In this chapter Lenina confronts Bernard and accepts his invite to see the Savage Reservation in New Mexico. Bernard immediately gets embarrassed and asks Lenina if they can talk about it in private. Lenina is confused by this as Bernard is confused on why Lenina is so open about talking about her sex life in front of Bernard in public. Lenina goes off to meet with Henry to go on their date in his helicopter. Bernard contemplates his feelings, saying how small he is. He goes off to visit his friend, Helmholtz at the College of Emotional Engineering.
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Lenina and Bernard are at the Reservation in New Mexico. While watching one of the reservations community celebrations, she is reminded of home when she hears the pounding of the drums, reminding her of Solidarity Services and Ford's Day celebration. Lenina is horrified when the whipping starts. Bernard and Lenina meet John, another young guy from the New World Bernard and Lenina are from. The book climaxes from here as John becomes the new main character.
I think John really does like Lenina, but he wants a love life like Romeo & Juliet. He wants them to have a real relationship and for her to stay with him and him only. He lashes out in anger when she starts undressing because he wants to take things slow, and he also has major anger issues. John didn't know what to do when Lenina did that because he wants her so bad but that's not how he wants it to be. He wants it to feel real.
The ending for me was rather depressing. It showed that John couldn't handle living in the messed up society anymore. He was different and wanted to stay different, which is what eventually killed him. People like him weren't accepted in the Brave New World, which is very sad. In our world there are people that get criticised for being different and they end up either giving in and becoming like everyone else or they aren't strong enough to stay different and they end their own lives.
I don't like how in this chapter you can really see that death and dying is not a big deal to these people. They have "death conditioning" for the children so they're not afraid to die. Death can be all around and it won't even affect them emotionally. Even as Linda is on her death bed, all the kids can manage to say is how ugly and fat she is. Judging how she looks because she's different from them. The kids are not taught respect. Death means nothing to them.
I'm somewhat surprised Bernard has started to take a turn and not for the good. I feel as if he has started to not care. He is starting to sleep around a lot and take soma now, which he didn't do before. He's losing his true self due to being under pressure from the rest of society. I think John is becoming more like the old Bernard, he doesn't want to sleep with anyone and he doesn't want soma. I was expecting Bernard to stir up more of a rebellion in the book.
Chapter 2 shows a lot of control throughout the chapter. The babies in the book are controlled what they are supposed to like. The babies are shown flowers and books, and then they are shocked. This procedure is done over and over several times until they learn to hate books and flowers. At the sight of the two they are supposed to cry and want to go the other way. Also shown throughout the chapter was the different class systems. There are Betas, Deltas, Alphas, Gammas and Epsilons. The Alphas are actually really smart, but because of this they are put to work harder than any of the others. It is best to be a Beta because you are smart and do not have to work hard. The rest are described as extremely dumb. I think so far this book is disturbing because it shows maybe some truth of what is to come in our future. Kind of like a dictatorship, the humans are controlled by everything they do. Even before the day you are born you are under complete rule of the government.
I feel our society is starting to slightly turn into the society in a Brave New World. We feel it is morally wrong to promote sex to young kids, but are we really that different? Sex is in our TV shows, our movies, you hear sexual expressions in songs and read it in books or magazines. Maybe our six and seven year olds don't have sex right now but what happens in the future? The age when people start becoming active just keeps getting younger. I feel somewhat disgust that Bernard is giving in. I feel as if he is going to slowly become just like everyone else. I don't want him to stop being himself, he's different for a reason. I can see that he is scared and doesn't want to get sent to Iceland where he will be completely alone and isolated but I think he needs to fight to keep true to himself.
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