Iconicity in Huxley’s Brave New World

Abstract

Iconicity in language ‒ the similarity between a linguistic form and its meaning ‒ is considered an important factor for literary quality and is hence examined in Huxley’s Brave New World in the current article. Many examples of iconic language are eminent in this novel. This might enhance the novel’s aesthetic, creative, and artistic appeal as well as the reader’s potential identification with the strange and appalling world the novel describes. It is furthermore assumed that such a dystopian novel benefits from linguistic iconicity in that, for instance, rhymes in the form of certain slogans used by the characters in the novel support the stability of the depicted totalitarian system.