Chapter IV
View of Future World in Aldous Huxley’s in Brave New World
Aldous Huxley has experienced both of the best of the parts of the world in his life. Though he was born in U.K but he had worked and led a part of his life in U.S. The novel Brave New World begins with the visit of new students led by the Director to Central London hatchery and Conditioning Centre with the motto of the modern world inscribed in bold letters- Community, Identity, Stability. To begin with first of all they visit the fertilising room. This batch of students were fortunate and lucky as Director himself was showing them these things and they were taking notes “ straight from horse’s mouth”. Director points out towards incubators in which the numbered test tubes, each containing an ova, were placed in the racks. These Ovas were donated by the members of the society against six month’s advance salary. Each Ova was immersed in a warm bouillon containing millions of Spermatozoa. Then Director points towards a great scientific achievement of the modern process by discovering a process named Boanowsky. Earlier one ova, one egg and one adult was the norm of the day where as a Bokanovkified egg can divide and give rise to 96 adults. Director calls it as a great tool that has helped in bringing social stability in modern society as this process has enabled them to produce 96 identical adults or rather machines who will go on working mechanically like a robot without any emotion or feeling. Entire labour to a factory could be supplied from a single Bokanovsikfied egg. Thus the principle of mass production has been applied to life sciences or Biology. Though a Bokanviskified egg can produce 96 adults but this is upper limit but 72 individuals can be produced easily. This shows the limit of humanity, even in the modern age of science and technology that they cannot Bokanoskify an egg indefinitely. Director shows another process known as Podsnap technique that has accelerated the process of maturing and ripening. By this process two hundred eggs can be fertilised and matured within a period of two years that would take nearly a period of 30 years in natural course of time. Through the process of fertilisation and Bokanovskification nearly 11000 identical brothers and sisters can be produced. Director calls a man named Foster and asks him to tell about the record of a single ovary in the world. He replies that 16012 has been achieved in this centre the 189 batches of identical beings, whereas Singapore has succeeded in achieving the level of 16500 and Mumbai Centre has even touched the mark of 17000 individuals per ovary. Change of weather is also a factor as warm weather facilitates the process of fertilisation and the way a negro responds to ptitutory. Foster then takes students into the bottling room where all hormones bustle in an ordered activities.
After liners came matriculators when one by one eggs were transferred from their test tubes to one of the large containers, other details like heredity, date of fertilisation, membership of Bokanovsky group were put on the bottles. Now no longer they were anonymous as they had an identity and these bottles moved towards Social Predestination Room. Their identity card was 88 cubic metres of Card index containing all the relevant information brought up to date every morning and coordinated every afternoon. The work of Predestinators is to calculate and inform the fertilisers the requirement of so many individuals of such an quality. Then they supply the required number of embryos- quantitatively as well as qualitatively. These bottles moved on the escalators very like the cars on the production line or conveyor line in a modern automobile factory. Here in social predestination room each bottle was placed on one of the fifteen racks- each rack though invisible was a conveyor belt travelling at the rate of 33 1/3 centimetres an hour for two hundred sixty seven days covering the distance of nearly 8 metres a day. Mr Foster apprised the group that decreasing the revolution would reduce the supply of oxygen to the embryo and thus the quality of the embryo can be controlled effectively by monitoring the supply of oxygen to it and he felt that there is nothing like Oxygen shortage to keep an embryo below par. The lower the cast of embryo less the supply of oxygen to it. Due to lack of oxygen first brain is affected and then the skeleton. At 70% of the normal oxygen level only dwarfs could be produced while at less than 70% would only beget eyeless monsters who could be of great use to society as their maturity process can be accelerated. Pilkington at Mombasa succeeded in producing individuals who were sexually mature even at the age of 4 years and fully grown at the age of six and half years thus saving a lot of wastage of time and energy which was a scientific scoop. Embryos receiving heat conditioning would love to go to tropics to work as miners, acetate silk spinners and steel workers. Similarly embryos destined to become workers were trained to tolerate the fumes of lead,caustic soda, tar and chlorine and embryos destined to become rocket plane engineers were conditioned by continuously rotating their embryo bottles so as to improve their sense of balance and they consider topsy-turvy as normal order of the day. The highest quality of embryos getting adequate supply of everything including oxygen were Alphas or Epislons who were considered as future controllers of the world or the controller of hatcheries.
Then they go to visit the nursery that was situated on the fifth floor of the building by escalator. Here also conditioning was going on but not of embryos but of infants and the signboard read INFANT NURSERIES- NEO PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING ROOMS. Director commanded the nurse to set out the books, and there appeared a number of bright colourful flowers, grass, beast, bird and fish. Then he ordered to bring in the children and in came a group of infants wearing Khakhi clothes as they were eight months old Delta group. Toddlers were put on floor and they crawled towards the bright colourful pictures of nature like flowers, birds and beasts and they started playing with these colourful objects without any inhibition. Then Director gave another command to the Nurse and she pressed a lever to pass a current through the floor that caused a deadening explosion and children were startled and they started crying. Children gave sharp spasmodic yelps instead of shouts of joy and their bodies were twitching and stiffening. Director signalled them to release the lever and show the pictures of objects of nature again to the children but this time they shrank instead of giving shouts of joy as they have now been conditioned to hate nature and its objects. Though these children have been conditioned to hate nature and its objects but at the same time they have been conditioned to like Rural sports as it brought profit and revenue to the state and society. Every type of infant had diverse uniform- Alphas wore grey uniform, Gammas wore green, Delta Khaki and Epsilon wore much worse black as they were destined to become sewage, miners and menial workers. Then Director tells them about another tool of conditioning- Elementary Class Consciousness through playing a few sentences repeatedly while the children were sleeping so that these sentences seeped deep into the subconscious and unconscious mind directly. It has been termed as teaching and conditioning through hyponaedia which is much more effective than other methods. Though initially this method had failed as it was applied to secular knowledge. This system set in when Henry Ford was still alive in 20th century. This system originated from a boy named Reuben whose parents accidentally left the radio open there was no power and they went to work while Reuben was sleeping. Meanwhile power returned and Radio was broadcasting a programme on River Nile and River Missouri. When the child woke up and he was asked information about these rivers, he was unable to answer it as he had not studied about them in his school yet. But the moment the first sentence of this Radio programme was spoken before him he repeated everything faultlessly and flawlessly down even to the punctuation marks and pauses. This system was greatly successful in the moral conditioning of the children. Director termed it as “ the greatest moralising and socialising force of all time” .(33) Then the group came to Elementary Class Consciousness where a speaker was playing in a clear voice to the sleeping children “ and Delta wear Khaki Oh ! No I don’t want to play with Delta children. and Epsilons are still worse. They are too stupid to be able to read and write. Besides they wear black which is such a beastly colour. I’m so glad I’m a Beta. Alpha children wear grey they work much harder than we do, because they are so frightfully clever. I am really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas or Deltas” (33).
Then Director takes them to the garden where children are playing. Director and students start watching ‘Centrifugal Bumble Puppy Game’. Twenty children were standing in a circle around the chrome steel tower. A ball was thrown so as to land on the platform at the top of the order and as the ball rolled down into the interior and fell on a rapidly moving disc and was hurled through one of the apertures pierced in a cylindrical casing and the ball had to be caught by one of the twenty boys.
This modern society was controlled by Ten controllers and the God of this society was Ford, not Lord and the governing principle of this world was capitalism, business, trade and profit. Only those games were allowed in this society that needed a lot of apparatuses and equipments so as to keep the factories and labour working in it go on. The world controller of this part of the world was His Fordship Mustapha Mond. Both Director and students bow before the portrait of the World Controller. The Cross of the Christianity was replaced by by T after removing the top arm of the cross. This sign was adopted by the world in the year Ford launched one of the popular models of Car the T Model. Director tells the learners that in this world children are allowed to play erotic games which were considered a taboo in 20th century even for adolescents. There were institutions like family, mother, child, religion, which were full of disgusting sentimentality that was nothing but trash according to this modern society. Mankind of the modern world have learnt to overcome these silly emotions and feelings and learnt to move forward and progress.
Here novelist introduces some other characters like Bernard Marx, who is a protagonist of the novel, Lenina, Fanny, Crome, and the like. Though Bernard was an Alpha child but due to a human mistake by somebody when he was still in a bottle somebody put alcohol in his blood surrogate thinking him to be a Gamma. The result was that his growth was stunted and he was reserve and introvert as he did not like to mix with others. As Bernard was abnormal so sometimes he feels like killing Ford and escape from this world. He is a specialist on Hypnopaedia so he knows that sixty two thousand four hundred repetitions makes a truth. This book also talks about the nine year war between Russia and the rest of the world. Perhaps novelist has predicted the imminent of third world war as the recent Russian- Ukranian conflict may flare into full scale war. The time of the novel is also AF ( After Ford) and not A.D, that starts from the year when Ford introduced his world famous T- Model. The much talked about nine years war began in 141 A.F. There is also mention of Great British Museum Massacre.
The guiding mantra of these people is “ ending is better than mending”(49) and government is an affair of sitting not hitting. You rule with the brains and buttocks never with the fists. It describes the elaborate facility for washing and bathing. After taking bath Lenina takes a nozzle and attaches to her breast and presses a level that throws hot air on her body along with the femish talcum powder of eight different aromas including Eau-de-Cologne. Another character is introduced who is friend of the protagonist Bernard named Mr. Helmholtz Watson, who is a lecturer at the Department of Writing, College of Emotional Engineering. Bernard goes to meet Watson in his chopper cab. Similarity between them was that both of them were abnormal while Bernard was given excess of alcohol that led to his stunted growth while Watson also received something extra by human error that made him flamboyant and alluring that made him popular among the girls with more brain and brush. Watson wants to avoid the girls while Marx wants to take Lenina on the tour to Mexico to give her a view of the old world. Due to some deficiency Bernard Marx feels that he has got something important to say and even power to say it too but he does not know what it is and why he is unable to use his power.
Readers also come to know that each level of existence had different organs of entertainment, journals and newspapers. Various Bureaux of Propaganda and College of Emotional Engineering were housed in a sixty multi-storey building in Fleet Street. On the lower floor were stationed the offices of three great London Newspapers- The Hourly Radio for Alphas, Gamma Gazette and The Delta Mirror on Khaki paper. Then there was Bureaux of Propaganda by Television, by Feeling Pictures, and by synthetic voice and music. Top eighteen floors were occupied by College of Emotional Engineering. Mr Watson wrote regularly for The Hourly Radio, composed feely scenarios and had the happiest knack for slogans and hyponaedic rhymes. The forms of entertainment of this society is shown when Lenina and Henry Frost go for the dance at London’s Forest Scent and Colour Organ which was playing the latest synthetic music.
In this world even dead bodies are put to use as Phosphorous is retrieved from the dead body before the funeral that is used in growing plants and vegetations by providing healthy nutrients to the soil. So a man even after his death is useful in the society as they have learnt the technique to recover nearly 90% of it. Nearly a kilo phosphorous is recovered from an adult corpse that makes four hundred tons of phosphorous of England. Mostly plant growers are Gammas, Delatas and Epsilons. Bernard Marx has to do solidarity community service every alternate Thursday at Ford Community Singing. He reaches the Singery just in time where twelve people collect for group singing after taking a drug known as Soma that leaves behind all the worries and problems and relaxes the body and mind. About Soma the popular saying are
A gramme in time saves nine.
And
one cubic centimetre ( of Soma) cures ten gloomy sentiments.
They sing a song while a cup of strawberry flavoured soma is rotated around the table.
Ford, we are twelve; oh! Make us one
like drops in the social river
oh make us now together run
as swiftly as thy shining flower
came greater being, Social Friend
Annihilating twelve in one
we long to die, for when we end
Our large life has just begun.
Feel how the Greater Being comes
rejoice and in rejoicing die
melt in the music of the dreams.
For I am you, and you are I
orgy, porgy,Ford and far
Kiss the girl and make them one,
boys at one with girls at peace
Orgy-Porgy gives release.
As Bernard is abnormal so he does not feel communion with the Greater Being though he shows it so and his lie is detected by the girl sitting beside him Drug taking is encouraged in this world so as to ensure nobody rebels and everybody submits like a slave. Lenina observes strange behaviour in Bernard that had gone to the edge of heresy, a sign of revolt against the modern establishment. First of all he refuses to take Soma to relieve his sadness and wants to remain gloomy Secondly he is introverted as he like to do things in private rather than in a communion in a society. Nothing is private in the life of a modern human being except taking bath and going to bed at night. Lenina prepares herself to go with Bernard on a holiday to New Mexico to see Savage reservation. Bernard takes his visa to be signed by Director. As controller of this part of the world Mustapha Mond had already counter signed it so he merely put initials on it. When he sees that it is a visa for New Mexico he shares with him a memory of his journey to this place with a girl nearly twenty years ago. During this visit there was a severe storm in which this girl was lost and left behind. Then Director realises that he was getting emotional before Bernard, which is a heresy in the modern world. So he saves his face by rebuking Bernard that his behaviour outside the working hours is being monitored closely and if his behaviour does not change then he may be transferred to some distant place like Iceland. However Bernard takes Visa and along with Lenina he reaches the office of the warden of Savage Reservation in New Mexico who tell them that in the world of New Mexico women still gave birth to children which is very disgusting to watch for the modern humans. Suddenly Bernard remembers that he has left his tap of Eau-de-Cologne of his washroom open and by the time they will reach an enormous bill will welcome them. So he phones Watson and tells him to go to his house and turn it off. He also comes to learn that Director is seriously thinking of transferring him to Iceland. They enter the savage reservation but Lenina does not like the ritual dance of the tribals and she laments that she had forgotten soma tablets in the room of the guest house as she badly needed soma to get relief from the disgust caused by the ritual dance and the violence associated with it.
All of a sudden a boy wearing the tribal mask starts speaking to them in English- not the language of this tribal world but of the modern so called civilised world. Lenina is disgusted further to see penury, old age, disease, woes and miseries in this world. Though in the modern world too Director is old but he does not appear to be so as the people of this world have learnt to control the metabolism and hence the process of ageing. They have learnt to keep their internal secretions artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium. Magnesium-Calcium ratio is not allowed to drop below the level of the ratio that a man has at the age of thirty years. Transfusions of young blood is constantly given to them so as to keep their metabolism permanently stimulated to enjoy youth almost unimpaired till the age of sixty. ‘ and then the crack- the end’ (94). This boy with the tribal mask speaking English takes Bernard and Lenina to his mother a white old lady named Linda who came here to this reservation nearly twenty years ago with a young man and got lost in a storm. As she was pregnant with the child of this young man so she had no option to give birth to this child as there was no abortion facility available in the Savage Reservation. This boy was the young man who had talked to them in English though wearing a tribal mask. She had named this child Tomakin after the first name of his father Thomas who was now Director, Hatcheries. This lady was a Beta and she missed the pleasures and comforts of the modern world, particularly soma. She asks Lenina if there is still abortion centre at Chelsea, still flood lighted on Tuesdays and Fridays and lovley pink glass tower and the river at night and a hot bath and vibro- vaccum massage. In the modern society she worked in a fertiliser room where she had been taught ‘ ending is better than mending’. But here she had to wear clothes by mending and repairing them while in the modern society the dictum was to throw away the clothes as soon as there were holes in it and buy new as it suited modern industry and capitalism. But here everything is different, it was just like leading life with lunatics. Here nobody belongs to more than one person, as monogamy is still the rule of the day in this society. If you have more than one person in your life you are considered to be wicked and anti-social. They hate and despise you. Once a lot of woman came and beat her and created a scene just because ‘their men came to see her’. (102) Women here are disgusting ‘mad, mad and cruel’(102).
Linda so as to survive forges relationship with one of the powerful member of the tribe living in Savage Reservation named Pepe though she has to face the wrath of his women but Linda could not see the reason of this violence as she was brought up in the modern world where the ruling dictum was ‘everybody belongs to everyone’ but in this society only one woman belonged only to one man as in this society marriage was still considered indissoluble and they still had faith in the doctrines of fidelity and loyalty. Modern world has learnt techniques to use Magnesium salts and alcohol to keep Epsilons ‘small and backward’ (109). After coming from Savage Reservation Bernard Marx meets after, crossing a number of bureaucratic hurdles, first the Fourth Personal Secretary, then First Personal Secretary and finally to World Controller of that part of the world Mustapha Mond and unfolds his plan to bring Linda and Joy, who are stuck up in the Savage Reservation, into the modern world and society. Mustapha approves it and assures Marx that necessary orders and instructions would be issued soon to the Warder of the Savage Reservation that can be collected from his office. Joy comes to the Guest House and enters by breaking the window pane and sees Lenina sleeping,under the influence of Soma drug that she had taken to relieve herself from the stress of her visit to Savage Reservation. Suddenly he hears the humming sound of the fan of the chopper and is glad to see and receive Bernard Marx.
Next day Bernard goes to meet Director Hatcheries and Conditioning in the Nursery- which was eleven storey structure. In the basement of the building spermatozoa were burrowing their heads towards eggs and fertilising it. The eggs were expanding, dividing or if bokanovskified budding and breaking into whole population of separate embryos. In the basement factories were growing on getting poisoned with too much alcohol and languished into stunted Epsilonhood. Then in Decanting Room the newly bottled babes uttered their first’ yell of horror and amazement’ (125). On all the eleven floors of this building it was feeding time when eighteen hundred bottles, eighteen hundred carefully labelled infants were simultaneously sucking down their pint pasteurised external secretion. In other floors also little boys and girls who needed afternoon nap were getting their hyponaedic lessons in hygiene and sociality in class consciousness. Above this storey were playrooms where, weather having turned to rain, hundreds of older children were playing various games like bricks and clay modelling, hunt the slipper and the erotic play.
Director accuses Bernard Marx of unseemly behaviour outside his working hours like refusing to take soma and not mixing up socially with others and remaining aloof and lonely and for his heretical view on games like magnetic golf and of course Soma and he even declares his decision to transfer Bernard to Iceland so as to contain the damage to the society done by him. He asks Bernard to give reason for not punishing him. Moving his head in affirmation Bernard brings in Linda who at once recognises Director as Tomkin and embraces him as she has met after a long period of twenty years. She also tells Director that they have a son too named John,who also comes and bows before the Director and calls him father. This causes a lot of embarrassment to the Director as everybody watching him starts laughing and he leaves the room in a hurry, frustration and anger. Bernard Marx becomes an important figure in the modern world as guardian of John Tomakin, while Linda goes on infinite holiday of Soma. Although her form was distorted and ugly yet John was very much attached to his mother that he used to visit her daily. Taking Soma was shortening her life as continuous intake of soma would damage her breathing system one day and she would die. Every dignitary of the modern world like The Chief Butler, Director of Predestination, three Deputy Assistant Fertiliser Generals, Professor of Feelies at the College of Emotional Engineering, Dean of Westminster Community Singery, Supervisor of Bokanovskification and others wanted to meet John and even they ignored the queer behaviour of Bernard for that. Every girl of the modern world starts liking Bernard so as to get opportunity to get a glimpse of the savage john Tomakin. He even boasts that he had six girls last week. Now success like Fizz was rising in the mind of Bernard.Even the Controller of this part of the world Mustapha Mond noticed it and decided to reprimand him for it at appropriate time. Bernard takes John to see a small factory of lighting sets for choppers which was a branch of Electrical Engineering Corporation (EEC). They were received warmly on the roof by Chief Technician and Human Element Manager. The Station Master tells John that these rockets like The Bombay Green could travel at the speed of twelve hundred and fifty kilometres per hour, John remembers words of Ariel from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest that says “ Ariel could put a girdle around the Earth in forty minutes.
Then Bernard takes John to visit Eton school which is a high class boys and girls school. Though it makes education difficult but as they have to play the responsibilities in future so it can’t be helped. Bernard takes a fancy towards Headmistress of the school Miss Keate. Then John is taken to the Geography class where it is being taught in which the Savage Reservation as the place that owing to unfavourable climatic and geographical conditions, or poverty of natural resources has not been ‘with the expanse of civilising’. (132) Students laugh when people of the reservation wail and prostrate before their local deities like Our Lady. John is at loss to comprehend why these people are laughing. Then they come to the room of hyponaedic learning control room where there are magic boxes, each for one dormitory, in which a magnetic roll is slipped that contains the hyponaedic lessons are printed. As the roll unwinds the Selenium cells Transform the light impulses into sound waves. When John Savage asks Provost Dr Gaffrey Don’t they read Shakespeare. He replies that if young people need destruction they can get it at feelies, ‘we don’t encourage them to indulge in any solitary amusement’(133). Then they come to Bio-chemical Labs and Library where five bus loads of young children return back from death conditioning from the Slough Crematorium. Either they were singing or silently embracing. Provost informs them that death conditioning begins at eighteen months and everybody has to spend two mornings a week in The Hospital for the Dying. All the best boys are kept there and they get chocolate cream on death days. They learn to take death as normal and routine matter like any other physiological process like eating or sleeping. Meanwhile Bernard fixes his meeting with his mistress at Savoy. John observes that at Television Corporation Factory every worker was getting his daily ration of Soma. Four half gram tablets per day and six tablets on Saturday. Lenina feels very excited as Bernard had requested to accompany John to the feelies.
Fanny considers Lenina as a lucky and fortunate girl as she was getting an opportunity to be with John. They go to see a Feelie whose plot was that a negro loses his conditioning due to a helicopter accident in which he fell on his head an d lost his conditioning in a cocked hat and develops an exclusive and ‘maniacal passion’ for a Beta blonde. Though she rejects but this man takes her forcefully in his wild and savage environment of the forests for three weeks. Finally she is rescued by three Alpha young men and she ends up as their mistress. John does not like this movie and also tells Lenina not to watch such movies when he comes to leave her in taxicopter. She hopes to have love relationship with him but he simply leaves after wishing her good night.
John realises his significance and one day he flatly refuses to meet the visitors and dignitaries of the modern world who have come to meet him despite the repeated requests from Bernard and others. So Bernard had to cut a sorry figure before such dignitaries as Arch community Songster of Cantetbury, Headmistress of Eton, Director of Crematorium and Phosphorous Reclamation and the like. This event takes out ego from Bernard like air from punctured balloon. He sinks into his chair and starts crying and then takes four tablets of Soma to overcome his stress. Again the rumours that Bernard had excess of alcohol as cause of his stunted growth starts gathering momentum in the community.
The scene shifts to the residence of One of the Controller of the World Mustapha Mond, who had just finished reading an article named A New Theory of Biology. Though the author’s mathematical treatment of the conception is novel and ingenious yet it was heretical for the current social order and stability. So considering it to be dangerous and potentially subversive so he wrote the comment ‘ Not to be published’ and underlined it twice. On one hand Bernard was getting closer to Helmholtz who like him was also a victim of human error and on the other hand he was planning to take revenge on John who became a source of embarrassment for him before the dignitaries of the modern world when he refused to meet them. Taking revenge from John was easy, as he was accessible to him while dignitaries were beyond his power. Bernard poured out his tales of woes and miseries before and expected consolation before Helmholtz who had also run into conflict with the authorities due to some rhymes. While teaching third year students of Advanced Emotional Engineering during the Seventh Lecture which was on rhymes with the title “ on the use of rhymes in Moral Propaganda and Advertisement, Helmholtz gave one of his rhyme which was about loneliness, which was a heresy in the modern world and some body reported to the Principal. Though John and Lenina meet but he is enraged due to clash of values of two diverse culture in which they have been brought up. On one hand John wants to win Lenina’s heart by doing something worth while. In his culture normally a young man brought tiger or bear rug to win the heart of his beloved but as it was not possible in the modern society so he tells her that he is even read to sweep the room to impress her while Lenina sees no need of it. Then John tells her about the marriage and vows to remain with each other lifelong. Lenina is unable to comprehend these things and when she feels she likes him then she sees no barrier in their union so she comes out of her clothes while John with the concepts of fidelity, virginity, loyalty considers Lenina to be a whore for her actions. She takes shelter in the wash room to avoid John’s anger. However John gets news of his mother being critically ill, so he leaves for hospital and Lenina heaves a sigh of relief as she gets opportunity to escape from the room.
John reaches Park Lane Hospital for Dying that was a sixty storey building made of primrose tiles where his mother Linda was undergoing treatment. As he steeped out of taxicopter he saw gaily decorated aerial hearses darting towards the Slough Crematorium. He got necessary information from Presiding Porter and went straight away to Ward no. 81 on 17th floor to see his mother. He saw her dying slowly accompanied by all the modern pleasures and comforts in a well lit large room. The air was continuously alive with gay synthetic melodies. At the foot of each bed there was a television box which was left on like a running tap from morning till night. Nurse informs John that they try to create congenial and thoroughly pleasant environment- something like a first class hotel and a feely palace. He inquired from her whether there was any chance of his mother’s survival and she replied in negation. Nurse was horrified to see John coming to see his mother where as as far as she remembers nobody has come in years to see a dying relative or parent. Linda was lying in the last long row of the beds next to the wall. Popped on the pillows she was watching Semi-finals of South American Riemana Surface Tennis Championships. Linda looks n vaguely uncomprehendingly smile and her bloated face ‘wore an expression of imbecile happiness’(181).
Nurse left John with Linda and when John calls her by her name, she turns around at the sound of her name and her vague eyes brightened as she recognised him and she squeezed his hand but John was dismayed to find the name of Pope, whom he detested, on her lips even in her last breaths. As it was the day of death conditioning of delta male children so a number of identical twins entered the ward. All of them were clad in Khaki clothes. They swarmed between the beds, clambered over, crawled under, peeped into the television boxes and made faces making fun of the patients. They wondered at seeing Linda as to why she was so fat, ugly as they had never seen anybody in their life who was not youthful and taut skinned. She seemed to them a body that had ceased to be slim and upright. Suddenly a child popped between John’s chair and the wall and peeped into the sleeping face of Linda. John caught hold of him by the collar and gave a smarting punch on his ears that made the boy howling. Nurse bluntly tells John that she cannot tolerate the beating of a child as it was a session of death conditioning of these children and his unusual behaviour with them might decondition them requiring them to be sent back to a conditioning centre for another six to seven months. Meanwhile Linda passes away while John had gone to call the nurse, who was at loss to understand that why John was reacting so abnormally, unnaturally and disgracefully by sitting on knees and crying bitterly before Linda’s dead body that might hamper the conditioning of these children.
When John comes out of the hospital after leaving the body of his mother, it was the time of shift change and nearly hundreds of deltas wearing Khaki clothes were standing in a queue to get their daily ration of Soma tablets. Deputy Sub- Bursar even threatens them to behave in a disciplined manner otherwise he will stop distributing the drug. These people have become so much addicted to it they have become merely its slave. The issue of protest for these people is not poverty, exploitation and lack of facilities but unavailability of Soma. But John decides to protest and shoves his way to vestibule where it was being distributed and asks people not to take it as it was poison not only for their bodies but even for their souls also. But these people are unable to comprehend what John is saying. They threaten to mob and assault him as he throws the whole lot of Soma tablets out of the window and shows them the empty box. With one hand he punches his assaulters that causes nearly a stampede and riot and with other he throws out this drug out of the window. Meanwhile Bernard and Helmholtz are unable to find John at his usual place, suddenly Helmholtz gets a call that John is creating trouble at the Hospital for the dying,so both of them rush at once and Helmhotz even helps John in throwing out Soma tablets. Somebody informs the police and pig masked cops arrive and spread Soma fumes and spray an anaesthetic liquid that disables everybody including John, Helmholtz and Bernard. So they are arrested and taken before the controller of that part of the world Mustapha While waiting for the Controller to come John Savage takes a look at the books on the shelves, at the sound track rolls and the reading machine bobbin in the numbered pigeon holes. On the table was lying a black leather bound work My Life and Work by Ford, published by Society of Fordian Knowledge. He turned the pages reading a sentence here and there and a few paragraph too and came to inference that it did not interest him. Meanwhile Mustapha Mond enters and shakes hand with them and asks John whether he likes or not the modern civilisation. When John replies in negation Bernard is horrified at the though of being branded as friend of a heretical who did not like this civilisation. John moderates his reply by saying ‘ there are some nice things. All that music in the air’. ( 176). Mustapha quotes from Shakespeare “ sometimes a thousand twanging instruments will hum about my ears, and sometimes voices’. John’s face is lit with happiness and pleasure at knowing that atleast there is somebody even in this civilisation who can read Shakespeare. Mustapha tells him that he can read Shakespeare while others can’t as it has been banned in the modern world because he makes laws so he can break them too. They have banned Shakespeare because it is old. People are encouraged to like new things and discard the old even if they are beautiful in a sense. He tells John that even if he allowed them to read Shakespeare they won’t comprehend it as they have been conditioned in such a manner that they do not understand anything that is serious beautiful and creative full of love like Othello by Shakespeare. Watson says that is what they have been seeking to write as the new entertainment is stupid, horrible and fickle. Mustapha gives the reason that tragedies cannot be allowed in the modern world because Shakespeare’s world is very much different from the modern world. Tragedies can only be written in the times of crisis and social instability while modern society is a stable now. People are happy and contented as they get what they want and they never want what they can’t get as they have been conditioned such. They are well off, safe, secure, never ill, not afraid of death, blissfully ignorant of passion and old age. They are plagued with no parents or relatives, no wives, beloveds or children to whom to think strongly about. They are so conditioned that they practically cant help behaving as they ought to behave and if anything goes wrong there is always ‘Soma’. (177) But John Savage strongly feels that Othello is much better than modern feelies. Though Controller agrees with him but says that this is the price that they had to pay for social stability. “ You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people call high art. We’ve sacrificed the high art. We have feelies and scent organs instead” (177). Even Watson agrees with John that modern forms of entertainment are fickle and shallow because it is idiotic to write under compulsion when you have nothing to say. John asks World Controller why everybody in the modern world is not Alpha Plus. Laughingly Controller replies because they have no wish to have their throats cut. An Alpha conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon’s semi moron work, he will start smashing up things. Alphas can be completely socialised but only on condition that they are made to do only Alphas’s work. Controller Mustapha tells them an incident of 473 A.F ( After Ford) when the Island of Cyprus was handed over to twenty two thousand Alphas, all agricultural and industrial equipment was handed over to them to manage their affairs on their own. The result was that land was not worked properly, there were strikes in the factory, and within six years they were waging a civil war in which nearly nineteen thousand alphas were killed and they finally requested World Controller to take back the control of the Island.
Then Mustapha tells them about improving the working conditions of lower strata of workers. He felt that nothing made people happier than the reduced working hours that provided more leisure to them. He tells them about another experiment that was taken up in Ireland when the working hours were reduced to four days a week. The result was increase in the consumption of Soma. As every change is menace to stability so new inventions are not applied as every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive, even science is also treated as potential foe. That’s another item in the cost of stability. It is not only art but even science too is incompatible with happiness and social stability. Science is dangerous “we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled” (180). When Bernard and Watson tell him about their hyponaedic learning in the childhood that taught them that ‘Science is Everything’, Mustapha Mond replies that not this type of science that they have learnt is dangerous but science that endorses independent, rational, unconventional and unorthodox thinking. Mustapha also tells them that he was a Physicist in his young age when he was fond of rational, innovative and unorthodox thinking and he nearly came on the verge of being deported to a remote island to spend the rest of his life. And as Bernard, Watson and John have behaved in an unconventional manner so they too will be deported to some remote island so that they do not pose any danger to the modern society. Bernard panics at the thought of being deported of being deported to Iceland and he faints. Controller orders Fourth Secretary to put Bernard in bed and give vaporisation of Soma. Controller tells them that deportation to Iceland is not punishment rather it is a reward where they can come across some of the most interesting people of the world- the people who for one or another reason have got too self consciously individual to fit into community life. All those people who are not satisfied with orthodoxy, who have independent ideas of their own find themselves on some remote island like Iceland. When Watson asks Mond why he is not on any island. He replies “ I was given a choice, to be sent on island, where I could have got on with my pure science, or to be taken into Controller’s Council with the prospect of succeeding in due course to an actual Controllership and I preferred this, I chose this and let science go “ (182). Controller appreciates Watson’s willingness to go to some remote island with roughest weather as he said “I believe one would write better if the climate were bad, if there were a lot of wind and storms” (184).
Controller also tells them that besides arts and sciences they have sacrificed religion too at the altar of modern civilisation to ensure social stability. God existed in world before nine years war. Mustapha tells them that the religion interested him a lot and with that he brought out a black leather bound volume of The Bible- both The Old Testament and the New Testament but religion has been banned in the modern world for the same reason as Shakespeare that it is old and hence has no place in the new and modern society. He also brings out similar books on religion like The Imitation of Christ and The Varieties of Religious Experiences and tells them humorously ‘ God in the safe, Ford on the shelves’. God is needed in societies where there is sickness, poverty, old age, disease, deformity and as these things are not in the modern world hence there is no need of God to the modern world. God manifests himself in this society as an absence as if He did not exist. Simply God is not compatible with machinery and scientific medicines and universal happiness. Modern civilisation has made the choice of machinery, medicine and happiness over God and religion. When John Savage says that it is natural for man to remember God in loneliness and solitude but Controller replies by saying that people are never alone,“we make them hate solitude and we arrange their lives so that it is almost impossible for them ever to have it” ( 188). John raises the issue of self denial as emotional need of a man. To it Controller replies “ industrial revolution is only possible when there is no self denial, self indulgence up to the very limits imposed by hygiene and economics otherwise the wheels would stop running” ( 190). The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving anyone too much but still if by chance this thing happens then there is always Soma to give you holiday from the facts. In the past it could be achieved only by making a great effort and after years of consistent moral training, now it is achievable just by swallowing a two or three gram of Soma tablet. Anybody can be virtuous, “Christianity without tears is what Soma is”( 188). Watson and Bernard found John coming from the wash room and his face was pale , Watson asks if he was ill and ate something that did not agree with this digestion. Savage replies “ I ate civilisation. It poisoned me, I was defiled, and then in a lower tone added “I ate my own wickedness. Now I am purified as I have taken mustard oil with warm water. That’s how Indians purify themselves” (193). Watson and Bernard bid farewell to John Savage as they will go to different destinations from tomorrow. John had come to seek permission from the Controller to accompany Bernard and Watson to the islands but he does not get it as he told his intention to do some experiments there. Next day John disappears and takes shelter in an old abandoned Light house situated on the hill between Pottenham and Elsteed as he wanted to repent for his sins of the flesh that has led to his mother’s death. This repentance was to be by imposing harder discipline on himself as it ensured a complete and thorough purification of his conscience and soul. He prayed on his knees for long time till his knees ached and stood with outstretched arms like Jesus Christ to punish his body for succumbing to the sins of the flesh. He had chosen this spot for the reason that it provided a beautiful view and secondly it was a vantage point from which he seemed to be looking out on to the incarnation of a divine being. He started working by felling an Ash tree cut out six feet of unbranched stem to build a stave of his own height. The work after a long time of lethargic life in London gave him intense pleasure. It was a pure delight to do something that demanded skill and patience and hard physical work. He discovered an old age adage of singing while working and working while singing as he found himself humming a song while working to make the stave. First of all he was spotted by Delta Minus land mine workers who saw him stripped to the waist whipping himself with a knotted and corded whip that caused pink streak of blood on his back. Three days later a number of reporters came to ask some questions to him. He requested them to leave him alone but when they showed no sign of retreat he caught hold one of the reporter and spun him around and gave a stout kick on his back. Thus reporters departed in an embarrassing manner but within eight minutes it became a braking headlines in The Hourly Radio. After this incident John lived in peace for a few days. One day a chopper hovered over his tower and he threw a steel arrow that hit it and pierced its steel layer. So as to purify himself John was cursing Lenina, asking for forgiveness from his mother Linda, and whipping himself with chorded and knotted whip and embracing the thorny plants that resulted in piercing of nettles in his flesh. One day a courageous film maker Darwin Bonaparte came to film him with the help of a hidden camera. He sat in a bush patiently for three days to film the scenes in which John whipped his back. Earlier he had made successful documentaries on the life of Guerila and Spermwhales. He wanted to make a sensational feely with the title The Savage of Surrey that would be a great success.
That broke John’s solitude as it brought a number of visitors after seeing the feely. At last a chopper came to spray soma fumes to disperse the crowds gathered at the lighthouse. John was stupefied and exhausted by the soma fumes and became unconscious. Next day when he came to know that he has again resorted back to the evil ways of so called modern society he has no way but to commit suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling of the lighthouse. This work though it projects future life of the world as pleasant and full of comforts but it has rightly been termed as Dystopia because the comforts and pleasures are not inner and from soul but they are external and imposed by drowning the rational, scientific, objective and unconventional thinking in the fumes of the drug Soma as a result of which the people of this society have become slaves to it. They are not disturbed at the thought that rational thinking is discouraged and rational thinkers are exiled to strange remote islands but when the supply of Soma is disrupted even for a short period it causes protest and riots that police had to be called in. It projects the negative sides of the scientific and industrial revolution more than its positive sides. They have sacrificed art, religion and even science for this world ruled by profit as only activities are encouraged in this world that would require a lot of equipment and thus ensure the wheels of factories going on accruing a lot of profit to the World Controllers. Even Mustapha Mond had two options for his rational and scientific thinking- either to lead he rest of his life on a remote island and carry on his scientific research work or to join the Council of The Controllers of the World and like a pragmatic man he chose the later option.
End of Chapter IV
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