Daily Discussion Stems - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Daily Discussion Stems

Brave New World

& YouSlide2

A Day→ Respond to the following passage. Initial reaction? Larger implication? Purpose to story?

Chapter 1:

“But why do you want to keep the embryo below par”? Asked an ingenious student.

“Ass!” said the Director, breaking a long silence. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that an Epsilon embryo must have an Epsilon environment as well as an Epsilon hereditary?”

It evidently hadn’t occurred to him. He was covered with confusion. Slide3

Respond to the following prompt. Initial reaction? Larger implication? Purpose to story?

The World State Motto is “Community.Identity.Stability.” Based off this motto and your knowledge of Chapter 1, how accurate is this motto? Explain using at least one example of evidence from the text.Slide4

B Day→ Respond to the following passage. Initial reaction? Larger implication? Purpose to story?

Chapter 2:

“In brief,” the Director summed up, “the parents were the father and the mother.” The smut that was really science fell with a crash into the boys’ eye-avoiding silence. “Mother,” he repeated loudly rubbing in the science; and, leaning back in his chair, “These,” he said gravely, “are unpleasant facts; I know it. But then most historical facts

are

unpleasant.”Slide5

April 24, 2017

*modified schedule*

Find a partner for a reading check. Find your own space.

Consult the B-Day seating chart on the front board.

Respond to today’s journal prompt. Slide6

B-Day→ Respond to the following passage. Initial reaction? Larger implication? Purpose to story?

Chapter 3:

He (the Controller) waved his hand; and it was as though, with an invisible feather wisk, he had brushed away a little dust, and the dust was Harappa, was Ur of the Chaldees; some spider-webs, and they were Thebes and Babylon and Cnossos and Mycenae. Whisk. Whisk—and where was Odysseus, where was Job, where were Jupiter and Gotama and Jesus? Whisk—and those specks of antique dirt called Athens and Rome, Jerusalem and the Middle Kingdom – all were gone. Whisk—the place where Italy had been was empty. Whisk, the cathedrals; whisk, whisk, King Lear and the Thoughts of Pascal. Whisk, Passion; whisk, Requiem; whisk, Symphony; whisk… Slide7

B-Day→ What do we learn about Helmholtz? With what is he truly struggling? How might that relate to the novel.

Chapter 4:

"Oh, as far as they go." Helmholtz shrugged his shoulders. "But they go such a little way. They aren't important enough, somehow. I feel I could do something much more important. Yes, and more intense, more violent. But what? What is there more important to say? And how can one be violent about the sort of things one's expected to write about? Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly—they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced. That's one of the things I try to teach my students—how to write piercingly. But what on earth's the good of being pierced by an article about a Community Sing, or the latest improvement in scent organs? Besides, can you make words really piercing—you know, like the very hardest X-rays—when you're writing about that sort of thing? Can you say something about nothing? That's what it finally boils down to. I try and I try…"Slide8

A-Day→ Respond to the following passage. What is the interaction between Henry and Lenina? How does it characterize the two?

Chapter 5:

"What a marvellous switchback!" Lenina laughed delightedly.

But Henry's tone was almost, for a moment, melancholy. "Do you know what that switchback was?" he said. "It was some human being finally and definitely disappearing. Going up in a squirt of hot gas. It would be curious to know who it was—a man or a woman, an Alpha or an Epsilon.…" He sighed. Slide9

Georgi Porgie

Georgie Porgie, Pudding and pie,

Kissed the girls and made them cry,

When the boys came out to play,

Georgie Porgie ran awaySlide10

B Day--> Bernard learns he is being relocated to Iceland. How does his reaction fit his character? Stray from it?

Chapter 6:

Often in the past he had wondered what it would be like to be subjected (soma-less and with nothing but his own inward resources to rely on) to some great trial, some pain, some persecution; he had even longed for affliction. As recently as a week ago, in the Director's office, he had imagined himself courageously resisting, stoically accepting suffering without a word. The Director's threats had actually elated him, made him feel larger than life. But that, as he now realized, was because he had not taken the threats quite seriously, he had not believed that, when it came to the point, the D.H.C. would ever do anything. Now that it looked as though the threats were really to be fulfilled, Bernard was appalled. Of that imagined stoicism, that theoretical courage, not a trace was left. (6.3.36)Slide11

Mini Society Activity

Plan: In small groups of your choosing, start working through how you may form your utopian society.

Questions to consider:

What do you value?

How will you run your government (democracy, dictatorship, etc.)?

What type of world does your society exist in?

Do: In your groups, create a MOTTO for your new society, a brief description of its structure (even if it’s nonsensical--you are just brainstorming), and what makes it utopian. Slide12

A Day→ After John leads Lenina and Bernard to Linda, she recounts her experiences. Using the snippet below, what social commentary is Huxley making on society? How is it ironic?

Chapter 7

“This beastly wool isn't like acetate. It lasts and lasts. And you're supposed to mend it if it gets torn. But I'm a Beta; I worked in the Fertilizing Room; nobody ever taught me to do anything like that. It wasn't my business. Besides, it never used to be right to mend clothes. Throw them away when they've got holes in them and buy new. 'The more stitches, the less riches.' Isn't that right? Mending's anti-social. But it's all different here. It's like living with lunatics. Everything they do is mad."Slide13

B Day→ Oh, Lenina, Oh, the hypocrisy.

Chapter 8:

“It is finished,” said old Mitsima in a loud voice. “They are married.”

“Well,” said Linda, as they turned away, “all I can say is, it does seem like a lot of fuss to make about so little. In civilized countries, when a boy wants to have a girl, he just...But where

are

you going, John?”Slide14

B Day→ Respond to the below quote; it is a conversation between Henry and the Director. Do you agree with the Director’s assessment of the greater good? Can you rationalize his argument?

Chapter 10:

“The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the matter dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behaviour. Murder kills only the individual–and, after all, what is an individual?" With a sweeping gesture he indicated the rows of microscopes, the test-tubes, the incubators. "We can make a new one with the greatest ease–as many as we like. Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself. Yes, at Society itself," he repeated. Slide15

Respond to the following quote. Also consider the “Forced Smiles” article.

Chapter 12

“Do you remember when we first talked together? Outside the little house. You’re like what you were then.

“Because I’m unhappy again; that’s why.”

“Well, I’d rather be unhappy than have the sort of false. Lying happiness you were having here.” Slide16

Consider the discussion between Fanny and Lenina. What do you make of Lenina’s desire for John? What drives her desire?

"But it's absurd to let yourself get into a state like this. Simply absurd," she repeated. "And what about? A man—one man."

"But he's the one I want."

"As though there weren't millions of other men in the world."

"But I don't want them."

"How can you know till you've tried?"

"I have tried." Slide17

How does science function in this society? Explain Mustapha Mond’s perspective on science and society.

Chapter 16 →

“It's the same with agriculture. We could synthesize every morsel of food, if we wanted to. But we don't. We prefer to keep a third of the population on the land. For their own sakes – because it takes longer to get food out of the land than out of a factory. Besides, we have our stability to think of. We don't want to change. Every change is a menace to stability. That's another reason why we're so chary of applying new inventions. Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy. Yes, even science."Slide18

Consider this conversation between Mond and The Savage. Responses? Reactions?

Chapter 17

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”

“All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.” “Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat’ the right to be louse’ the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow.” Slide19

RIP John

Now that we have finished the book, answer the following question:

Why does Huxley rely so heavily on Shakespearian allusions and not on some other author/playwright?

Consider your characters and the influence Shakespeare had/has.