Huxley and Scott

When they are considered together, how do Huxley and Scott’s representations sustain interest in humanity’s relationship with nature?

Huxley and Scott’s compositions engage the responder with humanity’s relationship with nature by emphasizing the importance of such a relationship to humanity’s survival. * Throughout both texts, the composers depict a strong relationship with nature as being integral to a strong understanding of human nature and thus the self. * Both Huxley and Scott employ the ‘everyman’ character as a way of both personifying humanity, with all its weaknesses and inconsistencies, and bringing the abstract romantic idea of a connection with nature into the daily struggle of the common man. * Both depict a society which, as a result of valuing self-gratification over nature, has become animalistic, apathetic, and base. * They also use the vehicle of satire not only to demonstrate in real terms how the degradation of a relationship with nature can degrade the human experience, but how, within the composers’ respective contexts, it is currently degrading the human experience at an abominable rate.
In Huxley and Scott’s worldviews, humanity’s relationship with nature is inextricably intertwined with humanity’s conception of itself. The inhabitants of Huxley’s Brave New World are kept sated by gratuitous technology – sex, soma and feelies suppress individual thought. The danger to this constructed acquiescence comes from the natural world, and great pains are taken to keep people away from it. In Brave New World, both the inhabitants of the BNW and John the Savage are held captive by their conditioning, though John’s conditioning displays a greater connection with human nature, as a result of his study of Shakespeare. Even though he cannot form thoughts without Shakespeare as a vehicle – ‘He would have liked to speak; but there were no words. Not even in Shakespeare.’, he is still more aware of his identity and that of the world around him than Bernard or Mustapha Mond; claiming the ‘right to be unhappy’. In Bladerunner, the inhabitants of Los Angeles are similarly apathetic to self-discovery, a perception which is created and stimulated by the overwhelming influence of technology in everyday life. The incessant hum of electronic devices in the first scene (Leon’s Voight-Kampff test) sets both the characters and the responder on edge, and becomes, throughout the film, an analogy for the greater role of technology in the disconnection of society with their true nature – technology as a force is not organized and regulated by a governmental power as in BNW, but rather is the power driving social interactions and personal growth (or lack thereof). A similar effect is created with the film noir-esque use of fans and blinds in hazy light to create flickers of inconstant light and dark, representative of the confusion and lack of surety amongst the inhabitants of Bladerunner’s Los Angeles.
The characterization of the central characters in both texts is integral to our understanding of the alienating effect of technology and distancing from nature on the individual psyche within each society. An important point to note, however, is that neither text focuses overly on its main character. In BNW this creates a sense of fragmentation and is aided by the opening chapters which are clinical, impersonal, and do not introduce any main characters. Similarly, in BR, the establishing shot encompasses the whole city, indicating the greater societal involvement in the narrative, and the first scene is again impersonal, introducing the technology rather than the personalities as in BNW. These features emphasise the prominent role of technology in each of the fictitious worlds, opposing the little-valued individual persona. In BNW, Bernard fills the role of the ‘everyman’ – the flawed human being we simultaneously empathize with and despise. Whilst at the beginning of the story his resentment of Lenina being seen as ‘so much meat’ is noble and applaudable, his pitiful reaction to Mond’s announcement that he would be sent away to an island at the end of the novel shows his degeneration into a sniveling beggar of the BNW regime. Lenina is a perfect representation of the BNW, and as each character courts her, first Bernard, then John, their true feelings about the suppression of natural behavior (in regard to sex) come out. In BR the everyman is Deckard, and as he comes to question his own humanity in regards to replicant status, it leads us to question our own humanity – if not our natural compassion, love and selflessness (all traits Roy Batty exhibits) what is it that makes us human? Whilst administering the Voight-Kampff test to Rachel, he asks her what he would do with a boy who killed butterflies for his collection (ironically using animals in a test for empathy in a world without nature), and later, as he kills Zhora, she bursts through a glass window in a plastic raincoat, creating the image of the butterfly in the killing jar foreshadowed by the test. In this moment Deckard’s humanity is in question, yet he is unperturbed by it – showing him, like Bernard, as a mere product of the commercialised, apathetic times he lives in.
A relationship with nature is seen as foremost in the creation of a humanized society in both BNW and BR; lack thereof is typified by a loss of individualism, lack of religious or philosophical belief, cheap happiness in the form of consumerism, and an undercurrent of fear and violence. Both societies demonstrate this. The mantra ‘everyone belongs to everyone else’, which applies a consumerism outlook to sex as recreation shows a Brave New World which devalues its individual citizens. The scene depicting the conditioning of Deltas to hate flowers and books is evident of this, and of a fear of the romantic ideal of nature providing inspiration. The Director of Hatcheries’ comment that ‘Primroses and landscapes have one fatal flaw…they are gratuitous’ sees nature as only useful in a commercial sense. The mise-en-scene of Bladerunner shows a fragmented society in which each individual is alone in their misery, but worth nothing – the rain juxtaposed against the neon lights of the billboards and signs and the drab clothing and appearance of the inhabitants create a picture of a diseased society, one in which the absence of nature is palpable. The absence of nature in both texts is the catalyst for the discontent suffered by the protagonists.
Within the societal contexts of both BNW and BR there was a growing trend away from nature – post-industrial revolution in Huxley’s 1930s, and towards consumerism in Scott’s 1980s. Both play upon the fears of their respective contexts – Huxley satirises the fear of totalitarianism in his all-encompassing government, highlighting how a society which steals the individual rights of its citizens is not necessarily overtly violent or unstable – indeed, the BNW is known for its stability. BR plays upon the latent cultural fears of the 1980s of a Japanese invasion and the resultant incomprehension and alienation in one’s own country. The rise of consumerist culture is satirized in Scott’s BR, and it is the quest for material satisfaction in both texts which leads to a gradual distancing from nature, which results in the breakdown of the family unit and a loss of individuality. However, both texts also include elements of their current societies as part of the dystopian image, showing how their respective contexts find themselves increasingly distanced from nature, and how the ramifications are present even in the real societies. The realization then, that the responder gains, is one of recognition – that their relationship with nature is so incredibly dysfunctional as to be mirroring the symptoms epitomized in the worlds of BNW and BR.
Humanity’s relationship with nature is intrinsic to an understanding of self – a viewpoint exposited in both Huxley’s BNW and Scott’s BR. Through alternating emphasis of the alienation and overinclusiveness felt by inhabitants of the texts’ respective worlds, they show the havoc wreaked by a dysfunctional relationship with nature. The characters of Bernard and Deckard are by turns sympathetic and pitiable, and they draw us into the BNW and BR dystopias, which are, by nature (ironically), apathetic and base. Both composers ultimately sustain interest in humanity’s relationship with nature by demonstrating the effects of a bad relationship on society as a whole, and holding mirrors up to their own society to show just how disintegrated the relationship between their society and nature truly is.