Author: Cody (Page 2 of 2)

Chapters 14-18 you come to understand the price paid in this civilization to maintain control, and to keep the society the way it is seen throughout the story. In Chapter 16 page 201 Mustapha Mond tells a story the world controllers giving a island called Cyprus the freedom that we would have today. They left twenty two thousand alphas run the island with no other caste to do any of the dirty work. He goes on to show how if a society where there were no lesser humans or “Epsilon semi-morons” to do any of the “dirty work” it wouldn’t survive. “All agricultural and industrial equipment was handed over to them and they were left to manage their own affairs. The result exactly fulfilled all theoretical predictions. The land wasn’t properly worked; there were strikes in all the factories; the laws were set at naught, orders disobeyed; all the people detailed for a spell of low-grade work were perpetually intriguing for high-grade jobs, and all the people with high-grade jobs were counter-intriguing at all costs to stay where they were”. Mustapha Mond gave legit factual evidence to prove why freedom and a society where everyone is looked to as equal will not work while John questioned the way things are. It took a civil war and the death of over half of the population of the island for them to want to return to the grasp of the world controllers, that is the reason why the society is as it stands as Mustapha Mond said “Because we have no wish to have our throats cut”(pg. 200).  Johns questioning of the use of the “Bokanovsky Groups” brought a very interesting reaction from Mustapha Mond, which tied into his story about the Alphas. It showed that a society of people who think they are equal it will not work, for there always has to be someone to do the “dirty work”. “A society of Alphas couldn’t fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a factory staffed by alphas- that is to say by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to be capable (within limits) of making a free choice assuming responsibility. Imagine it!……It’s an absurdity”. His reasoning is that Alphas can’t and aren’t conditioned to do work lesser than their “class”.  Mustapha Mond’s reasoning behind the way their society is makes sense, but it’s still wrong. He explains why things are the way they are and the price they pay to keep them, but even he is “Conditioned” to think so. But in reality it is really fear that keeps them trapped in this delusion of Happiness they continue dwell on.

Helmholtz in the story Brave new World is a very bewildering character because he is someone who has everything but there is something missing. He is a creator and an intellectual who feels like he’s lacking something that even he can’t understand. I believe what he’s lacking is creativity, and the outlet to use his creative mind to create for another purpose other than creating propaganda in his job as a lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering. When he is introduced to John and this series of conversations with him about poetry something clicks, the greatest writer of the World State realizes that his life’s work has been for nothing, and that all he writes in his job as a lecturer, from the slogans to the lines for the feelies, is all a waste. “In all these weeks he had never come to so close an  intimacy with the savage as Helmholtz immediately achieved”. They became so close because Helmholtz saw what he was missing in John, and finally was able to understand what was wrong with him. Helmholtz Run in with the government is because he wants people to feel what he’s writing, he wants people to take his words and interpret them for themselves and feel what he’s going through. “I was trying to engineer them into feeling as I’d felt when i wrote the rhymes. Ford!”. He want’s them to feel the words, this was evident when John recited a poem by shakespeare and Helmholtz felt the word as he recited them. ” Helmholtz listened with a growing excitement. At “sole Arabian tree” he started; at “thou shrieking harbinger” he smiled with sudden pleasure; at “every fowl of tyrant wing” the blood rushed up into his cheeks but at “defunctive music” he turned pale and trembled with an unprecedented emotion”.  Helmholtz finally started to understand what he was missing his entire life these last three chapters, and i believe John is going to be the one who awakens the real poet hidden behind all the brainwashing and conditioning.

In next few chapters you find out that Bernard is actually the most “Human” out of his peers, based on his reactions to specific events and how he takes things that happen to him.  The place you see this the strongest would be when Bernard and Lenina travel to the reservation and encounter people still living under the old ways, people not part of their “Ford”. Bernard’s reaction to everything that they witnessed was of someone who was interested in the way of life, while Lenina’s was of disgust and fear. While Lenina questioning how people could live like this Bernard seemed to not even be phased by their lifestyle. “they’ve been doing it for the last five or six thousand years. So i suppose they must be used to it by now”. His tone is of someone who is more accepting of their nature, while Lenina is more denouncing. Another interesting exchange was when they both encountered the Elder of the reservation Lenina saw something she could barely comprehend, while Bernard saw someone who was just old. “That’s because we don’t allow them to be like that. We preserve them from diseases. We keep their internal secretions artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium. We don’t permit their magnesium-calcium ratio to fall below what it was at thirty. We give them transfusion of young blood. We keep their metabolism permanently stimulated. So, of course they don’t look like that, Partly”. Lenina didn’t want to listen to his explanation because to her the sight was enough to distract her from the truth, her “conditioning” won’t let her. Bernards inability to fit in and “conform” is because he still thinks he doesn’t let his brainwashing control his thoughts on situations. Another Situation where Bernard showed his different personality from his peers was in the Director’s office, he was threatened with a transfer is he doesn’t conform and stop with his “lapse from a proper standard of infantile decorum”. They want him to conform and be the alpha he was conditioned to be. Bernard took this threat like it didn’t matter “Bernard left the room with a swagger, exulting as he banged the door behind him, in the thought that he stood alone, embattled against the order of things”. Bernard is by far the most Human character, in a story of Programed conditioned cyborgs.

The first few chapters of “A Brave New World” You learn what a very peculiar world these people truly live in. You start off learning about basically their cloning process human reproduction is now done in labs, more so human beings are created for particular purposes, and their intelligence reflects that purpose. The “Caste” system basically fits each level of human from the smartest, down to the most unintelligent. The most interesting thing about that is, the fact that during their growth process these subjects are actually altered to either give them the best possible chance at intelligence or dumbed down so their intelligence is non existent. Each baby programmed to like or dislike specific things, and to enjoy doing what they are casted to do. This new world has a lower caste called the “Epsilons” who lack the ability to read or write because of they were deprived of oxygen, and have the most alcohol in their blood surrogate. They do the worst jobs that no one wants to do in this world for example an elevator attendant. Then you have the highest the “Alphas” who maintain the highest level jobs in the world, for example working the labs the others are created in. The character Lenina who is a Beta seems to be going against the system slightly. It feels like she’s going to be the one of the few who exposes what great terror this system truly poses on this world.