After reading these four chapters, I was more interested in the story. At the beginning of the book, I wasn’t so fond of it. But now I guess it got a little easier to understand, and I’m enjoying it.

In chapter 10 I found it ironic how the Director was going to fire Bernard and send him away to exile because of his weird actions. When all along the director was the one that committed something that their people were completely against. He made someone a mother, something that their people were foreign to. Being parents was laughed at among their people. Instead of him firing Bernard, he quit because of his embarrassment and his disloyal ways to what his people stand for.

One thing that caught my attention within these four chapters was the relationship between Lenina and John. Lenina seems to have strong feelings for John. In chapter 13 Lenina is talking to her friend Franny. She states “but he’s the one I want” (pg.171). Franny then says “Don’t think about him….take soma” (pg.171). “I do…But in the intervals I still like him. I shall always like him” (pg.171) states Lenina. But she is not alone. John seems to have feelings for her as well. Although, they are both unsure if the other likes them back as well. In this chapter Lenina goes to see John to confess how much she likes him. She takes half a gramme of soma upon arriving at John’s room. When she arrives, he seems to not look happy to see her. It’s because he was expecting someone else. Nevertheless he is happy, because now he can confess his love for her. Lenina tries to kiss John, but instead he starts talking about proving his worth to her. By this he wants to bring her the skin of a mountain lion. Lenina is confused to why he is acting this way. He’s pretty much telling her he would do anything to show her how much he loves her. He starts talking about marriage, how where he’s from people get married. “For always. They make a promise to live together for always” (pg.174) stated John. At this point Lenina is horrified by the idea. But she still likes him, and continues to throw herself on him. At this point Lenina is trying to seduce him by taking off her clothes and trying to touch on him. Now John is the one that’s horrified. He’s confused at her weird actions, so he calls her a whore. Obviously Lenina and John come from different worlds. Where certain things are acceptable, and others aren’t. For Lenina, in her world if you like someone you then express it through sex. For John, in his world if you like someone you prove your worth then you get married. That why when they would try to “seduce” each other, the other was confused to why they would take that kind of action.

I found it funny that when Bernard finally started to get a good reputation, he allowed it to go to his head. He bragged about how many women he had within a week. He didn’t think much of his new found popularity. He thought that being John’s “guardian” would help his popularity stay afloat. But in the end, John was behind the reason why his popularity didn’t last long.

It was kind of difficult for me to read these three chapters. It had a lot going on. To me it didn’t really seem to stay on topic with what the author wanted the reader to get from it. Hence making It difficult for me to understand. Nevertheless, whatever I did understand, I  did enjoy.

The more I read this story, the more it reminds me of the short story The Machine Stops. The character in Brave New World Bernard Marx, reminds me so much of Kuno from The Machine Stops. To me they both have similar mind sets. They both feel as though they are different. They believe that the world that they live in isn’t right. They wish to have their own thoughts and feelings about things, and not be like everyone else. They want to follow their heart and do what they feel is right, not what they are told or “conditioned” to think.

In chapter 6 (part one) the author reveals that Bernard has some internal conflict with himself. He struggles with what he wants to do, and what his society thinks of him. Everyone knows that he isn’t like everyone else. In the beginning of the chapter the character Lenina described him as odd. Her friend Franny explanation for Bernard being different was “alcohol in his blood-surrogate” (pg.88).   There’s certain things that people like doing, but Bernard rather do something else. For example, he would rather sit alone with Lenina all night to talk, instead of playing electro-magnetic golf.  “It makes me feel as though I were more me, if you see what I mean. More on my own, not so completely part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body” (pg.90). This quote means to me that Bernard wants to have his own thoughts and opinions. He wants to do what he thinks is fun, not what someone of higher authority tells him what’s fun. He wants to be his own individual, not slump together with others. “But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everyone else’s way” (pg.90). He wants to do what makes him happy, not what he is told should make him happy. At this point Lenina is in shock at his statement. She states “why don’t you take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You’d forget all about them. And instead of being miserable, you’d be jolly” (pg.91). At this point Bernard gives in and takes the soma. I think he did it to make her stop complaining and to seem like everyone else.

There are also some similarities among the characters Lenina from Brave New World, and Vashti from The Machine Stops. They both come off to me as people who follow the rules and someone who wouldn’t dare to be different. They both follow societies thoughts on what’s right and wrong (in a sense). Both Lenina and Vashti think that someone having their own idea isn’t normal.

Reading this story, it kind of reminded me of one of the previous stories that we read, The Machine Stops. In the novel Brave New World starts off describing a factory which I believe may be one of the main settings of the story. The setting is located in London at Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. The story takes place at some weird time in the future. In this factory human beings are being produce by asexual production instead of sexual production (as already mentioned by Kali). In the factory the babies are being created in test tubes, with preselected destinies already planned out for them. In said factory, the babies are also being placed in a caste system that consists of Gamma, Beta, Delta, Alpha, and Epsilon. It’s obvious that this story is dystopian, by the fact that everyone has preselected destinies and placed into a caste system.

At the beginning of the story, there’s a group of students that are being given a tour of the factory by the director. The students are given the run down about how the process works with creating the test tube babies. The author Aldous Huxley uses plenty of imagery to make the reader get the feel of the setting. It makes you feel like as if you are really there experiencing it.

In chapter two, the thing that stood out to me the most was the experiment that the nurses did with the babies. The nurse presents flowers and books to a group of babies. The babies are allowed to play and get familiar with the items. Then the nurse sets of an alarm and an electric shock to the babies. At this point the babies are screaming with terror. Afterwards the nurse tries to present the items to the babies again, but they refuse. Now in the babies mind, they believe that the flowers and books set off the alarm and the electric shock. So now they don’t want to play with it anymore. This reminded me of something I learned in one of my psychology classes. This is called Pavlov Classical Condition (also mentioned by Denise). They did this to get them to like and dislike certain things.

In this timeframe peoples thoughts and actions were controlled by a higher authority. Who they would become what they did, what they would like and dislike was not in their hands to control.

In the novel, the author uses repetition a lot. One of the phrases that he emphasizing is “every one belongs to every one else.” This quote means to me that everyone shares significant others. Well technically, they cant really be significant if they aren’t yours to have.

This story isn’t really the most interesting so far, but I guess I’ll just have to wait and read more.