Chapter XVIII - Summary

Helmholtz and Bernard enter the Savage's room and hears him vomiting in the bathroom. When he emerges, John states that he is ill because he has eaten 'civilization'. He felt defiled and poisoned after his chat with the World Controller Mustapha Mond and 'ate his own wickedness'. Helmholtz and Bernard do not understand until the Savage confesses that he purified himself on purpose, just as the Indians used to do back in the Reservation. The Savage feels tired and Helmholtz is not surprised.
Watson and Bernard tell John that they have come to say good bye, as they are off for Iceland tomorrow morning (which was their punishment given by the World Controller). Bernard apologizes to John for his shameful behaviour the day before and John takes Bernard's hand affectionately in response. The three men were sad but their sadness was a result of the love for one another. Despite everything, they were all happy.

John cuts this silent happiness by stating that he was rejected by the World Controller to go to islands with Helmholtz and Bernard. The Controller wants him to go on with their experiment and John is furious. He decides with defiance that he will leave tomorrow as well - he does not know where but anywhere is good enough for him. All he wants is to be left alone.
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John finds himself at the old lighthouse the next morning. He found it to be almost too comfortable and too civilized luxurious. To compensate, he decided that he would make his self-discipline and purifications more extreme. He did not sleep that first night, but rather spent it praying to Heaven (which was compared to the way Claudius did in Hamlet), Awonawilona, Jesus, Pookong, and even to his guardian animal (as we learn is the eagle).
He would stretch his arms as though he were being crucified like Jesus to feel excruciating agony.

The next morning, he felt he had earned the right to inhabit the lighthouse. He would have gone somewhere else but the view from the vantage point was far too beautiful to pass up. Before leaving London, he spent the majority of the money he had received on the first day he had arrived on equipment for his alone time. He had bought blankets, rope, string, glue, tools, matches, pots and pans, seeds, and ten kilogrammes of wheat flour. The shopman had been able to persuade him to buy some of the civilized vitamin induced meat and biscuits and John stared at it bitterly. He decided he would not eat it, even if he was starving in order 'to teach them'.

John kept himself busy by creating a stave which brought him intense pleasure. He had yearned for anything that required skill when he was in London - anything that did not require him to flip a switch or press buttons. He was singing as he created his stave and felt guilty. He had escaped not to enjoy himself, but to escape the tainted civilized life.
As soon as the Savage realized that he was singing when he was supposed to remember Linda and his own unkindness to her, the loathsome Bokovansky twins that swarmed Linda's dying in sick interest, he went inside to drink mustard and water (the purification drink).

Three Delta-Minus workers had stumbled upon the Savage whipping himself with a whip of knotted cords on top of the hill. They stared in shock as John whipped his back eight times before he had to run to the forest's edge and throw up. John returned to continue his self-punishment while the Delta-Minus workers watched horrified.

A couple of days later, reporters came to the Savage while he was feathering the arrows he had just finished making. The reporter advanced toward the startled John, asking him if his readers could get a few words from him. The reporter had a microphone and a box that looked something similar to a jack-in-the-box toy. When the reporter asked him about his whip, the Savage was shocked that they knew about it. Suddenly John became erratic, and started yelling at the reporter in the Indian language, spun him around, and gave a most impressive kick. Eight minutes later, the headlines in London had 'HOURLY RADIO REPORTER HAS COCCYX KICKED BY MYSTERY SAVAGE'.

Many reporters came to see the Savage, and each time the Savage would kick each of them in the buttocks. One butt-whipped reporter told John angrily that he should take soma, which made John only more menacing.
After all this, the reporters began to start leaving him alone. They had started to come by airplanes and helicopters but after John was able to pierce one with his arrows they kept a safe distance. To ignore the tireless humming of the planes, John would tend to a garden he had created.

John was digging at his garden when he suddenly thought of Lenina and how she had mauled him while naked. Such thoughts of their 'eternity in their lips and eyes' made him spring to his feet and fling himself into bushes of thorny juniper. He embraced them as he would embrace the 'smooth body of his desires' and tried to think of Linda whom he had sworn to remember, however Lenina was the one who haunted his thoughts.
When the thoughts did not stop, he ran to his whip and began to whip himself of such terrible thoughts of utter bliss.
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The Feely Corporation's expert photographer was watching the entire proceedings from his hiding place of three days in an artificial trees. We learn that he has hidden microphones throughout the heather and has been taping the Savage's brutality on his self. Twelve days later, the brutality was felt and heard in every first-class feely palace in Western Europe.
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As John dug into his garden and pondered about death and why Linda had to die, "as flies to wanton boys as we to the gods; they kill us for their sport" (XVIII, 224) which are the infamous words of Gloucestor in King Lear. John wonders why Gloucestor would call them 'ever-gentle gods' and if he slept the sleep of death, what dreams were be conjured?
John's silence from the annoying humming of helicopters was suddenly soured.
Hundreds of people came flocking out towards him and John tried to retreat, only to be cornered like a beast. When John growled for them to leave him alone, they cheered and asked for the whip.
John was happy to oblige to their request and there was a cheer of ironical applause. John started towards the crowd with his whip but was taken back when the crowd did not falter.

The Savage asked confused what they wanted from them and they answered back in an uproar of "we want the whip". Another helicopter had arrived and John paled at the sight of the woman who entered from it - Lenina. She smiled at him and mouthed something that he could not hear over the "we want the whip!" chanting. She was beautiful as usual but had a distressed look of yearning upon her face. Her tears flowed down her peach cheeks and she stepped forward with arms stretched out to John.

The Savage flipped and began to race towards Lenina, throwing his whip around like a madman. Lenina tried to run back towards the helicopter, calling desperately to Henry who was hiding behind the helicopter like a coward.

The crowd was ecstatic as they trampled towards the centre of attraction - "pain was a fascinating horror" (XVIII, 227).

John slashed again at Lenina but began to slash himself in punishment.

The crowd stared fascinated at the horror and pain being inflicted. They were compelled to copy him and began to do as he did. They stroke at one another just as John was doing to himself and as he had to the pneumatic Lenina writhing in the heather at his feet.

As the Savage yelled "kill it" about his flesh, someone began to sing 'orgy-porgy' and the crowd began to dance...
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A little after midnight, the last of the helicopters left. The Savage was lying in the heather, rendered a victim to the soma and the sexual sensuality of 'orgy-porgy'.

When he awoke the next afternoon, as the sun was high in the sky, he remembered everything. He cried, 'Oh God' in horror.

A swarm of helicopters came again that evening - the night before's orgy of atonement was all over the papers. They called out for the Savage but there was no answer. They entered into the opened doored lighthouse and found a pair of dangled feet underneath the arch.
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"Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; the paused, and after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left.
South-south-west, south-south-east, east..." (XVIII, 229).