Brave New World: A Different View of Life
... him but yet in another case of sexual attention. At this point the protagonist is motivated to act upon the matter in such way because of his beliefs. Furthermore, Huxley exposes the readers to a situational irony. Even though “Lenina felt herself entitled, after” a “day of queerness and horror,” to a soma-holiday it is ironic how Lenina finds herself attracted to John after the visit to the Reservation visit. The plot takes play mostly in London and in the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Center. Huxley uses gloomy diction to set the tone. The “cold for all the summer” and “a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure” (Huxley, 3). The description of the hatchery atmosphere and the surroundings symbolize a winter setting. The white overalls and the workers, “hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber all signify a cold, “dead” and “a ghost” like setting and “only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and living” atmosphere. As far as the seasonal setting goes there is not much of an explanation for its being. There is rarely any natural beauty to be found and the little bit there is the reader finds Bernard adoring it on his way to the Savage Reservation. There are many recurring symbols, such as soma, orgy-porgy, Ford, and ofcourse the caste system. The drug soma is a symbol of the use of instant gratification to control the World State’s populace. It also ends men of their worries and “conquer[s] old age” because men were kept chemically young. With soma, “stability was practically assured” (Huxley, 56). It represents the use of religion to control society and gives “all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol” (Huxley, 54). The civilians break out into and orgy-porgy, a semi religious rite, in which indiscriminate wholesale sexual relations create solidarity in the members. The outbreak of the orgy-porgy is what leads John to his death in the end. The act goes against his beliefs as does the drinking of the soma. Ford symbolizes the Utopian society’s idol. Since it is a more advanced civilization everyone worships Ford, who created the Charing-T by breaking of the top part of the cross. By creating the Charing-T, Huxley adds to the no religion, prayer factor. The caste system of course is another aspect of the brave new world. Without the caste system there would be less community, identity and stability. Towards the end John is rebels against soma and threatens the beloved slavery of the civilization. Furthermore the characters and their actions symbolize various aspects of the plot. Bernard Marx, John the savage and Helmholtz Watson are the three figures that rebel against the utopian society. Bernard as the anti-hero is subject to change when threatened with exile. John on the other hand supports pain and happiness and gets his happiness through his readings of Shakespeare which is frowned upon in the new world. He represents family and love. He exemplifies love for his mother when she is on her death bed. The society see family ties and life as a curse on the society and monogamy or even having a continuous mate is forbidden. Helmholtz is the symbol of the ineffectuality of reason, because he feels he has a power for saying something important for society, but recognizes that what he does say is considered nothing for everyone else. Another character playing a major role in the plot is Lenina Crowne, who symbolizes what the society stands for. She is straight forward and has a tendency to go steady but also indicates the unrestrained control of emotion over intelligence. There a lot more contextual symbols that appears once or twice in the novel. Emotions symbolize weakness and are forbidden just like Shakespeare because ...