“But I’m Linda, I’m Linda.” The laughter drowned her voice. “You made me have a baby,” she screamed above the uproar. There was a sudden and appalling hush; eyes floated uncomfortably, not ,knowing where to look. The Director went suddenly pale, stopped struggling and stood, his hands on her wrist, staring down at her, horrified.”
Chapter 9
This scene depicts the wretched Linda finally being able to meet the Director after her decades long stay in the Indian reserves. Not only this passage, but the scene as a whole gives an accurate reflection of what the concept of aging has turned in the world state. For those that live within the state, old age is an ancient concept that has been forcefully taken out of their minds for constant and perpetual happiness. Indeed, even in death, the typical world state citizen does not feel the burdens of old age, and in fact dies “young” at the age of 60. In front of the aging and dying Linda, the people can do nothing but at first stand aghast, and laugh at the pitiful scene. ________________________________________________________________________
“I want to feel something strongly.” “When the individual feels, the community reels,” Lenina pronounced. “Well, why shouldn’t it reel a bit?” “Bernard!” But Bernard remained unabashed. “Adults intellectually and during working working hours,” he went on. “Infants where feelings and desires are concerned... It suddenly struck me the other day, that it might be possible to be an adult all the time.”
Part 1
This scene is in its own way a crowning moment of Bernard, in which he declares his acts of rebellion to his “love” to Lenina, the supposedly perfect citizen of the world state. Bernard, rejected by his community for being short and generally unattractive, attempts to repel at the fundamental ideology of the world state by attempting to withhold his libido and desires and consequently tries to convince Lenina to not have sex too early. From this scene, the readers begin to receive a strong sense of sympathy for Bernard, only to be dramatically betrayed by his quick fall in the second part of the novel.
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Concept: The hypocritical Rebel Bernard
Over the course of the novel goes through three main arcs, first as a defiant, if not somewhat vain rebel, to a hypocritical hedonist to a pathetic, sobbing wreck. Upon initial observations, the audience may be repelled by this genuinely unsympathetic character, but they must at first see the purpose of Bernard within the story. Bernard is a fitting portrayal of the typical rebel of the human society who is not lead to fight against the power for ideological reasons, but for the sense of unfairness he feels that comes from the society around him. In a manner similar to the happenings of historical revolutions, the triumphant Bernard tastes power after the first half of the book and becomes just like the people he used to hate, only to be brought down to nothingness. The typical reader is meant to feel no love for Bernard and is supposed to laugh at his moral depth, but his path is supposed to represent a warning to the aspiring rebel, questioning him on the true cause of his rebellion.
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"The words galvanized Bernard into violent and unseemly activity. “Send me to an island?” He jumped up, ran across the room, and stood gesticulating in front of the controller. “You can’t send me. I haven’t done anything. It was the others. I swear it was the others.” He pointed accusingly to Hemholtz and the Savage."
Just like how the second passage portrayed the finest parts of Bernard’s rebellion, this scene portrays the most putrid and sorry state of Bernard in his fall from grace. At the knowledge that he was to be sent to an island, where things are ancient and unadulterated, Bernard breaks down into a sobbing wreck, confirming to the readers over again how Bernard was never a rebel, but just a jealous man.
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