Study Help Practice Projects

1. Write a short sequel to Brave New World, exploring the life of Helmholtz and Bernard on the Falkland Islands. What kind of world do the banished men find? Is it truly free, or just another kind of conformity? Is one character more adaptable than the other? Create your sequel as a short story or a play.

2. The confrontation between Mond and John — the heart of the novel — represents a conversation between two diametrically opposed characters. Dramatize the discussion as a play for performance by crafting Huxley’s prose into believable dialogue as well as creating set design and costuming to support the future setting.

3. Many contemporary movies have drawn on Brave New World for inspiration in imagining a future world. Compile a filmography of those movies you believe draw on themes or atmosphere first presented in Huxley’s novel and explain why you have chosen them. (Possibilities might include Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

4. Taking the view of either an architect or set designer, imagine and design your own sketches or models of Huxley’s world.

5. In Huxley’s new introduction to his novel, he expresses regret that he did not imagine a “middle way” for John the Savage, between the “lunacy” of the Savage Reservation and the “insanity” of London. Sketch out a scenario in which you imagine another possibility for John’s life after leaving London that would create a more hopeful ending for the novel.