This week we reach the end of Brave New World.The last chapter in particular left me feeling that I usually get when I leave my chemistry class, what just happened? A lot of confusion in the last chapter.The two chapters proceeding the last one ties everything up very neatly and a lot, if not all, the answers about the civilized society were answered. Then that’s it, those are all the answers you get.

We don’t get answers as to what happen to the characters we have been following for so long. Sure they tell us that Bernard and Hemholtz are basically exiled to different islands but what happens to them once they get there? Are they coping with it? Are they better off on their perspective islands than they were in civilized society?

There’s one question that burns inside me about these islands full of exiled people. The controller says “If he had the smallest sense he’d understand that this punishment is really a reward. He’s being sent to an island. That’s to say, he’s being sent to a place where he’ll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All of the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self consciously individual to fit into community life. All the people who aren’t satisfied with orthodoxy. who’ve got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word who’s anyone” (Huxley page 204).

If these people are so against the grain why don’t they rebel against the world state? Since they are so unorthodox and they see the cracks in the system of the world state why don’t they expose these cracks and make a better society? Or is because they are so content with their current environment and they are surrounded by people of their own stature they that feel at home, at peace? That they finally feel accepted and are happy with the way their lives turned out? I wish we could have got more answers on the residents of these islands.

I’m more curious than anything as to what happened to Lennina? Was she the girl that John beat with the whip? ” “Strumpet!” The savage had rushed at her like a madman. “Fitchew!” Like a madman, he was slashing at her with the whip of small cords” ( Huxley page 229). Was this Lenina? I feel like she is the only female that would enrage John so bad that he would want cause physical harm to her. And Lennia was always around Henry Foster, so I think it would be safe to assume that this was Lennina who John beat with the whip. Did she die? After the beating did Lennina die? Another question that was left unanswered.

Finally, John’s suicide. I understand why he had to die but why would the controller set him up like that? The Controller is a very intelligent person, he knew John couldn’t last in civilized society, so instead of granting him permission to be exiled like Bernard and Hemholtz he condemned him to this life of misery in this civilized world. The controller knew John was like a square peg trying to fit in a circular spot. He knew it wouldn’t last long or end pretty so that’s why I feel as if John was set up.

Very disappointing end to a very strange story.

This week’s reading was in chapters 6 – 9. The first few chapters was like a roller coaster ride to me first I didn’t like it then I liked it, but now after reading these few chapters I’m still suck in limbo. Lenina and Bernard went to visit a savage reservation and I must admit I believe these people to be savages. Not because of the way Lenina and Bernard may think of them of savages, but because of the way they treat Linda and John. The beginning of chapter eight and all throughout the chapter the natives treat Linda and John so horribly because they are different. “Linda was on the bed. One of the women was holding her wrists. Another was lying across her legs so she couldn’t kick. The third was hitting her with a whip. Once, twice, three times; each time Linda screamed……. He caught hold of the woman’s enormous brown hand between his own and bit with all his might. She cried out wrenched her hand free, and gave him such a push that he fell down. While he was lying on the ground she hit him two or three times with the whip” ( Huxley page 118) That to me is disgusting, savage behavior. Whatever the reason, there is no excuse for three grown women to hold down another and physically assault her like an animal. Then to hit her child who was only defending his mother from their physical assault, is even more appalling. I find them to be savage creatures, I couldn’t even call them human beings. On page 127 they throw rocks at John making him to bleed very bad all because he wanted to participate in the ritual and they wouldn’t let him because he was different. These men criticize him because they think of his mother as whore, but these are the same men who go to his mother night after night. I find their behavior as well as their wives to unacceptable and savage and in the context of this story I’m glad that they live on reservations away from civilized people.

Chapter nine is very short chapter. Bernard has something cooking up his sleeve. He’s making arrangement for John and Linda to come back to London with them, and he’s on the phone with Mustapha Mond and he tells him ” I venture to think that your fordship might find the matter of sufficient scientific interest….” (Huxley page 132). The questions I have is, is Bernard bringing both Linda and John back to be studied like some specimens?  Is he playing a social experiment with them? For example can they assimilate back into civilized culture after bing around savages for so long? The beginning chapters I liked Bernard but the more and more I find out about him, I find him to be a rather sneaky person and I don’t that at all.  Towards the end of the chapter I’m curious to know what exactly was John plans with the sleeping Lenina? Was he planning on sexually assaulting her?

For me I think the three person conversation in chapter three was a bit of a conflict. You have the world director saying how bad the past was and how horrible familial relations are and you have Bernard and Lenina, in a sense, saying how they want these relationships. She says on page 46 no there hasn’t been anyone else and I jolly dont see why there should have been. Then when she agrees that she should see someone else she isn’t talking about seeing multiple other people just one other person Bernard. As the director then talks about how they produced the perfect drug soma page 59 and sixty you have Bernard a few sentences later on turning down the perfect drug and he is described as fending it off. So it makes you think is this society really as perfect as it appears to be? And was the past really that bad? Another topic I wanted to discuss was the whole hedonism, promiscuity value, idea this society has. Coming from a social stand point I guess you can say,  sex is a pleasurable it releases all these great chemicals in your brain that make you feel good. But on the other hand it is a way to build bonds, connect with people, create emotionally attachments to people, it can go so much deeper than hey this feels good I wonder why they promote it? Yes if you have sex with multiple people you can diminish the emotional part but you can’t totally eliminate it I think. Maybe Lenina enjoyed sex with Henry so much that’s why she stayed with him for four months and by staying with him that’s where the emotional attachments starts to form etc. I guess this puzzles me because to me sex is way more than yes this feels good, it can lead to so many other more feelings that can be adverse to what the state values.

Brave new world I find somewhat interesting. The concept as a whole I’m not to found of. A society that is decanted and raised and conditioned  by the “state” separated by a caste system. I think the conditioning part, which I think is based on Pavlov’s classical conditioning I find t be the most disturbing. To think the world is controlled by just a few individuals and what every hey think or believe is to be right is that is law, that’s the way it should be!  “Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind……. But al these suggestions are our suggestions!….. The suggestions from the state!” ( Huxley page 36). This I find to be troubling. What I find troubling and also in a way disturbing is the processes of decanting humans and treating humans as machines! The whole process to me, seems so sterile “Pilkington, at Mombasa, had produced individuals who were sexually mature at four and full grown at six and a half. A scientific triumph. But socially useless. Six year old men and women were too stupid to do even Epsilon work” ( Huxley page 25). They are talking about humans as if they were machines, robots, just a piece of flesh to do work. Besides  My social and moral outrage and disgust about the concept of this story what I find really interesting in the later chapters, is the introduction of the characters, two in particular Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx. I find them intriguing because they appear to have some difficulty accepting the status quo, Bernard more so than Lenina. Bernard is a character I would love to find out more about. He should be one of the happiest people in the world. He’s an Alpha Plus male, which is the highest ranking caste and he is a psychologist. Through some defect ( I don’t know if that is the right word) he is “created” shorter than what an Alpha Plus male should be. Eight centimeters shorter! Which makes him feel like an outcast among is alpha cast, which I believe makes him question the whole process! ” One hundred repetitions three nights a week for four years, thought Bernard Marx who was a specialist on hypnopaedia. Sixty two thousand four hundred repetitions make on truth. Idiots!” ( Huxley page 52). That paragraphs intrigued me about his character. He is by profession a psychologist and I believe a expert on hypnopaedia, and for him to have a thought like this! It appears to me the author is setting us up for some big event involving him. I’m not quite sure what it is. The obvious thought would be a rebellion against the state, but as I read on and discover more about his character I doubt that would be the case. Another line that struck out to me “What the two men shared was the knowledge that they were individuals” ( Huxley page 71).  For a society as this one, to me, I would think this would be an horrible thought! To be an individual? It’s like having leprosy! This has to be the worst imaginable thing that can happen to a person! I’m curious to know what is going to happen with these characters!