After the rising tension coming into chapter 14 to 18, the book just ends on a low note. You would think with all the excitement and drama with Bernard and the director, the ending would end with a bang but no, it ends flat and disappointing. Characters who had major character developments revert back to their old ways and you can’t hope to feel that you’ve “lost” after reading the end of the book. Firstly I want to talk about John. In chapters 14-15, we can see him struggling with the World State’s ways and his fight to end their ways. At this point, John is the only one who is fighting against the World State now. We can see any hope he had in the World State vanish when his mother Linda dies after an overdose of soma. He is also angry at the World State because of what the World State turned had turned his mother into. She went so overboard with the soma, she did not even recognize John until after long moments of yelling from John. Now that he sees what the soma does to the people of the World State, he is even more furious and motivated to change their ways.

I think part of the reason for John’s outburst at the hospital is not only caused by his mothers death but also because of the children there not understanding what death meant to someone. Death to those twins at the hospital meant nothing to them. Naturally even if you did not know someone that they died, you would feel a bit sorrow but these kids have been conditioned to not have these feelings. On page 184, we can see their conditioning where John says, “What are these filthy little brats doing here at all? It’s disgraceful! Disgraceful? but what do you mean? They’re being death conditioned.” They also have no guilt of making fun of John’s mother which also shows their inability to see or have love.

John is so enraged that he tries to convince these Delta twins to stop taking soma and to choose freedom instead. I think John was trying to help them see what he was finally seeing, that the World State is messed up and is depressing. This part also leads into my discussion about Bernard’s character development. After John chucks the twins soma out the window, they engage in a fight. Helmholtz and Bernard just arrived and we can see that Helmholtz is not hesitant to help out John. Bernard on the other hand is hesitant. You would think after all hes been through that he would help John out. After all that talk about changing the World State, he decides not to help. However he did feel some shame because of his indecisiveness. On page 193 we can see Bernard’s struggle with himself on the bottom of the page, “Hesitant on the fringes of the battle. They’re done for, said Bernard and urged by a sudden impulse, ran forward to help them, then thought better of itand halted, then ashamed, stepped forward again and was standing in an agony of humiliated indecision.” The reason why I’m angry at this is because the story had set up for Bernard’s incredible character development, his confidence, his ability to see what he has done wrong but it all falls flat right here. The way I see it is that, if he had chosen to help out John and Helmholtz, it would signify his desire to fight against the World States ways. If he chose not to, that means he has given up to the World State and has accepted it’s ways.

At the end of the story I think it’s very anti climatic. Reason because we do not learn of the other characters and John’s disappointing end. I think readers always want the characters the win at the end but in the case we can see it as a failure because nothing about the World State was changed. Nothing was changed, 18 chapters and the World State continues to be the overwhelming power that controls everybody. Everyone’s efforts to change the World State, down the drain. If I had the chance to ask Aldous Huxley anything, I would ask Huxley why he chose to have the characters “lose”, their battle against the World State.

I think these chapters are finally where the plot actually starts moving and gets interesting for me. We now see Bernard in a troubling situation where he might potentially be exiled to Iceland because of his actions. I also thought it was really cool to see someone rebel against this society and the director like how Bernard did. As Bernard asks permission to go into the Reservation, the Director recalls a time when he went there and met a moment but lost her. Bernard says you must have had a terrible shock and i think it is here where Bernard takes a jab at him.  I also think this is also a part where we see a hint of the director’s weakness. In page 95 the directors says, “Don’t imagine, that I’d had any indecorous relation wit the girl. Nothing emotional, nothing long drawn, It was all perfectly healthy and normal. Furious with himself for having given away a discreditable secret, he vented his rage on Bernard.” Perhaps the director still has some “emotion” left in him or in other words, his old self before this society came to be. This part also makes me question if Bernard will use this information against the Director is some kind of rebellion. In these chapters, the soma was talked about a lot. During their trip to the Reservation, Lenina keeps urging Bernard to take some soma to calm himself down. It seems that soma is very important to this new society, like a new drug that calms you down. It calms Bernard down to the point where he is comfortable enough to have sex with Lenina. There was also a point in these chapters where Bernard learning a part of the Directors past may have backfired on him. He calls Helmholtz only to find out that the director stayed true to his words of sending him to Iceland. In page 100, you can see how depressed Bernard turns in a instant, from feeling rebellious, to scared. In the middle of the page it says, “What? He’s looking out for some one to take my place? Bernard’s voice was agonized. So it’s actually decided? Did he mention Iceland? You say he did? Ford! Iceland… He hung up on the receiver and turned back to Lenina. His face was pale, his expression utterly dejected.” You can see how slowly his feelings change from being anxious, to being scared.

I thought it got really interesting when Bernard finds the little boy John in the Reservation. He learns that his father is really the Director in the world State. I think this is a crucial moment in the book because it seems like no one else knows about the Director having a son and in this time, is a disgrace. It also seems like Bernard plans to take John back to the World State in order to disgrace the director. To me it seems like this is revenge for Bernard for being exiled to Iceland by the director. It is also introduced again in these chapters where having babies naturally is seen as inhumane. Linda, John’s mother, did not want to go back to the world state because she felt disgraced for having a baby.

Judging from the title of the book I assumed the book to take place in a paradise island kind of type, probably because that’s how I imagine a utopia. After reading the first few chapters, I was completely overwhelmed. The ideas in which they enforce in this new world is just absurd to me. The fact that in this new world they create new human beings in a factory instead of natural conception, to me is just inhumane. How did they drift away from how the world once was? All these insane ideas kept me reading and kept me questioning like what was the initial spark of all this happening? One of the major conflicts that I see is probably the fact that before even born, you’re controlled by an outside party. Before they’re born, they are assigned a caste or a role. Not only that but they assign their profession as well. In order to fit that profession, they manipulate their likes and dislikes to benefit their jobs. How is that even living, knowing that you been destined to a role and have had your life fixed to this role. I also found the imagery of the first few chapters very interesting. They clearly describe it as a factory but the writer describes all the different parts of it such as the hatchery, the nursery and the play room with all the kids in it. The writer manages to put a mass producing factory in our heads and gives us a clear image of it. It seems that the staff of the factory are afraid of people teaching these kids of the old ways of life. They are scared that they might rebel and corrupt these kids thinking the way they live now is wrong, which in my opinion is. Mond is a clear example of this as the director is cautious of him trying to corrupt the kids. The book also said that there were rumors of Mond having books that they consider forbidden such as the bible and poetry. I think Mond will have a huge impact later on the book as he might be the key to changing this corrupt society. I think it’s more of a dystopia because all these decisions made to the humans are not of their free will. The factory people are just playing god, assigning roles and everything. Each person should be able to change their destiny and have their own way of living but their way of cloning and manipulation is just inhumane .I also find it kind of ironic that there are still relationships that still go on in the story. Lenina and Henry are a example of this. You would assume that with all this artificial human creation process would wipe out the power known as love. Perhaps Lenina and Henry will see that the way things work in life right now are not right and might do something about it. I’m looking forward to how the story progresses in the next chapters, hopefully someone will question the factories ways.