This seems to create stability in society, or at least passivity. As a result the ego is diminished and people do not have to cope with conflicting emotions. The “New World” government conditions people to have extremely powerful super-egos that actually encourage, rather than inhibit, instant gratification of id impulses. However, in Bernard’s society this would constitute as normal functioning. (102) In our society, Freud would say a person who behaves in this way has a fixation their psychological functioning has been stunted. Since parents do not exist in the Brave New World society all values are acquired through hypnopaedia (sleep teaching) and classical conditioning.īernard notes that, although people can perform their jobs like adults, they are more like “nfants where feeling and desire are concerned”.

The super-ego is the internalized moral values of society and the child’s parents. Children are even taught to engage in “erotic play”. In Brave New World, society does not place restrictions on the gratification of sexual desire. It is an attempt to deal with impulses but in a way that is “socially acceptable”. In babies the first facet of personality to develop is the id, they demand their impulses to be satisfied immediately. The id is home to animal urges, such as hunger or sexual desire. In this novel Huxley presents a dystopic society in which various scientific and psychological techniques are used to control people from their conception to their death.įreud divided the personality into the id, ego and super-ego. Though a psychoanalytical interpretation can be applied to any novel after the fact, I believe Huxley used elements of the approach in the creation of his characters and plot. One such idea was Psychoanalysis, propagated by Dr. (*note sorry everyone, the page numbers are off for the quotes since I am using an old copy of the book)Īdlous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, builds upon the ideas that were dominant and fresh in the early part of the twentieth century.

Brave new world hypnopaedia