Riassunto in inglese sul tema dell'utopia e sulla vita di Huxley

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Testo

The word utopia was used for the first time in English literature by Sir Thomas More in the title of his work Utopia (1516). The word indicates an ideal place which does not exist. In More’s book, Utopia is an island where there is not private property because that is considered the origin of all the evils of the society. People live in a community where all the goods are shared, there is a free education and free medical treatment, all religions are tolerated and have time for relaxation and entertainment. The next utopian work was The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon in 1626. It describes a completely isolated society which has full control of nature. In the 18th century, the most famous utopian writer was Swift with his Gulliver’s Travels, which was a masterpiece of semi-utopian narrative. The use of the term ‘semi-utopian’ derives from the fact that of the four types of society described in the book only one can be considered a truly utopian land because the other three show negative aspects. In the 19th century, Butler published Erewhon, the title is an anagram of ‘nowhere’. It tells the story of a young traveller who discovered the land of Erewhon. The 20th century saw a great production of literary utopias. Most of them were technological utopias. Most of these works were also called science fiction novels. The best example is The Time Machine by Wells. It treats the theme of confrontation with the alien, of the last man on the earth and the death of the world. The most important of Wells’ utopian novel is A Modern Utopia. But science and technology became a threat to man. This fear of this threat produced the converse of utopia fiction, that is anti-utopian or dystopian works. In them placed, which do not exist, are described, but they are not ideal, on the contrary, they are nightmarish and frightening. They are usually set in the future and the represent warnings to men. Brave New World by Huxley is a dystopian work. Another dystopian work which deals with the problem of destruction of liberty and individuality is Animal Farm by George Orwell. It was followed by 1984, in which the author attempts to describe the future. He presents life under a dictator, Big Brother. The despot is never seen and there is no certainty he really exists, people are controlled by telescreens, which are located everywhere, even in private houses. In the years that followed dystopian novels influenced many writers and in their works they created societies which expressed their horror of the present and their fear for the future of mankind. One of them was Golding, who, in his Lord of the Flies, makes a group of children create a world which imitates the one of adults.
Huxley was born into an upper-middle class family in Surrey in 1984. His grandfather was a Victorian scientist who defended Darwin’s theory of evolution, and his granduncle was a famous poet and critic. His brother was awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine. Huxley studied at Eton where he had an eye infection which left him nearly blind. This episode influenced his studies. However, he was able to enter in a college to study literature and he graduated with top marks in English literature. After university, he started working as a journalist, but soon he devoted himself to poetry and criticism. He wrote Brave New World, a dystopian novel. He moved to Los Angeles, where he published After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, a science fiction novel. Ape and Essence was another novel in which Huxley shows his pessimistic vision of the future world. Huxley became interested in eclectic mysticism. He died in 1963 in Los Angeles.
Brave New World is a novel set in Utopia. Ford is the founder of Utopia, and its symbol. A rigid control on all citizens assures stability, marriage is not allowed and the system permits five castes, the higher having the more imaginative roles in the society, the lower doing hard boring work. There is the test tube birth. Ten World Controllers have the power and peace is guaranteed the state’s process of conditioning all young people to think in the same way and in giving soma, a tranquillizer. All the ages are distracted from serious thinking with sports and entertainment.
Huxley has been defined a didactic writer. He considers the theme of a novel more important than the plot. The characters become the mouthpieces of the author. In his works, he attacked the modern world in all its aspects. The title Brave New World comes from The Tempest, by Shakespeare and indicates in an ironic way a nightmarish world in which the advancement of science affects human beings by annihilating their personalities. One of the major threats is the totalitarian system. The absolute veneration for science, the reverence for technology and its comforts and apathy towards the arts and spiritual values are threats present in the novel. Huxley wants to warn man that the abuse of science is extremely dangerous. The tone is light and amusing because he is a satirist.

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