Identity In Brave New World

“Community, Identity, Stability” ( Huxley 1). The dystopian society of the future lives by this motto in everything it does. One of the first things Huxley mentions in his novel is this hypocritical slogan. Community and identity are controlled by the apparent stability that the government has created. There is no true identity or community when the free will of each person is being suppressed. In Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, the author uses John's life into the tribe and sudden submergence in the new world to display that natural human instincts will always outweigh the illusion of happiness and stability.

From birth, John is immediately labeled as an outcast which pushes him to rely on his instincts in order to survive. While
All his life John has faced the tribes discrimination against for him for having a mother from the outside world. Despite this he continuously attempts to embrace the culture of the tribe in an effort to gain acceptance. His yearning to be a part of the tribe is attributed to his natural human instincts. Things changed when he discovered shakespeare because of the way “the strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken”(131). As a child John is raised with polar opposite ideals. There are the traditions of the tribes and the new world conditioning known by his mother. He discovers shakespeare and with this new view on life he creates his own version of the new world. Through his reading he imagines a society based on romanticism and filled with tragedy, comedy, and love, as it used to be. This fills him with hope for the future because ne believes that there is the possibility of something better out there. Along with Shakespeare, John was able to learn more about the new world when, “he began reading. The chemical
Regardless of his desire to be a part of the new world, “[John]… refuses to take soma and seems much distressed because the woman Linda… remains permanently on holiday. [he] goes to see her and appears to be much attracted to her- an interesting example… [that] early conditioning can be made to modify and even run counter to natural impulses” ( 161). After years of being mistreated and cast off, John finally gets the opportunity to see the new world. He has a great to desire to be a part of it but is unable to conform so easily. Every new discovery amazes him until he finds fault with the loose sexual interactions that everyone partakes in and is immediately uncomfortable. His refusal of soma is a direct example of this, but its later seen again when he denies himself the pleasure of sleeping with Lenina. Soon, John accepts that he fits into the new world even less than he did to the reservation. He sets himself up in a lighthouse outside of the city to the point where,“ by next spring, his garden would be producing enough to make him independent of the outside world” (246). After realizing that he couldn’t fit into either the environment of the tribe or the new world, John chose a life of isolation. His survival instincts took over and he recognized that he would never be able to live the life he really wanted without