Rebecca Burroughs
February 25, 2015
College English Brave New World: Happiness “Happiness is a hard master­particularly other people’s happiness. A much harder master, if one isn’t conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth.”
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is centered around several important themes, but the one theme that is seen throughout the entire novel is happiness. However, happiness in this book is depicted in a way the reader would expect. The people in BNW only experience moments of happiness when they are consuming mass produced goods, engaging in promiscuous sex, having orgy­porgys, or using soma­a drug that provides the user with inauthentic happiness for a short period of time.
If someone in BNW, who wasn't a part of the "savage" society, were to be given the choice between getting what they desired or being denied it, they would choose getting what they wanted. From birth, the characters in this novel are conditioned to believe that getting what they want and allowing themselves to be told what to do is the only way they will be truly happy. The
World State(WS) in BNW is designed to provide the people with anything they could want so that they remain happy. The citizens are trained from birth so that they do not expect anything other than what they are given by the World State so they won't have to feel the disappointment of not receiving their desires.
The WS conditions the citizens so that the job they are assigned to in life is the only thing they will ever desire to do and, as a result, the people are happy. By making promiscuous sex be

accepted and desired by the citizens, the WS is ensuring that the people will never have to face the disappointment of unrequited love or an unreciprocated desire and, as a result, the people are happy. Whenever the people of BNW take Soma the drug puts them on a high that allows them to forget any worries or doubts they may have had at the moment without any side effects and, as a result, the people are happy.
In BNW, the pursuit of happiness is taken to the extreme. By eliminating any emotion that could be considered negative or painful from the citizens' lives, the WS prevents the people from ever having to experience the feeling of loss or sadness. The denial of death is also another way that the people are kept happy. The citizens are not taught that death is a horrible thing, something to be feared or looked upon with trepidation and sadness. Instead, they are taught from childhood that death is just another part of life, something to be expected and accepted. The adults are trying to condition the children to