Make Your Way 6, Schulbuch mit Audio-CD und CD-ROM

Read the extract. It is a conversation between the “controller”, who is a kind of president of England, and the “savage”, who has grown up wild outside the “civilised” world. Then discuss the questions below. “The world’s stable now – people are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They have enough money, they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; there is no suffering and no old age; people have no mothers or fathers; no wives, or children, or loves to feel strongly about; they can’t help behaving the way we want them to behave. And if anything goes wrong, if anything unpleasant happens, there’s soma to help you forget your problems. And there’s always soma to calm your anger, to make you patient and long suffering. Soma , which you have just thrown out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr Savage. Liberty.” He laughed. “You want Deltas to know what liberty is! And now you want them to understand Shakespeare’s Othello!” The Savage was silent for a little while. “All the same,” he insisted, “Othello’s good, Othello’s better than those feelies .” “Of course it is,” the controller agreed, “but that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and high art. We’ve chosen already: we have no more high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead.” … The Savage shook his head. “It all seems to me quite horrible.” “Of course it does. Actual happiness always looks horrible to clever people. And of course, stability is boring. And being contented isn’t as romantic as fighting against misfortune, or as picturesque as struggling with temptation, or suffering from passion and doubt. Happiness is never grand …” “I don’t want comfort,” said the Savage. “I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.” “In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.” “All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.” “Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to live in constant fear of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.” There was a long silence. “I claim them all,” said the Savage at last. Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. “You’re welcome,” he said. all the same: trotzdem, wie auch immer grand: erhaben, prachtvoll typhoid [ }taçfOçd ]: Typhus You’re welcome: hier: Bitte, wie Sie wollen … 1 Which of the happiness quotes from the previous exercise do you think the controller would agree with? 2 Which do you think the savage would agree with? 3 What does the controller think makes people happy? (Find at least 5 things in the text.) 4 Why does the savage “claim the right to be unhappy?” 5 What do you think these things are: the feelies, the scent organ 6 The anti-depressant drug Prozac, a modern “designer drug”, is said to have very few side effects and comes close to Huxley’s fictitious soma . Do you think it should be given to people (with or without their knowledge)? 9 1 Extensive unit 1: The pursuit of happiness Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv