Chapter VI - Overall Analysis

Lenina is pondering about Bernard and if she should truly go with him to the Savage Reservation, inducing an internal conflict between her desires and her reputation. She also recalls a time when her and Bernard went out once and how tyrant that had been.
When Bernard gives the paperwork that allows he and Lenina to go to the Savage Reservation, the Director accidentally reveals a secret of how he had lost a woman there after they had been together. Also, Bernard and Lenina do go to the Savage Reservation and upon their arrival they experience the need for soma immediately.

I found Lenina to be really self-centered after this chapter. She ponders about the men she has been with on vacations and how they had taken her to places that did not satisfy her 'high-maintenance' needs. However, she was not sure that she should go with Bernard since he is so odd and queer.
She wishes he would be a little more normal, like Henry or Benito Hoover, which is ironic since Bernard wishes that Lenina was more interesting and not the perfect pneumatic girl in society that follows the procedures of the society to a tee. Bernard even tried to get an unusual reaction from Lenina on their first time out together, but it only ended up with Lenina crying and claiming that Bernard must take soma for his dreadful thoughts.

One of my favourite quotes from this chapter is when Bernard states, "But wouldn't you like to be free to be happy in some other way [than soma], Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else's way" (VI, 79), due to the fact that he tries very hard to make Lenina see that being different is exciting and something that she should try, but Lenina is disturbed by change and feels threatened and desperate.
It's interesting that he sees the society as it truly is - the society makes you feel an illusion of 'freedom' and 'happiness', when in reality it is controlling every thought and action one takes. It's frustrating that Lenina does not understand, but at the same time it's understandable. How could she understand when she is conditioned to not understand?
It is also frustrating that Bernard takes the soma in order to make Lenina feel better. I wish that his character could feel better about himself and more secure without the need for soma, but then I suppose the novel would not be as intriguing.

Another part in this chapter that I enjoyed was after the Director told his devastating story about the Savage Reservation to Bernard. Bernard felt importance after he left the Director's office - for since he knew a deep dark secret of the Director's, he was significant to someone. However, it was doomed to be ill-fated confidence and happiness since the significance was due to negativity. This brings a sense of fore-shadowing into the other chapters; Bernard's happiness would not last for long and something terrible is going to happen that causes him to be devastated and unhappy once again.

Once again, there is another example of how the society is emotionless. When Bernard and Lenina are at the Reservation, the Director there gives them a tour and explains how the Savages are born and are 'destined to die'. Instead of a horrified or any emotion really, Lenina stares vacantly and repeats, "You don't say" as she swallowed soma and Bernard is too busy freaking out in his mind about how he left his cologne faucet flowing and was losing a lot of money.
This gives greater detail into Lenina and Bernard's personality. Lenina is secretly a coward and needs to feel the effects of soma frequently to escape from the bad things in life. She is obviously self-centered to have taken soma in the first place so she would not have to listen to the Director's tour, which made me mad. Bernard is quite self-centered as well. He believes that everywhere he goes, someone is judging him or making fun of him. He also feels the need to brag to Helmholtz about everything little thing and creates lies to make his stories seem better than Helmholtz's (obviously due to envy).
These make them humanistic in my eyes, but it still bothers me. Why must they be so envious and self-centered? Are their conditioning methods creating this or is it because they are so emotionally undeveloped that they are so childish?
All in all, their child-like wants and needs bother me.