Previous
Metaphors
Definition of Mood
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect of a piece of writing... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes... read full definition
Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis:
The mood in Brave New World is consistently bleak; in fact, beyond sadness, the novel verges into all manner of discomfiting emotions. For a dystopian novel, this is par for the course—it is, after all, a principal goal of most dystopian novelists to generate a foreboding, unsettling mood, with the hopes of warning their readers about future and present societal dangers.
In many places in the novel, the mood verges on terrifying—particularly when dystopian scenes parallel or directly draw upon real and familiar issues. Such scenes amplify a mood of fear, anxious anticipation, and terror because, given the right circumstances, these terrifying events could plausibly occur in the real world.
In Chapter 15, for example, a policemen successfully subdue the riot started by John, using aerially distributed soma (a mind-altering drug) to immediately pacify the Deltas:
The policemen pushed him out of the way and got on with their work. Three men with spraying machines buckled to their shoulders pumped thick clouds of soma vapour into the air. Two more were busy round the portable Synthetic Music Box. Carrying water pistols charged with a powerful anæsthetic, four others had pushed their way into the crowd and were methodically laying out, squirt by squirt, the more ferocious of the fighters.
This scene is terrifying because it parallels real-world police violence in protest settings. Given access to such mind-altering drugs, modern law enforcement could use them to disperse any protest, no matter how peaceful, that was deemed to threaten the state's power.
Related Themes:
