Figurative Language In Brave New World

Words: 766
Pages: 4

For centuries great writers have explored the essence of the human condition, involving fervid emotions. As the epitome of the human condition, Hamlet lividly mourns over his father’s death and pursues bitter revenge against the murderer, his mother’s new husband. On the other hand, the society in Brave New World, utterly suppressing every ounce of the human condition, creates new life through a cold, scientific process. For this society’s government, human life was their tool for money, power, and stability. In Hamlet and Brave New World, Shakespeare and Aldous Huxley demonstrate the consequences of preventing one from exhibiting the human condition. While Hamlet struggles to contain his grief, Shakespeare utilizes figurative language in …show more content…
Despite the fact the “Hatchery and Conditioning Centre” fertilizes gametes, the beginning of life, death associates with this building, as described in the following paradoxical metaphor: “The light was frozen, dead, a ghost.” This dark metaphor reflects the complete lack of the human condition in Brave New World and illustrates the irony of its creating life--usually symbolizing love and hope of a better future--in the dreary facility. Although “light” commonly represents welcoming warmth and purity, the following personification of “light” demonstrates a malicious nature: “a harsh thin light glares through the windows, hungrily seeking.” The phrase “hungrily seeking” reveals this society’s fatal flaw, greed for power, progress, and stability, which all prohibit the human …show more content…
Both Queen Gertrude and Claudius adjure Hamlet to cease his “unmanly grief” in order to accept Claudius “as of a father.” Shortly after the death of his biological father, Hamlet’s mother “married with [his] uncle,” a horrific act of incest. Since Hamlet fears his father’s memory and glory will fade as more people cease mourning him, Hamlet desperately clenches his grief and disapproves of his mother’s elevated mood. Consequently, Hamlet feels “prompted to [his] revenge by heaven and hell,” for Hamlet’s killing of Claudius eliminates the new king’s opportunity to surpass his father’s accomplishments. As a result, this prevention of the human condition led to Hamlet’s own death. In Brave New World, the society exploits gametes to produce “ninety-six identical twins” through the “Bokanovsky’s Process,” “one of the major instruments of social stability.” Sacrificed for the prosperity of the nation, new life is created to work in factories with their fellow siblings. Unlike Hamlet, these people do not express passion, hatred, or love for one another, for they are simply “the products of a single bokanovskified egg.” In order to impose this suppression of one’s human condition, the government offers “a bonus amounting to six months’ salary” to anyone who gives up their gametes, implying the people must feel inclined to continue this vicious cycle of