Summary and Analysis of Chapters 16-18
Chapter 16 Summary: The three men are ushered into the Controller's office, that of Mustapha Mond. Helmholtz chooses the best chair in the room while Bernard seeks out the worst, hoping that this self-inflicted punishment will make things go easier on him. Mustapha arrives and asks the Savage if he likes their civilization. John answers no, but adds that there are some nice things like the floating music. Mustapha quotes Shakespeare to him, "Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about my ears and sometimes voices." The Savage is thrilled that someone else knows Shakespeare. Mustapha indicates that since he makes the rules, he alone may also break them. When asked why old things like Shakespeare are forbidden, Mustapha replies that they are no longer needed. He claims that people are happy now and that they would not even understand the old things. When Helmholtz argues that something like Othello is what he has always wanted to write, Mustapha says that he will never write it. The reason is that the tragedy and the raw emotions lead to social instability. The challenge in the Utopian society is to write works of art about nothing, so that they inspire nothing. Mustapha then admits that happiness is never quite as great as tragedy, "Happiness is never grand." The discussion focuses on the necessity of the Bokanovsky groups. Mustapha points out that an entire society of Alpha Pluses would create social chaos. No one is willing to waste time doing the menial chores which are normally done by the Epsilons and Deltas. He mentions a Cyprus experiment where a society of Alphas was created. It soon disintegrated into a civil war and in the end the World Controllers were asked to take over. They also discuss the role of science. Mustapha argues that science cannot be allowed to progress without strict controls, since science can lead to social instability. When the others protest that science is everything, Mustapha agrees with them. He distinguishes between the science that ensures the social stability and the science which would create social unrest. The Utopian world is built upon the science which helps ensure social stability. Mustapha then tells Helmholtz and Bernard that they will be sent to an island. The islands are places where social misfits are sent. Usually they are people who have acquired individualistic traits and therefore would start to destabilize society. Bernard protests and prostrates himself on the floor, at which point Mustapha has him removed from the room. Surprisingly, Mustapha admits he himself would have been sent to an island but was given the choice of becoming the next Controller. He explains that his job is to promote the maximum happiness in society. He is duty bound to promote the happiness of others, but not his own. Ironically, he must act as an individual in order to decide what is best for the society. Helmholtz chooses to go to the Falkland Islands in order to write. His reasoning for the choice is that bad weather promotes better writing. He then leaves to go make sure Bernard is safe. AnalysisMustapha argues that the old is unnecessary. His reasoning is that old things contain passion and emotions, both of which are destabilizing. Stability is the highest virtue because it leads to happiness. Thus the old things like Shakespeare must be banned since they do not lead to happiness. Instead there is the requirement that all the new feelies and shows be about nothing. Only by experiencing pure sensation rather than emotion can happiness be maximized. The next debate is over the necessity of the Bokanovsky groups. They are a necessary part of the society because only by using a caste system can every person in the society be happy. Since each group has its intelligence modified and conditioned so as to make the people happy with the jobs they must do, every person becomes happy in his or her role. As Mustapha points out, a society of pure Alphas leads to chaos because everyone fights for the best jobs. This chapter defines two primary sacrifices of the old world in order to obtain happiness. They are art and science. Both are sacrificed in order to obtain the ultimate utilitarian goal, that of the maximum happiness. Art is sacrificed by only creating art without meaning. And whereas science is praised for allowing society to become Utopian, it is also restricted because it can just as easily destabilize the society. The differences between Helmholtz and Bernard are drawn even more starkly in this chapter. Helmholtz chooses the best chair, Bernard the worst. For Helmholtz this represents the superiority of the individual. He no longer feels himself subordinate to society or any individual. Bernard on the other hand is still very much attached to the Utopian society. He chooses the poor chair in the hope that by showing contrition he will receive a milder punishment. Chapter 17 Summary: The last sacrifice made by the old world order to ensure happiness is religion. Mustapha understands religion as something men turn to late in life when they become afraid of death. Religion is also defined as a substitute for the losses of youth. Mustapha explains that since society eradicated the fear of death and since everyone is artificially kept youthful until they die, there is no need of religion. He also points out that instinct is what people are conditioned to, and therefore people only believe in god if people are conditioned to believe in god. The Savage argues instead that solitude would lead people to visualize a god. Since the Utopian society has removed solitude, there is no time for people to sit and contemplate the world. This is John's strongest complaint about the society, namely that it fails to allow people time alone. Mustapha then counters several of the Savages points. The Savage argues that men are being punished by being happy because they are overindulging in their pleasant vices. Mustapha argues that by their society's standards each man is happy and perfect as he is. The argument continues: self-denial is condemned as being bad for the economy and opposed to happiness, chastity is described as leading to passion, which in turn creates instability. Nobility and heroics are understood by Mustapha as only existing where instability reigns, and thus they are unnecessary. The climax of the argument comes when Mustapha says, "in fact, you're claiming the right to be unhappy." The Savage demands the right to poetry, real danger, freedom, goodness and sin by making the powerful statement, "I claim them all." Mustapha merely shrugs and says, "You're welcome." Analysis: The novel climaxes at the end of this chapter with the words, "In fact, you're claiming the right to be unhappy." In the extremism of the Utopian utilitarianism, the right to be unhappy been abolished. This is what the Savage realizes when he starts claiming all the ills of mankind. He is arguing that being unhappy is a natural right which every man should have. Mustapha clearly disagrees with him. The whole premise of this form of utilitarianism is that people should be happy. Therefore it is necessary to ban anything which would interfere with happiness. However, in dividing the happy from the unhappy, the individual happens to cease to exist. This is what the Savage cannot accept in the Utopian society. He demands to be an individual, and that entails being unhappy sometimes. Huxley creates several criteria that must be met for the stability of the society to remain constant. The three major ones are the banishment of art, science and religion. All of these lead to either emotional, physical, or spiritual unrest and would threaten society. Thus they must be either eliminated or used only when they promote more stability and consequently more happiness (as in the case of science). Chapter 18 Summary: Helmholtz and Bernard go to visit John, who is throwing up in his room. When they ask him what is wrong, he replies, "I ate civilization... It poisoned me." John then tells the two men that he had visited Mustapha Mond that morning and asked if he could join them on the island. Mustapha refused his request, indicating that he wanted to continue the experiment. (The experiment can be understood as an attempt to reconcile John to the Utopian civilization.) Seeking solitude, John runs away from the society and finds an abandoned lighthouse which he makes his home. He spends the first night on his knees in contrition and repentance to his gods so that he will be worthy to enter the lighthouse and inhabit it. John quickly starts to make a bow and arrows in order to shoot game for food. He also sets up a small garden to provide food for the next year. While making the bow John starts singing, but then he recalls his vows to remember Linda and make amends to her soul. Out of anger at his forgetfulness, John starts to beat himself with a knotted cord. Three Delta-Minus landworkers passing by happen to see John beating himself. They are amazed by this incredible display and return to the town where they tell everyone about it. Three days later reporters begin to arrive, trying to get an interview. John literally kicks the first man to approach him so hard the man cannot sit down well afterwards. The other reporters get the same treatment and quickly start to leave him alone. A few hover in helicopters, but when he shoots an arrow through the floor of the nearest one they too back off. A few days later, while digging in his garden, John starts to think about Lenina. He immediately tries to get her out of his mind by masochisticly running into some thorn bushes, but he still remembers the smell of her perfume. He then grabs for his whip and begins to lash himself on the back ferociously. Unluckily, a reporter named Darwin Bonaparte is hiding in the woods and records the entire scene. The movie is made into a feelie and within a day of its release several hundred helicopters arrive at the lighthouse to with spectators. A huge crowd forms and they all start shouting for him to use the whip. While they are chanting the phrase, "We - want - the whip," a helicopter arrives with Henry Foster and Lenina. Lenina steps out of the helicopter and starts to talk to John, but he cannot hear her over the roar of the crowd. His confusion suddenly turns to rage and he rushes at her with the whip, beating her over and over again. He is desperate to kill the flesh. In this state of hysteria the crowd suddenly starts to chant Orgy-porgy. They start dancing and singing, until eventually John gets caught up in the hysteria. Several hours later John is lying on the heather in a soma induced sleep. The reader is told that the evening was a sensual frenzy. When he wakes up and remembers what took place, he cries, "Oh, my God, my God!" That night the spectators that arrive cannot find him. They enter the lighthouse and see a pair of feet dangling from the archway. John has committed suicide. Analysis: This chapter is partially anticlimactic following the previous chapter where John cries, "I claim them all," thus demanding the right to anything which would make him unhappy. Thus this chapter deals more with the interplay of solitude and society, sensuality and religion. John goes off on his own to recapture everything which the Utopian society has gotten rid of: namely religion, love, remembrance, pain, and abstinence. The deluge of people who come to watch John beat himself with the whip marks the last chance John has to join the Utopian world. Lenina's arrival spurs him into a rage because in his mind she epitomizes everything evil about her world. She represents a sensual being who manages to come between John and his mother, she defiles his abstinence, and she makes him forget his religion. Thus when John sees Lenina he furiously is inspired to attack her. The ending is different than the reader would expect. The crowd makes a sadomasochistic transformation from demanding to see pain to demanding sexual gratification. Thus the cry of "Orgy-porgy" is taken up and the people start to dance with each other. The cry is likened by Huxley to the beat of the Indian music. Thus it can be inferred that at some point John is overcome by the crowd and joins in. Joining the crowd marks John's sacrifice of his last remnants of individualism. He goes from being one man standing alone against a mob of Utopians to becoming a member of that crowd. This sacrifice turns out to be too much for John, and so he is found the next evening hanging from the archway. Why Mustapha decides to keep John as part of an ongoing experiment is obscure. After all, he is willing to send other misfits within the society like Helmholtz and Bernard to an island. There is therefore no logical reason to make John stay. A possibility is that Mustapha views John as a kindred spirit via the Shakespeare that they have both read. His reason for keeping John is that he wants to convert John into rejecting Shakespeare and into accepting the Utopian dogma. However, as the ending shows, accepting Utopia means giving up everything that makes John an individual human being. Thus for Mustapha, the experiment fails.
ClassicNote on Brave New World
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