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'.
Showing posts with label Chapter X. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chapter X. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Chapter X - Summary
The Director and Henry Foster are in the midst of the Centre’s frenzy of workplace activity talking about Bernard Marx.
The Director tells Foster than he plans on making Bernard an example in front of the higher-ranked workers in the Centre. Foster retaliates hypocritically with that Bernard does his job very well. The Director agrees but that just deepens the severity of the punishment he plans on giving Bernard. He feels that ‘the greater a man’s talents, the greater his power to lead astray’.
He states that if one person has to live in misery in order for the rest of the society to retain order, then so be it. He asks Foster to view the matter in a dispassionate way – murder can kill an individual, but what is an individual in the society? Another can be made just as easily. It is the unorthodox behaviour of Bernard that threatens an entire society, not just the life of an individual.
Bernard then enters the room appearing translucently confident. His voice level trembles as he greets the Director.
The Director asks for the attention for the workers in the room and declares that Bernard has been living unorthodoxly in the society with his contrary to accepted belief of the society’s sports and soma, and especially of his sex-life. He booms to the crowd that Bernard has refused to obey the teachings of Ford and is therefore an enemy to Order, Stability, and Civilization in general. The Director proposes to dismiss Bernard by a transfer to a Sub-Centre in Iceland as the lowest order in society, where he will have a smaller chance of leading others astray by his ‘unfordly examples’.
The Director, obviously content with his massive speech, asks Bernard if he has anything to say that could prove why he should not be given the judgements passed upon him.
Bernard answers loudly that he does. The Director is taken back but allows him to show him.
Bernard opened a door. The workers gasped at the horrifying sight of the bloated, distorted shaped Linda as she smiled shyly. Linda recognizes the Director immediately and talks about how she would never forget his face, even if he had forgotten all about her. She asks if he remembers ‘his Linda’ and looks at him smiling expectedly.
The Director stares at Linda in petrified disgust as his confidence goes out like a light.
Linda asks once again if he remembers her in an anxious trembled voice. Her face is described as twisting grotesquely as she feels complete and utter grief. She holds out her arms and yells, “Tomakin!” (the name that she called him when describing him to John).
The Director asks what the meaning is of such an atrocious being but is interrupted by Linda running towards him and burying her face in his chest.
The higher ranked workers began howling in laughter.
The Director tried to unchain himself from Linda as she clung to him crying that she is Linda. The laughter drowned her out until she screamed, “You made me have a baby”.
There was complete silence as the Director stared horrified at Linda. She talks about her baby and how she is a mother in front of all of the workers as they stand silenced in outrage by the obscenity. Linda breaks away from the Director and begins sobbing how she did not understand and that it was not her fault, as she followed all the contraceptive drills as she always did. She then called for her son.
John enters swiftly and falls to his knees in front of the Director exclaiming, “My father!”
This not so serious obscenity as calling oneself or another ‘mother’ broke the tense situation for the workers looking on and laughter broke out. They found it hysterically hilarious that he would call the Director, of all people, ‘father’. They were uncontrollably laughing as the Director glared at John in agony and bewildered humiliation. The Director put his hands over his ears and ran out of the room as it began laughing at him, more loudly than before.
The Director tells Foster than he plans on making Bernard an example in front of the higher-ranked workers in the Centre. Foster retaliates hypocritically with that Bernard does his job very well. The Director agrees but that just deepens the severity of the punishment he plans on giving Bernard. He feels that ‘the greater a man’s talents, the greater his power to lead astray’.
He states that if one person has to live in misery in order for the rest of the society to retain order, then so be it. He asks Foster to view the matter in a dispassionate way – murder can kill an individual, but what is an individual in the society? Another can be made just as easily. It is the unorthodox behaviour of Bernard that threatens an entire society, not just the life of an individual.
Bernard then enters the room appearing translucently confident. His voice level trembles as he greets the Director.
The Director asks for the attention for the workers in the room and declares that Bernard has been living unorthodoxly in the society with his contrary to accepted belief of the society’s sports and soma, and especially of his sex-life. He booms to the crowd that Bernard has refused to obey the teachings of Ford and is therefore an enemy to Order, Stability, and Civilization in general. The Director proposes to dismiss Bernard by a transfer to a Sub-Centre in Iceland as the lowest order in society, where he will have a smaller chance of leading others astray by his ‘unfordly examples’.
The Director, obviously content with his massive speech, asks Bernard if he has anything to say that could prove why he should not be given the judgements passed upon him.
Bernard answers loudly that he does. The Director is taken back but allows him to show him.
Bernard opened a door. The workers gasped at the horrifying sight of the bloated, distorted shaped Linda as she smiled shyly. Linda recognizes the Director immediately and talks about how she would never forget his face, even if he had forgotten all about her. She asks if he remembers ‘his Linda’ and looks at him smiling expectedly.
The Director stares at Linda in petrified disgust as his confidence goes out like a light.
Linda asks once again if he remembers her in an anxious trembled voice. Her face is described as twisting grotesquely as she feels complete and utter grief. She holds out her arms and yells, “Tomakin!” (the name that she called him when describing him to John).
The Director asks what the meaning is of such an atrocious being but is interrupted by Linda running towards him and burying her face in his chest.
The higher ranked workers began howling in laughter.
The Director tried to unchain himself from Linda as she clung to him crying that she is Linda. The laughter drowned her out until she screamed, “You made me have a baby”.
There was complete silence as the Director stared horrified at Linda. She talks about her baby and how she is a mother in front of all of the workers as they stand silenced in outrage by the obscenity. Linda breaks away from the Director and begins sobbing how she did not understand and that it was not her fault, as she followed all the contraceptive drills as she always did. She then called for her son.
John enters swiftly and falls to his knees in front of the Director exclaiming, “My father!”
This not so serious obscenity as calling oneself or another ‘mother’ broke the tense situation for the workers looking on and laughter broke out. They found it hysterically hilarious that he would call the Director, of all people, ‘father’. They were uncontrollably laughing as the Director glared at John in agony and bewildered humiliation. The Director put his hands over his ears and ran out of the room as it began laughing at him, more loudly than before.
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