These middle chapters are what caught my attention the most because in the beginning I thought the book was rather boring and pointless. Different things caught my attention, how the New World react to Linda and the savage, how would they treat Bernard and Linda for bringing such people into their world, etc.
What I found to be more interesting was how once everyone knew about Linda and her son everyone wanted to only see the savage and not Linda. This bothered me a little more because it wasn’t fair. Through out the whole story being a mom or dad was considered wrong and no such thing was heard of. “Nobody had the smallest desire to see Linda. To say one was a mother-that was a past joke: it was an obscenity”(pg.142). Yes she was a mom but after all she still was one of them but I don’t think anyone in the New World wanted to accept that. “Moreover, she wasn’t a real savage, had been hatched out of a bottle and conditioned like anyone else”(pg142). If I were one of them I would probably have gravitated towards wanting to see her more first only because in a way I might feel more comfortable because she’s the same as I. I say the same in that she was produced the same way, however she did look different, fat, bad skin and no teeth. Maybe trying to understand what happened to her would then ease my curiosity into seeing what the savage was like, but at the same time I can see why everyone wanted to see the savage first, he was totally different from what they were.
It saw in chapter 11 that Linda too had no desire to see anyone, but I think deep down inside it would have made her feel better. She might have been a little jealous of her son I think because of the amount of soma she was taking to escape what was actually going on. “She took as much as twenty grammes a day”(pg143). Maybe she thought after everything she’s been threw she needed that much, since she was deprived of it in her savage life, not realizing taking so much would be a bad thing. She might have thought the risk was worth it because of the way it made her feel. “Which will finish her off in a month or two. One day her respiratory centre will be paralyzed. No more breathing. Finished. And a good thing too, if we could rejuvenate, of course it would be different. But we can’t’(pg143).
Maybe the alphas or who ever was considered important and well educated knew the risks of soma, which is why it’s controlled in a way. People get a certain dosage after work and probably only have a certain amount available outside. I think the doctor knows she can die of an overdose, and thinks it would be a good idea if she did. In a way soma was an anti-aging drug as well, because people thought the way she looked was weird because everyone for the most part looked the same. “No we can’t rejuvenate. But I’m very glad, to have had this opportunity to see an example of senility in a human being”(pg 144). Thus, the people can be further more conditioned into thinking soma is a good thing.
