Brave New World and Escapism

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Escapism Beneath every utopia lies a dystopia breeding a disillusioned society. Methods used to create a society exempt of pain and commitment often prove even more harmful than what it originally replaced. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Huxley attacks many of society’s defaults, one of them being it’s addiction to escapism. Huxley creates a world where drugs are issued by the government, encouraging citizens to avoid any emotional turbulence that may upset their conditioned tranquility. This idea rids humans of what empathy they are capable of and jeopardizes their reign on a stable emotional mind. Huxley uses foil, symbolism, and irony to delve into this problem of escapism and its contributions to a dystopia in disguise. (your thesis needs to be more specific. Authors don’t delve into problems. They take clear stands on issues. What is Huxley’s specific criticism of escapism? How does escapism contribute to a dystopia. Write something like: “ Huxley uses foil, symbolism, and irony to illustrate how escapism breeds a passivity in society that enables the rise of a dystopian regime.” Remember that your thesis needs two parts: a topic and a specific opinion. In this thesis, the topic is escapism; the specific opinion is: escapism breeds passivity which leads to dystopia) In Brave New World, John the Savage and Lenina Crowne serve as foils to display the effects of escapism in human beings . Add a transition statement to introduce the first negative effect of escapism The characters were brought up in two bipolar environments - John being brought up on the savage reservation and Lenina being a product of the World State. Unlike his counterpart, John was brought up exposed to different emotions, both comforting and distressing. ( how do you know this? give the specific scene from the book that proves this. Otherwise you are speculating.)When

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