Revelations

“The Savage stood looking on. ‘O brave new World, O brave new World…’ In his mind the singing words seemed to change their tone. They had mocked him through his misery and remorse, mocked him with how hideous a note of cynical derision! Fiendishly laughing, they had insisted on the low squalor, the nauseous ugliness of the nightmare… ‘Stop!’ called the Savage in a loud and ringing voice. ‘Stop!’ He pushed his way to the table; the Deltas stared at him with astonishment… ‘Lend me your ears’… ‘Don’t take that horrible stuff. It’s poison, it’s poison.’” (210-211)

John, the Savage, has an epiphany concerning the system of the World State. Among many other things, he clearly manifests his disgust at the way citizens deal with illness and death (after experiencing it first-hand with his m—’s) and will not take any more of it. He desperately urges those at the Park Lane Hospital for the Dying not to take the dose of soma that a “jaunty young Alpha” is about to distribute. As Helmholtz and Bernard rush into the hospital, they even find him asking (almost rhetorically): “But do you like being slaves?... Do you like being babies? Yes, babies. Mewling and puking…”

I think John’s long-forgotten image of the World State (from when he was back at the Reservation) backfired in an ugly way. All he had were Linda’s fabulous anecdotes and stories about the “Other Place,” which he took to heart and transformed into a chimera. Of course, the reader knows from the moment John arrives at the World State, that it will be soon before it becomes clear to him that this notion of the ‘perfect world’ is mainly a utopia. With Linda passing away and Bernard using him for his own benefits, will John be able to endure his stay at the World State? Will he succumb to this opposite-pole culture to which he is repelled by so much?