John's Death In Brave New World

During a drug-induced frenzy, John is pulled into an orgy and does not realize his misdeeds until after he awakens. As he slowly becomes aware of what has taken place, John “Then suddenly remembered everything …’Oh, my God, my God!’” (Huxley 259). At this point, realizing that he will never be free from a society that he abhors, John decides to hang himself. The young man cannot bear to take part in this corrupt society. John would rather not live, than live in a world that does not allow for freedom of thought and

Society tricks the Savage by making him believe that he is free and able to do whatever he wants when in reality, he was not granted these liberties. John is shown what makes the society “civilized” and what makes the society work, but he doesn’t agree with any of their methods. However, when John asks Mond if he can go to the islands with his friends, Mond refuses to let him because he says that John needs to stay for experimentation. He is trapped

“When you know the truth it will drive you insane”. The quote by Aldous Huxley perfectly encapsulates what happened to the character John throughout Brave New World. John idolizes the World State and always has wanted to go there. Since he has lived on a savage reservation his whole life he’s never known the luxuries such as “soma” and “feelies”. John has evolved a great deal throughout Brave New World, he started naive and hopeful, became skeptical of the World State’s greatness, and ended depressed and angry.

Survival may be one of the natural instincts in human beings, but it can and sometimes will be overcome by other powerful emotions. John's initial struggle for survival is suppressed by his overwhelming love for his wife. He becomes involved when his wife's name is mentioned in court, and her life becomes endangered. John does a complete turn around on his perspective of the situation. He goes from being completely isolated, to attempting to take control of the situation. However, his initial failure to do the right thing from the start caused this plan to fail.

John’s troubled soul was fueled by hatred towards Owen’s control for his destiny, the kind of control that John never has in his own life. The events leading up to the Vietnam War and beyond were out of his authority, however, as destiny has it; it is inescapably going to happen. The war itself indirectly took the life of John’s best friend and John always felt helpless and responsible thinking that somehow he should have taken some kind of control in order to change occurrences. Due to Owen Meany’s belief that he is an instrument of God and that God has set a task for him to complete, Owen does his best to fulfill each part of his destiny. John does not understand why Owen bothered, John himself having so little faith and acceptance in destiny and fate. Owen has control over which path in life he should take, he could follow God’s orders, or he could ignore his calling and not do as his fate would have to save the little Vietnamese children. John’s feeling of helplessness in the fate that has befallen Owen makes him feel responsible and angry because he thinks he could have tried to persuade Owen to avoid his destiny. Moreover, John is angry by Owen’s faith in God and his acceptance of his destiny by living his life accordingly rather than avoiding it, the control that John never

Those who conform to the “Brave New World” lose their individuality and self-identity despite the World State’s motto being ‘Community, Identity, Stability’. In order for the ‘Brave New World to function all castes must work together through the artificial ideas of ‘identity’ and individuality to achieve happiness because the only way to achieve stability is to remove all negative feeling about the way the ‘Brave New World’ works. The people who choose not to conform begin a process of discovery. This discovery of something new and different to the ‘normal’ practices of society isn’t about the individual helping themselves but always about benefiting society and the greater good of humanity. All conformists used a drug called soma as a way of escaping reality and their consciousness. John didn’t see the need to use drugs because he believed that they shouldn’t have been used in a society that has a primal goal of a simple ad passive lifestyle. Not conforming to the use of drugs maintained his consciousness and his ability to be the one who was aware of the limitations and control society has put onto

When John was led back into life in the futuristic society, he was mocked and treat as a strange attraction. He was at the awful end of a sick joke - people came from all over to understand this simple “savage” who has spent his life in curiously primitive manners. John was so poorly received, he went as far as wanting to commit

John experiences exile on three occasions during Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. During each exile, his lifestyle contradicts the morals, ideas, and behaviors of the Savage Reservation and the World State.

John’s actions create many conflicts with the people of this new world. “The noise of the prodigious slap which her departure was accelerated was like a pistol shot,” Huxley, Aldous, 195). In this quote John abused Lenina by hitting her extremely hard and causes her to be afraid of him. Although Lenina was coming on way too fast, he didn’t need to hit her. Another conflict that he creates in the new society is with the other people in this society. John’s actions had gone extremely far when he interrupts the rationing of Soma by yelling, “Don’t take that horrible stuff. It’s poison, it’s poison.” (Huxley, Aldous, 211). During this time he then also “... pushing open a window that looked on to the inner court of the Hospital, he began

John pushes against the society’s standards. He is against taking soma, a drug that puts you are peace and goes against the social means. John takes the soma from workers at the hospital receiving their pay. “’Free, free!’ the Savage shouted, and with one hand continued to throw the soma into the area while, with the other, he punched the indistinguishable faces of his assailants. ‘Free!’ And suddenly there was Helmholtz at his side —‘Good old Helmholtz!’—also punching—‘Men at last!’—and in the interval also throwing the poison out by handfuls through the open window. ‘Yes, men! men!’ and there was no more poison left. He picked up the cash-box and showed them its black emptiness. ‘You're free’” (213). John hates people taking soma because it takes away their freedom, which keeps them from thinking and speaking freely. He continues to fight the system when he isolates himself at the lighthouse because he is so against the World State. He ends up not wanting to be in the world. He hangs himself to show everyone how messed up it is and prove himself to the world controllers.

Huxley reflects the consequences of totalitarian World State, upon the concern of oppressed citizens. Provoked by Freud and with Mendel’s work on genetic engineering and consumerism early 20th century, Huxley chose a science fiction medium to warn the audience as they venture into the political beliefs and attitudes of the World State and identify its dehumanising effects. The imperative verb, ‘unescapable’ as Huxley states “All conditioning aims at…making people like their unescapable social destiny” (Ch 1) illustrates the loss of freedom due to scientific means which have constrained them into accepting the ideology taught by the World State. Huxley provides ‘John the Savage’ a sense of freedom from the Mexican Reservation where he is given thought, emotions and choice. Although he exclaims “How beauteous mankind is!” in the metaphorical “O brave new world” (Ch8) compared to the Reservation’s society, after seeing the oppression and nothingness of the World State he feels the oppression. This is stressed by the asyndeton of his desires using the personal pronoun ‘I’ in “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin” (Ch 17) as John identifies the powerlessness and mindlessness of the citizens. Though Huxley through John’s anti-thesis “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.”

This conflicts badly with his desire for self-identity. In Erikson’s theory of development, he is at the stage of ‘identity vs Role confusion’ (Tapia, 2012). That is why he is unable to resolve his own problems with others and instead results to hurting himself or hurting others. He is also in a confusion of sexual identity. The biggest contribution to this (lack of interest to girls and relationships) is his mother’s behavior, which by now he is rather aware of the situation. John is also dealing with self-guilt. The case in which he can not correct others and blames and punishes himself , this arises from his mother’s behavior. He may feels he should warn her to stop dressing and acting as she does but finds it difficult due to her being his only family and role model(Smith, & Elliott

"You ought to have asked me first whether I wanted to meet them." John was sick of being shown to people and gawked at. The rift between John's values and the rest of the "civilized" people was further split when Lenina tried to have John. "Whore!" cried John when he realized what she was doing, "Damned whore!" His beliefs were tested and he passed. The new world was so different than the reservation, Lenina and the rest of society was pushing him further and further away. "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" What was paradise to some, was hell to John. The brave new world he had dreamed of was turning out to be a nightmare. Isolating himself from the rest of the world was his only escape.

This theme pertains to the possibility that the world may fall into the hands of the government in the name of a “utopian” society, resulting in a robot-like world without any feelings or imaginative thought if the world becomes too technologically dependent. Huxley portrays this theme through many occurrences, such as when the main character, John the Savage, is arguing with the head of the society, Mustapha Mond. John, in response to Mustapha saying that society should be based on efficiency and comfort, states “But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin” (Huxley 240). The theme of oppression and restraint of emotion is characterized by Huxley’s decision to give the characters of the novel insight as to what is actually going with this “utopian” society. The absence of diversity among people and the social barriers caused by technology asserts Huxley’s overall theme of the falling of society due to technological advancements. In the society that the characters of the novel are living in, technology has made it so that people are designed to work to create more people, all in a thoughtless, monotonous manner. All in all, Huxley is able to convey a theme of Brave New World which portrays a new world run by technology in which all that

John tries to change the framework of this brave new world based upon his values, but all his attempts opposing stability can’t be accepted and finally lead him to his death. Linda’s death marks a transition point of John’s life. Through this trauma, John experiences these citizens’ indifference. He can’t understand their callousness toward a real human’s death. Linda was his real mother, and he loved her very much. This kind of close relationship did not exist in the brave new world. Therefore, John can’t adopt citizens’ attitudes, and the citizens view him as a person who will destroy the status quo. This event affects John’s feelings and forces him to take a stand against the brave new world. Preventing soma distribution is his chance to confront this “enemy”. He thinks, “Linda had been a slave, Linda had died; others should live in freedom, and the world be made beautiful” (210). This reflection makes him consider a rebellion –