Power point presentation about Huxley's main data and ideas.

1. (1894-1963) AldousHuxley

2. English novelist and critic. Besides novels he published travel books, histories, poems, plays, and essays on philosophy, arts, sociology, religion and morals. Huxley was born in Godalming(finest countryside in southern England in the county of Surrey) on July 26, 1894, into a well-to-do upper-middle-class family. Best known for his dystopian novel Brave New World (1931).

3. Wrote Brave New World "between the wars“ British society was officially at peace, but the social effects of the Great War were becoming apparent. Huxley and his contemporaries wrote about changes in national feeling, questioning of long-held social and moral assumptions, and the move toward more equality among the classes and between the sexes. London, nearly six hundred years in the future ("After Ford"). Human life has been almost entirely industrialized — controlled by a few people at the top of a World State.

4. Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, founder of the Ford Motor Company and developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. He is credited with "Fordism", that is, mass production of inexpensive goods coupled with high wages for workers. Ford had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace. ”Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success” Henry Ford

5. When Huxley was fourteen his mother died. At the age of 16 Huxley suffered an attack of keratitis punctata and became for a period of about 18 months totally blind. Huxley's style, a combination of brilliant dialogue, cynicism, and social criticism, made him one of the most fashionable literary figures of the decade. In the 1930s he moved to Sanary, near Toulon, where he wrote Brave New World, a dark vision of a highly technological society of the future.

6. In the1930s Huxley was deeply concerned with the Peace Pledge Union. In 1954 Huxley published an influential study of consciousness expansion through mescaline, The Doors Of Perception and became later a guru among Californian hippies. He also started to use LSD and showed interest in Hindu philosophy. In 1961 Huxley suffered a severe loss when his house and his papers were totally destroyed in a bush-fire. Huxley died in Los Angeles on November 22, 1963

7. "Utopia," from the Greek words for "no place" and "good place" Most popular writer of utopian fiction was H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine (1895), The War of the Worlds (1898), A Modern Utopia (1905)

8. The first scene, offering a tour of a lab where human beings are created and conditioned according to the society's strict caste system, establishes the antiseptic tone and the theme of dehumanized life. The natural processes of birth, aging, and death represent horrors in this world. World where material comfort and physical pleasure — provided by the drug soma and recreational sex — are the only concerns. Loss of freedom and individuality a small price to pay for stability.