FORDISM AND THE MECHANIZATION OF HUMAN LIFE: A NEW HISTORICIST READING OF ALDOUS HUXLEY’S BRAVE NEW WORLD

Abstract

This research studies Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World from a New Historicist framework to explore how it critiques the ideology of Fordism in early twentieth-century Britain. Methods like mass production, standardization, and efficiency; not only shaped industrial practices but they also impacted cultural and social values. This research further argues that Huxley portrays these industrial principles as a system in holistic way that leads to the mechanization and control of human birth, behavior, and social organization which has adverse effects on these individuals and the society they live in. Through a detailed qualitative and systematic analysis of Brave New World, this study sheds light on the cultural anxieties and fears of industrial control over people’s minds and emotions through different tools of control. The study is qualitative in nature wherein the text is studied through different theoretical angles. Furthermore, by viewing Fordism as a cultural discourse, this research illustrates how Brave New World exposes the transformation of human beings into standardized, mechanical units whose individuality is compromised with efficiency in a highly industrial order. The study is significant specifically in twenty first century as it opens new avenues of knowledge for future researches in the field of new historicism and its application on literary texts.  It is worth considering as it exposes how modern economic trends impact cultural and social values and transform individuals into robots devoid of any feelings and emotions.  Ultimately, the research places the novel as a product of the discourse of Fordism and a critique of its dehumanizing consequences.