Primitivism in We and Brave New World / Biz ve Cesur Yeni Dünya’da İlkelcilik

• Main Author: Hakan Çörekçioğlu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cyprus International University 2016-05-01
• Series: Folklor/Edebiyat
• Subjects: dystopia; anti-primitivism; Shakespeare; culture; noble savage
• Online Access: http://www.folkloredebiyat.org/Makaleler/637582696_fe-86-6.pdf

With reference to the conceptual distinctions on the primitivist way of thinking by Arthur O. Lovejoy and George Boas, the aim of this article is to make a comparative analysis of primitivist thought in My (We) of Yevgeny Zamyatin and Brave New World of Aldous Huxley. Literary and philosophical primitivism is an immanent tendency in the history of Western thought, and, with its various versions, it leaves its mark on literary dystopia in the twentieth century. Primitivist discourse appears in We within the narrative of Mephi, as well as in Brave New World’s narrative of Malpais. In the context of the theme of travel peculiar to utopian fiction, Mephi and Malpais represent return to nature from civilization. Both narratives have hard primitivist content, but this primitivism is fictionalised positively in the Mephi narrative, whereas it is negative in Malpais. In spite of this disparity, the primitivist way of thinking is employed in both texts as a critical norm aganist the current state. Thus, the primitivist discourse in We and in Brave New World turns into a starting point of the criticisim against scientific and technocratic totalitarianism. However, this primitivist discourse does not transform into a call of return to nature in both texts. We indicates the possibility of a synthesis between nature and culture by employing primitivism positively. Thus Zamyatin’s novel affirms a cultural order in which different aspects of human nature, that is, pathos and logos, are reconciled with each other. Conversely, Huxley’s novel includes a defence of culture by employing primitivism negatively, namely by developing an antiprimitivist discourse. Thus, returning to an ancient tradition and its prominent representative, Renaissance and Shakespeare, Brave New World affirms the moral consciousness against cultural evil. Accordingly, the alternative cultural order of We relies on the reunion of the natural and the cultural, but the alternative of Brave New World is the reformation of culture still with aid of the cultural.