2019 Year 12 IB Extended Essays

images of a perpetually blue sky – which are a positive image, representing calmness, comfort and peacefulness: “they were inside, here and now – safely inside with the fine weather, the perennially blue sky” (p.66), with the blue skies representing the New World with the characters in a bubble of safety and artificial happiness. However, in reality, the weather is not always fine, and those who recognise this are able to step outside the false reality of the World State and realise the reality of their own situations – as seen by Huxley’s characters Bernard and Helmholtz. On a date, Bernard takes Lenina to look at the weather, which “had taken change for the worse; a south-westerly wind had sprung up, the sky was cloudy” (p.77). Bernard airs how he is “enslaved by [his] conditioning” and questions what it would be like “to be free” (p.78). Under the clouded weather, Bernard discusses the reality of his situation, and how he is not truly happy but rather is conditioned to be happy. Furthermore, Helmholtz has never fitted in with his peers due to his desire to be more than “a cell in a social body” (p.78), however his non-conformist thoughts ultimately lead to him being exiled. In his final moment as a citizen of the World State, he asserts his desires for truth and independent thought rather than false happiness by asking to be exiled to a place with “a thoroughly bad climate” with “a lot of wind and storms.” Essentially, through the weather, Helmholtz is implying that he would rather the unpleasantries of life, than the baseless existence in the World State. Huxley deplores the pursuit of constant happiness that he witnesses in his own society and uses Brave New World as a warning against this frivolous behaviour. This is achieved by arousing the readers unease and concerns over false happiness by demonstrating the loss of true happiness as a result of the consumerist lifestyle of the citizens of the World State.

Conclusion

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