Brave New World: Discussion IV
Chapters 10-12: Celebrity, Shakespeare, and the stirrings of freedom
Chapter 10
The D.H.C. explains, “The greater a man’s talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than many should be corrupted.” Another example of sacrifice in the name of the greater good, although of a different kind than that witnessed in Malpais, not a blood ritual but instead the deliberate suppression of man’s creative and intellectual abilities
“Murder kills only the individual and, after all, what is an individual.” Unorthodoxy threatens society itself.” We’ve been tracking since the beginning, the fusion of individual into that of the group, the erasure of agency and identity in the name of stability (148)
Bernard bringing Linda to the D.H.C. is an undeniable power move
She’s described as “Bloated, sagging, and among those firm youthful bodies, those undistorted faces, a strange monster of middle-agedness…” Middle-aged as monstrous…wow that is dark
“I should have known you anywhere, among a thousand”—the Director is distinguishable, unlike many in the World State, not some identical twin, which we know. But to Linda it’s more than that. He’s special to Linda because of who he is (150)
Your Linda. This is proof, right? That Linda mattered to him. That she didn’t “belong to everybody else” — she belonged to him. It’s further evidence of the humanity of the director, though he tries to plays it off like she’s a once-hot ex approaching him at the bar while he’s with his boys. I wonder if this meeting happened in private if his reaction would have been different
“My father!” John exclaims to the Director, falling to his knees in front of him, a striking parallel to Buddy the Elf. Seriously, though—it’s the same formula. An outsider born into/raised in a society that isn’t their own, returning to their real homes as cultural aliens, seeking emotional reunions with their well-established fathers and being rejected (151)
“Father” is not considered as obscene a word as mother in society—as it’s “one remove away from the loathsomeness and moral obliquity of child-bearing.” Obviously the World State’s take on motherhood is extreme and a means to an end, but this dynamic parallels that of our own society, in which men are not subjected to the same responsibilities surrounding child-bearing, nor subjected to the same laws and often cruel treatments, simply because they don’t bear the children (151)
The crowd breaks out in laughter, too, and this must feel just as dangerous to the D.H.C. and the powers that be. It’s spontaneous, an actual form of expression, community, and disruption. That their laughter results in test-tubes of sperm being spilt testifies to its danger
Chapter 11
Linda is viewed as obscene, grotesque, because of her physical appearance—but not as a real savage because she was born from a bottle. People don’t want to see her because she is a physical symbol of mortality
She immediately takes to the soma, which the doctor prescribes despite knowing it will kill her in a month or two— “And a good thing too”, considering they can’t “rejuvenate”
Soma stretches time—it shortens Linda’s life, but the holiday is “immense". The doctor explains that every holiday stretches into “eternity” (154). An unimaginably pleasant trip that feels like forever. It doesn’t sound like the worst thing, especially for a person truly ailing, but it’s not real
The Savage responds to the doctor’s reassurances about Linda with a quote from Antony and Cleopatra: “Eternity was in our lips and eyes.” The quote comes from Cleopatra to Antony, as she protests him leaving her to go off to war. It speaks to the abandonment John, like Cleopatra feels: the loss of his mother to soma, her departure on a journey that does not include him. But I also read it as a protest to the doctor’s words—John’s pushback to eternity not as something out of time, but as something spoken, witnessed, and experienced. Eternity is in the lips and eyes, yet Linda’s mouth is closed and her eyes are shut. How can that be eternity?
The doctor says, “Of course, you can’t allow people to go off popping off into eternity if they’ve got any serious work to do”— bodies as commodities, human experience reduced only to its ability to produce
Linda’s trip is a “labyrinth of sonorous colours…that led to a bright centre of absolute conviction… [it] was the sun, was a million sexophones, was Pope making love, only much more so, incomparably more, and without end.” The classic conundrum: can there be meaning without an end? (155)
The doctor thanks John for allowing him “to have had this opportunity to see an example of senility in a human being”—again here is the clinical gaze, value not placed on human life but on cold scientific inquiry. I’m also wondering about the sudden diagnosis of “senility.” Linda is described as middle-aged, she remembers the Director and her home remarkably well, surely she isn’t actually senile. Is their definition of senility not mental but physical? After all, the World State emphasizes the capacities of the body, not the mind.
Because of John, Bernard is suddenly treated as a person of “outstanding importance” and is suddenly swimming in pussy. It’s a dynamic we’re all too familiar with in our own society, the ugly dude who gains some status and is suddenly pulling a ten. I’m a bit shocked by Bernard’s turn into a total bro, though. We were led to believe at the beginning of the story that his objection to the meaningless sex was moral, but was it really just an excuse because he couldn’t get any? Was Bernard just an…incel? (156)
Bernard even has the gall to accuse Helmholtz—who’s an actual catch—that his silence in response to Bernard’s boasting is because of envy. Does Bernard one likes the idea of adversity only in theory? Did his experiences in Malpais frighten him into embracing sterile, simple life of the World State?
“Bernard felt positively gigantic—gigantic and at the same time light with elation, lighter than air.” Maybe this social success is Bernard’s own form of soma, his own intoxicant, that he embraces because he cannot confront what the Savage represents. Intoxication in men can take many forms, soma is just the easiest
Mond is offended that Bernard doesn’t think he can say “mother” to him—I’m fascinated by the depiction of Mond as an intellectual, somebody who understands the world, but still ruthlessly wields control
John is more interested in “the soul” than the “civilized inventions”— thematic crux of the novel here, just spelled out in different terms
Mond takes exception to Bernard lecturing him about the social order, in which Bernard writes the Savage finds “civilized infantility too easy or….not expensive enough.” Mond determines to teach Bernard a lesson but decides to hold off for now. Does he want to give Bernard a lesson in pain and suffering, to show him what a more complicated social order would bring?
The Savage observes a factory staffed with Delta, Gamma, and Epsilon twins. He again quotes, “O brave new world that has such people in it” and then ends up puking. It’s the opposite sentiment from the one he quoted before embarking on his journey to London, not one of optimism but of disillusionment (159-160)
The Eton school is only for upper-caste boys and girls. No twins, “one egg, one adult” (161). We can see the parallels in America today, where the upper-class attend expensive private schools with plentiful resources, where each student can receive thorough, individualized instruction. Compare this to the underfunded public schools of many cities, with larger classrooms and fewer and fewer teachers, where more and more students get left behind. It’s both a result of the class divide and a propagator of it, exemplified by the Upper School
The Head Mistress explains that these children require special education as they’ll be “called upon to take responsibilities and deal with unexpected emergencies.” We see this across history, the idea that there must be some ordained class or ruler that stands above the common people, above the serfs, who make the necessary decisions for the land over which they rule. But the big question is, in whose best interest are these decisions made? It’s a problem that democracy tries to tackle, but even that can be exploited. Who draws the maps? (161)
The Savage Reservations aren’t worth the expense of civilizing—everything is a calculation to the World State. Nothing goes untouched because it is sacred, or because its way of life is worth preserving, only because it’s development is too costly. Sounds familiar.
Self-harm is funny to the Etonians, who laugh at images of Pentitentes whipping themselves. Penance and self-harm—these are foreign concepts to the children. They’re unable to view them as the result of human impulse and suffering, which is why they laugh (162)
Although the students can be taught about about the Savage Reservations and elementary relativity, they’re still denied Shakespeare: no “solitary amusements”, the Head Mistress says. Literature is too dangerous for even the Alphas because it clashes with the mantra of community. The concept of community, we know, has been warped into an ideology to maintain control (163)
The students “learn to take dying as a matter of course” — death conditioning starts at eighteen months, which is remarkably twisted. It tracks with the logic of the World State, though. There’s no more powerful motivator than death, the knowledge that we have limited time on this Earth, and so should live our lives to the fullest. It motivates us through fear, but it also motivates us through identity—knowing we only have one life to live, that our individual experience is unique and meaningful. As Drake once said, “YOLO,” and there’s no doubt “The Motto”, like Hamlet, would too be banned (164)
Bernard denies the hormone chewing-gum from Benito earlier in the novel but now chewing it casually. It’s giving the kid who was afraid of weed in high school, went off to college and tried it, and when he returns from Thanksgiving break it’s become his whole personality
Lenina “was lucky in having shared with Bernard a generous portion of the Savage’s immense celebrity, lucky in reflecting…the moment’s supremely fashionable glory.” The Savage is a type of accessory, a showpiece, like a Malthusian belt—the society is shallow to its core (165)
Lenina recognized that the attention she’s receiving is false, that it’s only because they think she slept with John. She also admits to Fanny she likes John, which shows further character development, one that emphasizes the individual, a departure from “everybody belongs to everybody”. Is she beginning to recognize the hollowness of it all? (166)
Hug me till you drug me, honey; kiss me till I’m in a coma…Love’s as good as soma—sex as sedative, described only in terms of sensation, not emotional terms
At the film, Three Weeks in a Helicopter, the “negro” suffers a concussion which knocks out his conditioning, causing him to develop for the Beta blonde “an exclusive and maniacal passion.” The negro is treated as a villain in the film, his passion as dangerous, in line with the teachings of the World State, yet his struggle ignites something different in Lenina: “the moth did not completely die.” She seems stirred by the passion, stirred by John sitting next to her
At the same time, her brain doesn’t connect with her feelings. She’s shocked by John calling the film “base” and “ignoble” (170)
Lenina thinks John’s finally going to sleep with her but is shocked when he sends her away in the helicopter. Was Lenina calling the film lovely what made up John’s mind? It seems she liked it because of its depiction of passion, not because of its moral. But she’s unable to articulate that and is ultimately misunderstood
John links Othello, a black man, to the black hero of Three Weeks in a Helicopter, which we can also link to the Savage Reservation. These three different worlds all point to the backwardness of the World State, its moral inversion
Chapter 12
Stricken, John refuses to meet the Arch-Community-Songster with Bernard, and the illusion of Bernard as desirable is thus shattered—he’s back to having alcohol in his blood-surrogate. The kids have a word for Bernard: FAKE.
Lenina is melancholy about her rejection, “cut off from those who surrounded her by an emotion which they did not share.” Further evidence of Lenina’s changing character, as she becomes separate from those around her—from the community—due to her experience of “anxious exultation” she feels at the thought of confessing her feelings to John
She’s going to tell the Savage “that I like him—more than anybody I’ve ever known.” It’s the return of that long-abolished “teenage longing”, the high school crush all over again. It’s only made possible by John’s rejection of her—Lenina’s own experience of suffering—and it only strengthens her conviction
Violent Passion Surrogate. I’m guessing this is exactly what is says, a surrogate treatment for “violent passion”, probably a shot of adrenaline or something similar. It suggests that, like the pregnancy surrogate, the body and brain still need such stimuli, that conditioning is not wholly effective in repressing human need (174)
“What should have been the crowning moment of Bernard’s whole career hs turned out to to be the moment of his greatest humiliation.” C’mon dude. I just can’t with the hypocrisy. Bernard’s whole thing was his disgust over using people, yet he has no problem with using John for his own social gain
“Lenina, who had lingered for a moment to look at the moon, dropped her eyes and came hurrying across the room to rejoin him.” This is BIG, I’d argue the most example of character development on Lenina’s part because of what it symbolizes. Earlier in the novel with Bernard, Lenina could not stand to look at the moon over the ocean without the radio playing. She needed distraction. This is the central thrust of the book, distilled into a single clause. It’s a quick line, but it’s essential (176-177)
On page 177, Mond rejects a biology paper for publication. Huxley just gives us the answer here: “…make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead that the goal was somewhere beyond…that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge.” We’ve questioned the World State’s definitions of Community, Identity, and Stability, but their definition of “happiness” is one that must be challenged, too
Is Lenina really doing to let the Arch-Community-Songster hit??? I shouldn’t be surprised but I am—just goes to show the battle going on between her conditioning and her soul
For Bernard, “the intoxication of success had evaporated…the old self seemed unprecedentedly heavier than the surrounding atmosphere.” More evidence that the success had a drug-like effect on Bernard, that he is just as susceptible to sedation as his fellow human-beings, though of a different form
The Savage is “unexpectedly sympathetic” to Bernard’s crash, recognizing that he’s more like he was in Malpais now. He tells Bernard, “I’d rather by unhappy than have the sort of false, lying happiness you were having here.” That’s real. (179)
Bernard recognizes the truth, and is comforted by John’s support, yet continues to “nourish a grievance” against him. “One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.” Is this true? Is this Huxley or Bernard talking? I want to say there is some truth in it, but I question whether Bernard and John are truly friends. They were in Malpais, but that friendship was distorted the moment they stepped foot in London. I feel like this is just another justification for Bernard’s refusal to confront the truth
Helmholtz is also a good friend to Bernard. His magnanimity humiliates Bernard, because “it owed nothing to soma and everything to Helmholtz’s character.” Bernard is grateful but resents Helmholtz, too, “for his generosity.” John and Helmholtz are, back-to-back, held up as foils to Bernard—they highlight his lack of moral clarity (180)
On page 181, Helmholtz describes his attempt to “engineer” his students “into feeling as I’d felt when I wrote the rhymes.” He tries to create something that moves his students, that gives insight into his own emotions and feelings—some might call it art
Helmholtz’s poem is about loneliness, solitude. He exclaims to Bernard, “I feel a though I were just beginning to have something to write about. As though I were beginning to use that power I feel I’ve got inside me—that extra, latent power.” Helmholtz is beginning to discover what he sought at the beginning of the novel: words that mean something, words that speak to human experience, to the human condition
Why does Helmholtz take to John more than Bernard? Is it because the Savage is not shameful, because he is proud of who he is and stands by his convictions? (183)
Shakespeare elicits “unprecedented emotion” in Helmholtz
“‘Orgy-porgy!’ said Bernard… ‘It’s just a Solidarity Service hymn.’ He was revenging himself on his two friends for liking one another more than they liked him.” God, this guys sucks. It’s so strange to see this character who did understand, deliberately refusing not to. He no doubt recognizes the significance of these moments of bonding between John and Helmholtz—he could be a part of it himself—yet he instead diminishes a moment of real community and connection with a quip about a Solidarity Service. Why is Bernard afraid to be real? Again, I think it goes back to him being those one of those guys who likes the idea of protest and rebellion in theory, but is unwilling to give up comfort for it. What do we think is the reason for Bernard’s heel turn? (183)
Bernard does the job of the World State for them, paining Helmholtz and the Savage “by the shattering and defilement of a favourite poetic crystal.” A microcosm of how personal emotions such as unhappiness and jealousy can be weaponized against the culture at large
Helmholtz remarks that Romeo and Juliet as a “superb piece of emotional engineering”—that Shakespeare “makes our best propaganda specialists look absolutely silly.” It’s amusing irony, but also a sly comment on the nature of propaganda itself, how it manipulates emotion in the same way as some of our greatest fiction
Yet Helmholtz laughs at a powerful scene in Romeo and Juliet which John is utterly moved by, set off by “sweet mother” and “Tybalt lying dead, but evidently uncremated and wasting his phosphorus on a dim monument.” It’s the same reaction the children at the Eton school had to self-harm. Though Helmholtz is moved by the language of Shakespeare, his conditioning still does not allow him to acknowledge the significance of family and death and suffering illustrated in Romeo and Juliet. It’s the last intellectual leap one must make—the single truth the World State is most intent on obscuring (184-185)
“And yet, said Helmholtz, “I know quite well that one needs ridiculous, mad situations like that; one can’t write really well about anything else.” True, but also, a meta-commentary on the novel itself?
“We need some other kind of madness and violence. But what? What? Where can one find it?” Helmholtz needs to understand this madness and violence through the lens of his own world to actually understand it, and such madness and violence is, by design, difficult to come by. That, my friends, is some damn obvious foreshadowing.
We’re in the home stretch, here. And we’re leading up to something big. Everyone is choosing his or her path, whether they will succumb to the sedation of the world they inhabit or protest against it. John is still a fish out of water in the World State, and his mother, Linda, is still zonked on the soma. Characters like Lenina and Helmholtz are breaking from their shackles every so slowly, while Bernard is reverting back to the comfort and ignorance the World State tries so hard to maintain. I’m rooting for everybody to break their chains and find true freedom, but, given the world Huxley has manufactured, that feels just a tad naive.
We’re going to finish this for next weekend. Our discussion post for Wednesday, 5/14 will cover chapters 13-15. This will be followed by a post on Sunday, 5/18, which will take us to the end of the novel.
As always, please join the discussion. Feel to go off any of my points or drop your own observations below.
See you all soon. Keep reading.
Steve