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Soma In Brave New World

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In Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World, Huxley uses the motif of soma to allude to the seemingly utopian but in reality, dystopian society that has been created. Throughout the novel soma is used by the government to keep control of society, it keeps the people calm, peaceful and most importantly distracts them from the truth. John the savage is the only one to realize the truth, he refers to the people as “less than human monsters”(212) allowing the reader to use John to see the dystopian part of society. Every time someone or something tries to disrupt the world order, the government will use soma to distort the perception. When John realizes the truth and starts to cause a riot, the police showed up “with spraying machines buckled to their shoulders pumped thick clouds of soma vapour into the air.” (214). The effects of that situation immediately turns the riot into a peaceful gathering. No even realizes what had just happened, the citizens no longer care either. The troubles are all gone thanks to their “amazing” government. One of the other ways that the government convinces the …show more content…
Linda cries when she finally finds people from her old life. The happiness she feels is because she finally has some hope to return to civilization and back to the dystopian society. Within the first minute of speaking with Lenina and Bernard she brings up “not having a gramme of soma”(120). She tries to get as close to civilization as she can by drinking “mescal”(120). She was not concerned with many other things she just couldn’t wait for “the return to soma.” (154). When she was talking about how she was forced to live she said “everything they do is mad”(121). But what she fails realize was that she was able to make her own decisions, and live freely. The government has learned to cover that part up so well that she thinks it’s madness to live without their

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