Brave New World: Discussion V
Chapters 13-15: A lover, a mother, and twins
Chapter 13
Lenina, still down over John’s rejection, turns down Henry Foster’s invitation to the feelies. “You’re not feeling ill, are you?” This is yet another assertion of the theme running through the novel: sadness as abnormal, the inconceivability of mental anguish, negative emotions not as products of troubled minds but ailing bodies. It’s the same treatment Linda gets—a refusal to consider the traumatic circumstances of her return to the World State, her abnormality not chalked up to deep personal struggle but to “senility” (186)
I’m intrigued by the “few remaining infectious diseases” Henry thinks Lenina might have. Their existence seems at odds with the advanced science and engineering of the World State. You’re telling me Covid is still endemic?? I’m tempted to read it as a metaphor for ideas, a metaphor from freedom: no matter how advanced the science, how tight the control, there still exists chaotic forces that slip through their grasp, spreading amongst the population
“‘My Ford’, she wondered, ‘have I given this one its sleeping sickness injection, or haven’t I?’” Lenina’s sadness leads to a crack in the system, a breakdown of the efficiency and consistency so important to the World State. This is a direct parallel to chapter 10, in which the crowd’s laughter at the Director’s humiliation results in sperm being spilled. Emotions, whether good or bad, lead to instability
Huxley confirms it a paragraph later: “Twenty-two years, eight months, and four days from that moment, a promising young Alpha-Minus administrator at Mwanza-Mwanza was to die of trypanosomiasis—the first case for over half a century.” Pain, suffering, dying young of a disease that nobody’s had for 50 years—all because Lenina had a crush. Kind of an argument for the World State’s ideology, is it not? I guess it depends on how you look at it. Is this young administrator’s tragic end simply the sacrifice for Lenina’s own burgeoning humanity? Would it be better if Lenina hadn’t changed, if she never experienced emotions that interfered with her job, and he went on to live his whole, fulfilling sixty years of administration and soma? (187)
Lenina shows up to John’s crib to finally seduce him and he starts quoting The Tempest like the pretentious motherfucker he is. “So perfect and so peerless are created of every creature’s best,” he tells her, emphasizing her individuality, her uniqueness, but at the same time idealizing her in a way that’s not rooted in reality. It’s like your buddy from high school who falls in love with the cheerleader who smiled at him once
It also speaks to John’s inability to perceive Lenina in a way that isn’t informed by this sort of literary romanticism. Shakespeare gives him insight into the world, but it also distorts his perception. As an outsider to both Malpais and the World State, he’s unable to move about the world in a way that is truly natural, truly his own, so he must rely on literature to make sense of it all
This is further evidenced by John’s desire to “show that I was worthy of you…to do something first.” He positions is himself as a hero, needing to accomplish the heroic deed in order to earn the love of the heroine. While Lenina’s world diminishes the significance of sex and romance, John’s elevates it to an absurd degree. And even though Lenina isn’t treating John like just another conquest, even though she actually likes him—and that is usually enough in our own, actual society—he’s unable to understand it on those terms. Lenina’s conception of intimacy was distorted by “community”, while John’s is distorted by Shakespeare
John tells Lenina he should bring her the skin of a mountain lion to prove his worth. She tells him, “There aren’t any lions in England.” He responds, “And even if there were, people would kill them out of helicopters, I suppose, with poison gas or something.” Here is the reassertion of a theme we tracked toward the beginning: nature as a casualty of industrialization, consumption, and sport—nature given no intrinsic value or significance. John understands that even the mountain lion—a badass animal which incidentally fucked me up in Red Dead a few weeks ago—means nothing in this world sedation and extraction (190)
“Answer me this question, do you really like me, or don’t you?” This is really what it comes down to, and the answer is obviously yes, and God is this the most convoluted case of will-they-won’t-they ever (191)
John responds to this query with, “I love you more than anything in the world.” And though there is no question that John is immensely attracted to her, I’m still going to press [x] to Doubt. I just don’t believe that John has any concept of what love actually is—he can only frame his relationship with Lenina through the rituals of Malpais or the words of Shakespeare, not his actual connection with her as a human being (192)
“‘Then why on earth didn’t you say so?’ She cried, and so intense was her exasperation that she drove her sharp nails into the skin of his wrist.” A subtle reinforcement of the book’s overarching theme, that passion leads to pain
Lenina’s embrace makes John think of Three Weeks in a Helicopter—probably because the sensory stimulation is so similar. Yet it gives him the wrong impression—that Lenina, like the heroine of three weeks in a helicopter—was made for the streets. Stories matter, but they can teach us the wrong things
“‘Hug me til you drug me, honey.’ She too had poetry at her command.” Both Lenina and John’s poetry, stories from their respective worlds, are insufficient to communicate what they actually want and feel, because what they want and feel is something real, not something idealized, dramatized or romanticized on the page or screen. They do not have a shared language—culturally at least (193)
“Impudent strumpet!” John nearly resorts to violence like he did with Pope. John’s status as an outsider in both Malpais and in the World State distorts his perception of sex—he can only see it as wholly sacred or wholly meaningless. He’s unable to understand that Lenina isn’t following the same old tired “everybody belongs to everybody” mantra, but is actually expressing agency and emotion and acting in spite of her conditioning. It’s a tragic misunderstanding
“Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.” Soma, the allure of sedation, described by Shakespeare. Brave New World is the futuristic, dystopian riff on old, old human impulses (195)
Chapter 14
Upon arriving at the hospital John spots a convoy of “gaily-coloured” hearses—more inversion, something sad and bleak turned colorful, happy—that’s how it is in the Brave New World
“Linda was dying in company—in company and with all the modern conveniences…Television was left on, a running tap, from morning till night.” I’m struck by the detail of the television, probably more so than Huxley intended, because the televisions in hospitals always struck me as one of the bleakest details of it all. Tiny, poor picture quality, always some syndicated stuff on that you try to half-heartedly watch to distract yourself from the grim reality taking place in the same room. That’s not to say that HBO and Game of Thrones would make it any better, especially the last season. The point is that dying with all the modern conveniences is still dying, and everybody knows that (198)
The nurse is surprised by John’s turmoil. She’s not accustomed to this kind of thing in visitors. (Not that there were many visitors anyhow: or any reason why there should be many visitors.) She asks him, “You’re not feeling ill, are you?” —> We discussed this above, the reframing of genuine suffering into a product of external forces, something physical, not philosophical. I’m also wondering, though, who are the visitors? Is it he Alphas, who recognize the significance of death, the loss of their friends, but don’t act like John in the interest of decorum?
“Faces still fresh and unwithered (for senility galloped so hard that it had no time to age the cheeks, only the heart and brain) turned as they passed. Their progress was followed by the blank, incurious eyes of second infancy.” Senility as “second infancy"—chilling stuff (199)
“How beautiful her singing had been! And those childish rhymes, how magically strange and mysterious!” These nonsensical World State songs hold meaning for John not because of their meaning but because of their association with his mother—John even looks back on “Elementary Instructions for Beta Workers in the Embryo Store” with fondness. It’s another example of inversion, this time in the opposite direction, and it’s interesting to view in light of John’s interpretation of Shakespeare that led him to reject Lenina. Language captures a lot, but it doesn’t capture everything
“…that beautiful, beautiful Other Place, whose memory, as of a heaven, a paradise of goodness and loveliness, he kept whole and intact, undefiled by contact with the reality of this real London, these actual civilized men and women.” A callback to that beginning epigraph, that idea of “utopia”, and what is lost in it. We're given another answer: one’s own mother. “Goodness and loveliness” do exist in London—they’re just drug-induced (201)
The “maggoty” twins being death-conditioned, swarming the ward and calling Linda fat and ugly, might be the most dystopian touch of the whole book. I mean screaming kids running around the brewery is enough to set me off—if they showed up at my mother’s deathbed I’d probably put them through a wall (202)
John tries to recapture the memories of his mother after confronting the twins, only to be met with “a hateful insurrection of jealousies and ugliness and miseries.” Pope, Linda drunk and asleep, the spilled mescal…painful memories overcome the pleasant ones. It’s clear this turn was brought about by the twins’ appearance, but why? (203)
“…the appalling present, that awful reality—but sublime, but significant, but desperately important precisely because of the imminence of that which made them so fearful.” Almost a spiritual argument here—that there’s sublimity in loss (204)
Linda finally recognizes John, but only as an “intruder into that paradisal Malpais where she had been spending her soma-holiday with Pope.” That delirium often accompanies death in normal circumstances is tragic enough—that Linda’s disconnect with reality is induced not because of her affliction but because of soma is simply terrible. Her final moments are not spent with her son but with fantasy—but parents and children have no meaning in this world, anyway (205)
“As though death were something terrible, as though any one mattered as much as all that!” John’s reaction as an affront to the children, and threat to their death-conditioning, and thus at odds with the World States definition of “community”
“‘God, God, God...’ In the chaos of grief and remorse that filled his mind it was the one articulate word.” God, not Ford.
The twin pointing with the eclair, asking, “Is she dead?” Such a devastating image to end on, a perfect juxtaposition of the child’s sweet treat and the adult’s immense loss. John’s only connection in the world—and his only connection to the world in which he was born and raised—has been severed, and it’s just another day in London
Chapter 15
“Twins, twins…like maggots they had swarmed defilingly over the mystery of Linda’s death.” The depiction of the children as maggots, and subsequently, the workers receiving their post-shift soma ration, is telling. These kids and workers are something less than human, mindless, thoughtless, with no fixed identity. Their conditioning has been portrayed as dehumanizing throughout, but I think John’s repeated use of “maggots” symbols an even more dramatic shift to plain anger and outrage: these twins are not something to be pitied, but are instead a force that defiles human nature, something to be stomped out
The use of “mystery of death” is important here, too, further exposing the horrors of the World State in treating a process so human, philosophical and religiously fraught as just another inconvenience that can be conditioned away (209)
“How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world…” Here is the final crack. At the beginning of the journey, John said it with hope. In chapter 11, he said it at the factory, before vomiting. Now he says it at the breaking point, the complete shattering of the illusion. We understand what it represents, but why did Huxley choose this as the title? I’m sure many quotes from Shakespeare would have worked, so what is it about the symbolism in this phrase that Huxley deemed most important?
O brave new world…Those “singing words…had mocked him with how hideous a note of cynical derision…they insisted on the low squalor, the nauseous ugliness of the nightmare. Now, suddenly, they trumpeted a call to arms.” Hope —> Disillusionment —> Resistance
“Miranda was proclaiming the possibility of loveliness, the possibility of transforming even the nightmare into something fine and noble.” There is that deep, pesky human optimism that the World State tries so hard to suppress. Shakespeare did not allow John to understand romance, but finally it allows him to grasp hope, the idea that a better tomorrow is worth fighting for (210)
“Linda had been a slave, Linda had died; others should live in freedom, and the world be made beautiful. A reparation, a duty.” Just a beautiful passage, and further evidence of the transition in the novel. Not just the idea that a dehumanizing existence should be lamented, but that it should be protested and resisted, that doing so is a moral obligation—for people like Linda (or Billy Pilgrim, or the Joads) who succumbed to such slavery. It’s the essential human struggle—we saw it in Steinbeck, and we saw it in Vonnegut
The Savage standing up and telling all these raging drug addicts “Stop!” Wow that takes some balls, man. Chills
Soma is finally called what it is: poison. We’ve touched upon its modern-day equivalents throughout our read, but we haven’t named them explicitly. That’s what all of it is: Budweiser, Blue Dream, Facebook, Tik Tok, Big Macs, OnlyFans. Poisons not because they kill our bodies (though some do) but because of what they do to our brains. They distract us, they sedate us, they replace our agency with dopamine hits—they remove our ability to face the world fully, with all its pain and beauty (211)
“‘But do you like being slaves…do you like being babies. Mewling and puking.” Infantilization of the populace is a theme that runs through the novel, and I’m mad that I didn’t make the connection to Slaughterhouse-Five earlier. They take two different forms, but the function is the same. Let me explain. Slaughterhouse-Five is also titled The Children’s Crusade. It depicts the sacrifice of young men— “babies”—as a condition of war. Additionally, Billy is portrayed as having reverted to infancy as result of his trauma—for example, when he hides under the blanket during his wife’s visit to the hospital. In Brave New World, this infancy is engineered; in Slaughterhouse-Five, it’s both a condition and result of war. What is the significance of this? In both novels, the growth of men is stunted and reversed by power structures over which they have no control. That we can grow and struggle and learn and ultimately flourish as human beings is a central aspect of our humanity—to reverse this, through war or through drugs—is unnatural and tragic, and neither serves the people (212)
“Grief and remorse, compassion and duty—all were forgotten now and, as it were, absorbed into an intense overpowering hated of these less than human monsters.” The total rejection of the World State’s system is complete. The “twins” move from embodying happiness and satisfaction, to being a lesser-life form, maggots, worthy of contempt, to, finally, being rejected as part of the natural order entirely
“Don’t you want to be free and men? Don’t you even understand what manhood and freedom are?”
Soma out the window—SYMBOLISM (213)
John swinging on the twins and Helmholtz jumping in beside him had me straight-up cheering. I mean talk about catharsis. I haven’t felt this exhilarated since 28-3. I wanted to be beside John and Helmholtz, swinging on those freaks too. But let’s break it down in more literary terms…
One, this confirms what we already suspected about Bernard—that he’s a huge pussy. He likes the idea of conflict, but only in theory. I guess he is meant to symbolize the guy who understands injustice, but is not willing to invite discomfort or danger in order to fight it. When sedation fails, as it did for Bernard, these oppressive regimes still have fear at their disposal, and that’s an equally powerful motivator
Two, it also confirms that Helmholtz is a real one. We already suspected that too especially when he started penning poems about loneliness, but this also serves as confirmation. This is the “madness and violence” that he so craved, in a context that he understands
“Men at last!” The rejection of sedation and infantilization, the acceptance of risk and suffering, in the name of true freedom
Bernard getting shot by the water pistol anyway strikes me as deeply symbolic. Even those of us who try to be neutral will ultimately be cast as sympathizers or dissidents. In Bernard’s case, the decision was made for him. It calls to mind the poem that’s been all over the internet lately, and for good reason: “First They Came” by Martin Niemöller
Synthetic Anti-Riot speech lol…better than tear gas and rubber bullets, I suppose?
The Voice tells the rioters, “Oh, I do want you to be happy. I do so want you to be good!” Happiness and goodness are incompatible with freedom. (215)
“Why shouldn’t I be?” At least Bernard was man enough to admit that John and Helmholtz are his friends. It’s just too bad he wouldn’t join the actual fray
This wraps up our discussion for chapters 12-15, and now we have just the final three chapters of the book to go, which I will post in just a few short days. We’ve come a long way from the sterile, scientific mundanity of those first few pages, and have finally witnessed a rebellion against the dehumanizing conditions of the Brave New World—with soma at its center. The only question left to answer is what price will John and Helmholtz pay for finally fighting for freedom in their small way, and what their fate will tell us about the world we inhabit today.
Keep reading.
Steve