Important facts:
Characters
Lenina
Traits: Lenina is portrayed as conventionally beautiful, conformist, and content with the society
of the World State. She adheres to the values of promiscuity and consumerism promoted by the
state.
Significance: Lenina serves as a representation of the typical citizen of the World State,
embodying its values and conditioning. Her interactions with Bernard and John highlight the
clash between the values of the World State and those of the Savage Reservation.
Bernard Marx:
Traits: Bernard is physically different from the typical Alpha, being shorter and less physically
imposing. He is also more intellectually curious and emotionally sensitive, leading him to
question the values of the World State.
Significance: Bernard serves as a vehicle for exploring the themes of individuality, alienation,
and rebellion against societal norms. His interactions with Lenina and John highlight the tension
between conformity and individuality in the World State.
John (the Savage):
Traits: John is the son of Linda and the Director, raised on the Savage Reservation according to
traditional values and beliefs. He is well-read, introspective, and deeply moral, but struggles to
reconcile his upbringing with the hedonistic culture of the World State.
Significance: John represents the antithesis of the World State's values, embodying the conflict
between individuality and conformity. His interactions with the citizens of the World State,
particularly Lenina and Mustapha Mond, highlight the moral and philosophical implications of the
society's conditioning.
Linda:
Traits: Linda is John's mother, who was left behind on the Savage Reservation by the Director.
She struggles with addiction to soma and finds it difficult to adapt to life in the World State after
being reintroduced.
Significance: Linda serves as a symbol of the consequences of the World State's values and
conditioning. Her experiences highlight the shallowness and emptiness of the society's pursuit
of pleasure and conformity.
Mustapha Mond:
Traits: Mustapha Mond is one of the World Controllers, responsible for maintaining social
stability and enforcing the values of the World State. He is intelligent, well-read, and deeply
philosophical, but also pragmatic and authoritarian.
Significance: Mustapha Mond embodies the ideology of the World State and serves as a
mouthpiece for the novel's themes and ideas. His discussions with John provide insight into the
rationale behind the society's conditioning and the consequences of prioritizing stability over
individual freedom.
Soma - drug that makes you happy
Helmholtz - alpha male lone wolf
Reservation - where all the normal ppl go
DHC - hatchery control center
TFeely - sensory movie
Henry - alpha plus
Chapter 6
On their return trip to a wrestling match, Lenina convinces Bernard to take soma and
have sex. Bernard is able to get the Director’s permission to visit the Reservation, but is
criticized for his antisocial behavior and is threatened to be exiled if his impropriety
persists. While at the Reservation, Bernard remembers having left the scent tap on in
his apartment, forcing him to call Helmholtz to turn it off for him, but when he calls
Helmholtz informs him that the Director is planning to carry out Bernard’s exile, sending
Bernard into a panic as a result.
Themes: Cultural Clash, Identity Crisis, Alienation.
Quote: "Civilization is sterilization."
Chapter 7
Bernard and Lenina meet a handsome blond boy in Indian dress named John who
explains how his mother came to stay at the Reservation from the Other Place, and
when he mentions his father “Tomakin,” Bernard realizes that John’s father is actually
the Director. John introduces Lenina and Bernard to his mother Linda, who explains
how after starting her new life in the Indian village, she slept with any man she pleased,
much to the displeasure of some of the other women.
Themes: Ambition, Rebellion, Consequences.
Quote: "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."
Chapter 8
John continues to describe his upbringing on the Reservation and his feelings of
alienation as the village never accepted him. John says that one of his mother’s lovers,
Popé, brought home The Complete Works of Shakespeare, and that he read it avidly
enough to quote the passages by heart. Bernard, hoping to embarrass the Director by
revealing John to be his son, invites John to return to London with him, which John
excitedly agrees to as long as Linda is allowed to go with him.
Themes: Celebrity Culture, Disillusionment, Identity.
Quote: "The people who won't say 'Yes' to [the World State] are savages and barbarians."
Chapter 9
Bernard calls Mustapha Mond, who agrees that John and Linda are a matter of scientific
interest to the world state and further instructs Bernard to pick up the orders that will
release John and Linda into Bernard’s care. Meanwhile, John, worried that Bernard and
Linda have left, sneaks into the cabin, finding Lenina passed out on soma. John wishes
to touch her, but holds himself back, not wanting to defile her.
Themes: Love vs. Lust, Exploitation, Conflict.
Quote: "Did you eat something that didn't agree with you? Or don't you like being made to do
things that you don't want to?"
Chapter 10
When Bernard returns to the Hatchery, the Director informs Bernard that he is being
transferred to Iceland. Bernard subsequently presents John and Linda to the Director
who, after being accused by Linda of making her have a baby and John crying at his
feet, flees the room.
Themes: Rebellion, Revolution, Mob Mentality.
Quote: "Don't you want to be free and men? Don't you even understand what manhood and
freedom are?"
Chapter 11
Bernard is able to keep his job after the Director resigns, and he garners popularity as
the appointed guardian of John, now known as “the Savage.” Bernard’s popularity leads
him to believe that he can flaunt his unorthodox behavior, even going as far as writing
an heretical letter to Mond who does not take it well. Lenina, meanwhile, takes John to a
feely and attempts to have sex with him, but to her surprise, he refuses her.
Themes: Isolation, Temptation, Self-Discipline.
Quote: "I will not be tempted. No, I will not."
Chapter 12
Bernard returns to his melancholia after unsuccessfully giving a party to a large group of
important people hoping to see John, but John refused to come out of his room.
Bernard becomes jealous after John and Helmholtz meet and are amicable toward one
another. However, after Helmholtz bursts out laughing at the absurdity of a passage
from Romeo and Juliet that John reads to him, John is insulted and locks his book
away.
Themes: Invasion of Privacy, Anger, Control.
Quote: "How beastly of me."
Chapter 13
Lenina declines Henry’s invitation to go to a feely because she only has feelings for
John. Lenina takes some soma and visits John, who quotes Shakespeare to her and
declares his love for her. John becomes furious, however, when Lenina begins stripping
and putting her body against his.
Themes: Media, Celebrity Culture, Invasion of Privacy.
Quote: "The light of the candle you love will be the witness to the last of the civilized men."
Chapter 14
John receives a call from the hospital and rushes to his mother’s side, where the nurse
laughs at him for using the word mother and is further upset by a troop of Bokanovsky
boys who gather around Linda calling her fat and ugly. John attempts to call a nurse to
ask for help as Linda begins to choke, but Linda is dead by the time the nurses arrive.
When one boy asks if Linda is dead, John pushes the boy and leaves the ward.
Themes: Intrusion, Self-Loathing, Media Sensationalism.
Quote: "Oh, I am glad, glad, glad we came away! I love the night."
Chapter 15
In the hospital vestibule, John cries out to a group of Deltas to stop taking soma, and
instead to choose freedom, but he draws the attention of a man, who calls Bernard. By
the time Helmholtz and Bernard arrive, John is being attacked by a group of Deltas, and
while Helmholtz jumps into the fray immediately to defend John, Bernard hesitates,
worrying that he might die in the process. The police arrive on the scene, spray soma
vapor into the air, subduing the crowd, and capture Bernard as he tries to escape the
scene.
Themes: Self-Punishment, Guilt, Masochism.
Quote: "Alone, alone, alone. Oh, and he understood and hated the things that were happening to
him."
Chapter 16
Bernard, Helmhotz, and John are left in Mond’s office, where John and Mond have a
heated intellectual discussion, in which Mond elaborates why Shakespeare and are are
superfluous in the World State, why consumerism is vital to the longevity of the World
State, the importance of the caste system for social stability, and the reasoning behind
why science must be suppressed. Mond declares that Helmholtz and Bernard will be
exiled, telling them that exile is a reward and they will meet interesting people there.
Helmholtz says he would prefer to go to an island with a bad climate so that it might
help with his writing, and Mond agrees, suggesting he go to the Falkland Islands.
Themes: Death, Exploitation, Dehumanization.
Quote: "They tried to force him to eat meat. He refused; he was sick and not hungry."
Chapter 17
John and Mond continue their conversation, turning over to the topic of religion and
religious experience. Mond asserts that in the World State, where society is prosperous
and youthful, there is no need for religion. Instead, if something bad happens, there is
always soma to take away the pain. John, on the other hand, contends that he would
rather live in a world of God, poetry, real danger, freedom, goodness, and sin, even if it
will lead to unhappiness.
Themes: Exile, Reflection, Social Critique.
Quote: "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."
Chapter 18
After Bernard and Helmholtz are taken away, John secludes himself in an abandoned
lighthouse in the wilderness where he whips himself in order to purge himself the
contamination of civilization. When a group of reporters witness and film John whipping
himself, they produce a feely that draws the attention of visitors. These visitors include
Lenina, whom John then whips, leading the frenzied crown to mimic his actions and
participate in an Orgy-porgy. The following day, John remembers the events of the
previous night with horror, and when a swarm of visitors arrive to see John, they find
that he has hanged himself.
Themes: Control, Stability, Sacrifice.
Quote: "Civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of
political inefficiency."