Chapter 10

This chapter begins with the Director admiring the “hives” where eggs are fertilized and split into dozens of individual babies. This is where newborns are freshly “unbottled”; thousands of babies are fed here, and the embryos are subjected to the conditioning deemed appropriate for their predetermined social classes.

Readers soon learn that the Director is grim; he is unhappy with Bernard Marx’s decision to visit the reservation. He tells Henry Foster that he is now compelled to make a public example of Bernard Marx by punishing him. The Director adds that great intellect comes with great moral responsibility and that Bernard has been extremely irresponsible. He points to the embryos and reiterates that no individual is special or beyond reproach, that “people” can be “easily produced.”

When Bernard walks into the room, the Director publicly humiliates him, calling him an enemy on account of his heretical beliefs about soma consumption and the ways of their society in general. He announces that Bernard will be removed from his post and transferred to a remote location in Iceland. Bernard takes this as the perfect opportunity to present Linda to the Director, and expectedly the sight of Linda shocks the Directors and the onlookers.

Linda is middle-aged and, unlike Londoners, has not been consuming chemicals to enhance her youth. People in London are horrified by her appearance, but Linda pays no heed to anyone but the Director, whom she addresses as “Tomakin.” She walks toward him with love and throws herself into his arms, much to his disgust and shock. Everyone laughs at Linda when she tries to hold onto the Director. Disgraced by the onlookers’ laughter she yells, “You made me have a baby.” The Director at once refrains from trying to free himself from her arms. He turns pale, and looks horrified. Linda tells him that though it was awful for her to have a child, the child was also her only source of comfort nonetheless. She then calls out to their son John.

When he approaches the Director, John falls to his knees and addresses the Director as “my father.” Once again, onlookers erupt in laughter, and John frantically exits the room with his hands on his ears.

Analysis

This chapter focuses on the clash of personalities and power between The Director and Bernard. The Director wants to make an example of Bernard for his nonconformist ways by removing him from his post and sending him to a remote location. Bernard’s outlook is seen as too “individualistic,” and he is regarded as a bad influence. As the Director publicly humiliates Bernard, the latter does something unprecedented—he stands up for himself and is almost heroic.

Bernard brings Linda into the room, and she flings herself into the Director’s arms. As a woman who has spent nearly half her life in the reservation, she is better equipped to understand love. This is also evident when she acknowledges her son John as her only source of comfort.

The Director is stunned by Linda and John’s presence. The onlookers’ amused reaction to John and Linda’s interaction with the Director shows that civilized Londoners do not understand emotions such as love and longing; they not only find these alien but also laughable.