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).

The most important aspect in this chapter is the fact that we endeavor further into what must be given up in order to obtain happiness and what it truly means in each of Mustapha and John’s cases. Religion is one of the strongest points that Mustapha stresses. In one of his many so-called ‘pornographic’ books, Mustapha reads an excerpt about God,

“…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.

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.