What a turn to the story!  The last couple of chapters of Brave New World lead us to a plot twist.  I believed that the story would end in the change of civilization.  When John, Bernard, Helmholtz, and Mustapha Mond were conversing after John’s outburst about how Mond believed in what John believed, I thought there was going to be a happy ending.  But, in all reality, the ending of this story was pretty sad.  The story of Brave New World ends in John’s downfall, which baffles me because I believed that out of all of the characters in this story, John was the strongest.  After seeing Bernard’s change, I thought that John would be the one to change society and get through to The Controllers.  When John escaped to the lighthouse, I though he would be a happier person, maybe find the woman he wanted and go against civilization and conceive a child.  I even had hope of him running into Lenina and them living happily ever after.  But I was wrong, John ended up taking his own life, not being able to bear the chaotic scene that occurred at the light house with the whipping of Lenina, and the crowd of people, and the helicopters.

In chapters 14-18 we learn a lot about the characters of Brave New World.  We find out that Bernard is a coward, especially in the chapter where John, Helmholtz and himself were taken to Mustapha Mond after John went completely insane at the Park lane Hospital for the Dying.  To me, John was never fully sane, maybe this is because of his upbringing at the reservation.  Once his mother died, he became even crazier.  His anger elevated.  The simplest things would tick him off.  For example, when John was at the Park lane Hospital of the dying, before his mother passed away, he attacked the nurse.  He also pushed toddlers around and while explaining to the people of London that they are not truly free, he threw a fit and ended up starting a riot between the classes.

John hit the fan when he escaped to the lighthouse.  He used mustard and hot water to turn his insides and make himself sick.  He also whipped himself.  Chapter 18 states “Three Delta-Minus workers from one of the Puttenham Bokanovsky Groups happened to be driving to El-stead and, at the top of the hill, were astonished to see a young man standing outside the abandoned lighthouse stripped to the waist and hitting himself with a whip of knotted cords.”  After this event, John began to receive visits from reporters.  He also threw himself into a bush of thorns to get the image of Lenina out of his head.  Chapter 18 states “At the edge of the heath stood a clump of hoary juniper bushes.  He flung himself against them, he embraced, not the smooth body of his desires, but an armful of green spikes.”  John must have had a high tolerance of pain.  You would think one would pass out from all of this self torture or at least stop hurting themselves.  This also proves the insanity of John.

The whipping incident was the beginning to John’s downfall.  And in the end John ended up hanging himself from all the terrorization he was receiving from “the outsiders.”  If he continued living the way he was, he most likely would have been brought back to the London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre and be put under the eyes of everyone like an animal in a cage.

After returning to London from his trip to the reservation, Bernard became a brand new person.  Now that he had brought John and Linda to London with him, Bernard gained a new reputation from the people who once treated him so poorly.

In the beginning of chapter 11, Huxley states “Bernard now found himself, for the first time in his life, treated merely normally, but as a person of outstanding importance.  There was no more talk of the alcohol in his blood-surrogate, no gibes at his personal appearance.  Henry Foster went out of his way to be friendly; Benito Hoover made him a present of six packets of sex- hormone chewing gum; the Assistant Predestinator came out and cadged almost abjectly for an invitation to one of Bernard’s evening parties.  As for the women, Bernard had only to hint at the possibility of an invitation, and he could have whichever of them he liked.” John and Linda had made Bernard popular amongst the castes of the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre.  Before the trip to the reservation, Bernard focused his eyes on Lenina.  He didn’t like the fact that other men treated her like a piece of meat.  But now, Bernard can have any girl in London that he wants because of his success of bringing John and Linda to the London.  Bernard also gained a new reputation with the Controllers, including Mustapha Mond.

The things that Bernard once believed in, he no longer sees important in chapters 10-13. For example, before Bernard traveled to the reservation, he did not believe in the use of Soma to create happiness.  Yes, he took soma occasionally, but within chapters 10-13, you can tell that Bernard has become more accustomed to taking soma.  He takes it for the hell of it now.  Bernard now enjoys the world that he lives in and doesn’t even think to complain about the things he once was concerned with, including conditioning and hypnopedia.  he doesn’t have time for this anymore.  Now all he cares about is showing John off to the people of London. No one pays mind to Linda, John’s mother.  Bernard actually approves of the fact that Linda is given as much soma as she wants, even though this will end in her early death.

Bernard also gave up his friendship with his close friend Helmholtz because he believed that Helmholtz was jealous of his success.  In chapter 11, Bernard boasted to Helmholtz about his new success with women.  He states, “And I had six girls last week; one on Monday, two on Tuesday, two more on Friday, and one on Saturday.  And if I’d have the time or the inclination, there were at least a dozen more who were only too anxious…”  Helmholtz could only shake his head once he heard this.  Bernard accused Helmholtz of being envious and told himself “never would he speak to Helmholtz again.”  Luckily, in the future, Bernard is able to win back Helmoltz’s friendship, but once that happens he is the one who becomes jealous because Helmholtz took liking to John.

But one thing about Bernard that stayed the same was his nasty attitude.   Whenever Helmholtz and John were around each other, they would share conversations that Bernard  commented negatively to.  He replied with his “acts of vengeance” until Helmholtz was fed up and told him not to comment negatively again.

In chapters 6-9 of Brave New World, we were exposed to a whole new side to the book.  When Lenina and Bernard travel outside of the Conditioning Centre in London, to a reservation in New Mexico.  When exploring New Mexico, Lenina and Bernard encountered the Indian culture and met a new group of people that were able to expose them to a new world.

I enjoyed chapters 6 through 9 more than the first five chapters of Brave New World.  I feel like the first five chapters of the book are less entertaining than chapters 6 through 9.  The story line of chapters 6 through 9 is on one track instead of here and there like the first five chapters.  I enjoyed the story of John and Linda.  Learning the background of the two new characters and the different life they lived from Lenina and Benard was more interesting than the life in the conditioning centre.

John differs from the other characters of his world while Bernard differs from the characters in his world.  John seeks acceptance in his world, and in this way he can connect to Bernard.  In chapters 6-9 we are also introduced to Bernard’s world.  Although it was a bit confusing to understand, I was able to understand Bernard a little more.  Bernard is the type of person who wants to step outside of the box and not go by the rules of the world he lives in.  He doesn’t want to consume soma all the time, he feels belittled by his superiors, and all he wants to do is be different.  But, while he was trying to be himself, he was threatened by the Director to be transferred to a sub-centre in Iceland.

In chapter 6, you can easily tell the difference between Bernard and Lenina.  Lenina is so used to the condition life style that she has been living in, while Bernard wants to break free of the conditioned lifestyle.  In chapter 6, Bernard states “Yes, ‘Everybody’s happy nowadays.’ We begin giving the children that at five.  But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina?  In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way.”  After this statement Lenina replies with “I don’t know what you mean.”  In these statements, we can clearly see that Bernard thinks differently from the people in his world. He feels differently as well.  Bernard would probably be able to live easier if he had a friend like John in his life that he can connect with.  Bernard does have Helmholtz, but Helmholtz pities Bernard.  When Bernard speaks, Helmholtz either zones off or continues to speak about himself.  But, Bernard may think of John as a savage now being that he caught John running out of his hotel room.  Hopefully, John is able to explain himself, and Bernard still decides to take him to London with him and Lenina.  If John travels back to London with Lenina and Bernard, it may benefit both John and Bernard.  John may be able to explore a new world and hopefully be accepted by society, or Bernard can show that life outside of conditioning is beneficial.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is oddly entertaining.  This book is interesting because it gives us an insight to a world that we do not live in.  This “utopia” to some may be a “distopia” to others.  To me, this world is a distopia.  The world that these characters live in is messed up.  We no longer create beings through intercourse, but now we create beings in labs.  I call these things beings because they cannot be considered human in my eyes.  This new way of development called Bokanovskifying creates beings by the multiple.  Not just one or two beings, but thousands of identical beings categorized by classes (using Greek terminology, which to me is weird because the narrator points out the fact that many languages such as French, German, and Polish are instinct.)  When reading about this Bokanovski group of beings, I asked myself, what is wrong with diversity?  Is there any diversity in this world that these characters live in?  The narrator points out the fact that there are multiple races (African American for example.)  So what is this issue of diversity if technically diversity exists in this world?

While reading Brave New World, I can make a text to text comparison.  This book reminds me of The Hunger Games in multiple ways.  These books are similar in the fact that in both stories, people are divided by class.  In Brave New World, the people are divided using Greek terminology such as Alpha, Betas, and Gammas, while in The Hunger Games, the people are divided into districts.  Another comparison can be the fact that there is one group of individuals ruling the people of the world.  In Brave New World, this individual is the DHC, while in The Hunger Games, this leading individual is President Snow.  These leaders are even similar in the fact that they dress in their white suits.

While reading Brave New World, I also made the connection of these generated beings to the Aryan race.  To me, it seems like the DHC is creating a group of alike individuals who have “no flaws.”  The beings that are being created are conditioned to the liking of the DHC.  In chapter 2, the Delta babies (all dressed in Khaki) were conditioned to form a fear of books and flowers.  The narrator states “you can’t have lower-caste people wasting the Community’s time over books.”  Also, the narrator states ” a love of nature keeps no factories busy.”  Today, people are conditioned to read books and educate themselves and to go outdoors and not stay in front of the television.

In some ways, the characters in Brave New World are similar to the people in our world.  For example, in Brave New World, the scientists in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre inject the embryos with typhoids and sleeping sickness to “immunize the fish against the future man’s disease.”  Today, we do the dame thing.  At a young age, we immunize humans so they will not be effected by the diseases of the world.

Brave New World is a story originally published in the early 1900s, and in some ways predicted the future (the time period we are in now) and will probably predict events that will occur hundreds of years from now.