Open Prompt

1995. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel or a play in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions or moral values.

          Societal detachment is an often highlighted theme in literary works. Brave New World is one novel that illustrates this phenomenon through a class hierarchy. In the novel, the separation of Bernard, a lower class member, serves to highlight the assumptions of society of capability and eligibility based on rank where the judgment of right and wrong channels through a conforming populace.

          In the novel, Bernard is designated as a beta class member, a person with a small height height and consequently lower stature. In this society, activities surround a hedonistic approach towards life through sexual fulfillment. The activities that Bernard is limited and supposed to attend is constrained by a society that is responsible for producing surrogates to create class division. The class hierarchy is indicative of the attempt to separate certain citizens from others to create a distinct role for each citizen. Through Bernard's character, the reader is able to see society's assumption of a Plato-like perspective where each person plays his or her role in society and has limits on freedom in order to maintain order. Society is intentionally discriminating against its members and conveying inequality and injustice to lower class members, such as Bernard, despite of their potential to rise to the top.

          Furthermore, through the portrayal of Bernard's character, the author is displaying the degree of morality observed by citizens of the society in Brave New World. Even though society limits distress by creating a rigid class structure, an individual conscience is absent. Produced as surrogates designated certain rights and tasks in life, members of this society are similar to conformists. Their own individual perception of right and wrong is blurred due to society's institution of a conscience based on societal following. it is the conjunct effort of society's members that establishes morality that adheres to their world's pursuit of continuous pleasure. Bernard significantly highlights this morality in the novel due to his status in society that arouses conformity to society's views.

          Brave New World illustrates how alienation of one member of society can serve to effectively highlight the various sensitive aspects of society as a whole. It is through the attempted meaning of eligibility, conformity, and falsified conscience that the author of this novel wishes to warn future generations to remain wary of threats to equality and individualism.