In the highly acclaimed novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley foresees a society where science, technology, and machines have stripped man of his individuality. He contrasts the identities of individuals conceived in a savage pre-assembly line world with those conceived in a fantastical utopian “A.F.” world to present a social commentary on the cultural identity crises the post industrial revolution world was experiencing following a significant turning point in the history of technological advances. Specifically, Huxley sees that significant turning point as the invention of the assembly line and the ability to mass-produce, an advancement led by Henry Ford, who Huxley treats symbolically as a Messianic figure. In the time post Ford, referred to as “A.F.” in the novel, individuals are made by the very machines man himself made. With the assembly line, society has the ability to mass clone humans stripping the individual of any unique quality. Predestination also strips the individual of any urge to arrive at his own identity or drive to attain individuality. Without individuality, people are reduced to being members of a very defined social class void of any unique characteristics. Huxley uses important re-occurring themes throughout his novel to highlight how the advancement of technology contributes to the dehumanization of mankind.
Born in 1894 Aldous Huxley grew up in a time where industries were booming.  In response to World War I, society worked in masses to produce supplies needed to support the war.  After the war ended, world super-powers such as England and the United States prospered; and new products and technology were quickly advancing. Radio became the newest major broadcasting medium, aviation was born, and most importantly, the automobile became available to many.  Considered the turning point in the world of technology and thought of as by some the “second industrial revolution,” it was a point in time when machines started to take over jobs which once required manual labor.
A seminal invention during this “second” revolution was the American Henry Ford’s Model T car, in which the idea of mass-production materialized and cars were readily accessible to a large percentage of Americans. The moving assembly line was a key to Ford’s widespread success allowing maximum efficiency of the equipment, tools, and parts needed to fabricate cars. Ford stated the new method “lifted the hard work off the back of men, and laid it on steel and machinery”. This efficiency was a boon to the automobile industry. Soon after Ford released his Model T car in 1908, the price of an automobile dropped from $850 to as low as $290; and by 1925, no fewer than 9100 cars were being made per day. The fact the an object as big and complicated as an automobile could be produced at such a rate was unbelievable, and the process of using a conveyor belt to form an assembly line was spread across all sorts of industries across the world.
