Life Gives, Life Takes

Summary

Now in the civilized world, John befriends Bernard’s friends and reads Shakespeare to them, which makes them understand that John actually believes in love and leads a very different lifestyle compared to them. After a while, John realizes that he loves Lenina, but when she tells her, is very disappointed and enraged that she doesn’t want to have a relationship with him or marry him, but would much rather keep their relationship casual. After John screams and (unfortunately) hits Lenina, he gets a call from a hospital saying that his mom, Linda, is dying. John arrives at the hospital as quick as he can, but is not able to save Linda, but instead witnesses the hospital giving rations of soma to kids, which he realizes is what makes people in the civilized world “slaves”. As John throws away all of the soma out the window, and while both the children and the hospital staff are confronting him, Bernard and his friend Helmoltz arrive just as authorities take both of them and John as prisoners.

Quote Analysis

“that beautiful, beautiful Other Place, whose memory, as of heaven, a paradise of goodness and loveliness, he still kept whole and intact, undefiled by contact with reality of this real London, these actual civilized men and women.” (Huxley, 201)

This quote, referring to John’s thoughts and feelings while regarding his dying mother, do not only demonstrate that what we think of the unknown is not actually what the unknown is, but that two people can have very different views of reality. Although the “civilized” world is not what John thought it would be, it is what Linda thought it would be. It all has to do with Linda’s and John’s traditions and lifestyles. On one side, Linda grew up in the “civilized” world, while being part of a high caste and believing that she belonged to everyone and everyone belonged to her, and also believed that there is no such thing as love, that there is no need for it. On the other side, John grew up in an indigenous reservation, he believes in family and grew up reading Shakespeare and he believes that there is someone out there that he will love for all eternity. So I guess that, in a way, John just wants to believe in Linda’s reality of the “civilized” world, because it reminds him of when everything was easier and when his mom wasn’t dying.

“ ‘But do you like being slaves?’ ” (Huxley, 212)

This is something that John asks the kids in the hospital after Linda died, and he realizes that everyone in the “civilized” world is a slave to both the system and the drugs that they take. I guess that the answer to John’s question is yes, they do like being slaves. They love being enslaved, but they don't kow that they are slaves. This is something that I came to realize while reading the introduction to the book, in which Aldous Huxley explains that the only way to lead a successful totalitarian government is to make the people love what they do and how they do it, even if that means loving their own pain. Based on this idea, Huxley introduced a system of predetermined social classes, abolished love and family, and encouraged drug use among the population. But, is Huxley’s explanation of what makes a successful totalitarian government put in practice today?

Conclusion

Yay! Almost done with the book. I am really happy and surprised on how the book  has turned out to be, I guess that I just haven’t expected most of the events of the plot that there has been. But anyways, I am almost done with the book (I only have three chapters left to read), which means that the problem should be getting solved soon. I guess that there are a few problems in the book. For example, Bernard feels like and outsider and wants to prove himself to be a worthy Alpha, Lenina is not as promiscuous as she should be (but then becomes too promiscuous), John doesn’t like the “civilized” world, but Linda liked the “civilized” world so much that she died (!). Apart from this, I am very excited to finish the book and find out how it ends, given the fact that there are still so many things that have yet to be resolved.