In these 4 final chapters of “Brave New World” a lot of events transpired. To start of chapter 14, John sees his mother Linda die. The other people in the hospital, at least the younger ones, question why she looks so ugly and gross. John then starts arguing with the nurse, and she feels threatened.  Linda then dies off and John starts hysterically crying. He is surrounded by what I gathered to be very young children. To help the children try not to think about this whole ordeal, they start handing out soma to them. John starts to burst into an outrage saying phrases like “Don’t take that horrible stuff, it’s poison” (Huxley,191). He then takes all of the soma tablets and starts to throw them off the roof. This starts to stir conflict in this huge crowd thats forming and they start to rush John. Bernard and Helmholtz go to defend him. Low and behold this police type force shows up with more drugs administered by airborne machinery and water pistols with some type of anesthesia. The whole mess is taken care of and the story continues.

Out of everything that took place in these 4 chapters. That whole part just stood out. Throughout the whole novel we are told that they condition their people to be calm, happy and peaceful and not to think too much. They control this by means of soma and other pleasure practices to keep everyone very mellow. If this is what the World State was trying to achieve, then why was there this police for in the 1st place? The World State supposedly is attempting to create this utopian society in which everyone is happy and nothing bad happens. They have the idea that having individuals in society causes instability which in their minds leads to an uncivilized society. If they wanted to achieve this so bad then why do they have places such as the savage reservations and the islands?Even if they acknowledge that they exist, why do they allow the citizens from them into their society? Is that not the exact opposite of the goal of the World State? When someone goes from one type of society to another, they bring with them their ideals and traditions along with them. This is shown multiple times in the novel. Such as when Linda was stranded in the savage reservations. The traditions that the World State had are almost the exact opposite of the savage reservation. This is the same when John visits the World State. He brings all of his ideas from the reservation to the World State and this causes a huge case of instability in the World States mind. Is the police force there because the controller knows that there is no way possible that there can be a true utopian society without there being some type of variable in the situation? I think that the controller knows that no matter how hard they try, they will never achieve the perfect utopian society.

John Visit his mother in the hospital because she is ill and is going to die anytime soon. There is a nurse who escorts John to the room Linda was in and for some reason the nurse was blushing at John and I have no Idea why. To proof that the nurse was blushing at John it says it right here in the text, “Still blushing, she led the way down the ward.” That quote tells us that while the nurse showed John the direction to Linda room she blushed at him.

When the nurse ask John If he was ill is because he seemed upset that his mother was going to die and she isn’t use to seeing people care for others like John dud. In the text that proves that the nurse feel this way it says, “she was not accustomed to this kind of thing in visitors”(181). Also after the passage describe John pale face representing that he was upset, the nurse asked if he was ill because of his face expression. She probably knew that he was upset about the news of his mother. John showed a sense of care for his mother and the nurse never saw that happen before. The nurse herself probably don’t even show love/care for others so when seeing John react this way she was confused. The reason for the nurse not caring for others is because the World State did not raise people to care for one another but the reason John feel that way is cause he was living in the Savage Reservation.

I notice as John was looking at his mother in this ill state on the bed he wanted to cry because she was not in good condition. In the book it says, “He felt the hot tears welling up behind his eyelids as he recalled the words and Linda’s voice as she repeated them”(182). The quote basically talks about how John remembers all the good times he had with his mother in the past. He remembers all the things and begin to cry as he keep remembering because it hurts him emotionally. Linda is very ill and what shows that in the book is when the author tells us that ever time Linda seem to wake up she falls right back to sleep illustrating that she drained out of energy and cant do anything for herself. John had to watch his mother and take in pain on how bad it looks to see his mother in this condition.

The part that shocked me was the death of Linda because from the beginning of the story I would have never figure out that she was going to die after she got introduced to the story from the section of the Savage Reservation. It was clearly stated that Linda was dead because after John ran to the nurse he told her that he think he have killed her even though it was not his fault because she was already ill. I guess he said that because he was with her when she was alive then suddenly she died and feel it was his fault for some odd reason. Here is a quote that proves my point on the death of Linda, “by the time they were at the end of the ward Linda was dead.” It is sad to hear the character Linda had to die because we all can relate to John when his loved one died.

The most shocking part for John visit to see Linda was after she died and he was weeping.  John was upset and shocked that his mother was really dead. He probably couldn’t believe it when he first ran to the nurse for help. John probably thought by calling the nurse she can help bring her back to life but she couldn’t. The book says that John say his mother dead and was in silence for a second then fell to his knees and start crying with hands over his face. John must think oh my what just happen and what am I going to do now with no mother alive. As he was crying loud he brought attention to him in the ward and the condition kids that are condition by the world state is seeing him crying but wonder why he is crying. The nurse notice this crying which shows he cared for a mother the kids never had was a bad look and can decondition the kids so she taps him on the shoulders saying, “Can’t you behave?” in a low angry voice. The nurse wants John to stop because it is a bad example for the kids that are condition in the World State mindset don’t need to be expose to this kind of behavior from John so she tried stopping him. Before he stopped she try to distract the kids by offering them chocolate and it was successful. A few kids got to get near John and asked him if Linda was dead but he did not answer to them because I am guessing he was mad and also know that it was bad for them to know what was going on so he pushed the kid out the way then walks away.

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.