Summary and Analysis of Chapters 10-12
Chapter 10 Summary: Bernard and Lenina return to London with John Savage and his mother. Immediately the Director and Henry Foster go to meet Bernard in the Fertilizing Room. With all the workers present, the Director publicly reproaches Bernard for his social misconduct and tells him that he is being transferred to Iceland. Bernard laughs and introduces Linda. Linda quickly recognizes the Director and calls him by his name, and then rushes up to give him a hug. When he pulls away out of disgust, Linda gets mad and screams at him for having left her on the Reservation, pregnant with John. The Director becomes even more embarrassed when John walks in, falls to his knees, and calls him father. All the workers begin laughing at the scene until the Director finally runs out of the room. AnalysisThis chapter ends with pure irony. Back in chapters 1 and 2 the Director is extremely arrogant towards the group of students. He starts to tell them about hypnopaedia by constantly referring to the words mother and father, both of which have negative connotations in the society. His arrogance while embarrassing the students is repaid here when John the Savage enters and calls him a father. Chapter 11 Summary: The Director is forced to resign his position and Linda is given soma which she takes in excess. John gets worried about her, but is told that she is happier with soma even though she will not live much longer if she keeps taking so much. This is the first time that John encounters the Utopian society's attitude towards death. Bernard immediately becomes famous because he controls the Savage's social schedule. Bernard takes advantage of his fame to get as many women as he can. He also holds parties for the social elites to visit him and meet the Savage. However, he foolishly also starts criticizing society and even goes so far as to lecture Mustapha Mond on ways that society could be improved. Helmholtz disapproves of the way Bernard is handling things and tells him so. After a brief encounter Bernard gets mad at him and vows never to talk to him again. This pettiness on Bernard's part is directly related to his sense of insecurity. Mustapha Mond receives written reports from Bernard about John Savage. In one of the reports Bernard lectures him about some problems in the society which John had pointed out. Rather than get upset, Mustapha merely finds it comical and chooses to ignore it. John Savage is given a tour of the local radio tower and of an elementary school while Bernard acts arrogant the entire time. In the school John watches a video of Indians worshiping while all the schoolchildren laugh at them. He starts to feel a little out of place in the society. Lenina succeeds in getting John to go on a date with her. She takes him to a feelie show about a black man who falls in love with only one woman. He abducts her, and after three weeks she is finally rescued by three strong Alpha Plus males. She then becomes the lover to all three of them, and the black man is sent for reconditioning. John finds the movie absolutely horrible and is offended by the morals taught in it. He takes Lenina back to her place, but then leaves her. She gets upset because she had hoped to sleep with him and only recovers by taking her soma. John returns home and starts reading Othello because he recalls that there is a black man in the play. Analysis: This chapter focuses on the behavior of both Bernard and John. When Bernard becomes important he starts to like the society more. Huxley is showing a baser side of Bernard than the reader has previously been introduced to. As long as Bernard felt inferior and out of place he hated the society he lived in. While unpopular, Bernard did not accept the societal norms and as such acted in an individual capacity. That is mostly why he was able to identify with John's plight back in the village, and it is also what John liked about Bernard. Sadly, as soon as he becomes popular, Bernard immediately rejects his previous hatred and starts to like what society has to offer. Thus, he tells Helmholtz that he had six different women in one week. Bernard emerges as a shallow and selfish character who is self-absorbed. What he fails to realize is that selfishness is merely an different form of individuality, and has no place in a society where individual lives are subordinate to the social stability. Throughout the chapter John starts to read Shakespeare whenever he feels upset or confused. Shakespeare and Linda had always been John's only sources of information about the other world. Since Linda is permanently under the influence of soma, John can only turn to Shakespeare to explain what is going on around him. The irony is that Shakespeare was a genius at invoking passion and emotion, whereas the Utopian society has virtually destroyed these feelings. This creates a basis of serious misunderstandings between John and the society at large, since John is struggling to develop his emotions while everyone else struggles to suppress their feelings. Chapter 12 Summary: Bernard holds a party with many of the most eminent people in attendance. He goes to get John Savage and introduce him, but John will not leave his room. The guests become furious and start to immediately talk about Bernard in derogatory tones. Bernard is of course humiliated. The Arch-Community-Songster of Canterbury leaves, taking Lenina with him. Meanwhile, John sits in his room and continues reading Romeo and Juliet while the party falls apart, unaware that Lenina was even at the party. Mustapha Mond is introduced again. He reads scientific reports and evaluates them for publication. He decides whether or not to publish based on the social impact of each report. Mustapha also expresses regret that brilliant science cannot always be published because it might harm society. Bernard immediately takes lots of soma to escape the humiliation of the disastrous party. When he recovers, the Savage is much more sympathetic to him. John explains that Bernard is acting more the way he did when they first met. Bernard also returns to Helmholtz who is willing to take him back as a friend. The sympathy and friendship of the two men only serves to make Bernard want to seek revenge on them for having caused his fame to disappear. Helmholtz has gotten into trouble while Bernard entertained. He wrote a poem about being alone and foolishly decided to read it to his students during a lecture. They complained to higher authorities and Helmholtz was told that if anything else happened he would be removed from his position. When Helmholtz meets John Savage they immediately becomes good friends. Bernard naturally feels displaced when in the presence of the two, and continually does things to annoy them. For example, after Helmholtz reads the Savage his poetry, John pulls out his volume of Shakespeare and reads some of the passages. Helmholtz is overcome by the beautry of the writing, but Bernard tries to make stupid jokes in order to disrupt the reading. Everything goes well until John reads Romeo and Juliet. Since John is still in love with Lenina, he is currently identifying with Romeo and so he puts a great deal of passion into the story. However, the ideas of forbidden love are so alien to the Utopian society that Helmholtz finally bursts out laughing. At that point John gets mad and locks away his book. Analysis: Both Bernard and Helmholtz get warnings about their behavior in this chapter. Bernard clearly feels inferior to other men and when he returns to Helmholtz to become friends again he gets mad that Helmholtz is generous enough to still want to be friends. The friendship between Helmholtz and the Savage also serves to make Bernard feel displaced. His constant interruption of their conversations is yet another aspect of Bernard's inferiority complex. Like a little child he will do anything in order to be noticed. This pettiness is most of what Bernard has left to offer. Whereas before he was able to refuse soma, he now uses it when feeling depressed. He is thus showing signs of being unable to completely extricate himself from the ideals of the society. Unlike Bernard, Helmholtz is quickly making the transition from a robotic, emotionless Utopian to a thinking, emotional individual. The first example is his poem about being alone. Shakespeare serves as a further catalyst by stirring up his emotions even more. The introduction of Mustapha Mond clues the reader in to a key part of his personality. Mustapha is completely dedicated to the societal goal of maximizing happiness. Thus, any report or science which might be detrimental to this goal is immediately condemned. However, this crucial scene also indicates that Mustapha is sad about censoring many of the reports. He proclaims, "What fun it would be if one didn't have to think about happiness!" Lenina starts to act in ways that belie her previous behavior. Her inability to get John Savage to spend the night with her has the effect of making her think about him all the time. This leads her to a state of depression which she feels unable to cure with soma. This in turn seems to be catalyzing emotions which Lenina is not used to having. Thus, when the Songster leads her away from the party she is not happy about going. And even more telling, when he wants to sleep with her she requests more soma than usual.
ClassicNote on Brave New World
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