Eugenics in Brave New World: A New Historicist Reading

Abstract

In Brave New World, eugenics translates into a practice that not only enhances the performance of certain social classes but also encourages sterilization, discrimination, and standardization of citizens on the assumption that anti-social behaviors are genetically inherited. However, a new historicist reading of the novel attempts to show that the eugenic practices of the leaders of the World State are inspired by classical eugenic methods. It argues that the social problems such as delinquency, alcoholism, and poverty that leaders in Brave New World seek to control stem from social injustice. The analysis, therefore, reveals that negative eugenics (eliminating the bad genetic stock responsible for anti-social behaviors) using technoscience cannot be a solution to a problem caused by social injustice. Nevertheless, the paper argues that the survival instinct pushes humans to practice eugenics in order to pass on to their descendants a genetic stock that allows them to adapt and survive in an ever-changing world.