Brave New World: Chapter 11

The color-coded bars in this section make it easy to track the themes throughout the work. Each color corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart. For instance, indicates that all five themes apply to that part of the summary.

Summary Analysis Themes

The Director resigns. Meanwhile, all upper-caste London is wild to see John, whom they call the Savage. Because Linda is old, ugly, and a mother, no one wants to see her. Linda doesn’t care, though, and happily drugs herself into a stupor with soma.

World State culture is shallow, seeing John as nothing more than a curiosity. Linda, after so much sadness and unpleasantness in the Reservation, wants only to cease to exist.

Bernard’s connection to the Savage makes him popular and important. He takes full advantage, sleeping with many women. He also thinks Helmholtz is jealous, when really Helmholtz is dismayed because behind Bernard’s back, the people being friendly to him continue to dislike him. Bernard even goes so far as to write a report to Mustapha Mond about the Savage in which he says that he agrees with the Savage’s belief that infantility is too easy. Mond decides not to teach Bernard a lesson … yet.

When he ceases to feel inferior, Bernard begins to enjoy the World State and indulge in the culture of easy sex he used to despise. In other words, his sudden popularity gives him a big head. Also note the first indication of John’s feelings about the “brave new world” he’s entered.

The Savage tours various World State facilities. Bokanovsky twins terrify him. At Eton, he sees schoolchildren laugh at a film showing religious rituals, and learns that World State children are conditioned to accept death.

John’s tour of the World State begins to convince him he’s entered a nightmare, not a paradise.

One night Bernard asks Lenina to take the Savage to the Feelies (movies where all the senses are involved). Fanny Crowne is impressed—Lenina has been courted recently by very important people, including the Arch-Community-Songster of Canterbury. Lenina responds that all these people want to know what it’s like to make love to the Savage, and she doesn’t know. The Savage confuses her. Sometimes he seems to like her, other times he doesn’t.

John’s confusion about how to deal with women, his simultaneous desire and guilt, means that Lenina also and for the first time has to deal with unfulfilled desire and sexual confusion.

They go to the feelie, which is about a woman kidnapped in a helicopter by a man who was de-conditioned in an accident. It contains a lot of gratuitous sex. The Savage is appalled. Lenina doesn’t understand why. Lenina tries to invite the Savage to her apartment, but he says good night in a strangled way. Later, the Savage reads Shakespeare’s Othello to calm himself down. Lenina, upset he didn’t want to sleep with her, takes soma.

John and Lenina have grown up believing in totally different things. Lenina believes in promiscuity and getting what you want, while John believes in honor and virtue and respect. When they’re upset, John turns to the truth and beauty of art, while Lenina turns to the oblivion of soma.