Thursday, May 2, 2013
What's Next?
Our most recent reading ended with a bit of a cliffhanger- Bernard manages to bring Linda and John back from the Reservation, and reveals that the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning is John's father. Bernard's act has immediate consequences- the authority of the Director is gone with this revelation. In this futuristic world, the notion of a mother or father is completely taboo and strange, and when the Director of the artificial baby-making factory is found to have made one the old fashioned way, his employees burst out laughing. We are now left to wonder what will happen to the Director, to Linda and John, and to Bernard and Lenina. Linda has dreamed of returning to her 'civilized' life ever since she was lost on the Reservation, but now that she has returned, she may not find it welcoming. Linda is old and unattractive, already undesirable, and the fact that she had a child is completely unacceptable in this society. She "was a Beta", and now she is an outsider: disgusting, shameful and out of place. John is also completely out of his element here. Having grown up at the Reservation, John learned useful skills and truths without being conditioned. In some ways, John is the most separate from the other characters, because he was not trained with hypnopaedia as they were. While Bernard resists his conditioning, some of it still holds as he shies away from dirt or disease with disgust. John is interested in Lenina, however, and will stay in this strange, unwelcoming world despite his terrible encounter with his father. Bernard fashions this little stunt because he has nothing left to lose- his unorthodox behavior has come to hurt him as the Director is getting ready to send him to Iceland. Bernard is clearly trying to shake things up and to put the Director in a bad light in front of his employees. What will happen to him next is unclear - will he actually be sent to Iceland? Will the World Controller Mustapha Mond vouch for Marx and his "scientific interest"? Will Lenina follow her attraction for John, or is his difference too much for her?
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It's interesting that someone at the top has this sort of deviation from the societal rules. We see a similar response in The Handmaid's Tale, as the Commander keeps illegal materials in his study and goes out to Jezebel's. Is it arrogance or desperation that makes these leaders break the rules?
ReplyDeleteI also think that the character John is really interesting. He did not fit in with the people at the reservation and was judged for his mother sleeping with everyone's husbands. He was not allowed to play with the other children or learn there ways - he wasn't allowed to be beaten, he wasn't allowed to go out into the woods with the others to find his animal that would connect with him. He was too different from them as if Linda. However, when John is in the New World, he might not be accepted either. He was born and not raised in a tube and taught while he sleeps. He will not totally understand the social structure and climate in Civilization because he has never been in it. I do not know what Bernard will do with John and Linda. They do not fit in with society, but didn't fit in with the old one either. Also, I did not really understand the part about how John was conceived. Linda said that she took all of the precautions that she was supposed to take, but if she did then she wouldn't have gotten pregnant. The only other options was there was something wrong with her treatment. But if there was something wrong with her treatment couldn't there possibly be something wrong with other peoples treatments, and they could get pregnant too? What would they do if someone got pregnant at the compound? Would they send them away to the reservation, keep them as a "scientific study", or have the woman have an abortion? I feel like the one thing that could unravel the society really fast is in the birth control medication or system stopped working and the women started getting pregnant, and the whole system would go to shreds because they would not know how to handle that. I also wonder if they are going to study John and realize that the old system wasn't so bad...
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you note that "they wouldn't be able to handle that." In some ways, the society has created for itself a world of incapable beings who can only exist in the conditioned environment that has been created for them. This is a dire projection for our own civilization - will we become so inflexible and un-adaptable as to fall apart at the slightest suggestion of failure?
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