1. Why is Lenina so shocked when she sees the old Indian? What is Bernard's explanation?
2. After Bernard explains why, what is it ultimate result of this action?
3. What is the purpose of the ceremony?
4. What realization does Bernard have when the white man tells the story of how his mother came to the reservation?
5. Give two examples that show how Linda has still maintained her conditioning.
Lenina is horrified by the old man's condition, as she has never seen anything like it.
Bernard explains that people in their world (off the reservation) are kept young, and saved from disease.... but they die far younger.
An almost naked Indian was very slowly climbing down the ladder from the first-floor terrace of a neighboring house–rung after rung, with the tremulous caution of extreme old age. His face was profoundly wrinkled and black, like a mask of obsidian. The toothless mouth had fallen in. At the corners of the lips, and on each side of the chin, a few long bristles gleamed almost white against the dark skin. The long unbraided hair hung down in grey wisps round his face. His body was bent and emaciated to the bone, almost fleshless. Very slowly he came down, pausing at each rung before he ventured another step.
"What's the matter with him?" whispered Lenina. Her eyes were wide with horror and amazement.
"He's old, that's all," Bernard answered as carelessly as he could. He too was startled; but he made an effort to seem unmoved.
"Old?" she repeated. "But the Director's old; lots of people are old; they're not like that."
"That's because we don't allow them to be like that. We preserve them from diseases. We keep their internal secretions artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium. We don't permit their magnesium-calcium ratio to fall below what it was at thirty. We give them transfusion of young blood. We keep their metabolism permanently stimulated. So, of course, they don't look like that. Partly," he added, "because most of them die long before they reach this old creature's age. Youth almost unimpaired till sixty, and then, crack! the end."
Please ask your questions separately.
Brave New World
