Aldous Huxley makes love, not war

The sources we used to create this website :

Websites:

http://mesresumesdelecture.blogspot.com/2007/05/biographie-daldous-huxley.html

http://personales.upv.es/jarnau/Fotos/FotosMaria.htm

http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/issues/091008/depgaz9.html

http://reidsreader.blogspot.com/2011/09/something-old_26.html

http://www.daily-pulp.com/literature/the-gioconda-smile/

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_most_shocking_fact_about_war_is_that_its/163343.html

http://summarycentral.tripod.com/bravenewworld.html

http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/people/pp-huxley.html

http://books.google.fr/books?id=ZuBkUrNPvb8C&pg=PA119&dq=aldous+huxley+love&hl=fr&ei=afHoTtXJCYa7hAeB1NzNCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=aldous%20huxley%20love&f=false

Books :

• Huxley in Hollywood By David King Dunaway, Bloomsburry edition
• Crome Yellow, Aldous Huxley
  
• Brave New world, Aldous Huxley
  
• Point Counter Poin, Aldous Huxley 
• Gioconda's smile, Aldous Huxley
  
• Antique Hay, Aldous Huxley 
• Island, Aldous Huxley 
  
• The genius and the Goddess, Aldous Huxley 

What we can notice about Huxley's stories is that there is no happy married couple.

He was not a romantic, at least not in the literary meaning of the word. The sexual aspect of love is not important for him. All the relationships he describes in his writings, marital or not, are only leading to pain.

The men are often weak : Denis, in Crome yellow, doesn't manage to tell his feelings to Anne, and when he tries to, he's rejected and even laughed at.

In Brave New world, Bernard Marx and the Savage want the same woman, called Lenina. Though she is willing, they feel guilty about succumbing to their pulsions.

In the Genius and the Goddess, John Rivers loves his employeer's wife.

In Island, Will feels guilty for Molly's death. He thinks that putting an end to their relationship has led her to her car crash.

The feelings of jealousy and cruelty are often present too. For example, Walter Bildlake, in Point Counter Point, is subjected to humiliation by Lucy Tantamount, his mistress, when she tells him about her other lovers.

In Antic Hay, Casimir Lypiatt is sad because the woman he loves doesn't love him.

Men are not only weak, but also blind. Some of them don't notice their women are cheating on them. This is the case for Lord Edward Tantamount, in Point Counter Point, or Henry Marteens in the Genius and the Goddess.

Some of the women seem insensitive, like Mary in Crome Yellow, or Lucy Tantamount in Point Counter Point.

We can wonder why, a man who seemed happy in his private life, didn't write about one single happy couple. Maybe he had an ideal that he couldn't reach, and this bitterness was transcribed in his writings.

The theme of love is very important in this short story. In fact, we have several couples and ambiguous relationships:

• Mr. and Mme Hutton (Emily): they were married but Emily got ill and died.
• Mr. Hutton and Janet Spence      
• Mr. Hutton and Doris             

Mr. Hutton wooed those two ladies whereas he was still married to Mme Hutton. Moreover Doris called him “Teddy Bear”.

Mr. Hutton didn’t love his wife any more. So when she died, he was rather happy. But the death of Emily Hutton was suspicious, and he was suspected to be the murderer. In fact, after his first wife's death, he once again got married to Doris. In fact, when he was married to Emily, he was in love with Doris. We can read in the text:

• “Be serious, Teddy Bear. I want to know if this is right; if it’s right that I should be here with you and that we should love one another, and that it should give me electric shocks when you touch me. ”
• Sometimes I think I ought to stop loving you.
• Emily had been healthy and beautiful when he married her. He had loved her then. But now—was it his fault that she was like this?

So, here, we have the first triangle:

Afterwards, in Italy, his second wife tried to commit suicide because she had realized that her husband didn’t love her any more. She didn’t succeed and, after that, she learnt that she was pregnant.

Later in the story, Mr. Hutton had to appear in front of the Court for the crime of his first wife. All are against him. However, we learnt that it was Miss Spencer who had killed Emily Hutton for love.

In fact, she was completely in love with Mr. Hutton and her jealousy was so important that she had killed his first wife. Finally, we have the third triangle:

We can say that all those women fought for one man even if this man only wanted to be free and live alone. He is a lone wolf and a kind of Don Juan. He plays with girls so that they fall in love with him, but in reality, he just makes trouble around him. The women are so jealous of each other so that she can make the unforgivable sin: murder.

Crome Yellow

The main character in the story is Denis, a young writer. At Crome he tries to find inspiration to write a novel about love and art. But he’s not really focused on his book, because he is distracted, he tries to attract the girl of his dreams, Anna. He is jealous of Gombauld because he seduces Anne, Denis would like to be Anne’s boyfriend.

Brave new world

Brave new world is the fifth novel written by Huxley in 1931 and published in 1932. It’s an anticipation novel about a future society, set in the future : a story in which the industrial revolution transformed the world. One of the main characters, Bernard, likes a girl named Lenina, but she is already with a man named Henry. Even if she is in a relationship, she accepts a Rendezvous with Bernard, goes out with him and the date finishes with sex. The society described is organized for the pleasure of the people; they often have sex  with different people. Later in the story, John, who is the hero of the novel, falls in love with Lenina. Except for Lenina and John, there’s no real love in the story, they just have sex for the pleasure. Moreover in this society, having a child is a sin as adultery in our society. There’s no love feelings.

Huxley and war

Because Huxley was almost blind, he was declared unfit for military service during the First World War. He wrote a lot of essays about  war. He was deeply worried by the upheavals happening in the western civilization and wrote a lot of novels during this period. He was against war and nationalism and also a pacifist and a humanist (as in Eyeless in Gaza in which Huxley deals with pacifist theme). After the World War II, he asked for the American nationality, but he couldn’t have it because he had refused to fight to defend the USA.

Starting from this period, Huxley began writing and editing non-fiction works on pacifist issues, including Ends and mean, An Encyclopedia of Pacifism, and Pacifism and Philosophy, and was an active member of the Peace Pledge Union (which is a British non-governmental organization. If you join the PPU pledge, you sign this: "I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war." Its members work for a world without war and promote peaceful and non-violent solutions to conflict.

A quotation from Huxley about the war: “The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own”

Many of his writings are about the philosophy of pacifism which is the only way to bring the peace according to him. War can’t bring the peace because violent methods can’t create non-violent result. He said “People love to talk about a war to end war; they do not love to talk about a peace to end war”. Huxley developed these ideas in books such as Ends and Mean, and in articles gathered in Pacifism and Philosophy. Huxley wrote:“Our end is peace. How do we propose to realize this end? Experience makes it abundantly clear that, if we want to be treated with trust and affection by others, we must ourselves treat those others with trust and affection. If we play dirty tricks on them, we shall engender resentment, fear and hatred. Politicians affirm their desire to preserve peace; but the means they use are wholly inappropriate.”

Huxley also wrote about war: “War is not a law of nature, nor even a law of human nature. It exists because men wish it to exist....It is enormously difficult for us to change our wishes in this matter; but the enormously difficult is not the impossible.”

Huxley thought that the tendency to make war began when groups of people gathered around leaders who wanted domination. Huxley was in favor of an abolition of arms industry. Huxley said that:”What is needed is the complete abolition of the arms industry. It is possible: simply, abolition will come when the majorities wish it to come”.

In 1937, Huxley was disappointed by the League of Nation because it failed to achieve world peace and he criticized the way in which the League of Nation intervenes in conflict because it provides a military help to a victim of aggression, and as he said before, war is not a solution for peace. He said:”War is so radically wrong that any international agreement which provides for the extension of hostilities from a limited area to the whole world is manifestly based on unsound principles. Modern war destroys with the maximum of efficiency and the maximum of indiscrimination, and therefore entails the commission of injustices far more numerous and far worse than any it is intended to redress.”

Huxley has no doubt:”War cannot be stopped by more war. All that more war can do is widening the area of destruction and place new obstacles in the way of reaching a just and humane settlement of international disputes.”

In the essay Ends and Mean there’s a chapter called “War” which is a description of how nationalism, communism, religion and other 'idolatries' can give people a misleading sensation of meaning and purpose. People have been ready, as a result, mistakenly 'to make sacrifices, accept hardships, display courage and fortitude - and indeed all the virtues except the primary ones: love and awareness'. Without these crucial qualities - genuine humaneness and caring - we are doomed to stay on the wrong road, the road that leads to violence and war. Huxley wrote that peaceful future depends on what people do on their own and in groups.        
He said that nonviolence “can be used by quite ordinary people and even, on occasion, by those morally sub-human beings, kings, politicians, diplomats and the other representatives of national groups, considered in their professional capacity.... Out of business hours these beings may live up to the most exacting ethical standards.”                        

Laura Archera

She was born on November,2nd in 1911 in Turin, Italy. When she was 10 year old, she began to learn violin. Then she continued to study this instrument in great capitals of Europe as Rome, Paris and Berlin. When she was 14 years old, she played in front of the Queen of Italy. It is also in this country that she received a Professor of Music degree.

After a career of musician, she began writing. In 1949, she was a freelance documentary filmmaker. Thanks to her work, she contacted Aldous Huxley demanding help for a screenplay. Since that moment, they built a strong relation and became friends.

In 1956 she married Aldous Huxley. In 1963, after her beloved’s death, she wrote This Timeless Moment: a personal view of Aldous Huxley. She also wrote other books on human relation.

In 1977, she created an organization about the nurturing of the possible human. Its name is Our Ultimate Investment.

On December 2003, she was honored by receiving the 6^th recipient of the Tomas R. Verny by the Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health. She was rewarded for her work in prenatal and perinatal psychology.

She died on December 13th,2007 at her house in Hollywood because of a cancer.

Here is the list of her books:

-You Are Not the Target (written in 1963)

-This Timesless Moment (written in 1969)

-Between Heaven and Earth (written in 1974)

-Oneaday Reason to be Happy (written in 1986)

-The Child of Your Dreams (written in 1987)

Maria Nys

  Maria was born on the 31st of March in 1898 in Neerijse, Belgium. In 1914, she left Belgium because of the German invasion. Then she lived at Lady Ottoline Morrell Manor and there, she met Aldous Huxley. After that, they got married on July,10th in 1919 in Bellem, Belgium. One year later, she brought a son into the world. His name was Matthew. Maria was a good mother and wife for around 35 years. She died of breast cancer on 12 February 1955 in Hollywood.

Aldous Huxley and his wives

            Aldous Huxley got married twice: in 1919 with Maria Nys and in 1956 with Laura Archera. 

 In 1915, he joined the group of Lady Ottoline Morrell in her manor at Garsington and met a lot of artists like Lytton Strachey, Vanessa and Clive Bell Duncan Grant, Bertrand Russell… But also his future wife Mary Nys ( the second woman to the left). In 1919, they married and one year later they got a son called Matthew.

All the family would travel and visit India and the United States. Moreover, during the twenties, they lived in Italy and also went to France in the area of Sanary. Then they left for Hollywood to live a new life. In fact Aldous was a bit tired of the Old Europe.  Afterwards, they set up in Southern California and a little bit in Toas, New Mexico. In 1955, Maria got breast cancer. To relieve pain from her, Aldous used the hypnosis in order to remind his wife of her happier memories. However, this help was inadequate and she died the same year .

In 1956, Aldous Huxley got married to Laura Archera. Aldous and Maria had met her in 1949. Unfortunately, Aldous and his second wife wouldn’t spend long years together even if they had fun exploring the real world and the drugs’ one. Indeed he learnt that he was suffering from a laryngeal cancer in 1960. Seven years after their wedding, as he was on his deathbed and couldn't speak, he wrote to his wife to make him an intramuscular injection of 100µg of LSD. A few hours later, he passed away. Laura joined him when she was 96 years old.

( Huxley and Laura Archera )

ALDOUS HUXLEY : MAKES LOVE, NOT WAR

I. His private life

A. Love

B. War

II. His writings

III. Bibliographie

Made by MEYER Fréderique, PUZIACK Jennifer & MIRKOVIC Eva .