Brave New World: 6-9

I found these three chapters very interesting yet at the same time confusing. First of all in chapter 6 we begin to learn more about Bernard Marx, Lenina gives her perspective about him and Bernard himself talks about why he considered himself to be different. I found this great since in a single chapter Huxley shows how this character (Bernard) is different compared to all the humans in the society and his actions and mentality is what separates him from everyone else. “More on my own, not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body” (Huxley 90), to me he is now definitely considered as the “other” to me and is separated from the social life in which everyone lives. Bernard decides not to take soma, thrive off pleasure and not participating in public actions and Huxley shows us this “That mania, to start with, for doing thing in private” (Huxley 88). He seems to be the only one whom really desires, questions and wants freedom to be an individual not part of a pack “in spite of his misery absolutely refused to take the half-gramme…’I’d rather be myself’”(Huxley 88)

I also noticed that Huxley used a lot of descriptive imagery whenever he wanted to describe a setting or a very important event, such as the Savage Reservoir, or the event in which they whipped the child or John describing his memories as a child. To be honest I think Huxley does a great job using this technique and allowing us the reader to attach and perceive through the characters eyes.

John was a very interesting character in my opinion, he is the son of a beta (Linda) but born at the reservoir. When he began to tell his memories to Bernard once again we are given imagery to describe but what really surprised me was when John started to compare life in the ‘other side’ (what Linda has told him) and his life at the reservoir. This comparison is seen starting from the middle of the page, I found this great since not only does Huxley compare both settings for us but also gave us an insight through John’s perspective and how The Great States. Values were all the opposite in the pueblo. Then we see Linda’s consequences to trying to live the life of a beta in the reservoir, the women of the pueblo beat her up and even hit John due to Linda sleeping with the men of the pueblo.

In the pueblo is viewed as uncivilized, un-sanitized, filthy just plain wrong from Lenina’s point of view. Yet the Great State is seen as civilized and correct and this comparison was very apparent. Even Linda explains how she initially sees the whole pueblo as unbearable “I remember how it used to upset me, all that dirt, and nothing being aseptic” (Huxley 114). At this point I found it very impressive how we were initially introduced to a technologically advanced society, prosperous, young and joyful. Yet life at the pueblo is completely different. Life there is more natural, rural and less prosperous, we even learn that Linda tried to condition John just as it was done in the Great State but it was hard due to their new life style and customs, “Which was a good thing in a way,because it made it easier for me to condition him a little” (Huxley 115).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *