Chapter III - Overall Analysis

This chapter is quite important, as it brings together the past, present, and the future all into one component.

The past is represented by Mustapha Mond, the World Controller. He talks about how the world used to be with mothers, fathers, and babies born not decanted. Such talk makes the listening, eager Alpha students feel queasy and embarrassed. Ironic, seeing as not having a mother or father can likely make one in our society feel a tad embarrassed and awkward.

One of the more interesting quotes of the 'past' 's views is when Mustapha talks about pain and how life would be without conditioning and prohibitions (such as diseases and the endless agony of the uncertainties and poverty) and how the people would begin to feel strongly, "And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable?" (III, 35), thus stating simply that when one feels strong about something, instability will follow. This is actually true.
Think about when someone believes they are strongly in love - do they not feel as though their feelings are bursting at the seams, perhaps that their life is in utter chaos if they do not get to look upon that loved one's face or talk to them? Such strong feelings as this does create uncertainty and instability, but who doesn't want to feel that at some point in their life? Our lives are revolved around instability and uncertainty - every day we make decisions and have options. If we didn't, our lives would surely be stable but entirely boring.

During the 'past', there was talk of the Nine Years' War and how there were anthrax bombs being thrown everywhere and destroying many things. An interesting and ironic juxtaposition quote I found dealt with the anthrax bomb in comparison to flowers, "...some bits of flesh and mucus, a foot, with the boot still on it, flying through the air and landing, flop, in the middle of the geraniums - the scarlet ones; such a splendid show that summer!" (III, 41). Bits of flesh of the blown up victims were seen beautiful on the flowers. And it was even called a 'splendid show'. Messed up? Definitely, but what intrigues me is how unfeeling it sounds.
The society is based on not having strong feelings about anything, and when there is talk of dying in horrid ways on beautiful scarlet geraniums, there is no sense of feeling in the description. It may use descriptive words, but there is no true feeling behind it. Simply amazing how unfeeling their world seems.

The last thing I found interesting in this part of the chapter was the fact that the society seems to take the easy way out, or found the easiest way out, of everything. An example is soma - many take soma to get away from their distractions or their unwanted feelings. Why fight through pain when you can take a dosage of soma and drift off into your own little paradise? The society is lazy even though all they talk about is the fact they are making 'progress' such as the fact that older men do not retire, they continue to work as they are conditioned to feel no pleasure from leisure, and if they feel the need to escape, then there's soma conveniently placed into their possession. Therefore, the society is lazy and incompetent in the emotional side, but highly engineered in the working part of the society. Which makes me ponder if this is truly what 'stable' is.

The present is also represented in this chapter by Bernard Marx, Henry Foster, Lenina Crowne, and Fanny Crowne. They are the ones the story is mostly surrounded around and this chapter brings all their lives together into a woven path.

One of the most ironic parts in this chapter is when Fanny and Lenina are discussing men. Lenina has been seeing only Henry for four months which is gasp-resulting to Fanny. Fanny, being one of the most conventional girls in the book, talks about how it is horrible Lenina has only been giving herself to only one man, "Four months of Henry Foster, without having another man - why, he'd be furious if he knew..." (III, 35), which is highly ironic.
In our society and world, bigamy and multiple affairs with one another is seen as being a 'whore' and 'home-wrecker', but in their world it is offensive to not be with someone new each night. We would be furious if someone we were seeing was seeing someone else. They are not only highly persuaded to do so, but they are conditioned to do so. Perhaps they need the conditioning so that their humanistic instinct of morality is twisted. I believe this is obvious when Lenina and Fanny confess to one another that they sometimes feel that they need to make an effort to stick to the 'everyone belongs to everyone else' motto.

Going back to the thought of 'unfeeling' and emotionless of the society, I felt that it was also apparent in the 'future' portion of the chapter. For the 'future', they talk about the decanted babies and the conditioned children. When describing the decanted babies at the very end of the chapter, it gives you a sense of sensuality in the description but in reality it isn't. The decanted babies are thought as moving slowly and majestically and glimmering like rubies in the red darkness, but it seems emotionless again to me. There is just something about the 'rubies' in the red lighted basement that seems deadening to me.