Brave New World Character Analysis

A new society that was created by science and technology. The novel, Brave New World, was written by Aldous Huxley. This science fiction novel was published by the publishing company HarperCollins in New York, New York. The original copyright date was in the year of 1932, but was then later copyrighted in the year of 1946 by the author Aldous Huxley. John is the main character, but he is also the antagonist in this novel. He has many qualities that makes him important. He also has people that motivate him to behave and act certain ways. However, John also creates many conflicts with other people in this dystopian society. John was also known as The Savage in the new society. One of his most important qualities in the novel is the fact
that he and his mother Linda were the first uncivilized people to be brought into the new society. He is also considered an experiment when it comes to others because he now has to learn how to adapt to the new society’s way of life. Another important quality of his is the effect that he has on Lenina. He was able to make Lenina feel a certain way that was not common in the new society. He was also able to make Bernard happy without taking Soma. John changed Bernards perspective of believing that “Those, I repeat, who are born on the Reservation are destined to die there.” (Huxley, Aldous, 102), since Bernard brought John and his mother back to the new society with him and Lenina. During the time of John being in the new society, he was having a hard time adjusting, but he has one thing that helps motivate him the most. His mother. John sees his mother as being happy back where she grew up. He remembered her telling him stories as a young child about the new society and what role she played in the workforce. Bernard also helps motivate him by trying to be sociable. There are many times when Bernard has people over not only because he wants to get recognized by high ranking people for his discovery, but also to help John work on his people skills. Lenina is yet another one of the people that motivates John. She makes John feel certain ways that he doesn’t know how to handle. Some of the ways that she makes him feel are happy, but he doesn’t quite know how to handle the way she makes him feel. Although, John also notices that some of the staff has Linda, his mother, asleep because they make her take grammes of Soma. The Soma put her in a deep sleep or vacation whenever she took it. This makes John upset though because he then hears that his mother is in the hospital for the terminally ill. John not only blames himself, but also Soma for his mother’s death. John’s actions create many conflicts with the people of this new world.
“The noise of the prodigious slap which her departure was accelerated was like a pistol shot,” Huxley, Aldous, 195). In this quote John abused Lenina by hitting her extremely hard and causes her to be afraid of him. Although Lenina was coming on way too fast, he didn’t need to hit her. Another conflict that he creates in the new society is with the other people in this society. John’s actions had gone extremely far when he interrupts the rationing of Soma by yelling, “Don’t take that horrible stuff. It’s poison, it’s poison.” (Huxley, Aldous, 211). During this time he then also “... pushing open a window that looked on to the inner court of the Hospital, he began throwing the little pill-boxes of soma tablets in handfuls out into the area.” (Huxley, Aldous, 213). This quote basically states the John and Helmholtz was throwing the Soma grammes out of the window causing many people to be angry with him. “The Sergeant led the way towards the door and the waiting police car.” (Huxley, Aldous, 216). Due to his actions of disrupting the peace, John, Helmholtz, and Bernard are then arrested and sent to jail. The only reason why Bernard was arrested as well was because he was friends with John. It seems that even being friends with John can sometimes create too much complication between the citizens of the
society. Science can seem great to some people, but not so much to others. John had a problem with science and the way that it was used to create this supposed civilized society. He was the antagonist in the ways of how he created complications with others. Yet, he was also the protagonist by the motivations he had. He was also the protagonist by the important qualities that he held in this book. This science fiction novel, Brave New World, was copyrighted in 1946 by the author, Aldous Huxley. The publishers were HarperCollins and the city that this novel was published was New York, New York.