Brave New World: An Outsider in the World State

Battle Within The internal turmoil of a character is a driving force for an author to use in order to develop themes and ideas within his work. This can be seen in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where one of the characters realizes that life in the technological world they live in isn’t as great as it seems. John, otherwise known as the Savage, is an outsider to the World State who is educated and well-informed that their society is being destroyed due to the manufacturing of people and loss of individualism. To begin with, John was not manufactured on an assembly line in the World State and thus has not been conditioned to the conformities of the various castes. John comes from a reservation in New Mexico for savages where his mother teaches him to read and be educated in a society where knowledge is not widely seen. Because of the knowledge John has acquired, he cannot believe the absence of emotion within the people when he arrives to the overly technological state. An example of the disbelief John has on the insensitive nature of the people can be seen when he lashes out at the children for aimlessly engaging in horseplay around his mother’s deathbed. To an outsider of the nation, the conditioning of children to refrain from forming bonds or having a real sense of the emotion seems absurd and cynical on the government’s part. Because John is well educated, he knows the history and greatness that individuality can bring. When John arrives to the World State, he talks to a professor named Helmholtz about the works written by Shakespeare and biblical works he has studied. As John realizes that no one in the World State, except Mustafa Mond and the other World State leaders, has read Shakespeare, he begins to wonder why. Helmholtz states that acquiring knowledge of the Shakespearean works allows the people to feel pleasure in reading, something the government will not allow to happen. As for the absence of religion, Helmholtz claims that some, a drug people take to feel emotionless, is “Christianity without tears.” The void of love in the society makes John feel like there is nothing for these people to live for. In turn, John hangs himself because he does not want to live in the society the World State has created. Overall, the turmoil John faces is due to the lack of feeling and individualism he sees in the people of the World State. The government’s control of the people and mass production of children through an assembly line in incomprehensible in John’s foreign mind.