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A
possible history of the word happiness can start with the word "eudamonia";
this word derives from the ancient Greek world and philosophically
the meaning is :"To have a good demon".The demon is a
protection that helps to overcome all obstacles. Epicuro is the
best philosopher that illustrated the happiness topic; he
said "Happiness - as a pleasure - is the start and the
and of a life of bliss”.
And
this is a definition of the opposite concept, sorrow:
it is not only a
sensation created by illness but is also caused by sadness,
affettive or emotional problems. It makes a defense or an escape
way. Psichoanalysts define sorrow as suffering that born from
instinct harmony, the conflict between pleasure and unpleasure
makes an unsteady balance that turns to the state of depression.
In
BNW happiness and sorrow are almost hidden subjets that the reader
gets by making a comparison between the utopian society of Huxley
and his/her real life of the
year 2000.
Huxley's
society is described in terms of
human utility is a part of
mass, so that is easy to exploit for not personal purpose.
The human utility is important in BNW because it should give the
happiness...Corollary of human utility is the concept of
human helpful. In BNW that concept is evident, we can
notice it in the relationship between Lenina Crow and Mr Foster:
they aren't togheter for
love but just because they are useful to each other. To understand
well that concept, it is interesting the conversation between Mr
Foster and the Assistant about Lenina. Foster says: "But my
dear chap, you're welcome, I assure you.You're welcome. Everyone
belongs to everyone else, after all"(Chapter III p. 41)
A
society with this base doesn't give
happiness, because happiness can be found in real life and
not in the artificial life. In Huxley's world naturally born
people do not exist, there are no acts as to give birth, but only
test tube birth. Is this happiness? No, because the real
human happiness of our society is to see a kid that is given birth
in a natural way and not to
see cells grow inside the tubes. If the perfect world of Huxley
was so perfect I wonder why humans use drugs (soma). The soma was
a politic institution and not a personal bad habit, soma was the
human religion. Sorrow is always
in ambush, because happiness in BNW is so precious that humans are
ready to do everything is needed to be caught. After Pavlovian
Process all people think they are happy in their unconscious, "Everybody's happy now"(chapter
V, p. 67)They heard those words 150 times every night for 12 years.
The key of the concept is that in a perfect society everybody has
to be happy. Is it always true? No, even in BNW there is someone
that is not happy, Bernard Marx, the only one that feels feelings,
the only one that has problems in
his relationships and he is sad because there is not any
human heat (that is not allowed).This dictatorship makes him
unhappy. Also Lenina feels sorrow, who should
be always happy,
because the wild John who lives under the rules of the old world (our
world) does not accept her love because she is easy to give her to
everybody too soon, but these are the rules that are in the New
World. We can see the top of unhappiness in John; he tries to find
the happiness in the old and new world, this uncertanity and the
impossibility to catch happiness drives him to suicide. The story
ends with an image of his feet that swing in mid-air. "The
feet turned towards the right; north-east, east, south-east, south,
south-west; then paused, and after a few seconds, turned as
unhurriedly back towards the left-south, south-west, south,
south-east, east..."(chapter XVII, p. 237)
The
wild's inadequacy in this two worlds (old and New) can be read in
this lines from a famous song:
PEOPLE
ARE STRANGE
WHEN
YOU ARE STRANGER
FACES
LOOK UGLY
WHEN
YOU ARE ALONE
WOMEN
SEEM WICKED
WHEN
YOU'RE UNWANTED
SREETS
ARE UNEVEN
WHEN
YOU'RE DOWN....
(James
Douglas Morrison)
We
can associate these verses to the wild's unhappiness.
This
can drive the reader to think: is it better an outword happy life,
happiness ordered from outside or a difficult and unsure life but
free? These two topics find space in chapter XVII in the
conversation between the Governor and the wild. "Is it any
happiness or any comfort, to consider that we are our own?"(Governor,
chapter XVII, p. 212)
This
is the answer to the wild comment about human utility .The
discussion between the Governor and the wild is about God
existence. For the wild God is important and can reduce the sorrow
of humans. The Governor Mond does not think so in fact he says:
"And if ever, by some unluky chance, anyting unpleasant
should some how happen, why, there is always soma, to give you a
holiday from the facts. there is always soma"(Governor,
chapter XVII, p. 217)
There
are two ways to reach the happyness: through God (in our world)
and by soma (in New World). For the wild the happiness coincides
with freedom and with inconveniences, he says at the end: "But
I like the inconveniences, I don't want comfort, I want God, I
want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, i I want goodness,
I want sin" (chapter XVII, p. 218). Mond answers: "You're
claiming the right to be unhappy" .(Mond, chapter XVII, p.
218)
Does
happiness exist? In both world (old and new) there is not
happiness or better: in the New World we can find the false
happiness got by means of the soma. There is no happiness like
natural istinc. Epicuro says that the feelings of humans are two:
pleasure (happiness)and sorrow, the first is keeping with human
nature, the second is hostile with it. "The pleasure is the
escape from sorrow and prudence learns as that the nature of the
pleasure is qualitative and quantitative. The prudence learns to
the wise how defense himselves from the sorrow” (Epicuro) .
A
person can't be happy if he/she does not know the sorrow, to know
a thing is necessary to know its opposite.
I
think it
is important that human beings know the sorrow because only this
way they can appreciate what can relieve it. But happiness is
uncatchable in this world, neither in the ipotetic, utopian,
perfect world is possible to catch it. Can soma make one happy?
No, the soma lets you think to be happy but does not make people
happy. Every day of the life men will
be upset from something that they will have to resolve more
or less, and this will give happiness to them.
In
the Brave New World pain can't exist and the desires of everybody
have to be granted.
If
an interval runs
between desire and its grant men would have space for their
uncertainty and suffering that could push them to feel the need of
God.
The
human don't have to
get much problems so is a pawn manipolate from a productive and
exploiting structure.
Marilena
Zarrillo
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