The drug that is distributed throughout the city in Brave New World, soma, to me seems more like a mind control device than a simple antidepressant. What leads me to believe this is what happens in Chapter 15, when the Savage begins throwing the soma out the window and the crowd is so drawn to it that they are willing to kill to get it back. But the descriptions of the police with the guns and sprayers full of soma shooting people to calm them down and follow orders gave it that mind control feeling. For example when the Savage and Hemholtz are fighting they crowd they are angry and upset, but when they are shot with soma that not only relax but when the police give them a command they follow without question.
So it just makes me wonder if Huxley was trying to get out in small portions that the soma drug is really some sort of evil device used by the government to control the people or just a pill to boost happiness.
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I think that the pill is used to control the masses. However, I don't agree with your saying that it is mind-control. This would insinuate that actual thoughts are being planted in their minds so as to come to fruition. I think that the pill is more like reinforcement. It's like saying, "If you do what I tell you, I'll give you a magic pill that can banish your insecurities and the ugly side of life." Thus people do what the government tell them to in order to feel bliss with no strings attached.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on believing that the soma that the government is giving the people in Brave New World is a way of keeping society in control. The addiction these people have make soma a fix to all problems in Huxley's book. Maybe in today's world there will be something in the future that will control us or maybe we already have it. This could be a warning to us because one material object can be the cure to chaos and prevent war or unsettledness.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that the soma is something used for mind-control necessarily. The masses were already thinking whatever they were told. I think that the soma only kept them from feeling any kind of emotion. The people were very dependent on the soma, that is true, but i don't think it was used for mind-control.
ReplyDeleteMario Ayala