Fragrance of Biopower in Aldous Huxley’s
Fragrance of Biopower in Aldous Huxley’s

Summary/Abstract: This is an interdisciplinary study to show human manipulation through Foucault’s concept of biopower in Aldous Huxley’s Ape and Essence (1948). The anxieties of WII stimulated Aldous Huxley to express his fear about the dark future of humanity through composing Ape and Essence. In this dystopian fiction, Huxley illustrates a society in which the postwar government employs disciplinary systems to control and manipulate its citizens. In Ape and Essence, Huxley indicates that people and their lives are highly controlled and regulated by the totalitarian State. Not only are their minds controlled by the disciplines, but also physical bodies are disciplined into submission and literally taken away from their rightful owners, as people are considered the property of the State. Thus, their goals and ambitions revolve around satisfying the State’s needs. In this interdisciplinary study, we observe dystopia in Ape and Essence as a consequence of Foucauldian disciplinary system. Huxley shows after war, the totalitarian government employed disciplinary ways to control and manipulate people. This analysis investigates the effects of the nuclear bomb and disciplinary systems on humanity, and explores the ways through which humans have become dehumanized in Ape and Essence.

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