Brave new world Chapters 4-6
Chapters 4-6
Lenina finds Bernard in the elevator with other men from the Alpha changing rooms, she expresses her desire to travel to New Mexico, Savage reservation, with him in the future. Bernard is extremely uncomfortable at having their plans discussed so openly in front of the others and asks Lenina if they could discuss it elsewhere. Lenina finds Bernard's discomfort endearing and funny, she continues to talk of their plans until the elevator reaches the roof, at which point she readily departs after informing Bernard that she is going to be meeting Henry. Bernard is approached by Benito Hoover, who was a witness to the exchange between Bernard and Lenina, and he too offers Bernard a little Soma to deal with his emotions but Bernard rushes away. He is extremely harsh when dealing with any members of the lower caste, and this is because he feels that they are likely to disobey him if he doesn't behave with force. His size has always made him feel like an outsider, it is the reason why the men of his caste play pranks on him, and why the women he wishes to be with sometimes laugh at his proposals.
He makes his way to the building where the Bureaux of Propaganda and the College of Emotional Engineering are housed. Bernard lands on the roof and sends a message for his friend, Helmholtz Watson. He is an exemplary Alpha-Plus with a brawny body and a needle-sharp intellect. Watson excels at nearly everything, whether that is his work, sports, or his ability with women. Lately, the people around him had begun to whisper that perhaps he was too able, and recently he too had come to realize this. Helmholtz and Bernard made their way, Helmholtz described how his deliberate actions to limit committee meetings and reducing other social activities had had an interesting effect on the people around him, while Bernard attempts to boast about his trip with Lenina to New Mexico. Helmholtz is an accomplished writer whose work has been excessively used in the contents of the Hypnopaedia teaching and yet he feels that he isn't using his skill to communicate the right things. Bernard complains to Helmholtz about how he is treated at his workplace, and although Helmholtz listens to him kindly, he feels ashamed for the evident self-pity in his friend.
As the light of the day begins to wane, Henry and Lenina finish with their game and make their way to the helicopter. Lenina remembers the hours she spent listening to the moral teachings that taught her that everyone works for everyone and that even Epsilons performed essential duties. Lenina feels glad she was not an Epsilon, but Henry explains that is the effect of her conditioning and she would feel the same even if she were another caste. They reach Henry's apartment building, have dinner and a little bit of Soma and make their way to the Westminster Abbey, where a group of musicians plays a wonderful song and they dance with four hundred others. They dance late into the night, have large doses of Soma that numbs them and return to Henry's home where Lenina takes all the contraceptive precautions despite her intoxication.
Bernard makes his way to the Singery for the Solitary Service, where Ford is deified. As soon as he sits down, the woman sitting next to him, Roxanna Rothschild, turns to him to find out what kind of sport he had played that day. She is quite astonished to find out that he hadn't played any kind of sport that day. The solitary service consists of 12 individuals in an endless circle of alternating men and women. On the table, they have the Soma. Soon the effects of Soma become apparent in all the group members and even Bernard begins to feel it as they sing hymns. Near the end, all of the members in the service stand on their feet and dance and jig around the room slapping each other's behind as they rejoice in the imminent arrival of Ford to the hymn of 'orgy-porgy'. Later, one of the girls from the group discusses how real it had felt, but Bernard feels more alone than ever, he realizes that he has yet again failed to experience the emotion that others around him had felt so resoundingly.
Lenina worries about her trip to America with Bernard, even though she realizes that there are very few people with the ability to procure a permit to visit a Savage Reservation. She feels that Bernard is too odd, and recalls their first time out together. Bernard had wanted them to be alone, but she had wanted to socialize and play some sports. Lenina is horrified that Bernard wants to be separate from the social body.
Bernard believes that he is enslaved by his conditioning and wants to be free, but Lenina believes that she is free and everybody is happy nowadays. They go back to his house where they both take Soma and make love. They meet the next day, and Bernard tells Lenina that he wished that their night hadn't ended the way it did, he would rather have waited to make love to her. Bernard explains that the people in society now behaved like infants in matters of desire and feeling. He wanted to be an adult all the time and arrest his impulses. For all his oddity, Lenina still likes Bernard.
Bernard visits the Director to have him sign a permit for his trip to the Savage Reservation in New Mexico, the Director surprises him by recalling a memory from the past. The director remembers his trip to the reservation with a girl. On their last day, the director lost track of the girl he had been traveling with, and even when a search party was called they were unable to track her, and he confesses that he even has dreams about the incident sometimes. When Bernard expresses some sympathy, the Director realizes his folly and instantly defends himself. He also expresses his disapproval of the reports he had received of Bernard and his personal life. The Director wants Bernard to have more of an infantile behavior in his personal life and threatens him with a transfer.
Lenina and Bernard arrive in America. They visit the warden to have one last signature done, and he tells them about all the horrors that exist in the reservation where humans are still born through mothers, have families, make marriages, and still follow religions like Christianity. Bernard calls Helmholtz after finishing with the warden to ask him to shut off the tap of cologne that he had accidentally left running at his house, and Helmholtz informs him that the Director had told everyone that he was searching for someone to replace Bernard who was being transferred to Iceland. Bernard is horrified that he is being transferred, all his life he had wanted to face some kind of trial and persecution but now that he was facing one he enjoyed none of it. Lenina gives him Soma so that he can stop dwelling on the future or the past, and instead focus on the present. A plane takes them to the reservation and the pilot leaves them with a native American for a guide.
Analysis
It is established that both Bernard and Helmholtz are individuals, but they differ significantly in their nature. Bernard is an individual because of the insecurity he has about his size, he doesn't expressly choose to be an individual. On the other hand, Helmholtz chooses to be an individual due to a superior intellect that makes his work unchallenging and boring.
Henry and Lenina represent the majority of the population of the World State, they consume public entertainment compulsively, talk nonchalantly about death, and experience little emotional depth. Soma is used by inhabitants of the world to suppress their emotions, and Lenina makes use of it far more frequently than Bernard. He only takes Soma to either try and form a more meaningful social connection or to counter the effects of some great emotion like that of being persecuted by the Director.
