Brave New World Chapters 6-9

When reading up to chapter six, I really did not understand the story in the beginning but I understand now reading through chapter six through nine. In chapter six I was wondering how Bernard was trying to get Lenina to be with him alone but realized that was not part of their culture, so he did things that he did not want to do like taking the soma. On page 91 in part one of chapter six, Bernard wants to get close to Lenina so he acts like he is aggressive towards her like Lenina says: “why you don’t take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You’d forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you’d be jolly. So jolly”.  So Bernard takes advantage of this opportunity and does what Lenina says and takes the soma just to get close to her and they get really close. In part two is the start of what will come about in chapter when Bernard and Lenina travel to the Savage Reservation, but Bernard and The Director have an interesting conversation because the Director usually does not open up or even talk to children but he did with Bernard. The conversation was interesting to me because at the end I was wondering what actually happened to the woman that the Director was interested in and why did he leave so fast after her disappearing and why could not he stay longer and find her. In chapter seven we find out a lot of information when Bernard and Lenina go to the Savage Reservation, so when they arrive there were two main characters that were introduced named John and Linda. John seems like a nice boy who just wants to be accepted as a sacrifice and believes something is wrong with him, and Linda is his mother who used to be in the Civilization before she got left by a man after she fell off a cliff and the villagers took care of her and her baby because she was pregnant. Bernard and Lenina listen to Linda’s stories about how it was hard to adjust to Malpais and how dreadful it was for her a “Beta” to have a child, but I believe her child turned out alright so far. I want to see when Linda meets with The Director her long lost love to make up and show him his child from birth which is the thing that is forbidden in the civilization. I wonder if the civilization as they know it is over, or if the Director will try to make sure that no one will destroy what he has built.

Brave new World chapters 6-9

Thought out these three chapters there were a few things taking place. For starters , they start in then beginning of chapter six, with Lenina wondering whether to go with Bernard to the savage reservation, she was doubtful in going because she was thinking of how “odd” Bernard was, and if it was worth going with him, Or to go to the North Pole with another guy.  I felt the reason why she choose to go with Bernard was mostly because , for people to actually get a permit to go to such a place was rare, and she didn’t want to let the opportunity go. After this There’s this weird moment in which Bernard and Lenina was in a helicopter ride of a little adventure that Bernard and Lenina had in a helicopter. It seems that Bernard wanted to try out something, and that he wanted to observe the ocean was at a very close view. He wanted to stop the propeller and be very close to the waves. And of course Lenina was freaked out by this, and she was very shocked at what he was doing. After this incident I felt as if the main focus was on a characters past, which was the directors or Thomas as they named him. I felt as we got a view of a secret he had. He had explained of the adventure he had gone on with a girl he was with at the time. He mentioned her hair being Yellow. He explained that for some reason he had gone to sleep and she as well, but she went for a walk and got lost. Afterwards he woke up and tried finding her but no use. She had disappeared. I felt as The Director was telling his story he got carried away and as soon as he noticed what he had told Bernard about himself, he got angry at himself for saying such a personal story for himself. I felt as if he was covering something. “Don’t imagine,’ he said, ‘that I’d had any indecorous relation with the girl. Nothing emotional, nothing longdrawn. It was all perfectly healthy and normal.(Huxley, 95)” As the story went on, Bernard and Lenina were at the savage reservation. And from what I saw Lenina couldn’t believe what she was seeing, the dirtiness she was seeing and she couldn’t stand it , so she decided to use the Soma as a way to not feel the change so drastic. After this they go to a ritual and we see they start to wipe a child and Lenina was so horrified by it. Lenina was so horrified by it that she said: “Too awful! That blood! Sjphe shuddered. Oh , I wish I had my soma.(Huxley, 110) ” She wants the soma so she doesn’t feel any emotions. They then meet this Guy named John. Bernard then asked to tell him about himself and what catches Bernard’s attention is that John starts to mentioned about his mother and how she wasn’t from this place, she had come with a Guy to visit the Savage reservation and She ended up wondering off on her own on the Mountains and Bernard hearing this got him really interested. He said while she was walking and she fell hitting her head. People later found her and she couldn’t remember Who Thomas was. Now Linda was going through some hard things because she started living there, and she did the things she used to do in the Other place, where she was from. For example sleep with other men , she thought it was normally fine to do that, but for the women that lived there, they didn’t. That was a wrongful thing to do. Throughout the chapter we see, it has been hard for Linda. She was used to drinking soma, but since she didn’t have it anymore she started drinking something similar to that, Mescals was the name of it. It was similar but the difference was that Mescals left you with a sick feeling the next day. It hasn’t been easy for Both John and Linda.

Conflict manifest

In the beginning of the 6 chapter we see the conflict manifest itself and there is discord between Lenina and Bernard. Lenina and Bernard are representative of two different ideas in the Brave New World. They both like each other and they form a relationship, however their different ideas about the relationship and different point of viewing the world , produces conflict. Bernard is portrayed as a protagonist in a utopian world, he thinks and feels differently and people comment that “It’s the alcohol they put in his surrogate” (BNW,93). That impacts how people think about him, because he acts and thinks differently than most people. Lenina likes Bernard, she likes how he look. However, she does not understand his behavior.  Bernard is a protagonist against the system. He wants to discover his own happiness and wants to discover real happiness. He doesn’t want to be part of the system anymore. “I were more me… More on my own, not so completely a part of something else”(BNW, 90)  Bernard is struggling with internal conflict. He refuses to take soma with Lenina the first place. Bernard understands all process and idea of soma that keep people unconscious.  But mainly it’s because the effects of soma are no more intellectually illuminating.  However, Lenina does not understand Bernard’s attitude and thinks that he is boring. Bernard likes her and does not want to have a huge gap of understanding  between them. That why he took some. “I know you don’t. And that why we went to bed together yesterday-like infants-instead of being adults and waiting” (BNW, 93).

Overall, in the Brave New  World”, people are lacking of emotion and live in a world of illusion.  Consumption and production is controlled, thus the means of social masses is still the same.  “Two hundred repetitions, twice a week from fourteen to sixteen and half”(BNW, 92).  In the book society foolishly worships the free market and consumption is encouraged just to keep everyone busy.  America was strictly divided, then as now, between the rich and the poor and the educated and the uneducated. Those who were born into privilege believe that they had a right to control the masses. Social conditioning is something that happens unconsciously in society, to ensure that powerful people get what they want and that resistance will be non-existent.  In my opinion, this is why the book is very relevant today.

Brave new world ch.6-9

This week reading ch.6-9 focused on mainly Bernard and Lenina along with a few shocking new experiences the couple had a chance to endure without the use of soma. Bernard is not considered normal to the citizens of the world state and is sorta made fun of by Henry on pg.88 “you can’t teach a rhinoceros tricks” basically saying that any amount of conditioning can’t fix someone (Bernard) that is already broken/retarded. Why is Bernard considered to not be normal since he likes to think for himself and rather have his space away from everyone else besides his girlfriend lenina? Maybe it’s his actions that most citizens find rather strange possibly.

Although the director seems to like Bernard at the same time he can’t stand his arrogant behavior. The director trust him enough to tell him a story about a girlfriend named Linda that he lost in malpais years ago. He then snaps out of his reminiscence to then proceed to threaten to send Bernard to Iceland for further conditioning if he continues to act out of place again. To me the Director’s conditioning is also disrupted almost like Bernard but the difference is the the Director dose not flaunt it around like Bernard would. Maybe it is because he lost Linda who he cared strongly for that probably prevents him from acting as odd as Bernard would….

Bernard and Lenina have such a strong bond relationship even though they both have different view points on the world state, Lenina loves the jolly feels of soma and the so called happy/perfect world they live in while Bernard can’t really stand the society most the time which makes him not “normal”. Although Lenina cries about Bernard’s hate towards society she still loves him and rather be with him instead of finding someone else who loves the world state as much as she does. Is this a sign that that Leninas conditioning is off balance as well as the Director and Bernard? This reminds me of the short story”The machines stops” since the story starts to unfold it shows glitches with in the system which wasn’t there before. Glitches in this instance is the resistance from the conditioning from the humans which can lead to the end of the World state in due time.

Bernard and Lenina take a trip to Malpais where it is a complete different world compared to the world state. Malpais is filled with smelly dark skin Indians who seem to live like savages in the eyes of Bernard and lenina. This is where they forget to bring soma and have to face reality head on. There is one point in the scene when the celebration noises sound like “orgy-porgy” to Lenina at Malpais, but the more she listen to the sounds without the soma the faster she forgot about the orgy call. This confirms that soma is the root balance of the world state order. Could humans in this world state survive and be happy without this significant drug?

The best part of the chapter was when Bernard discovered that Linda was alive and had a baby boy by natural birth from the director who does not even know that Linda survived all these years. Bernard seems to have a plan to throw off the balance of the entire world state by bringing back both Linda and the natural son back to probably expose the Director. Hopefully bringing the two back will flip the world state upside down. This should be interesting to see Bernard’s true intentions and side effects It may cause others.

thoughts on chapters 1 – 5 Brave New World

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.

Bernard’s conflicts

In these few chapters there are so many turning points and major factors that help us better understand the characters in A Brave New World. I was definitely not expecting so much to happen in just a couple of chapters. I would like focus the attention to who I feel was is the main character or protagonist at this point, which is Bernard. Bernard’s character has caught my attention as a reader since our first introduction to him even though he did not necessarily play a major role in the beginning of the story. He has slowly made his way into the spotlight and has continued to show us the readers around the “Worlds State”. I found that in these chapters Bernard’s internal and external conflicts are a bit more evident.

The first external conflict I came cross is between Bernard and Lenina. On page 89 in conversation between the two, we observe that Benard has deeper feeling for Lenina then just to “have her”. He wishes to talk to her and take long walks, Lenina does not understand why Bernard would want to do all this and I believe its because of her conditioning. Her conditioning does not allow her or anyone for that matter to be “attached” emotionally to anyone. I also noticed that when Lenina is over whelmed by what Bernard tries to tell her she simply takes her soma and zones out. This option is easier then to try and listen.

I also found the on pages 90-91 in a conversation between Bernard and Lenina, Bernard explains to her about wanting to be free from the enslavement of his conditioning. “As though I were more me, if you see what I mean. More on my own, not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body. . . what would it be like if I could. If i were free – not enslaved by my conditioning.” He tries to explain to her that he wants to be free in his own way, not the superficial freedom that everyone else believes they have.

Reading on we find ourselves with another conflict; With the D.H.C. On pg 94, Benard enters the directors office to pick up his permit to go to the savage reservation. To some up the conversation. The director tells Benard a story about when he himself went into to reservation with a women he was “having” at the time. Benard notices a bit of sentiment in the directors tone but the director quickly cuts the story short as if to be ashamed and even reassures Bernard it was nothing on pg 95 “Don’t imagine, he said, that I’d had any indecorous relation  with the girl. Nothing emotional, nothing long-drawn. It was all perfectly healthy and normal.” This made me wonder, if this was supposedly already known to the society. Why did he need to reassure Bernard about it?. My suspicions were later confirmed by the threat of being transferred to Iceland and later we find the transfer actually went through on pg 100.

As far as internal conflicts go, we’ve had small glimpses of the struggles that Bernard is currently going through. We notice that because of the very obvious difference in physical attributes Bernard has compared to other Alphas, it has made him mentally unstable. I feel as if this one aspect of his life has triggered him to question everything else. I get this idea from a previous chapter where because of his lack physical features and abilities he gained “mental excess” making him smarter then the average Alpha. Giving him an ability to analyze himself, his options, his life, and his choices in general.

When Benard reaches the reservation, he is like a child in a candy store. Although his conditioning holds him back and gives him a feeling of being uncomfortable, he still is very curious about the way of life there. He wants to know how the people of the reservation have lived without order, unaided, and so savagely. He gets his answers through Johns life and the things he has been through. I believe Bernard sees himself in John and can connect to him through pain of being an outcast and being shut out of everything, examples can be seen on pg 128.

I cannot wait to see the directors reaction when Bernard brings John and Linda back to London in the upcoming chapters.

Class Discussion: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

Just a reminder that you should make your at least one comment (just hit “reply,” either to my original post or to another comment on it) by Sunday (3/2).

Then go back/read through all comments and extend the conversation by making at least two more comments (of course, more are always welcome!) in response by Wednesday (3/5). 

The goal is to have some good virtual discussions here to help you think critically about this short story. You can respond to one of my “discussion-starter”prompts/questions below, or you can discuss any other aspect of the text that isn’t mentioned there.

Your comments need not be very long: for example, you can provide a quote/citation and a few sentences of explanation of how/why it functions in the context of some larger issue/question (or you can raise questions, complicate issues, extend discussions, analyze a character, or setting, etc.).

Here are some thoughts to get you started:

  • Discuss the initial imagery of Omelas (3-4).
  • Discuss the varying ways happiness is described in the text.
  • Who is the narrator?
  • How does the narrator invite the reader (“you”) to imagine the utopian city of Omelas (2-3)? Why does the narrator want the reader to co-create this utopia? What purpose might it serve in the context of what happens later in the text?
  • Why does the narrator keep asking the readers if they believe him/her (middle p. 4; bottom p. 6)? How have things changed in the story (and the readers’ perception of it) by the time the questions are asked the second time around towards the end of the story?
  • Discuss the characterization of the child in the room (and perhaps compare it to the boy flute player at the top of p. 4).
  • Why does everyone in the city have to be aware of the existence of the child? (5)
  • Is it possible to have a happy/good/just society at the expense of someone else?
  • Is ignorance bliss? Would the people in the story be better off not knowing of its existence? What would be gained from this ignorance? What would be lost?
  • Can you think if any analogy of the child in the room in our society? If so, who is the child, and who suffers at its expense?
  • Why do some people walk away from Omelas? Who are these people? Where do they go?
  • Explore how an element of fiction (or multiple ones) plays out in the text.
  • Explore one (or more) of the items on the Utopian/Dystopian Framework within the context of this short story.

Brave New World.

The book “Brave New World” reminds me of something i have read in the past or maybe it was the same book, am just not sure.

All the  short stories that we have read so far and the first 5 chapters of this book all have a similarities. Like soma, the drug soma was also mentioned in Le Guin, also the idea of sexuality and orgys were also mentioned in one of Le Guin’s short stories. While i made this observation, i thought about how most of these utopia created places have all of this. When we think of a utopia, the most common idea would be perfect. But in my opinion the world in this novel is horrible. The way human life is controlled to the point where, they make you as smart or dumb as they choose or think u belong in. In the first chapter the way they treat human life or think of it is pretty much inhumane. They make humans sound like machines especially when they speak about the gametes producing ninety-six identical twins designed to manage identical machines.

Another part that also impacted me was how they put alcohol when the process of fertilization is going on to control the smartness of the human. And when they shock the babies with electricity to make them scare of books and flowers so when they grow old they ever read to gain knowledge. The method they use to make babies scare of books, and flowers was used in real life by an actual psychologist. In this society everything and everyone is so controlled by the superiors. The way they are born, where your born, how you look, what your life is like.  The government has a tight control over everyone including the economical part. Referring back to the part where they would shock babies when they would touch a flower so they could grow fear for flowers. The only reason why they would do that was to control the economic expenses these babies would make when they were older. Its kind of the way you train a dog to do tricks. In this novel technology has taken over the world so much that human life is no longer valued. So far we know about humans being born from test tubes in control places, to be born a certain way.

I think the biggest theme in this utopian dystopian novel is perfection. Machines tend to do everything to perfection. Just because they are designed to do one thing and one thing only. Just how all these babies where being created they had a purpose even before they were born. This “perfect” is controlled by its superiors. The controversial thing the author did her though was introduce a character like Bernard. Who unlike everyone else is a misfit in many ways. He looks different and thinks different. He is like an outcast among his own group. Its very hard to create a utopia with human, because we are all so different and have different ideas of whats good for us.

Chapter 1-5 Brave New World

In this book for chapter one it seem to be kids on a tour of some sort inside the London Hatchery that has a factory lab that produces human beings. They is surgery that removes ovaries to make ova that are fertilize. The use of the ova to create human clones. Page 17 in the book at the last paragraph I got the idea that they make humans by cloning. It says “One egg, one embryo, one adult normality. From eighty to ninety six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full sized adult. Making ninety six human beings grow where only one grew before”. That sound like it is saying it take one real human being to create how many they want. The director spoke about mass production applied to biology to the kids on the tour. This meaning he has to technology to mass produce human beings and not just products like our society today. On page 19 the director told the kids that there was a technique call Podsnaps that accelerate the ripen process to make sure at least a hundred n fifty mature eggs within two years. This machine has a process to producing these humans that can take up to months to years but seem to be long but really isn’t because when it is finally done there will be so many identical sisters, brothers, fathers and mothers at the same age.

Brave New World

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.