Brave New World, Post 4 by Moshe Henderson

Moshe Henderson. April 9, 2012. Opinion and Analysis of Brave New World. (Chapter 8-14, pages 198-259.)

I hate this book, but I also have a respect for it. Although I think the plot could have been more interesting, the point of the book was not to be a thriller such as Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 were, but instead more of an analysis of human nature written in a form that is more tangible for an audience to understand. I had found the society in Brave New World to be disgusting and undesirable; however, I found that the reasoning for the way the society was to be very rational.

People were created to be simply happy and not have to endure the burdens of truth and beauty. If you don’t know what you’re missing, what is there to truly miss? I now sort of feel comfortable with the society in Brave New World as odd as that may seem. Mankind has a natural desire to just be happy, as selfish as it is. The society in this book does things for the better of all mankind by nurturing the selfish desire in its people. There is no need for people to have religion or relationships because they are happy and experience no pain.

Despite how much I find the human psychology behind this book to be riveting, I did not like the last chapter at all. I understand why the events happened though. In the end, John gets basically what he asked for; he wanted to live an unhappy life in order to be happy. Two parallel ideas that still intertwine. He brings physical and emotional harm to himself in order to live like the society we currently live in does. Emotionally he destroys himself by killing Lenina near the end of the chapter. (I believe he killed her. It doesn’t clearly define this event in the book, but it sounds like he had beaten her well enough.) He physically destroys himself by whipping himself (a religious exercise practiced by Jehovah’s Witnesses I believe) and by ultimately committing suicide. I assume he was happy to kill himself despite his actions being brought on by Lenina’s death. Death was one of the things he agreed to in order to be happy when he was talking to Mustapha Mond. (I found John’s action and character to be somehow related to that of Gandhi’s; however, Gandhi’s actions and character were not as selfish as that of John’s.)

Another thing I find weird is that no one who saw John persecuting himself felt any sympathy for him besides Lenina. Society had kept the majority of people away from savages; yet no one tries to keep people from seeing John. I guess society (which really seems to be just Mustapha Mond) might be using him as an example for people to continue enjoying their lifestyles and soma. In this way, Brave New World is like The Hunger Games where they persecute the few in order to make society appreciative of how their lives are now.

The last of what I find dissatisfying in this book is how characters are quickly introduced then forgotten. None of the characters most talked about in this book are truly important except for those who know the truth about society, Mustapha and John. This is ironic because just as unimportant many of the main characters are to this society, the same unimportance they seem to have to the book as their endings are never defined.