Bernard Marx Sparknotes

Bernard Marx- Bernard Marx could be seen as the outcast of the social group. He isn’t exactly as tall or as involved in “social gatherings” (sexual gatherings) as the other Alpha group members, the “rich, wealthy” class of the dystopian society. Bernard views the other members of his social class as disgusting human beings with no morals. Bernard is kind of like the “Winston Smith” from George Orwell’s 1984. He questions society and goes against a lot, if not all, of their ideas.
John the “Savage”- John is found at a Savage Reservation located in New Mexico. Bernard and Lenina go there as a date and end up encountering John. After talking, Bernard realizes that he is the lost son of the Director, kind of Bernard’s enemy. Bernard brings John
back to World State and John has a hard time trying to fit in. The state’s society despises reading and thinking, which are two of John’s most favorite things to do. A lot of John’s knowledge and view on life derives from Shakespeare, which is banned from the World State. Because of this, John has nobody he can really relate to in the World State. John finds himself hating the World State and wanting to go back, eventually hanging himself.
Helmholtz Watson-Helmholtz is a lecturer/professor at the College of Emotional Engineering. He makes the hypnopaedic phrases for the government which are phrases that are repeated to the sleeping children so that they are integrated into their minds. Helmholtz finds that his talents could be used for more meaningful works and that the World State could be improved. Because he dislikes the World State, him and Bernard Marx seem to get along pretty well, until Helmholtz’s superior intelligence comes off as annoying to Bernard.
Linda- Linda is the mother of John and the “lover” of the Director. She and The Director go to visit the New Mexico Savage Reservation but on their way back, they get caught in a storm and Linda gets separated. The Indians find her and nurture her back to health. During this time, she finds that she is pregnant and is too disgraced to return to World State. Linda decides to live the rest of her life at this reservation and to raise John here. She misses the World State and wants to end her misery with Soma, the alcohol of World State.
Lenina Crowne- Lenin Crowne is a very beautiful women in the World State where everybody desires to have sexual intercourse with her. She is a vaccination worker for the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center. She is a very peculiar character where she has a lot of inner conflict within herself. She first starts off by liking Bernard, who has little to no sexual experience, and has a difficult time figuring out whether Bernard actually likes her back or not. Next, she falls in love with John the “Savage” whom also seems to like her but refuses to show it because it goes against his beliefs. Lenina Crowne goes through this complicated love life and eventually ends up dying by getting whipped to death by John.
Mustapha Mond- He is one of ten World Controllers. The World Controllers are respected and are kind of like the Presidents of the World State. He is a lot different from the other members of this dystopian society because he seems to know a lot about reading and thinking for oneself. Mustapha is the one that explains to John why they have all these set rules in the World State. Mustapha explains that in order to keep stability in this world, they must live by creating social classes(so people know where they belong), getting rid of religion, reading, and etc. Mustapha is probably one of the only few characters that show intelligence in this novel.
Fanny Crowne- One of Lenina’s friends in the factory. She is one of the more conventional characters who blindly follow society’s beliefs. She never questions them, nor does she ever think of disobeying any of them. When Lenina says she’s been “dating” Henry Foster for a few months, Fanny freaks out and tells her to start seeing other men, in fear of Lenina getting caught. (Because in this society, it is recommended to have short relationships and to have as many sexual relationships as possible.) Fanny is basically the character Aldous Huxley put into the book to show us the absurdity of the World State.
The Director- The Director is the boss of Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center. (He’s D.H.C. for short) He works to get rid of Bernard Marx because the Director believes that Bernard poses a threat to the society. Bernard is so unconventional that the Director believes it is best to exile him to Iceland. However, the Director is unable to because he is humiliated out of his job by the return of John to the World State. Bernard Marx purposely brought him to the World State to humiliate the Director.

Section 2: Conflict/Plot Summary Conflict Statement: The greatest conflict of the story is that of John’s. When John the “Savage” is brought to the World State by Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne, he has a difficult time adjusting to the life in the state. All the beliefs/ideas of the citizens of World State greatly contrast with that of his and John realizes that he is nothing like the others and feels more of an object for experimentation rather than a human being.

Plot Summary:
Bernard the Outcast Bernard has a very difficult time fitting into society although he is classified into the highest society class, the Alpha Plus.
In this dystopian society, everybody is born into a class and is never allowed to move up or down. Bernard Marx was born into the Alpha Plus class but he isn’t quite respected as the others. His height is at least 1/2 that of the other Alpha Plus members and his face isn’t as attractive as the others’. Bernard Marx also has a different outlook on life and despises the idea that “Everybody belonged to everybody else”. He believed in monogamy while everybody else favored polygamy. Sexual intercourse is a normal part of society and Bernard thinks that it’s disgusting. All of these factors make Bernard Marx the sort of “outcast” and inferior being in
society.
Bernard fits in...for a while Bernard is kind of like the hero of society because he brought a “Savage”, John, to the World State. He gains the popular status as a celebrity and this helps him tremendously. His social life is dramatically enhanced and he isn’t looked at as an inferior as much as before. Bringing John to the World State might have well been the best thing to happen to Bernard. However, all this soon gets to Bernard’s head. Bernard soon believes that he is the “King” of World State and goes around saying anything he wants. Because of this, he loses his one and only true friend, Hemholtz and is exiled from the World State.

John arrives at World State John arrives at World State and is immediately deemed the “Savage”. the citizens of World State “experiment” on him and John has a hard time trying to fit in. Most of his beliefs and morals derive from the writings of Shakespeare, a forbidden book in the World State. Because Shakespeare is a forbidden book in the World State, John has a hard time relating to anybody. Nobody else has ever read Shakespeare, let alone read anything and John essentially becomes an outcast just like Bernard. John realizes that the World State was nothing like he had fathomed and wishes to go back to the Savage Reservation.

John goes crazy John decides that he can’t take it anymore and lashes out. He sees two Delta, one of the lower social classes, girls drinking soma (alcohol) and basically yells at them for drinking soma. The police soon arrive and Hemholtz and Bernard try to protect John. Because of their actions, Hemholtz and Bernard are sentenced to be exiled to an island, leaving John all by himself. John feels so lonely, he decides to make his new home a lighthouse. He lives there peacefully until he is caught and the paparazzi soon arrive. On a particular day, Lenina arrives on a helicopter and John isn’t that excited to see her. He ends up whipping Lenina and dies. (Although it isn’t really specified). Soon after that, John suicides by hanging himself, unable to keep living the life that he’s been forced to live.

Section 3: Technique
Imagery- Aldous Huxley uses a lot of imagery to get the audience/readers worked up. His vulgar words and his use of unconventional phrases really gets the reader to visualize it in his/her head. (Especially during the more sensitive parts of the novel.) During the sexual parts, he adds so much detail that it kind of makes the reader want to stop reading, but then it just stops abruptly. He uses intense imagery to get the readers disgusted with this and to truly see what kind of society that Bernard and the others are living in. He wants the readers to cringe at the visualization of this society and to really understand why he’s writing this novel.
Allusion- Aldous Huxley uses allusions to mainly show the connections of World State’s society to ours.
A lot of his allusions tur towards that of Shakespeare when he talks about John reading only Shakespeare and when Mustapha Mond brings up Shakespeare in his great speach to John. He mainly alludes to Shakespeare and society today to get the readers/audience to realize what makes a society great. The novel’s society was only focused on “Community, Identity, Stability” but Aldous Huxley brings up Shakespeare and our society to emphasize on love, passion, and etc. He makes sure to point out that we, as a society, need other aspects other than “Community, Identity, and Stability” to keep thriving as a
community.
Irony- The most ironic part of this novel is when John is called the “Savage”. When reading the novel, readers will usually laugh at the fact that the World State citizens call John the savage because he’s so different. The citizens are the real savages when looking at them from our perspectives because they have sexual intercourse whenever they want, practice polygamy, drink soma whenever they don’t feel like dealing with their problems, live lives that are predestined for them and etc. He uses this ironic phrase to get the readers to notice how much like savages we would look if we valued the same things that the World State citizens did. Aldous Huxley felt like we would slowly turn into a society much like his novel’s and felt the need to remind people that we have values that keep us “humans”, such as love, passion, thinking, and etc.

Section 4: Key quotations/Passages
1) “The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder those poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain...” (Chapter 3, Page 36) -This quote was said by Mustapha Mond to the little children touring the Hatchery. Mustapha Mond uses this quote to show that any strong emotions or feelings will essentially disrupt the rhythm of consumption. The Ten World Controllers try to get rid of feelings or emotions in order to incentivize on the main ideas that they believe will most help society, which is consumption. In addition to getting rid of emotions/strong feelings, they also proposed soma to get rid of any strong emotions leaking into society.
2) “A gramme is always better than a damn...A gramme in time saves nine...Every one works for everyone else...When the individual feels, the community reels...Never put off till to-morrow the fun you can have to-day...” (Chapter 6, Page 89) -This quote is a hypnopaedic saying that is said to the sleeping children. (To have it integrated in their minds.) This hypnopaedic’s main purpose is to promote instant gratification and the goal of happiness. All they try to do is create a society where everybody is happy and they try to do this at any means necessary. This hypnopaedic saying helps readers understand that a lot of the society’s goals are focused on happiness rather than morality.
3) “And there’s always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies..in the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-that’s what soma is...” (Chapter 17, Page 238) -Mustapha Mond says this to John when he challenges the society that the World State has created. Mustapha says that soma helps people get past their emotions and hardships in life and that with soma, religion is not necessary. Mustapha goes on to say that Soma is, in a sense, Christianity except without all the tears and heartbreaks. He goes onto saying that religion is nothing if there’s a substitute that can get rid of all the unnecessary tears and can bring happiness rather than depression into peoples’ lives.
4) “Everyone works for every one else. We can’t do without any one. Even Epsilons are useful.” (Chapter 6, Page 91) -Lenina remembers this from her hypnopaedic days and this supports the idea of classification in the society. Everybody is born into that class for a reason and everybody helps society in their own way. This kind of goes onto saying in our real society that everybody is a benefactor to society. Everybody has a part in society and we should never make somebody else seem inferior because of social status.
5) “Ending is better than Mending” (Chapter 3, Page 52) -This quote is said in the novel several times by several different people and it really gets the reader thinking. Is Ending really better than mending? At first I looked at this sentence like any other in the novel, but then I realized the true meaning behind this. Aldous Huxley wants us to realize that a lot of us try to end rather than mend when things get hard in life, but that it isn’t the way to go. We should always try to fix something before giving up on it and I think that was the main purpose of squeezing those sentences into multiple parts of the novel.