The Pursuit of Something More than Happiness

“Being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.” (pg.195)

Brave New World I found this quote surprisingly truthful. There is no good story or song without strong emotions behind it. Simply being content is a very passive emotion that has little depth. It can be caused by much stronger emotions, such as love, but happiness itself is normal and unremarkable compared to pain and elation. Without other emotions, both good and bad, there is no excitement to life, and some people cannot bear to live life without that. Brave New World is about this choice- if people are perfectly content, most of society will be fine with that. However, some people need more to their lives than just surviving on the mediocre. In Brave New World, the “World State” has conditioned and controlled most of the human race so that they never do anything hard, they never have to make any difficult choices, and they are actually told to consume as much as possible. Suffering and pain is almost unthinkable. John, a “Savage” from a small, uncivilized reserve feels like an outsider because his mother was from the “World State”. He educated himself with Shakespeare and learned a lot about the human experience and the power of emotions. When he attempts to revolt against the Society, he claims “the right to be unhappy” as well as many horrible experiences and emotions. He realizes how important all of these are to the human experience and how they define us.