Comparing John And Huxley Peppers In Shakespeare's Works
Taylor Swift weaves the tale of a young girl falling in love with a boy, in a riveting tale of forbidden romance that ends happily in Love Story, a song wherein Swift and the boy she is in love with play the parts of Romeo and Juliet. Throughout history, from the late 16th century to the early 21st century, Shakespeare's works have managed to wind their way throughout popular media, inciting thousands of young girls to long for a Romeo and Juliet-esque romance and causing scholars of all ages to cautiously scan Shakespeare's works for beautifully written romantic phrases in his tragedies. Despite the fact that most of the plays are 500 years old, they continue to change and shape our modern media today. This includes the dystopian novel, Brave
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Huxley peppers the book with quotes from Shakespeare, indicating that this reflects John’s character arc in a big way, especially because the plays quoted most often is tragedies, and John’s character ends in the story with a tragedy. This is how, throughout the novel, John’s character arc is similar to that of a Shakespearean tragedy character, such as Romeo or Othello, because his love for another character is the leading cause of his downfall. In nearly every Shakespearean tale, the main male protagonist agonizingly falls in love with a woman, and in comedies they eventually get married, but in tragedies they are doomed lovers. The first time John laid eyes on Lenina, he was deeply in love, as he stopped talking mid-sentence because “he gave a gasp and was silent, gaping...He had seen, for the first time in his life, the face of a girl whose cheeks were not the colour of chocolate or dogskin...” (Huxley, 79). Similarly, when Romeo first sees Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, he had “ne’er [seen] true beauty till this night” (Shakespeare, 11) just like how John had never seen beauty of that caliber until he saw Lenina. This is the event that kickstarts his downfall. From this point onward, he is completely obsessed with Lenina. A huge problem with this is that he
Huxley peppers the book with quotes from Shakespeare, indicating that this reflects John’s character arc in a big way, especially because the plays quoted most often is tragedies, and John’s character ends in the story with a tragedy. This is how, throughout the novel, John’s character arc is similar to that of a Shakespearean tragedy character, such as Romeo or Othello, because his love for another character is the leading cause of his downfall. In nearly every Shakespearean tale, the main male protagonist agonizingly falls in love with a woman, and in comedies they eventually get married, but in tragedies they are doomed lovers. The first time John laid eyes on Lenina, he was deeply in love, as he stopped talking mid-sentence because “he gave a gasp and was silent, gaping...He had seen, for the first time in his life, the face of a girl whose cheeks were not the colour of chocolate or dogskin...” (Huxley, 79). Similarly, when Romeo first sees Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, he had “ne’er [seen] true beauty till this night” (Shakespeare, 11) just like how John had never seen beauty of that caliber until he saw Lenina. This is the event that kickstarts his downfall. From this point onward, he is completely obsessed with Lenina. A huge problem with this is that he