3 goals: 1. Central Idea 2. Sentence Structure 3.

Commas, Semi-Colons, Colons

Brave New World Essay Media and Mass Fall 2012 Aubrey Walters

Soma is life. The people of the World State are addicted to soma; a present day antidepressant. In this book life is all about happiness. Why wouldnt the people want to be happy all of the time? Scientists had figured out a way to keep everyone happy all of the time, and if something by chance was to get in the way of them being happy then soma was there to save them. According to Mustapha Mond soma was Christianity without tears Society is still ranked based on social classes. The upper class was the Alphas. They were created to become the leaders of the World State. The remaining castes were the Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Each class was slightly less than the class before. Each class is conditioned during the gestation period to become one of these 5 castes. This all comes back to the idea that everyone can have happiness. So why cant all the citizens be created as Alphas? This was a question that John asked. Mond responds with the following:

An Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron workOnly an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they arent sacrifices; theyre the line of least resistanceHe cant help himself; he is foredoomed.

This is the reason everyone can have happiness. Each social class is conditioned to like the work they do and to love their social class. They are also conditioned to dislike the other social classes. Each person goes through a serious of hypnopaedic teachings. These are sleepteachings. Each person goes through a series of these to be conditioned with certain thoughts. An example of one of these is each social class being taught to dislike the other social classes. This is done so that no one is envious of another. Once again, this just reiterates how everyone can always be happy. Soma is the alternative. If the conditioning fails and someone still becomes sad then they can turn to soma. Soma is there to relieve any one of depressed feelings. It is a pill taken by the gram and is used frequently by the people of the World State. Taking a large dose of soma can allow a person to go on holiday. In other terms it will knock a person out for a long duration. Of course everyone is going to be happy in this kind of world. They are conditioned to like their roles. They are conditioned to dislike other social classes and to only like their own. The World State has given the population no reason to be unhappy. Why is there a need for the soma then? Maybe the reason everyone is always happy is because they have their soma. The human race cant truly be happy in this World State. They are no longer able to express themselves. Most movies and books are banned. Science and even relationships cannot exist in this world either. Human nature is to desire. There is nothing to desire in this world and therefore this world could not exist forever.

Bernard was lucky. He was exiled to an island where he could finally be free. This society wasnt truly happy; they were just conditioned to be happy, and if they werent happy they had soma to fix that. This entire society was based on artificial ideas and feelings. These artificial ideas and feelings were engraved into these peoples minds with no choice at all. The people of this world were in a constant coma of thinking they were happy. None of it was real. It was all conditioned.