the future. We think lenina stripping in front of John is funny but it is going (if not already) to be the usual thing.
ReplyDeleteMaryam
I believe that Huxley made some scenes funny in an effort to express how humorous the Brave New World was in comparison to normal society. It's comedic to us that anyone would live that way
ReplyDelete-Lindsey
I think Huxley purposefully added humor into the book. The book is overall a sad and confusing story. Some parts of simple humor make it much easier to read and relate to. It seems like even though this world was really terrible and mundane, there were still moments of chaos and funny situations. - Barack Jordan
ReplyDeleteHuxley presented these scenes in a way that we would view them as outlandish and preposterous, to the extent that we find them funny. He did this to relate our viewpoint to that of the characters in his story. They react erratically to something that we may see every day. Likewise, we may react to their different methods of deindividualizing the citizens. For that reason, I believe Huxley included these to illustrate how differently their society has evolved from our current one.
ReplyDeleteShe is ugly! I just had to say that. The scenes in the book that we happen to take humorous Huxley shows to get his point across. The concepts that are shunned in the new world that we live by are humorous because it seems strange that something of our daily life seems to be foreign and insane in their's. What seems hilarious in there society is not funny in ours. Huxley shows just how different their society is from ours through these funny scenes.
ReplyDeleteI think that Huxley did not mean for these events to be funny, but figured we would find them amusing because we live in a different society. It is similar as in the Brave New World whenever they laugh at John beating himself, they have not ever seen it before so therefore for some reason to them they find it humorous. Also, we think Lenina stripping in front of John humorous but to Lenina she was just doing what she was meant to do. - Alicia Wilson
ReplyDeleteI think huxley put humor in his book on purpose. He had to break up the seriousness some what. He also did this because it makes the story easier to relate to and to show us how things change and become more or less socially acceptable. - Alex Colling
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that Huxley meant for these scenes to be funny. This shows he has a sense of humor and found a way to display humor in his writing. But I do believe we perceive them to be more funny due to our culture and beliefs.
ReplyDelete