The Truth Of Happiness by Tatiana

The Truth Of Happiness by Tatiana - February 2015 Scholarship Essay

Many students may agree, classroom assigned reading can be some of the worst reading they'd ever do. especially when it's attached to a long novel analysis assignment. During my senior year I was engaged in such a project and was asked to choose a novel from a chosen list. What I chose definitely changed my views in many ways and opened my eyes. I believe it is important for students everywhere to read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World before they graduate because it's a book that questions true happiness and warns against all-powerful states and ones individuality.

Brave New World is a science fiction book but it also has man ethical view points attached. The "new world" consists of an all-powerful state that controls all its inhabitants up to their physical and mental states. I believe that this book does indeed warn against the power of technology and scientific advancement but one must look closer. The embryos being decanted and "grown" could be compared to students themselves and the World State is society. Students can easily be confused or lost in deciding futures for themselves which could lead to them easily being provoked by others around them based on what society wants. This book can help open the eyes of students to make sure they understand how easily it is to be controlled or manipulated by those around them.

Another thing the book is effective in doing is questioning true happiness. The characters in the novel all seem to be happy, but there's always something lacking and they take the drug soma, an artificial euphoria, to fill that void. This is a big red flag out to society. Students can see that their happiness may be a reflection of what society wants. Really, one should not conform to society and its beliefs but to what one wants for themselves, to achieve their own happiness.

With the challenging view placed in Brave New World I believe that students can learn a great deal from it. The young adult years are most definitely the most fragile years of ones life because of all the stress implicated on a person in finding the path for their future life. Because of this it is easy to see exactly how one could be swayed this way and that and be influenced by society's norms. That is why this novel is important for students, it can open their eyes to the world around them and challenge them to find their true happiness.