|
Throughout the novel, whenever Lenina, whom I believe is a Gamma,
says something from her suggestive thought, which is often, Bernard an Alpha states exactly how
long she had been hearing these phrases. Sometimes it is a much as 500 times a week from 12 - 18
yrs old. I think Huxley is again using an obvious form of rhetoric . He takes an example of
something, like though suggestion and extrapolates it to the worst case. But once it is seen in this
light a reader realizes it is a form of brainwashing, yet today we might say the media and advertising
could also be a form of thought suggestion, as were the propaganda war films of the 1920's. The
next important character introduced is the savage. This is a man who was born from a beta-minus
woman, and an Alpha administrator. In a Brave New World, every one has sex, with a
number of different partners, but no one has children, that is a lost term. Yet on the savage
reservation, the wild humans do have marriages, religion and babies. Yet this world is a primitive
one. When the savage gets a chance to go to civilized society, he is excited. But in his world, he
read learned Shakespear, was taught that pain lead to respect, and had the value that sex was only
between life time partners. These were not the morals of civilized men. Huxley points out the
extraordinary use of sex, and soma, as an exaggerated example of the drinking and sexuality that
was slowing going out of control in the 1920's. The savage, although he enjoys the comforts of
civilization does not understands it values. Huxley comments that the savage must choose between
the insanity of civilization and the lunacy of the reservation. He has no choice in the end, but to kill
himself. Looking back Huxley seems hope and would have liked to give him a third choice, a way
out.
|
