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.

Chapter III Summary - Part III

Part III - FUTURE

About three quarters into the chapter, another voice comes in. The Elementary Class Consciousness lesson finished and the voices whispered thoughts about future demand to the industrial supply. They voices talk about clothes and that buying new ones is better than mending them, and it makes you appear more rich. Also, that they love flying, which refers to the helicopters that fly in various bug speeds over London.

The voices are slowly brain-washing the children to buy more and therefore extend more in society so that the economy is better. This also creates the children to become consumers in the society’s industrial supply, such as clothing.
This part of the chapter is interesting because it forces the ideas of the society in with the past as the Controller is talking. It creates the liaison between past, future, and as well the present with Lenina, Fanny, Bernard, and Foster.

The chapter ends with the decanted babies moving slowly on the conveyor belts in the red light, glistening as ‘innumerable rubies’.

Chapter III Summary - Part II

Part II PRESENT

In this second part of chapter three, Lenina Crowne and her friend Fanny Crowne come into the story, as well does Bernard Marx, the notorious black sheep, and Henry Foster from chapter one.

This part of the chapter begins with Lenina, among the other thousands of workers, are leaving the four thousand rooms in the Centre at four, as the four thousand clocks rang simultaneously. A voice called over the thousands of workers stating that the Main Day shift is off duty and the Second Day shift must take over now.
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Henry Foster and the Assistant Director of Predestination (who apparently has no name) are taking the lift up to the changing rooms with Bernard Marx from the Psychology Bureau, who has a most 'unsavoury reputation'.

The Predestinator asks Foster about the 'feelies' which is basically a sexual movie cinema in which you can feel everything that's happening. In this case, it's a love scene on a bearskin rug in which you can see and feel every hair of the bear.
Marx, obviously not a happy fellow as the rest of the society, smiles scornfully at this remark.
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Lenina goes into the elevator that shoots up from the crimson cellar up to the Girl's Dressing Room that has a hundred baths, eighty vibro-vacuum machines and a long nozzle that sprays fine talcum powder over the body.
She says hello to her friend Fanny Crowne, and we learn that the two thousand million in habitants of the world had only ten thousand names between them so it is not unusual for some people to have the same last name or first name. Lenina zips off her clothes and undergarments, as everything seems to have a zipper for easier access, and heads towards to the bathrooms.

Lenina and Fanny then partake in a conversation about who they are going out with tonight after Lenina has come back from the vibro-vac looking like an illuminated pearl with a pinkly glow.
When Fanny responds with, "Nobody", Lenina is astonished. Fanny confides to her that she needs to have a Pregnancy Substitution even though she is only nineteen (it is compulsory when you are twenty-one).
Lenina comments on how horrid intravenals are when she sees Fanny's mammary gland extracts and the placentin that she must inject intravenally every third day.

Fanny continues to say that she won't be off the market for long, only a week or two where she will be playing Musical Bridge until she can go out with boys again. She asks Lenina who she is going out with and when Lenina replies, "Henry Foster", Fanny takes on a disapproving tone as Lenina has gone out with him for four months without seeing anyone else, "…without having another man - why, he'd [Foster] be furious if he knew...".
Fanny continues to chastise Lenina for her unconventionally and comments that Director has the 'strictest conventionality' for having patted Lenina on the behind.
Lenina decides that even though she would rather not, she will make the effort to be more promiscuous.
Lenina then tells Fanny that she has decided she is bored with Foster and would now like to go with Bernard. Fanny is shocked as Bernard is seen as unusual, and even has a rumour going around that he had alcohol accidentally put into his blood surrogate by one of the workers that thought he was a Gamma. Lenina gets mad at the accusation and does not care about the rumour, and would like to go with him to the Savage Reservation anyways.
Fanny and Lenina, being mad at each other, change in silence until Lenina asks to stop fighting. Fanny agrees and they chat about Lenina’s morocco contraceptive belt that she received from Foster.
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The chapter returns back to Henry Foster and the Predesinator in the changing room as they chat about Lenina Crowne and how pneumatic she is and how he is surprised that the Predestinator has not 'had' her yet. Marx turns pale at the thought of them talking about Lenina in such a way.
Bernard thinks of Lenina in a more lovingly way, and is rather odd to the others as he prefers to be alone. Bernard thinks in a more brutal style than the rest of the society as he talks and thinks in an angry fashion.
He is discouraged that Lenina thinks of herself as a piece of meat that the men can share around, and wishes she would answer him on his proposal of going out together. He wishes he could punch Foster and the Predestinator in the face over and over again.
When Foster uses the hypnopaedic, "Everyone belongs to everyone else" Marx's thoughts are bitter and harsh as he thinks that Foster is an idiot. 'Sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth'.

Bernard continues to think about how much he hates them when Henry and the Predestinator come up to Bernard and ask if he would like a gramme of soma, as he looks depressed. Bernard attempts to fend off the tablets politely while thinking about killing them in his mind. Foster insists for Bernard to take them while the Predestinator states with hypnopaedic wisdom, "One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments.", making Bernard to go over the limit and yell, "Damn you!" at them.
They just laugh it off and state, 'Remember that a gramme is better than a damn.'

Marx saunters off to the lift angry.
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Chapter III Summary - Part I

Chapter III is broken up to several parts.

First, is the Controller talking to the Director and his tour of students of the past and how obscene and dreadful it was.

Second, Lenina Crowne and her friend Fanny Crowne are talking about work and what men they are seeing, and Bernard Marx jumps into the scene with his thoughts on the world and how he is the black sleep.

Another random event that occurs in this chapter is the hypnopaedia sleep-teachings in the background.

This chapter is pretty confusing so I will summarize it in parts.

PART I: PAST
The Director brings his tour of students outside into the garden on a nice sunny day. There are about six hundred children running around, playing naked in the garden. The Director talks about how 'charming' it is that the children are playing a primitive sexual game. As the Director continues about how all the games the children are allowed to play must be mind-stimulating challenging games, when one of the ten World Controllers, Mustapha Mond, enters.
Mond begins to talk about history and about the Ford, which is basically the heart and mind of the society. Mond talks about the obscenities of 'mother', 'father', and 'homes' and how mothers used to be obsessed with their children and feed them by the breast thus making Mund state, "Yes, you may well shudder." to the students looking ill at the very obscene thought.
He continues on to say that there are some places in the world where there are savages and yet they have never heard of such a thing as 'father', and says that 'extremes meet for the good reason they were made to meet'.

The Controller's part of the chapter mostly deals with brutality of the past and how old age, poverty, war, disease, mothers, family, and death all used to occur. He describes it in a most morbid way. He says things like this to make the students see the strength of the 'stability' that the society contains, and how lucky they were to never had to have feel such emotions.

The Controller then continues with description of the Nine Year War that took place in the past, or A.F. 141. There were massive killings, corpses everywhere...
Then there was the British Museum Massacre that had two thousand cultural fans gasses with dichlorethyl sulphide, a toxic war gas that blisters the face and attacks eyes and lungs.

He states that government realized that using force was only making things worse.
The government then began using methods of hypnopaedia and conditioning. The government even began suppressing books in A.F. 150, along with anything such as ethics and philosophy that created under-consumption in the society; such as Christianity, God, and Shakespeare.
In A.F. 178, biochemists and pharmacologists worked to create the 'perfect drug' known as soma that has the effects of cocaine and alcohol but without the defects, thus ensuring the stability in the society.
This society has even been able to remove the aging so that youth and beauty can remain constant through a lifetime. Old men were criticized when they retired and would spend time thinking (thinking emphasized as if it were a completely ludicrous idea). Now old men have no time, no leisure, they work all the time and if they should feel the need for a break for even a split second, they can take soma.

"Half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for the weekend, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon.."

He tells them that society is stable. They have a solid grounded job, soma, can partake in any pneumatic girl to girl, and can play Electromagnetic Golf after work.

At the end of the chapter, the Director yells at a couple of children who are erotically playing near the Controller.
The last sentence in the chapter flashes back to the decanted babies glistening as 'rubies' in the red darkness as they move slowly on the conveyors.