A Study Of Alienation In Brave New World From The Perspective Of Marcuse’s Technological Alienation Theory

The Brave New World by British writer Aldous Huxley is regarded as a classic dystopian work of the twentieth century.In this work,Huxley not only shows the vision of a harmonious and stable new world with the greatest liberalization,but also offers a more nuanced portrait of the serious consequences of technological alienation in the developed industrial society,and profoundly exposes and criticizes the reality of alienation in the totalitarian society.Based on this,this thesis takes Herbert Marcuse’s technological alienation theory as the base to deeply explain the manifestation of alienation in the Brave New World and to explore the purpose and significance of Huxley’s creation.This thesis first discusses the alienation of technology in politics,culture,life and language of the World State: in terms of politics,technology has become a new form of control,and the World State reinforces its totalitarian rule by setting up a distinct hierarchy and eliminating the hostile factors in the society;on the cultural side,the World State suppresses high culture and promotes shallow and vulgar culture;in social life,technology creates a wonderful and happy life for the masses,but in fact manipulates them;in the field of language,sleep education is the primary means of spreading ideas,and only Englishization achieves linguistic totalitarianism.Secondly,this thesis analyzes the alienation of the citizens of the world state at the labor,consumption,value and consciousness levels: in respect of labor,the masses become the tools of mechanized production,and their individuality is suppressed in the process of labor production;with regard to consumption,the World State uses various means to create consumer demand,and people consume for the sake of consumption;in view of the value,the fertility of women is directly replaced by science and technology,and the original fertility tradition of human beings is rejected by mainstream values,and the oppression of women by men under totalitarianism is exposed;in the field of consciousness,the disappearance of the concept of family and the numbness of the population make them puppets under technological domination.Finally,the thesis analyzes Bernard,Helmholtz and John who resist alienation and challenge the social order of the World State through their own means,and strive to pursue their self-awareness and escape from the harsh technological bondage to embrace freedom.In summary,it is found that the highly developed industry and technology in the World Shave driven material civilization to flourish,and technology has deeply impacted all areas of human society.People’s material needs are maximally satisfied,but the spirit is manipulated by material domination,and humanity disappears under the grinding of technology.At the same time,the ultimate ending of several characters’ escape from the novel shows Huxley’s implicit concern and distrust about escaping from the abyss of alienated society.Huxley takes this opportunity to warn of the degradation of the civilized world and the destruction of society and humanity by technology,and to urge humankind to pay more attention to the construction of a spiritually civilized world.