No. Brave New World is a comedy.
Comedy is focused on society, while tragedy is focused on the individual. Clearly,
Huxley's targets are societal.
Brave New
World is a dystopian science fiction satire to be exact. The novel parodies
several people, places, and things--namely totalitarianism. Satires are meant to
ridicule and exaggerate human weakness and folly. Huxley's attacks are not subtle: he
names names (Ford, Lenin, Marx, etc...)
A tragedy is much
more focused than Brave New World. Tragedies are streamlined for
disaster from the start. Brave New World doesn't even introduce
its most important character, John, until about half-way through the novel.
Brave New World lacks the unity of place, unity of action, and
unity of time to be a tragedy. Brave New World is a novel of
ideas: it doesn't conform to any rules or genres. In fact, it tries to break
them.
John is certainly not a tragic hero: he is too naive
and immature, not noble enough, has too many weaknesses. He's more of a Byronic
Hero--wounded by love, self-destructive. He does not have a tragic flaw or make a
mistake in judgement that leads directly to his suffering and death. He's more of a
victim of social evil.
Although the novel has some tragic
elements (John's death), the novel--as a whole--is definitely not a tragedy. Here's
some reasons why:
Tragedy
VS. Comedy
- acceptance of life
vs. rejection of life - shows
man's great potential vs. shows man's limitations,
foibles - shows the dignity and courage of
man vs. mocks excess - high
character vs. exaggeration and
caricature - man in godlike state vs.
folly, incongruity of human
behavior - hero has a tragic flaw vs.
hero has many
weaknesses
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