John is a peculiar character who feels the need to punish himself frequently. When he decides that he 'ate civilization' and then after ate his own wickedness, he punishes himself by vomiting in means to purify himself. This is only a simple and just way that John punishes himself; he does it again by spending his first night in the luxurious lighthouse praying to Jesus and his guardian animal (whom is an eagle, just like Pookong is), among other entities. He would even hold his arms up and out as though being crucified to experience tremulous and excruciating agony. Why? Simply because he is an extremist in begging for forgiveness and becoming 'clean' again.
The society and the people in it are extremely different compared to John; as though they are on opposite extreme sides of a spectra. John feeds off of religion and when he is in a situation that is impure or distasteful, which is not hard to come across in the society, he instantly feels the need to punish himself. For example, when John finds himself enjoying making tools while he is in the 'wilderness', he punishes himself for the fact of enjoyment. He is supposed to constantly remember the bad events that have occurred while he has entered the society (another method of punishment). Especially the thought of Lenina, and how she sauntered towards him completely naked, makes John instantly torture himself to undergo purification.
I could not imagine undergoing such painful punishment for every wrong or immoral thing I thought about. To be honest, I doubt I would be alive if I did that every single time.
The society, on the other hand, believe that the majority of what we would find immoral is delightful and right. They find the thought of purification unnecessary, as they have no wrongs that they can commit, nor would they have the desire to do so.
When crowds of people come to see John in his hiding place, he his shocked at what they want - the whip. For some ironic reason, they wish to see pain in all its glory. When Lenina starts coming towards John, he snaps and begins to slash Lenina with his whip. Instead of the people helping the poor woman, they whoop and stampede towards the centre of attraction, "Pain was a fascinating horror" (XVIII, 227), which is terrifying. Since the society is so used to their simple, working and lecherous lives, they do not know what true pain is. They are continuously happy and never have a bad feeling, and if they do then there's soma. They literally cheer and are fascinated by the horror of pain as John continues to slash at Lenina and then at himself.
What is incredible is the power of suggestion. Their conditioning has made the people of the society become a sponge - they soak up and re-enact anything that they see as new. They begin to slash and whip themselves, "drawn by the fascination of the horror of pain and, from within...that desire for unanimity and atonement, with their conditioning had so ineradicably implanted in them, they began to mime the frenzy of his gestures" (XVIII, 228); such indisputably terrifying reactions are ludicrous. They absorb and re-enact actions without even thinking, just as a child would do. It is ridiculous that such a population, all at once, can create and partake in such reckless and disturbing behaviour, and like it! It is a twisted sick world.
The most important part in this chapter is the ending. At the very end, we learn that John has hung himself and committed suicide - the most powerful punishment he could wreak upon himself. He committed in 'orgy-porgy' and participated in erotic play; he became one of the society's people. He was meant to suffer for eternity and instead, he became so wrapped up in the soma and the frenzy of sensuality, that he lost his control on morality. Thus, in order to purify himself of such a terrible act of immorality, he kills himself.
The most amazing thing is that nothing has changed in the society. Nothing. They are still childish, dead souls as the day John the Savage came. As they saw John they described his dangling feet, "Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needle, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south-south-east, east. . ." (XVIII, 229), such an emotionless description. It is sad, really. Nothing in their society has been affected by the presence of John, and even as they watch his corpse, they are emotionless. There are no tears, no pain, no terrified emotions.. nothing. Such a world... I would not want to live in. Such sociopath tendencies in an entire society is just too painful, and sad.
A 'brave new world'?
Not in this lifetime. Not through these eyes.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Chapter XVII - Overall Analysis
When Mustapha assumes that John the Savage knows all about God, John hesitates. He does not actually know all about God, but basically lives by the religion aspect of it. John understands how he came to know about God, during the time he thought about plunging into a sea of darkness to end his life, but when he wants to talk about it, “…there were no words. Not even in Shakespeare” (XVII, 203).
“…we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false – a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth. Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that…it makes up for all our other losses” (XVII, 206),
which is basically stating that people in life need God in order to make themselves feel better. We all need something that is bigger than us, something that creates a sense of hope so that we can turn to it when we are unsure of ourselves. God is a symbolic image in our minds that create hope in a pure aura that it could never do us any wrong.
The Controller goes on to talk about how no one ever philosophized about a future in which we become independent of God - where we have no need for a holy entity that we beg to for happiness and prosperity. Being youthful, never having to grow old, and prosperity means never having the need for God. In their society one does not need 'compensating for losses', thus no God is needed. Why go hunting for dreams and goals when you have whatever you want right at your fingertips all the time? John disagrees, as he should (being a moral man and all), but the Controller says he believes that there is quite possibly a God, but that in this time and age, he is an absence instead of being manifested into a being.One of the most important quotes in this chapter is one about the philosophy of life, "He [Bradley[ defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them" (XVII, 207), which is actually quite realistically true. How is it that we believe in God and other entities, or even anything in life? Are we not all conditioned to believe in it, is that not why we go to church or school? Or is it that we desire a greater being in our lives in order to maintain a certain equilibrium between chaos and stability, and therefore instinctively created needs? This is the one thing I pondered most about after reading this book. What if our lives were just large case of conditioning, just not as obvious? Everyone knows that the news always puts out the stories that are intriguing, and will warp it in order to do so, but what if everything else in our lives did that as well? Is that not conditioning, or is it an instinct to reveal only certain things (almost like a 'white lie') in order to maintain equilibrium and prevent mass hysteria?
It's hard to tell, but I know that I now feel as though I re-evaluate my life and what is real, and what is not. I would like to believe that we live in a world that is mostly instinctual, but at the same time I do believe we are slightly conditioned to be the way that we are. It's a little scary though - perhaps anyone can condition the world, if they tried hard enough.
Something highly interesting that we learn of John is that where ever he may go, he will never fit in. In the Reservation he had suffered and had been shut out due to the colour of his skin and the way Linda behaved. In the 'modern' society, he is suffering because he can never simply be alone. Ironic, isn't it? He was alone in Malpais more physically than emotionally - for he still had Linda and the old shaman. In the society, he is alone emotionally than physically. Everywhere he goes, there are women and men urging to see him and talk with him. However, he is out of place and seen as 'queer' because he is moral and has a sense of decency.
A highly important point that John makes about the society is how they always create situations that are easy so that one does not suffer. For example, the society rid themselves of mosquitoes so that they did not get bitten. They get rid of everything that is hard or seems difficult, instead of learning how to put up with it. This is quite possibly why the society and the people in it seem to be so childish. Maturity comes with experience of hardships; without any hardships, how can there be maturity? Everything seems just too easy in their life, it almost makes life ridiculously boring. Then again, anything that is not unstable seems boring.
John states that, "What you need is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here" (XVII, 211), and he is completely correct. Living in a world with pain and the need for tears is true life. Anything else is just a fragment of a dreary yet perfect life.
It is also ironic how when John comments about how nothing costs enough in the society, Henry Foster told him that their new Conditioning Centre cost twelve and a half million dollars. Isn't that just so like the society? Emotionless! Everything means nothing to them, it is ridiculous and childish. John obviously had meant something deeper than just money, but people like Foster could never understand. Why? Why, due to conditioning of course. Who needs to philosophize when they could just do work?
At the very end of the chapter, there is one of the most important points that connects throughout the entire novel. The society wants to do things comfortably at all times; no pain, no emotion, no 'strings attached', no diseases, no ugliness or old age, no inconveniences. John wants inconveniences, because it is realistic, it is REAL; God, poetry, danger, freedom. Mustapha counters that he is basically wanting the right to be unhappy, to grow old and ugly, have cancer, be lousy, to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow, and even the right to be tortured by unspeakable pain. John decides that that is exactly what he wants, and it would be what I want as well. If life was easy and convenient than we would be rendered useless; for life is meant to be lived.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Chapter XVI - Overall Analysis
Helmholtz, John, and Bernard have been arrested and are sent to the World Controller's, Mustapha Mond, office.
Helmholtz is comfortable and at ease with the entire situation, which we can tell because he sits in one of the more pneumatic and luxurious armchairs. He is basically excited that he is getting in trouble and does not see any foreseen damage or pain in his future. Bernard however, sits in one of the most uncomfortable chairs. He feels that by disciplining himself he might obtain a less wrathful punishment.
These can be seen as symbolism to Helmholtz and Bernard's characters. Helmholtz is comfortable and confident in himself and the way he does things. He knows he has a hidden, untapped power that wants to be released and with such power and great things in his life going for him, he is positively assured of himself.
Bernard is an awkward and cowardice character. Bernard always commits actions to keep himself away from trouble, especially since he is different. He is selfish - even though he chooses the most uncomfortable chair, it is for the wrong reasons. He merely is trying to make himself seem more honest to reduce the discipline that may be put upon him.
John, on the other hand, does not sit down at all. Rather, he paces around the room and riffles through the books on the shelves. This suggests that perhaps John is more active and smart about his actions. John chooses to read books rather than lazily sitting down in a chair, almost as if he wants to obtain knowledge rather than be kept in the dark. This just shows how incredibly different he is compared to Helmholtz and Bernard.
These characters can also represent the societies and worlds in which they live in. For example, Bernard and Helmholtz choose to sit in the armchairs. This suggests laziness and casualness. It also suggests an air of stability, especially since Helmholtz and Bernard sit in opposite chairs - one pneumatic and luxurious, the other uncomfortable and painful.
John paces around instead of sitting down. He chooses to take the 'bull by the horns', just as they would do in the Savage Reservation. He wants instability and maintains a sense of control by pacing around, instead of casually sitting down.
What is highly interesting in this chapter is the fact that we learn why the society is the way it is. Mustapha discusses with Helmholtz and John about why Shakespearean plays, such as Othello, are not allowed to be in the society,
"Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. ...you can't make tragedies without social instability. ...People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. ...they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave" (XVI, 194), and this is really interesting to me. I cannot imagine living in a world in which I have everything I want, and never want something I cannot have. That is like living in a world without dreams, goals, and aspirations. Life would be dead without them, would they not? I think I would also not enjoy living a life that is purely conditioned. I would like to think my actions and thoughts are based on my own mind, not because I was conditioned to do or think so.
However, I suppose we are all conditioned in some way, but what is the line between being conditioned and just being taught?
Another important quote in this chapter is the talk about what is true happiness. Mustapha states, "Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. ...Happiness is never grand" (XVI, 194-195) which is true. Once we obtain happiness, it is never as grand or perfect as we expect it to be. We only crave more of it so that we can 'truly' be happy, and yet that is impossible. There is no such thing as a time in which everything is perfect - so perfect that happiness is only emotion that you feel. It's just implausible and unrealistic, and yet the society in the novel states that they only serve true happiness. Lonely? That's what the pneumatic women and men are for. Sad? Take some soma and forget about your problems. These are not another word or synonym for happiness. These are mere fragments of the idea of happiness. True happiness is never as grand as we expect it to be.
One of my favourite quotes in this chapter is when Mustapha discusses how happiness is not free, and that we all have to give up something in order to obtain it, "One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. You're paying for it, Mr. Watson - paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too" (XVI, 201). Society has given up instability and therefore majority of the emotions and humanistic characteristics in order to have 'happiness'. People in that society do not even know what happiness is in my opinion. All they do is run away from problems and commit whoreish activities all the time - is that truly what happiness is? Perhaps I'm not seeing it in the right light, but it just seems wrong to me.
Helmholtz is comfortable and at ease with the entire situation, which we can tell because he sits in one of the more pneumatic and luxurious armchairs. He is basically excited that he is getting in trouble and does not see any foreseen damage or pain in his future. Bernard however, sits in one of the most uncomfortable chairs. He feels that by disciplining himself he might obtain a less wrathful punishment.
These can be seen as symbolism to Helmholtz and Bernard's characters. Helmholtz is comfortable and confident in himself and the way he does things. He knows he has a hidden, untapped power that wants to be released and with such power and great things in his life going for him, he is positively assured of himself.
Bernard is an awkward and cowardice character. Bernard always commits actions to keep himself away from trouble, especially since he is different. He is selfish - even though he chooses the most uncomfortable chair, it is for the wrong reasons. He merely is trying to make himself seem more honest to reduce the discipline that may be put upon him.
John, on the other hand, does not sit down at all. Rather, he paces around the room and riffles through the books on the shelves. This suggests that perhaps John is more active and smart about his actions. John chooses to read books rather than lazily sitting down in a chair, almost as if he wants to obtain knowledge rather than be kept in the dark. This just shows how incredibly different he is compared to Helmholtz and Bernard.
These characters can also represent the societies and worlds in which they live in. For example, Bernard and Helmholtz choose to sit in the armchairs. This suggests laziness and casualness. It also suggests an air of stability, especially since Helmholtz and Bernard sit in opposite chairs - one pneumatic and luxurious, the other uncomfortable and painful.
John paces around instead of sitting down. He chooses to take the 'bull by the horns', just as they would do in the Savage Reservation. He wants instability and maintains a sense of control by pacing around, instead of casually sitting down.
What is highly interesting in this chapter is the fact that we learn why the society is the way it is. Mustapha discusses with Helmholtz and John about why Shakespearean plays, such as Othello, are not allowed to be in the society,
"Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. ...you can't make tragedies without social instability. ...People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. ...they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave" (XVI, 194), and this is really interesting to me. I cannot imagine living in a world in which I have everything I want, and never want something I cannot have. That is like living in a world without dreams, goals, and aspirations. Life would be dead without them, would they not? I think I would also not enjoy living a life that is purely conditioned. I would like to think my actions and thoughts are based on my own mind, not because I was conditioned to do or think so.
However, I suppose we are all conditioned in some way, but what is the line between being conditioned and just being taught?
Another important quote in this chapter is the talk about what is true happiness. Mustapha states, "Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. ...Happiness is never grand" (XVI, 194-195) which is true. Once we obtain happiness, it is never as grand or perfect as we expect it to be. We only crave more of it so that we can 'truly' be happy, and yet that is impossible. There is no such thing as a time in which everything is perfect - so perfect that happiness is only emotion that you feel. It's just implausible and unrealistic, and yet the society in the novel states that they only serve true happiness. Lonely? That's what the pneumatic women and men are for. Sad? Take some soma and forget about your problems. These are not another word or synonym for happiness. These are mere fragments of the idea of happiness. True happiness is never as grand as we expect it to be.
One of my favourite quotes in this chapter is when Mustapha discusses how happiness is not free, and that we all have to give up something in order to obtain it, "One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. You're paying for it, Mr. Watson - paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too" (XVI, 201). Society has given up instability and therefore majority of the emotions and humanistic characteristics in order to have 'happiness'. People in that society do not even know what happiness is in my opinion. All they do is run away from problems and commit whoreish activities all the time - is that truly what happiness is? Perhaps I'm not seeing it in the right light, but it just seems wrong to me.
Chapter XV - Overall Analysis
John grows more and more weary of the society. Not that I blame him; the society is disturbed to a whole new level. He has a deep hatred for the Bokovansky twins that inhabit the society, quite possibly because they are so robotic and inhuman. As he moves through a crowd of them, he feels disgust, horror, and pain, "...with a sinking sense of horror and disgust, for the recurrent delirium of his days and nights, the nightmare of swarming indistinguishable sameness. Twins, twins..." (XV, 184) and he is right to feel such pained feelings. They had swarmed over his mother as she lay dying, with no respect to her decaying mind/body.
As they continued to swarm around him, for they were switching shifts, John's 'magical words' began to change from a sing-song tone to a hideous mocking tone with fiendish laughing, "How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world..." (XV, 184), however in that Shakespearean quote, Miranda is proclaiming how lovely the new world must be, which is ironic because in this situation, there is nothing even remotely lovely about the 'new world'.
There is a bit of foreshadowing in this chapter. John talks about the 'brave new world' quote and analyzes it that there is hope of changing a nightmare, such as this, into something better. Thus making me believe that perhaps he is planning on changing the society, transforming the nightmare, into a society of emotions, something that is fine and noble.
While John ponders this, he has an epiphany of some sort and, "it was as though a shutter had been opened, a curtain drawn back" (XV, 185); he decides that he must save these people from the soma. The soma, that is so alluring and perfect and yet so poisonous to the mind and body. Suddenly, all of his pain and grief vanished and he felt indignation as he began to chastise the twins as they tried to obtain their soma distribution. He asks them if they want freedom and true manhood. They were just standing there, with blank faces and eyes of resentment. Such descriptions of them makes them seem dead, like walking zombies. They are indeed the children of the damned from the so-called perfect society - so hollow and dead and yet living.
Bernard and Helmholtz show up to his horrific scene of John beating back the riotous twins, and Helmholtz rushes to help John. Bernard however, being the selfish person he is, stands in agony as he is torn between helping them and risking himself, or watching them and saving himself.
One of the most interesting parts in this chapter is 'The Voice of Reason'. As the twins start their violent riot, the 'Voice of Reason' comes on and "straight from the depths of a non-existent heart" (XV, 189), begins to plea with the people to stop their violent rage in an almost pathetic and tender voice. The Voice worked, along with the soma-vapour; they had rendered the violent twins into blubbering, kissing babies. They had even produced an effect on Helmholtz and John, as they grew close to tears.
How interesting that the society has different 'Voices' that call upon them whenever there is pain or unpleasant behaviours. We will learn further on that there is no need for a God in their society, but isn't this just like a God in a way? They worship and render themselves useless to a Voice from a Synthetic Music Box, a voice that is angelic and beautiful. Don't people believe that God talks to them in such a way as well? Is this not pretty much the same thing?
As they continued to swarm around him, for they were switching shifts, John's 'magical words' began to change from a sing-song tone to a hideous mocking tone with fiendish laughing, "How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world..." (XV, 184), however in that Shakespearean quote, Miranda is proclaiming how lovely the new world must be, which is ironic because in this situation, there is nothing even remotely lovely about the 'new world'.
There is a bit of foreshadowing in this chapter. John talks about the 'brave new world' quote and analyzes it that there is hope of changing a nightmare, such as this, into something better. Thus making me believe that perhaps he is planning on changing the society, transforming the nightmare, into a society of emotions, something that is fine and noble.
While John ponders this, he has an epiphany of some sort and, "it was as though a shutter had been opened, a curtain drawn back" (XV, 185); he decides that he must save these people from the soma. The soma, that is so alluring and perfect and yet so poisonous to the mind and body. Suddenly, all of his pain and grief vanished and he felt indignation as he began to chastise the twins as they tried to obtain their soma distribution. He asks them if they want freedom and true manhood. They were just standing there, with blank faces and eyes of resentment. Such descriptions of them makes them seem dead, like walking zombies. They are indeed the children of the damned from the so-called perfect society - so hollow and dead and yet living.
Bernard and Helmholtz show up to his horrific scene of John beating back the riotous twins, and Helmholtz rushes to help John. Bernard however, being the selfish person he is, stands in agony as he is torn between helping them and risking himself, or watching them and saving himself.
One of the most interesting parts in this chapter is 'The Voice of Reason'. As the twins start their violent riot, the 'Voice of Reason' comes on and "straight from the depths of a non-existent heart" (XV, 189), begins to plea with the people to stop their violent rage in an almost pathetic and tender voice. The Voice worked, along with the soma-vapour; they had rendered the violent twins into blubbering, kissing babies. They had even produced an effect on Helmholtz and John, as they grew close to tears.
How interesting that the society has different 'Voices' that call upon them whenever there is pain or unpleasant behaviours. We will learn further on that there is no need for a God in their society, but isn't this just like a God in a way? They worship and render themselves useless to a Voice from a Synthetic Music Box, a voice that is angelic and beautiful. Don't people believe that God talks to them in such a way as well? Is this not pretty much the same thing?
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Chapter XIV - Overall Analysis
There is a very interesting quote spoken while Linda is slowly dying from the constant soma-holiday she so badly needed, "Linda was dying in company - in company with all the modern conveniences" (XIV, 174) thus meaning that since the taps and televisions are left on, she will never feel alone while she dies. It's almost sickening that the society feels that even through slow death, no one should be alone. What if their final wish was to be left alone? Besides, who would want the constant running of taps and television as they died? The society creates this fake atmosphere of happiness even as people lay dying, which is odd in itself as they are not old or wrinkled. They have smooth faces just as a young adult would have even though they're dying and have blank faces and no expression on their faces. It's almost satirically ironic - they are young and yet dying, they are youthful and yet they hold no expression.
What is highly disturbing is the fact the 'nightmare of Bokovansky twins' undergo 'death conditioning'. It's creepy that they would allow the children to go in and see one of the members of society dying and on the day that the person dies, they get a donut or some other treat. How morbid is that? John is right to see the twins as nightmares, "Their faces, their repeated face - for there was only one between the lot of them - puggishly stares, all nostrils and pale goggling eyes' (XIV, 177) which is an interesting description of the twins. I could see them being as hideous as John describes them. The fact they swarm around Linda as she lies dying is terrifying and sounds like something out of a horror movie. Perhaps Huxley wanted the twins to seem as terrifying as John describes them to further show how disturbed and messed up the society truly is. Perfection is a monster.
What is highly disturbing is the fact the 'nightmare of Bokovansky twins' undergo 'death conditioning'. It's creepy that they would allow the children to go in and see one of the members of society dying and on the day that the person dies, they get a donut or some other treat. How morbid is that? John is right to see the twins as nightmares, "Their faces, their repeated face - for there was only one between the lot of them - puggishly stares, all nostrils and pale goggling eyes' (XIV, 177) which is an interesting description of the twins. I could see them being as hideous as John describes them. The fact they swarm around Linda as she lies dying is terrifying and sounds like something out of a horror movie. Perhaps Huxley wanted the twins to seem as terrifying as John describes them to further show how disturbed and messed up the society truly is. Perfection is a monster.
Chapter XIII - Overall Analysis
In this chapter, Lenina decides that, with the help of soma, she will try to make John 'hers', but John, being extremely moral, lashes against her as she undresses and tries to make a move.
Lenina is depressed, as she feels that John does not like her at all. She takes soma and tries to have other men but finds herself feeling depressed afterwards still. It is interesting that someone from the society is having depressive thoughts and feelings - especially about another man. I believe that Lenina is in love with John, but does not understand 'love' and what it means. Also, for some reason, she must have a fetish for 'odd' things, since she confesses to Fanny that John is the only man she wants, even though he is so queer. She also made this comment about Bernard at the beginning of the novel. Perhaps she feels the need to have something odd in her life; something that would create drama and instability in her perfect pneumatic life.
John is torn in this part of the book. He is obsessed and completely in love with Lenina, but his morals stop him from doing anything, especially since he believes he is unworthy of her love. When Lenina shows up randomly at Bernard's place, John breaks down and confesses that he is madly in love with Lenina who is, "...so perfect, so perfect and so peerless are created of every creature's best" (XIII, 166) or so he describes her. Such emotionally stirring passion creates irritation and confusion for Lenina. She wants to just 'have him' and he is rambling on and on about how he must make himself worthy enough to her love.
Two worlds collide - the perfect society and the radical savage. It is almost as if the relationship is meant to be doomed before it even starts. John is so in love with Lenina that he feels agony when he confesses love for her, because in his mind he must get married first and prove worthiness. Lenina, however, feels the need to just get undressed and get on with it - with no strings attached. That's why I find it hard to believe that she 'loves' him... I could see her being more obsessed with the idea of him than actually being in love with him.
John is horrified as Lenina begins to undress herself. He wants to be with her, but not like this - not when she is throwing away her morality and self-virtue. I loved that his conscience began to thunder Shakespearean words inside of his head. He describes them being silkily and soft, but as they are alluring they are also dangerous, 'Soft, soft, but how piercing! boring and drilling into reason, tunnelling through resolution' (XIII, 169) which is interesting because his conscience is warning him of danger and morality, but at the same time in a smooth magical way.
When Lenina presses herself against him, John's morality explodes into inexplicable fury. He called her a whore and impudent strumpet and slapped her on the back. His love for Lenina is powerless to the hold religion and morality has upon him - quite possibly due to Linda and her constant 'having' of men, such as Popé. As Lenina bolts to the bathroom, John begins to storm around the room in a beat of marching to drums and the 'magical words' (Shakespeare's words). It is odd - the magical words bring John joy and yet can easily create an atmosphere for hatred and pain. It is amazing how the power of words can create such powerful emotions. However, perhaps the pain and hatred John can exude, due to the words, are because Shakespeare wrote tragedies with a world of pain and broken love, never about happiness and the 'good guys' winning, which John subconsciously applies to his life.
Lenina is depressed, as she feels that John does not like her at all. She takes soma and tries to have other men but finds herself feeling depressed afterwards still. It is interesting that someone from the society is having depressive thoughts and feelings - especially about another man. I believe that Lenina is in love with John, but does not understand 'love' and what it means. Also, for some reason, she must have a fetish for 'odd' things, since she confesses to Fanny that John is the only man she wants, even though he is so queer. She also made this comment about Bernard at the beginning of the novel. Perhaps she feels the need to have something odd in her life; something that would create drama and instability in her perfect pneumatic life.
John is torn in this part of the book. He is obsessed and completely in love with Lenina, but his morals stop him from doing anything, especially since he believes he is unworthy of her love. When Lenina shows up randomly at Bernard's place, John breaks down and confesses that he is madly in love with Lenina who is, "...so perfect, so perfect and so peerless are created of every creature's best" (XIII, 166) or so he describes her. Such emotionally stirring passion creates irritation and confusion for Lenina. She wants to just 'have him' and he is rambling on and on about how he must make himself worthy enough to her love.
Two worlds collide - the perfect society and the radical savage. It is almost as if the relationship is meant to be doomed before it even starts. John is so in love with Lenina that he feels agony when he confesses love for her, because in his mind he must get married first and prove worthiness. Lenina, however, feels the need to just get undressed and get on with it - with no strings attached. That's why I find it hard to believe that she 'loves' him... I could see her being more obsessed with the idea of him than actually being in love with him.
John is horrified as Lenina begins to undress herself. He wants to be with her, but not like this - not when she is throwing away her morality and self-virtue. I loved that his conscience began to thunder Shakespearean words inside of his head. He describes them being silkily and soft, but as they are alluring they are also dangerous, 'Soft, soft, but how piercing! boring and drilling into reason, tunnelling through resolution' (XIII, 169) which is interesting because his conscience is warning him of danger and morality, but at the same time in a smooth magical way.
When Lenina presses herself against him, John's morality explodes into inexplicable fury. He called her a whore and impudent strumpet and slapped her on the back. His love for Lenina is powerless to the hold religion and morality has upon him - quite possibly due to Linda and her constant 'having' of men, such as Popé. As Lenina bolts to the bathroom, John begins to storm around the room in a beat of marching to drums and the 'magical words' (Shakespeare's words). It is odd - the magical words bring John joy and yet can easily create an atmosphere for hatred and pain. It is amazing how the power of words can create such powerful emotions. However, perhaps the pain and hatred John can exude, due to the words, are because Shakespeare wrote tragedies with a world of pain and broken love, never about happiness and the 'good guys' winning, which John subconsciously applies to his life.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Chapter XII - Overall Analysis
When John the Savage refuses to show himself at one of Bernard's nightly parties, so the people of society can meet and greet the Savage, true feelings emerge.
The people of society show their true colours and how they never truly liked Bernard, that they only tolerated him. The women he had been felt they had been tricked by Bernard and the men felt they had their reputations dirtied by Bernard's unsavory reputation for tolerating him and being polite. Thus, Bernard never truly belonged in the society after being a 'hero'. He was just seen as a pawn in order to get closer to the Savage - a very annoying and unorthodox pawn (who must have had alcohol definitely put into his blood surrogate as a foetus, claims Fanny, just as she did at the beginning of the novel).
Lenina is completely devastated. She had convinced herself that she would confess her feelings for John, but when he doesn't show up, feels that it is because she is there (hello, conceited much?). She is convinced that he doesn't like her at all, which is ironic because John feels that Lenina does not like him and that he is unworthy for her.
The most interesting part of this however is that Lenina likes him so much that as soon as she heard that John was not showing up to the party, "a sense of dreadful emptiness, a breathless apprehension, a nausea. Her heart seemed to stop beating" (XII, 152). How emotionally stirring this quote is! It is obvious that Lenina is obsessed with John and wishes that she could be with him. However, would she be willing to spend forever with him, as he wants, or would she rather just spend the night with him? It's a little too early to tell what her true intentions are. I was just over-joyed that she had such a strong emotional reaction!
Quite randomly but decently important, we turn back to the World Controller Mustapha Mond who is reading a stimulating book about a new theory about biology. He feels it is an amazing book that is ingenious, but would be incredibly dangerous and subversive to the social order and stability in society. Mustapha claims it would easily recondition the unsettled minds of the higher society ranks which would make them lose their faith in the society and the happiness it so proclaims to bring them, mostly because it would teach them that the purpose of life is not to maintain well-being, but to refine consciousness and obtain immense knowledge. He writes 'Not to be published' in dark underlined letters and states, "What fun it would be if one didn't have to think about happiness!" (XII, 155), or basically think of the possibilities that could occur if the happiness of the society wasn't a huge factor. But, ignorance is bliss.
We learn more about how truly egotistical Bernard is in this chapter as well. Bernard refers to John and Helmholtz as his 'victim-friends'. Bernard liked John but at the same time felt a secret grievance against him and would ponder about a series of small revenges to thrust upon John, mostly just because Bernard feels superiority over John and likes it. With Helmholtz, Bernard likes that he is able to return to Helmholtz even after their huge fight, but he also feels humiliated that he is not half the man that Helmholtz is. Bernard states that, "One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies" (XII, 156), which I think is terrible. I am sure that there are those who do this, but I cannot imagine doing such a thing to my friends. I believe Bernard does this because he is insecure about himself and thus feels the need to make himself feel superior in some way, even if it means he has to hurt the ones he calls 'friends'.
One of the more important quotes from this chapter is when Helmholtz laughs at John's reading of "Romeo and Juliet" and states, "We need some other kind of madness and violence" (XII, 162). Helmholtz wishes that there would be chaos in the society and that the entire system would be turned upside down and become unstable. Those that are unstable are more interesting than stable.
Chapter XI - Overall Analysis
In this chapter, Bernard is ridiculously egotistical after being seen as a self-proclaimed 'hero' for bringing back the interesting and queer Savage (there is barely any mention of Linda as she is seen as monstrous and obscene for her outburst of motherhood). He walked around like his head was three sizes larger - which is understandable I suppose. Once someone who was casted aside as a black sheep becomes the center of attention, one gets conceited and takes full advantage of such status - such as Bernard having as many woman as he wants now without being laughed at such proposals. It is a pure humanistic instinct to flaunt and brag about such new-found glory.
However, we find out that the people in the society find him annoying and that his egotistical gloating is being subdued with politeness because there was only the 'first' Savage. It is even said that, 'he won't find another Savage to help him out a second time' and that they were only being polite due to the fact there was a Savage. I found this terrible! However, once again, it is the childlike attitude the society partakes; they have what I want so I will be nice to get it.
The people in society are not the only ones who are miffed at Bernard's new attitude. The World Controller receives reports from Bernard about the Savage's reactions to the society, and he stumbles upon Bernard criticizing and lecturing Mond about the society.
There are a few foreshadowing tidbits in this chapter of Bernard's new-found success. One is that he will come to a bad end because the people in the society would make sure that it would come to a bad end.
The second is that perhaps once they tire of the 'first' Savage, they would bring a second one. The people in the society mention that this is the 'first' Savage...so are they waiting for another one? What will happen to John the Savage? Quite possibly something terrible, as his fate is interlinked with Bernard's, now that they are 'unofficially' partners.
The third is when Mond is angry and then laughs at the fact Bernard is lecturing him about the society. He comments that he should 'give him [Bernard] a lesson' which ends with 'for the moment, at any rate, the lesson would not be given', thus making us believe that soon enough, Bernard will get his 'horrible end' or 'lesson'. All because he has a grotesque egotistical attitude.
I've decided that Bernard must be emotionally unstable. He has such wicked mood swings - in the beginning he was depressed and lethargic, and now he is euphoric and sees himself as above everybody. It's quite annoying really.
The Savage, John, however is interesting and realistic. When he first sees the Bokovansky twins in all their working glory, he starts vomiting. Although I cannot blame him; I'm sure anyone would have had the same reaction. It is so abnormal and disturbing that their society is majority of twins.
I found the fact that Linda came back to the society just to take soma. As soon as she returned to the society, she instantly begged for soma and throughout the chapter is on a permanent soma-holiday. Obviously she must have felt that the Savage Reservation was unbearable and that the rest of her life must be spent in an eternity of euphoric dreams.
It's a bit disappointing for me, because I had hoped that she would have returned to the society as a stronger woman, but it appears she is broken. I do wish she could have fought the urge to return to the society's moralities and rose above such nonsense, but I suppose it is more realistic for her to slide into a soma slump than to rise above it.
One of the more interesting points in the chapter is when the Savage sees Beta-Minus children watching a video on the Savage Reservation about their religion and how they beat themselves with the knotted whips whenever they feel they have failed their morality or have bad thoughts. The children were laughing almost hysterically at the sight of it. Apparently pain and brutality is one of the most hilarious things they have ever seen. John is pained to watch and see them laugh at such a thing, and I don't blame him. How terrible it must be to have someone laugh hysterically at your religion and way of life right in front of your face!
Lenina and John obviously like each other. Lenina is just as infatuated with John as he is with her - however he is able to explain such feelings more easily than she can, or ever will be able to. John and Lenina are such complete opposites that themselves are almost an oxymoron in comparison. John hated the feelies and felt that it was disgusting. Lenina was euphoric and glossy eyed after the feelies and loved every moment of it. John is emotionally matured and realistic, while Lenina is extremely childish. She even cries after John practically runs away from her suggestion of spending the night and takes soma to get rid of her tears. I suppose this would seem the right thing to do in their society, but I feel that the constant running away from your problems is not right. What does not kill you only makes you stronger, right?
However, we find out that the people in the society find him annoying and that his egotistical gloating is being subdued with politeness because there was only the 'first' Savage. It is even said that, 'he won't find another Savage to help him out a second time' and that they were only being polite due to the fact there was a Savage. I found this terrible! However, once again, it is the childlike attitude the society partakes; they have what I want so I will be nice to get it.
The people in society are not the only ones who are miffed at Bernard's new attitude. The World Controller receives reports from Bernard about the Savage's reactions to the society, and he stumbles upon Bernard criticizing and lecturing Mond about the society.
There are a few foreshadowing tidbits in this chapter of Bernard's new-found success. One is that he will come to a bad end because the people in the society would make sure that it would come to a bad end.
The second is that perhaps once they tire of the 'first' Savage, they would bring a second one. The people in the society mention that this is the 'first' Savage...so are they waiting for another one? What will happen to John the Savage? Quite possibly something terrible, as his fate is interlinked with Bernard's, now that they are 'unofficially' partners.
The third is when Mond is angry and then laughs at the fact Bernard is lecturing him about the society. He comments that he should 'give him [Bernard] a lesson' which ends with 'for the moment, at any rate, the lesson would not be given', thus making us believe that soon enough, Bernard will get his 'horrible end' or 'lesson'. All because he has a grotesque egotistical attitude.
I've decided that Bernard must be emotionally unstable. He has such wicked mood swings - in the beginning he was depressed and lethargic, and now he is euphoric and sees himself as above everybody. It's quite annoying really.
The Savage, John, however is interesting and realistic. When he first sees the Bokovansky twins in all their working glory, he starts vomiting. Although I cannot blame him; I'm sure anyone would have had the same reaction. It is so abnormal and disturbing that their society is majority of twins.
I found the fact that Linda came back to the society just to take soma. As soon as she returned to the society, she instantly begged for soma and throughout the chapter is on a permanent soma-holiday. Obviously she must have felt that the Savage Reservation was unbearable and that the rest of her life must be spent in an eternity of euphoric dreams.
It's a bit disappointing for me, because I had hoped that she would have returned to the society as a stronger woman, but it appears she is broken. I do wish she could have fought the urge to return to the society's moralities and rose above such nonsense, but I suppose it is more realistic for her to slide into a soma slump than to rise above it.
One of the more interesting points in the chapter is when the Savage sees Beta-Minus children watching a video on the Savage Reservation about their religion and how they beat themselves with the knotted whips whenever they feel they have failed their morality or have bad thoughts. The children were laughing almost hysterically at the sight of it. Apparently pain and brutality is one of the most hilarious things they have ever seen. John is pained to watch and see them laugh at such a thing, and I don't blame him. How terrible it must be to have someone laugh hysterically at your religion and way of life right in front of your face!
Lenina and John obviously like each other. Lenina is just as infatuated with John as he is with her - however he is able to explain such feelings more easily than she can, or ever will be able to. John and Lenina are such complete opposites that themselves are almost an oxymoron in comparison. John hated the feelies and felt that it was disgusting. Lenina was euphoric and glossy eyed after the feelies and loved every moment of it. John is emotionally matured and realistic, while Lenina is extremely childish. She even cries after John practically runs away from her suggestion of spending the night and takes soma to get rid of her tears. I suppose this would seem the right thing to do in their society, but I feel that the constant running away from your problems is not right. What does not kill you only makes you stronger, right?
Chapter X - Overall Analysis
During the beginning of this chapter, there is a lengthy description of what is going on in the entire Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where there is continuous 'buzzing' in the 'hive of industry'. Everyone was busy, and everything was in ordered motion.
There are descriptions of the spermatozoa furiously lashing into the eggs and expanding and dividing and bokanovskifying. Down in the basement, also known as the 'crimson darkness', there are foetuses growing or being poisoned based on rank. With a faint hum and rattle, newly unbottled babies are crying in 'horror and amazement'. Infants are being fed by pasteurized external secretion, and the little boys and girls are listening unknowingly to the hypnopaedic lessons on hygiene and sociability while others participated in erotic play inside.
Everyone was busy, everything in ordered motion. Thus is the stability of the society.
I like how we are brought back to the horrors of the society and how it works. The chronological order of an egg/sperm to a child participating in erotic play and hypnopaedic lessons recreates the horror and shock instinct as to when the reader first reads the beginning of the book. It is used quite usefully actually, as it allows the reader to review how the society works and how it will all connect with the rest of story.
Another literary device that Huxley uses quite often in this novel is onomatopoeia, such as when describing the Center in it's everyday business, "Buzz, buzz! The hive was humming, busily, joyfully", (X, 128). Onomatopoeia is probably used a lot because Huxley experienced a sense of blindness in his life, which quite possibly heightened his other senses which allowed him to create a whole new way to write with more emotion and unique style. I think that his blindness helped him to write in a more free-style way which is quite possibly why I enjoyed this book so much - it is so unique.
One of the most important quotes in this chapter is when the Director and Henry Foster are discussing the 'heinous' actions of Bernard Marx, "The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better than one should suffer than that many should be corrupted....no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behaviour...Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself" (X, 128-129), which is entirely true, even in such a harsh context as how the Director puts it.
One who obtains greatness can use it however they want, but in Bernard's case he is different and does not know what to do with it. Instead of embracing it and using it, he shuns it and hides from it. He does not want to stick out, he wants to become yet another robotic clone in the society. Since Bernard is so different, his behaviour is unorthodox.
What really makes me ponder is the fact that 'it is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted'. I've always thought about how in the movies, if one person has a choice to save the world or save a love one - how do they choose? Why must one suffer in order to make everyone else happy? It happens a lot in real life, and it is unjust. Yes yes, life is not fair. However, in such a 'perfect' society such as one in the novel, shouldn't one not have to suffer anymore?
No matter how 'perfect' and 'stable' a society may be, there is always conflict. There is always loneliness, depression, pain. Yin and yang - happiness cannot survive without some sort of sadness somewhere. Yet...only one person has to suffer so that the rest may live in 'happiness'.
There are descriptions of the spermatozoa furiously lashing into the eggs and expanding and dividing and bokanovskifying. Down in the basement, also known as the 'crimson darkness', there are foetuses growing or being poisoned based on rank. With a faint hum and rattle, newly unbottled babies are crying in 'horror and amazement'. Infants are being fed by pasteurized external secretion, and the little boys and girls are listening unknowingly to the hypnopaedic lessons on hygiene and sociability while others participated in erotic play inside.
Everyone was busy, everything in ordered motion. Thus is the stability of the society.
I like how we are brought back to the horrors of the society and how it works. The chronological order of an egg/sperm to a child participating in erotic play and hypnopaedic lessons recreates the horror and shock instinct as to when the reader first reads the beginning of the book. It is used quite usefully actually, as it allows the reader to review how the society works and how it will all connect with the rest of story.
Another literary device that Huxley uses quite often in this novel is onomatopoeia, such as when describing the Center in it's everyday business, "Buzz, buzz! The hive was humming, busily, joyfully", (X, 128). Onomatopoeia is probably used a lot because Huxley experienced a sense of blindness in his life, which quite possibly heightened his other senses which allowed him to create a whole new way to write with more emotion and unique style. I think that his blindness helped him to write in a more free-style way which is quite possibly why I enjoyed this book so much - it is so unique.
One of the most important quotes in this chapter is when the Director and Henry Foster are discussing the 'heinous' actions of Bernard Marx, "The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better than one should suffer than that many should be corrupted....no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behaviour...Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself" (X, 128-129), which is entirely true, even in such a harsh context as how the Director puts it.
One who obtains greatness can use it however they want, but in Bernard's case he is different and does not know what to do with it. Instead of embracing it and using it, he shuns it and hides from it. He does not want to stick out, he wants to become yet another robotic clone in the society. Since Bernard is so different, his behaviour is unorthodox.
What really makes me ponder is the fact that 'it is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted'. I've always thought about how in the movies, if one person has a choice to save the world or save a love one - how do they choose? Why must one suffer in order to make everyone else happy? It happens a lot in real life, and it is unjust. Yes yes, life is not fair. However, in such a 'perfect' society such as one in the novel, shouldn't one not have to suffer anymore?
No matter how 'perfect' and 'stable' a society may be, there is always conflict. There is always loneliness, depression, pain. Yin and yang - happiness cannot survive without some sort of sadness somewhere. Yet...only one person has to suffer so that the rest may live in 'happiness'.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Chapter IX - Overall Analysis
This chapter is quite short but it has many explosive and descriptive literary devices that bring the reader a better sense into the mind of the Savage, John.
Bernard begins this chapter by discussing with the World Controller, Mustapha Mond, that he would like to bring back the Savage and Linda (since John wanted Linda to come along too) to London for 'sufficient scientific interest'. This is interesting because I think it foreshadows that John and Linda will not be happy in the society, as they would be used for 'sufficient scientific interest'.
John, fearing that Bernard and Lenina left, is devastated as he had wanted to go and see the society after hearing so many stories about it. However, after he enters the hotel, he feels the complete opposite of fear and pain - euphoria.
John creates many emotional pictures when he goes through Lenina's things and sees her on the bed sleeping.
He is obviously infatuated with Lenina. As he goes through her things, he sees and feels everything as if it were 'her real presence'. John is one of the more intriguing characters because he sees and talks about things in such a vivid descriptive way, that it makes reading his thoughts and actions riveting. The other characters in the book talk about things in such a drab and almost dreary way that it is hardly stimulating. An example of this is when he first sees Lenina sleeping in her pale pink zippyjamas, "...so beautiful in the midst of her curls, so touchingly childish with her pink toes and grave sleeping face, so trustful in the helplessness of her limp hands and melted limbs..." (IX, 125), this vivid and stark contrast of beauty and pain is a delight to the senses. He sees Lenina in such a beautiful light and yet there is an oxymoron feeling to it as well with her 'helplessness' and 'childish' ways. However, Lenina does act like a child and can be quite immature in the fact that she is selfish and feels the need to have everyone pay attention to her. Therefore, John's description of her is almost perfect to a tee.
The only thing is that she is sleeping. I believe that when we are sleeping, and are completely submissive in our deep slumber, we exude a sense of child-like innocence, so therefore John's descriptive may very well be based on that.
Also, I do enjoy that John recalls Shakespeare in order to describe certain moments in his life - mostly moments that are emotionally stirring such as hatred, pain, and love. As he stares at Lenina he recalls a quote from Shakespeare that talks about great beauty and how those compared to such a beauty would surely be seen as hideous. The more important Shakespearean quote in this chapter,
"On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand, may seize
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.",
which describes John's feeling that he wishes to kiss Lenina and touch her but one must be modest with one's morality.
Another interesting point in this chapter is how John reacts when he thinks about unzipping Lenina's zippyjamas to reveal her body. After having such a thought he shook his head and closed his eyes in an attempt to relieve himself of such a 'detestable thought'. He actually feels ashamed that he would even think of such a thing. This is probably due to his religious outlook on life and how he was brought up in the village. There is repetition of the 'pure and vestal modesty' from the Shakespearean quote, which just creates a greater sense of solidity in the fact that John is highly moral and would not shamelessly 'kiss the girls'.
I believe that this may be foreshadowing that since the society is based on sexual nature and having explicit moments and never being alone, that John will feel terrible in the society. He will have an ongoing internal battle between his morality and his urges. Thus strengthened by the fact he wishes to fit in somewhere, for once.
Bernard begins this chapter by discussing with the World Controller, Mustapha Mond, that he would like to bring back the Savage and Linda (since John wanted Linda to come along too) to London for 'sufficient scientific interest'. This is interesting because I think it foreshadows that John and Linda will not be happy in the society, as they would be used for 'sufficient scientific interest'.
John, fearing that Bernard and Lenina left, is devastated as he had wanted to go and see the society after hearing so many stories about it. However, after he enters the hotel, he feels the complete opposite of fear and pain - euphoria.
John creates many emotional pictures when he goes through Lenina's things and sees her on the bed sleeping.
He is obviously infatuated with Lenina. As he goes through her things, he sees and feels everything as if it were 'her real presence'. John is one of the more intriguing characters because he sees and talks about things in such a vivid descriptive way, that it makes reading his thoughts and actions riveting. The other characters in the book talk about things in such a drab and almost dreary way that it is hardly stimulating. An example of this is when he first sees Lenina sleeping in her pale pink zippyjamas, "...so beautiful in the midst of her curls, so touchingly childish with her pink toes and grave sleeping face, so trustful in the helplessness of her limp hands and melted limbs..." (IX, 125), this vivid and stark contrast of beauty and pain is a delight to the senses. He sees Lenina in such a beautiful light and yet there is an oxymoron feeling to it as well with her 'helplessness' and 'childish' ways. However, Lenina does act like a child and can be quite immature in the fact that she is selfish and feels the need to have everyone pay attention to her. Therefore, John's description of her is almost perfect to a tee.
The only thing is that she is sleeping. I believe that when we are sleeping, and are completely submissive in our deep slumber, we exude a sense of child-like innocence, so therefore John's descriptive may very well be based on that.
Also, I do enjoy that John recalls Shakespeare in order to describe certain moments in his life - mostly moments that are emotionally stirring such as hatred, pain, and love. As he stares at Lenina he recalls a quote from Shakespeare that talks about great beauty and how those compared to such a beauty would surely be seen as hideous. The more important Shakespearean quote in this chapter,
"On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand, may seize
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.",
which describes John's feeling that he wishes to kiss Lenina and touch her but one must be modest with one's morality.
Another interesting point in this chapter is how John reacts when he thinks about unzipping Lenina's zippyjamas to reveal her body. After having such a thought he shook his head and closed his eyes in an attempt to relieve himself of such a 'detestable thought'. He actually feels ashamed that he would even think of such a thing. This is probably due to his religious outlook on life and how he was brought up in the village. There is repetition of the 'pure and vestal modesty' from the Shakespearean quote, which just creates a greater sense of solidity in the fact that John is highly moral and would not shamelessly 'kiss the girls'.
I believe that this may be foreshadowing that since the society is based on sexual nature and having explicit moments and never being alone, that John will feel terrible in the society. He will have an ongoing internal battle between his morality and his urges. Thus strengthened by the fact he wishes to fit in somewhere, for once.
Chapter VIII - Overall Analysis
Bernard and John the Savage are walking and Bernard asks if John would share his experiences living as a savage with him.
John loves Linda. Basically in every memory he recalls has Linda in it - whether it be bad or good. And why shouldn't he? She is his mother, and instantly one would feel an emotional bond. Linda however does not share that same connective bond as strongly. She cherishes John but does not understand him, nor does she try. John is just the same as any person in our society - we love our loved ones and would do anything for them. Since Linda was brought up in the 'perfect' society, she does not realize what to do with that bond; she only gets and does not give back.
One of the literary devices, which was used most genially, were flashbacks. All the flashbacks weaved together to create a picture of John's good and bad experiences as being different in his society. He was prejudiced against by the village people and yet brought closer by the sacred 'shaman' of the village. Linda would provide him with support and decent doses of love, but also create conflict in his life as he tried to fit in with his peers (as once again, she would only care about herself and her wants and her needs). The flashbacks were ordered and yet broken at the same time. This was very interesting and created a new sense into who John is and what he is like.
Definitely one of my most favourite descriptive parts in this chapter was when John was shunned from taking part in the 'becoming a man' ritual. He is standing on the edge of a cliff, pondering between life and suicide, "...into the black shadow of death. He had only to take one step, one little jump...drop, drop, drop. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow... he had discovered Time and Death and God."
John feels and describes things so emotionally that it is a welcomed change from the emotionless talk of those from the society. John is one of my favourite characters in this book for that reason - he talks, feels, and describes things so vividly that it is beautiful. Perhaps it is so vivid because everyone else in comparison is so dull and 'gray'?
Another interesting point in this chapter is when Bernard ponders, after John talks about ways he would try to ease his unhappiness, if there is any sense of there being another way to cure unhappiness than taking soma. Such thinking makes me further believe that the society could live in 'instability' and not immediately 'dumb down' and become useless. Although, I think I may be thinking a little too optimistic on that thought.
John loves Linda. Basically in every memory he recalls has Linda in it - whether it be bad or good. And why shouldn't he? She is his mother, and instantly one would feel an emotional bond. Linda however does not share that same connective bond as strongly. She cherishes John but does not understand him, nor does she try. John is just the same as any person in our society - we love our loved ones and would do anything for them. Since Linda was brought up in the 'perfect' society, she does not realize what to do with that bond; she only gets and does not give back.
One of the literary devices, which was used most genially, were flashbacks. All the flashbacks weaved together to create a picture of John's good and bad experiences as being different in his society. He was prejudiced against by the village people and yet brought closer by the sacred 'shaman' of the village. Linda would provide him with support and decent doses of love, but also create conflict in his life as he tried to fit in with his peers (as once again, she would only care about herself and her wants and her needs). The flashbacks were ordered and yet broken at the same time. This was very interesting and created a new sense into who John is and what he is like.
Definitely one of my most favourite descriptive parts in this chapter was when John was shunned from taking part in the 'becoming a man' ritual. He is standing on the edge of a cliff, pondering between life and suicide, "...into the black shadow of death. He had only to take one step, one little jump...drop, drop, drop. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow... he had discovered Time and Death and God."
John feels and describes things so emotionally that it is a welcomed change from the emotionless talk of those from the society. John is one of my favourite characters in this book for that reason - he talks, feels, and describes things so vividly that it is beautiful. Perhaps it is so vivid because everyone else in comparison is so dull and 'gray'?
Another interesting point in this chapter is when Bernard ponders, after John talks about ways he would try to ease his unhappiness, if there is any sense of there being another way to cure unhappiness than taking soma. Such thinking makes me further believe that the society could live in 'instability' and not immediately 'dumb down' and become useless. Although, I think I may be thinking a little too optimistic on that thought.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Chapter VII - Overall Analysis
In this chapter, Lenina and Bernard are at the Savage Reservation and are met face to face with the queer savages, including John the Savage and his mother Linda.
Lenina's attitude towards everything is like that of a child's. She feels that she must be the center of attention and if she does not like something then she will complain about it constantly.
One of the more interesting parts in this chapter is the description of Linda. She is described in such a hideous way and yet that it the way people should look with all the 'wrinkles' and 'flabbiness' - perhaps at not such an extreme but nevertheless she is humanistic. Linda wishes for her life to be back to the finer things in the society, yet she is able to survive in a Savage Reservation.
It made me believe that perhaps if their society changed back to being unstable, things would not be as chaotic and destructive as many would think. However, at the same time, Linda still clings onto the morals of the society and believes that, "Everything they [the savages] do is mad", as they mend clothes instead of buying new ones and have one person for another, instead of everybody belonging to everyone else.
The most interesting part in this chapter is when Linda talks about John. She sees John as being mad just as the savages and that he had to be conditioned,
"Though you've no idea how difficult that is. There's so much one doesn't know; it wasn't my business to know. I mean, when a child asks you how a helicopter works or who made the world - well, what are you to answer if you're a Beta and have always worked in the Fertilizing Room? What are you to answer?"
This statement is quite important to the overall effect of the book. How is it that the World Controllers can decide on what to condition for which people? Why are they allowed to decide what is 'important'? It is ludicrously true that there is so much that we don't know, and yet we have this egotistical belief that we are allowed to 'condition' our generations because we are older and wiser, but sometimes they may know more than we know. So, who is more correct and should be allowed to condition, say, a whole society?
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
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.
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.
Chapter V - Overall Analysis
In this chapter, we endeavor further into the lives of Henry Foster, Lenina Crowne, and Bernard Marx and how different their lives are compared to one another.
Henry and Lenina live the perfect life in society. They enjoy the Obstacle Golf and other activities supported by 'the Ford' and enjoy consumption of soma to make their time together that more enjoyable.
Bernard, however, has to go to a Solidarity Service in order to meet and greet other people whom are having trouble connecting with 'the Ford' and finding company for each night.
Who is more happy though?
Henry and Lenina live in a soma-holiday like trance whenever they spend nights together, so are their happiness a delusion or do they take such drugs in order to obtain a higher level of pleasure?
Bernard is unable to spend nights with women but has Helmholtz as a friend. He refuses to take soma and is, for some reason, unable to connect with 'the Ford' as he is distracted by a woman's unibrow. He is living in reality - although it is a grim picture he paints, is it better to live in reality even if it isn't all that it is hyped up to be ? Or is it better to live night to night with consumption of soma, which we find out slowly kills with higher doses?
Which is true happiness - living in 'denial' or living in reality?
One of my favourite parts in this chapter is the fact that Henry does not seem as an emotionless, statistic-loving bore, even if it's for a split second. He discusses with Lenina that the conditioning has made them love themselves and not be jealous of others which Lenina finds a tad hard to understand. It's interesting that everyone knows they are being conditioned, and yet they do not fear it (except when Lenina wakes up during 'sleep-teaching' and finds herself terrified of the whispering that 'haunted all her dreams').
What I loved though is the fact that Henry became melancholy when he pondered about death as they past the Crematorium, "It would have been curious to know who it was - a man or woman, an Alpha or an Epsilon..." (V, 65) which makes me think that not all of the society is emotionless and can completely conditioned to be so. Henry had a simple thought about life and death, which many of us ponder in life, and it is so amazing because in their society it is rare to find someone conditioned thoroughly like himself to think about emotionally stimulating ideas.
Even if it were for a second, I found it most intriguing.
Henry and Lenina live the perfect life in society. They enjoy the Obstacle Golf and other activities supported by 'the Ford' and enjoy consumption of soma to make their time together that more enjoyable.
Bernard, however, has to go to a Solidarity Service in order to meet and greet other people whom are having trouble connecting with 'the Ford' and finding company for each night.
Who is more happy though?
Henry and Lenina live in a soma-holiday like trance whenever they spend nights together, so are their happiness a delusion or do they take such drugs in order to obtain a higher level of pleasure?
Bernard is unable to spend nights with women but has Helmholtz as a friend. He refuses to take soma and is, for some reason, unable to connect with 'the Ford' as he is distracted by a woman's unibrow. He is living in reality - although it is a grim picture he paints, is it better to live in reality even if it isn't all that it is hyped up to be ? Or is it better to live night to night with consumption of soma, which we find out slowly kills with higher doses?
Which is true happiness - living in 'denial' or living in reality?
One of my favourite parts in this chapter is the fact that Henry does not seem as an emotionless, statistic-loving bore, even if it's for a split second. He discusses with Lenina that the conditioning has made them love themselves and not be jealous of others which Lenina finds a tad hard to understand. It's interesting that everyone knows they are being conditioned, and yet they do not fear it (except when Lenina wakes up during 'sleep-teaching' and finds herself terrified of the whispering that 'haunted all her dreams').
What I loved though is the fact that Henry became melancholy when he pondered about death as they past the Crematorium, "It would have been curious to know who it was - a man or woman, an Alpha or an Epsilon..." (V, 65) which makes me think that not all of the society is emotionless and can completely conditioned to be so. Henry had a simple thought about life and death, which many of us ponder in life, and it is so amazing because in their society it is rare to find someone conditioned thoroughly like himself to think about emotionally stimulating ideas.
Even if it were for a second, I found it most intriguing.
Chapter IV - Overall Analysis
In this chapter, we get a more in-depth look into Bernard and how he is basically in complete lust for Lenina (which most of the males are). We also meet a new character, Helmholtz Watson, who is the same and yet completely opposite of Bernard.
What intrigued me in this chapter was the contrast between Bernard Marx and Henry Foster. Henry spends nights with Lenina often and is known as a good man in society. However, he seems to be more interested in statistics than Lenina. When Lenina meets him for their date, he comments on how she was four minutes late. Apparently Foster is a man of punctuality - in our society, we are taught to treat significant others with the utmost respect, but in this society it seems that punctuality and stability is much more important. This is just another example of how emotionless the society is compared to ours and around the world.
I like the fact that we learn more of Bernard in this chapter. He is an intriguing character with all of his self-esteem issues and internal conflicts. Bernard feels insecure about his abnormal stature (which is more of a Gamma than of an Alpha) and thus acts and thinks differently due to the fact his peers treated him differently. I think this is a fascinating comparison to our society, as it is pretty much the same. The more we are treated differently due to something that seems 'off' to our peers, the more different we act to compensate in order to struggle to fit into the society.
However, although I like that Bernard is differently, I do not like that he is such a coward and is always whining. It is off-putting. I can understand how the constant criticism can lead to insecurity, but Bernard's is so far that he pities himself. Such insecurity makes me feel dislike for his character.
Helmholtz Watson on the other hand is a most amazing character. He is the opposite of Bernard in the sense of self-assurance and self-esteem as he is everything that Bernard wishes he could be - tall, built, 'every centimetre of an Alpha-Plus'. Even though Helmholtz has everything going for him, he is still dissatisfied. Unlike Bernard, he does not talk idly and childishly of his insecurities, which makes me like him as a character more. He and Bernard provide the 'light' and 'dark' of the insecurities, such as a 'popular' person compared to an 'un-popular' person - both may have insecurities and be different, but one can handle it more efficiently than the other. It is an interesting juxtaposition in my eyes.
What intrigued me in this chapter was the contrast between Bernard Marx and Henry Foster. Henry spends nights with Lenina often and is known as a good man in society. However, he seems to be more interested in statistics than Lenina. When Lenina meets him for their date, he comments on how she was four minutes late. Apparently Foster is a man of punctuality - in our society, we are taught to treat significant others with the utmost respect, but in this society it seems that punctuality and stability is much more important. This is just another example of how emotionless the society is compared to ours and around the world.
I like the fact that we learn more of Bernard in this chapter. He is an intriguing character with all of his self-esteem issues and internal conflicts. Bernard feels insecure about his abnormal stature (which is more of a Gamma than of an Alpha) and thus acts and thinks differently due to the fact his peers treated him differently. I think this is a fascinating comparison to our society, as it is pretty much the same. The more we are treated differently due to something that seems 'off' to our peers, the more different we act to compensate in order to struggle to fit into the society.
However, although I like that Bernard is differently, I do not like that he is such a coward and is always whining. It is off-putting. I can understand how the constant criticism can lead to insecurity, but Bernard's is so far that he pities himself. Such insecurity makes me feel dislike for his character.
Helmholtz Watson on the other hand is a most amazing character. He is the opposite of Bernard in the sense of self-assurance and self-esteem as he is everything that Bernard wishes he could be - tall, built, 'every centimetre of an Alpha-Plus'. Even though Helmholtz has everything going for him, he is still dissatisfied. Unlike Bernard, he does not talk idly and childishly of his insecurities, which makes me like him as a character more. He and Bernard provide the 'light' and 'dark' of the insecurities, such as a 'popular' person compared to an 'un-popular' person - both may have insecurities and be different, but one can handle it more efficiently than the other. It is an interesting juxtaposition in my eyes.
Monday, May 10, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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).
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...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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).
Monday, May 3, 2010
Chapter XVII - Summary
John the Savage and the Controller Mond are left in Mond's office alone. John states that Mond has paid a fairly high price for happiness, and if he has had to give up anything else.
Mond replies that he has also given up religion and that John must know all about God, which used to be something before the Nine Years' War.
John hesitated as he recalled the night when he was rejected by the village to undergo the ritual of becoming a man and he stood on the precipice, debating whether or not to make the plunge off the cliff. He wanted to, but he found there were no words to explain it.
Mond crossed the room to open a safe and passed John a couple of books about Christianity, including the Holy Bible. He claims to have more, a 'whole collection of pornographic old books'. God was in his safe while the Ford was on his shelves.
John questioned that if the Controller knows about God, then why doesn't he tell society about God? Mond responds simply that they are old - it is about God hundreds of years ago, not about God now. John retaliates that God does not change, thus making Mond reply wisely that men change.
The Savage doesn't think it makes a difference, but Mond disagrees and states that it makes all the difference in the world.
Mond divulges into a story about a man called Cardinal Newman and how he wrote about everyone in the world are God's property but that man will continue to find an independence not meant for humans and that it will do nothing at first but then will not create safety in the end.
He reads another excerpt from another book about how when men grow older, they begin to feel sick and a sense of weakness that old age brings. They fear which makes them turn to religion as it is pure and hopes it will bring delight to their old, vain, sick soul in hope of making up for all other losses in life.
The Controller leans back in his chair and states that the philosophers dreamt about heaven and earth, but they did not dream about the modern world. The modern world is independent of God as they now have youth and prosperity. The religious sentiment is used as a coping mechanism for making up for all the losses in life, but there are none. Why would their world need to look for a superfluous religious sentiment when all is well?
John asks if the Controller does not believe in God. He responds by stating that it is quite probably that there is such a thing as God, but that he manifests himself in different ways. Before Ford, he was manifested as a being that is described in books. Now, God is manifested as an absence due to the fault of civilization. God is not compatible with universal happiness and scientific medicines. Civilization chose the happiness and medicine and believed that God is smut that needs to be locked up.
John interrupts that it is natural to feel there's a God, which is disregarded by Mond's sarcastic comment that it is natural to do up trousers with zippers. John reminds Mond of a man named Bradley that defined philosophy as what one believes by instinct. "As if one believed anything by instinct!" People what they are conditioned to believe, there is no such things as instinct. People believed in God because they were conditioned to believe in God.
John insists that God is needed when one is alone at night and pondering about death, which refers to his own experience, but Mond is not deterred, as society has been conditioned to hate solitude so such a thing would never happen.
The Savage is disgruntled. He suffered at Malpais when they had shut him out from communal activities, and now he was suffering in civilization because he cannot escape the communal activities and be alone. John asks Mond if he remembers a quote from King Lear about how the wheel of fortune has turned its full circle and John asks if it doesn't seem like there is a God constantly spinning the wheel - punishing, awarding.
Mond asks him in return if it truly does - if Edmund had been living in the modern world, he would be sitting in a pneumatic chair, with his arm around a woman's waist, chewing on sex-hormone gum and watching a film of feelies. "The gods are just".
John isn't so sure and wonders if Mond truly believes that the Edmund sitting in that pneumatic chair hadn't just been punished just as severely as he had in the play as he lay wounded and bleeding to death. "The gods are just". Couldn't God be using his pleasantries as an instrument to degrade him?
Mond asks what position Edmund would have been degraded from - he is a perfect citizen in the society just like any other citizen. John believes that to allow oneself to think of God, you wouldn't be degraded by pleasant vices in the first place - he has seen it at the Reservation.
This statement allows Mond to debate that their civilization are made of Indians. There is no need for the civilized man to feel such unpleasantness - that is what soma is for.
The fact that the modern society gets rid of all things that seem unpleasant is unsettling to John. The society finds it easier to abolish things than to suffer or oppose. John suddenly recalls Linda and how she had overdosed herself with soma as an easy way out of her aged and bloated body and into a sea of holidays. John defiantly believes that what society needs is something that calls for tears and that nothing costs enough in the society (not in money sense of course, as apparently Henry Foster had told John that the new Conditioning Centre would cost twelve and a half million).
John confesses that he likes the inconveniences that the world can hurdle at one, but Mond states that the society doesn't. The society prefers to do things comfortably. John does not want comfort - he wants freedom, dirt, sin, danger. Mond feels that John is wanting unhappiness, and John defiantly claims that that is what he is doing.
Mond continues to say that with unhappiness that John would be claiming the right to grow old, ugly; the right to catch diseases like syphilis; the right to eat too little; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains....
Silence embeds between them until John finally says, "I claim them all."
Mond shrugs his shoulders and says that John is welcome to.
Mond replies that he has also given up religion and that John must know all about God, which used to be something before the Nine Years' War.
John hesitated as he recalled the night when he was rejected by the village to undergo the ritual of becoming a man and he stood on the precipice, debating whether or not to make the plunge off the cliff. He wanted to, but he found there were no words to explain it.
Mond crossed the room to open a safe and passed John a couple of books about Christianity, including the Holy Bible. He claims to have more, a 'whole collection of pornographic old books'. God was in his safe while the Ford was on his shelves.
John questioned that if the Controller knows about God, then why doesn't he tell society about God? Mond responds simply that they are old - it is about God hundreds of years ago, not about God now. John retaliates that God does not change, thus making Mond reply wisely that men change.
The Savage doesn't think it makes a difference, but Mond disagrees and states that it makes all the difference in the world.
Mond divulges into a story about a man called Cardinal Newman and how he wrote about everyone in the world are God's property but that man will continue to find an independence not meant for humans and that it will do nothing at first but then will not create safety in the end.
He reads another excerpt from another book about how when men grow older, they begin to feel sick and a sense of weakness that old age brings. They fear which makes them turn to religion as it is pure and hopes it will bring delight to their old, vain, sick soul in hope of making up for all other losses in life.
The Controller leans back in his chair and states that the philosophers dreamt about heaven and earth, but they did not dream about the modern world. The modern world is independent of God as they now have youth and prosperity. The religious sentiment is used as a coping mechanism for making up for all the losses in life, but there are none. Why would their world need to look for a superfluous religious sentiment when all is well?
John asks if the Controller does not believe in God. He responds by stating that it is quite probably that there is such a thing as God, but that he manifests himself in different ways. Before Ford, he was manifested as a being that is described in books. Now, God is manifested as an absence due to the fault of civilization. God is not compatible with universal happiness and scientific medicines. Civilization chose the happiness and medicine and believed that God is smut that needs to be locked up.
John interrupts that it is natural to feel there's a God, which is disregarded by Mond's sarcastic comment that it is natural to do up trousers with zippers. John reminds Mond of a man named Bradley that defined philosophy as what one believes by instinct. "As if one believed anything by instinct!" People what they are conditioned to believe, there is no such things as instinct. People believed in God because they were conditioned to believe in God.
John insists that God is needed when one is alone at night and pondering about death, which refers to his own experience, but Mond is not deterred, as society has been conditioned to hate solitude so such a thing would never happen.
The Savage is disgruntled. He suffered at Malpais when they had shut him out from communal activities, and now he was suffering in civilization because he cannot escape the communal activities and be alone. John asks Mond if he remembers a quote from King Lear about how the wheel of fortune has turned its full circle and John asks if it doesn't seem like there is a God constantly spinning the wheel - punishing, awarding.
Mond asks him in return if it truly does - if Edmund had been living in the modern world, he would be sitting in a pneumatic chair, with his arm around a woman's waist, chewing on sex-hormone gum and watching a film of feelies. "The gods are just".
John isn't so sure and wonders if Mond truly believes that the Edmund sitting in that pneumatic chair hadn't just been punished just as severely as he had in the play as he lay wounded and bleeding to death. "The gods are just". Couldn't God be using his pleasantries as an instrument to degrade him?
Mond asks what position Edmund would have been degraded from - he is a perfect citizen in the society just like any other citizen. John believes that to allow oneself to think of God, you wouldn't be degraded by pleasant vices in the first place - he has seen it at the Reservation.
This statement allows Mond to debate that their civilization are made of Indians. There is no need for the civilized man to feel such unpleasantness - that is what soma is for.
The fact that the modern society gets rid of all things that seem unpleasant is unsettling to John. The society finds it easier to abolish things than to suffer or oppose. John suddenly recalls Linda and how she had overdosed herself with soma as an easy way out of her aged and bloated body and into a sea of holidays. John defiantly believes that what society needs is something that calls for tears and that nothing costs enough in the society (not in money sense of course, as apparently Henry Foster had told John that the new Conditioning Centre would cost twelve and a half million).
John confesses that he likes the inconveniences that the world can hurdle at one, but Mond states that the society doesn't. The society prefers to do things comfortably. John does not want comfort - he wants freedom, dirt, sin, danger. Mond feels that John is wanting unhappiness, and John defiantly claims that that is what he is doing.
Mond continues to say that with unhappiness that John would be claiming the right to grow old, ugly; the right to catch diseases like syphilis; the right to eat too little; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains....
Silence embeds between them until John finally says, "I claim them all."
Mond shrugs his shoulders and says that John is welcome to.
Chapter XVI - Summary
Bernard, John the Savage, and Helmholtz were ushered to the World Controller Mustapha Mond's office. Helmholtz begins to laugh and falls into one of the most luxurious chairs in the office. Bernard is devastated and sits in one of the most uncomfortable chairs in hopes it would cause him to get less punishment for punishing himself. John is pacing around the room and is staring around the room. He notices a book about "the Ford" and flips through it. Uninterested by the book's contents, he replaces it and Mustapha enters.
Mond comments to John that it seems that he (John) does not seem to like their civilization. John thought about lying but decided to be truthfully and firmly told him that he did not. Bernard was horrified that he was being labelled as the friend of a Savage that did not like civilization and declared it so openly. Bernard was about to protest but Mond silenced him.
John continued to say that some things in the civilization aren't so bad, such as the constant music in the air. Mond recalls a quote from Shakespeare, making John excited and asks Mond how he knows Shakespeare, as he thought he was the only one. Mond tells the Savage that he is one of the very few as it is prohibited. He makes an offside comment about how he is allowed to break the laws because he makes them, which makes Bernard even more miserable.
John asks why Shakespeare is prohibited in the first place. The Controller told him that there is not a need for something so old, no matter how beautiful it is, in society. Beauty is a distraction, and there is no need for the people in society to be distracted by old beautiful things when they are wanted to be attracted to new things.
John believes that the new things are horrible and stupid and feels deep hatred for them - especially the feelies films.
Both Helmholtz and John want to know why they can't create something that is new but is like Shakespearean plays - created with beauty and is new but in understandable terms for the rest of society.
Mond tells them that it is impossible - if you created something Shakespeare, like Othello, nobody would understand it, no matter how new it was. And that if it were new, then it couldn't possibly be like Othello.
Helmholtz and John are curious as to why that is while Bernard, who has not forgotten the severity of the situation they had thrown themselves into with the violent outbreak, sat growing greener with the anxiety.
Mond explains that the world is not the same as Othello's - everything is stable in their world while in Othello's world there were tragedies which can only be made with instability. Their society is well off -
"they are not afraid of death; they're never ill; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and
old age; they're plagued with no mothers and father; they've got no wives, or children
or lovers to feel strong about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help
behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma."
John was silent for a while and then commented that Othello is better than the feelies.
Mond agrees but says that is the price to pay for social stability. Sacrificing 'high art' for stability brought the scent organ and the feelies in its place. John says that it is idiotic and Helmholtz, who is one of the distinguished Emotional Engineers that created them, agrees with John. They feel that it is all horrible to have to try to create art out of practically nothing.
Mond points out that it seems horrible because stability is not even close to being as spectacular as to something unstable. The glamour of it all is destroyed as there is no conflict or struggle.
John agrees but feels that stability is overdone with the horrible and repulsive Bokovansky's twins. Mond states simply that those twins are the foundation for the stability of the society as a whole. John does not understand why they don't just create everyone as Alpha Double Pluses. The very thought makes Mond chuckles as he explains that the Alphas are born with the instinct for being in open places. Being placed in a factory would cause them to go crazy and begin a path of destruction - "Alphas can be completely socialized - but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work".
He describes a time when there was once an experiment on that very thought - Alphas were given agricultural and industrial equipment and left to handle their own affairs. The Alphas became chaotic and within six years they were beginning a civil war. When nineteen people were killed, the survivors begged for the World Controllers to resume permanent control over them and that was the end of the only all Alpha society the world had ever seen.
This made John sigh heavily and did not understand why society was happier being controlled and 'below the water' than being above it and not having to do, in his opinion, all that awful work. Mond explains that society likes that 'awful' work. They work seven and a half of exhausting labour and then get rewarded with soma, feelies, and random sports.
There was another experiment conducted when they gave the lower ranks only four hours of labour a day, and they found that they were restless and there was a large increase in the consumption of soma. In conclusion, they basically found no happiness in the extra three and a half hours of leisure. Over working the society would have a similar effect - "every change is a menace to society". Even science is treated as a possible enemy.
John did not know what science was exactly as Shakespeare and the old men of the village did not specify nor talk about such a thing. He thought of it as something that helped prevent old age. Mond continues to say that science is dangerous and it must be controlled and hidden from the world lest it create complete chaos.
Helmholtz pops in puzzled and astonished. They have always been taught that science is everything in the hypnopaedic teachings (which occurs three times a week between thirteen and seventeen states Bernard randomly).
Mond asks him what kind of science are they taught exactly? There is no scientific training so to speak, and if there were there would be no way to prove it as they do not even know what it is. Mond confesses that he was a great physicist once upon and that he began to realize that science is just like a large cookbook that there are theories you do not question and recipes you do not add unless specified by the head cook. He states that he is now a head cook and experimented with unorthodox and illicit cooking. He confesses that he was almost sent to an island, just like they (Bernard, John, and Helmholtz) were going to be.
The thought of being sent to an island rattled Bernard and he began to claim it was not at fault, that Helmholtz and John the Savage were the ones responsible. He was an innocent in the whole ordeal. Sobbing, he begged the Controller not to send him to Iceland.
Mond tried to make Bernard, but to no avail. He rang his secretary to send three men to give Bernard a soma vaporization and to put him in a bed.
Bernard was taken and Mond tutted as he continued to say that being sent to the island is in fact an award. They were going to meet the most interesting set of men and women, who had all been a too self-conscious individual to fit into society, to be found anywhere in the world. They were "everyone, in a word, who's anyone", and confesses that he envies Helmholtz for being able to go.
Helmholtz laughs as he asks why the Controller just does not go to the island himself. Mond states that he is more satisfied with controlling over the society than going to island. He was faced with the two choices and he chose to let science go. He regrets the science, even though it brings truth. It is a public menace however, and is dangerous as beneficial.
Mond continues to say that it is interesting that back before "the Ford", people would write about scientific progress and how they would imagine that it would be allowed to go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else in the world. Knowledge was held as the highest good and truth being the value with the most worth.
In their society, the "Ford" shifted from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Still, scientific progress was still allowed and truth and beauty were talked about as if they were goods. However when the Nine Years' War occurred, truth and beauty were taken out of the picture, for what good are such things when there are anthrax bombs being dropped everywhere. After the War, science was controlled for the main result of a quiet life. They had been controlling ever since.
Happiness had to be paid for - one cannot have something for nothing.
The Controller turns to Helmholtz and claims that since Helmholtz has been paying too much attention to beauty he has to pay, just as the Controller had to pay for his over interest in the truth.
After a long silence, John broke the silence by stating matter of factly that the Controller didn't actually go to the island. Mond just smiled and stated simply that that was how he paid; he chose to give others happiness instead of his own.
Mond asks Helmholtz if he would like a tropical climate. Helmholtz asks for a rather rough climate, probably for more inspiration for writing. The chapter ends with Helmholtz stating that he will go check up on poor Bernard.
Mond comments to John that it seems that he (John) does not seem to like their civilization. John thought about lying but decided to be truthfully and firmly told him that he did not. Bernard was horrified that he was being labelled as the friend of a Savage that did not like civilization and declared it so openly. Bernard was about to protest but Mond silenced him.
John continued to say that some things in the civilization aren't so bad, such as the constant music in the air. Mond recalls a quote from Shakespeare, making John excited and asks Mond how he knows Shakespeare, as he thought he was the only one. Mond tells the Savage that he is one of the very few as it is prohibited. He makes an offside comment about how he is allowed to break the laws because he makes them, which makes Bernard even more miserable.
John asks why Shakespeare is prohibited in the first place. The Controller told him that there is not a need for something so old, no matter how beautiful it is, in society. Beauty is a distraction, and there is no need for the people in society to be distracted by old beautiful things when they are wanted to be attracted to new things.
John believes that the new things are horrible and stupid and feels deep hatred for them - especially the feelies films.
Both Helmholtz and John want to know why they can't create something that is new but is like Shakespearean plays - created with beauty and is new but in understandable terms for the rest of society.
Mond tells them that it is impossible - if you created something Shakespeare, like Othello, nobody would understand it, no matter how new it was. And that if it were new, then it couldn't possibly be like Othello.
Helmholtz and John are curious as to why that is while Bernard, who has not forgotten the severity of the situation they had thrown themselves into with the violent outbreak, sat growing greener with the anxiety.
Mond explains that the world is not the same as Othello's - everything is stable in their world while in Othello's world there were tragedies which can only be made with instability. Their society is well off -
"they are not afraid of death; they're never ill; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and
old age; they're plagued with no mothers and father; they've got no wives, or children
or lovers to feel strong about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help
behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma."
John was silent for a while and then commented that Othello is better than the feelies.
Mond agrees but says that is the price to pay for social stability. Sacrificing 'high art' for stability brought the scent organ and the feelies in its place. John says that it is idiotic and Helmholtz, who is one of the distinguished Emotional Engineers that created them, agrees with John. They feel that it is all horrible to have to try to create art out of practically nothing.
Mond points out that it seems horrible because stability is not even close to being as spectacular as to something unstable. The glamour of it all is destroyed as there is no conflict or struggle.
John agrees but feels that stability is overdone with the horrible and repulsive Bokovansky's twins. Mond states simply that those twins are the foundation for the stability of the society as a whole. John does not understand why they don't just create everyone as Alpha Double Pluses. The very thought makes Mond chuckles as he explains that the Alphas are born with the instinct for being in open places. Being placed in a factory would cause them to go crazy and begin a path of destruction - "Alphas can be completely socialized - but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work".
He describes a time when there was once an experiment on that very thought - Alphas were given agricultural and industrial equipment and left to handle their own affairs. The Alphas became chaotic and within six years they were beginning a civil war. When nineteen people were killed, the survivors begged for the World Controllers to resume permanent control over them and that was the end of the only all Alpha society the world had ever seen.
This made John sigh heavily and did not understand why society was happier being controlled and 'below the water' than being above it and not having to do, in his opinion, all that awful work. Mond explains that society likes that 'awful' work. They work seven and a half of exhausting labour and then get rewarded with soma, feelies, and random sports.
There was another experiment conducted when they gave the lower ranks only four hours of labour a day, and they found that they were restless and there was a large increase in the consumption of soma. In conclusion, they basically found no happiness in the extra three and a half hours of leisure. Over working the society would have a similar effect - "every change is a menace to society". Even science is treated as a possible enemy.
John did not know what science was exactly as Shakespeare and the old men of the village did not specify nor talk about such a thing. He thought of it as something that helped prevent old age. Mond continues to say that science is dangerous and it must be controlled and hidden from the world lest it create complete chaos.
Helmholtz pops in puzzled and astonished. They have always been taught that science is everything in the hypnopaedic teachings (which occurs three times a week between thirteen and seventeen states Bernard randomly).
Mond asks him what kind of science are they taught exactly? There is no scientific training so to speak, and if there were there would be no way to prove it as they do not even know what it is. Mond confesses that he was a great physicist once upon and that he began to realize that science is just like a large cookbook that there are theories you do not question and recipes you do not add unless specified by the head cook. He states that he is now a head cook and experimented with unorthodox and illicit cooking. He confesses that he was almost sent to an island, just like they (Bernard, John, and Helmholtz) were going to be.
The thought of being sent to an island rattled Bernard and he began to claim it was not at fault, that Helmholtz and John the Savage were the ones responsible. He was an innocent in the whole ordeal. Sobbing, he begged the Controller not to send him to Iceland.
Mond tried to make Bernard, but to no avail. He rang his secretary to send three men to give Bernard a soma vaporization and to put him in a bed.
Bernard was taken and Mond tutted as he continued to say that being sent to the island is in fact an award. They were going to meet the most interesting set of men and women, who had all been a too self-conscious individual to fit into society, to be found anywhere in the world. They were "everyone, in a word, who's anyone", and confesses that he envies Helmholtz for being able to go.
Helmholtz laughs as he asks why the Controller just does not go to the island himself. Mond states that he is more satisfied with controlling over the society than going to island. He was faced with the two choices and he chose to let science go. He regrets the science, even though it brings truth. It is a public menace however, and is dangerous as beneficial.
Mond continues to say that it is interesting that back before "the Ford", people would write about scientific progress and how they would imagine that it would be allowed to go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else in the world. Knowledge was held as the highest good and truth being the value with the most worth.
In their society, the "Ford" shifted from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Still, scientific progress was still allowed and truth and beauty were talked about as if they were goods. However when the Nine Years' War occurred, truth and beauty were taken out of the picture, for what good are such things when there are anthrax bombs being dropped everywhere. After the War, science was controlled for the main result of a quiet life. They had been controlling ever since.
Happiness had to be paid for - one cannot have something for nothing.
The Controller turns to Helmholtz and claims that since Helmholtz has been paying too much attention to beauty he has to pay, just as the Controller had to pay for his over interest in the truth.
After a long silence, John broke the silence by stating matter of factly that the Controller didn't actually go to the island. Mond just smiled and stated simply that that was how he paid; he chose to give others happiness instead of his own.
Mond asks Helmholtz if he would like a tropical climate. Helmholtz asks for a rather rough climate, probably for more inspiration for writing. The chapter ends with Helmholtz stating that he will go check up on poor Bernard.
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