Brave New World: Chapter 7

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

Lenina is shocked by the poverty and lack of modern convenience in the Reservation. The pueblo in the Reservation is dirty, with dogs prowling through rubbish-filled streets, and there are old people everywhere. The World State keeps people looking young and fit until they die.

The World State eliminates the outward effects of aging so no one ever feels the loss of their looks. Loss leads to sadness, which creates a sense of isolation and lessens productivity.

At an Indian dance, Lenina at first likes the drums, but is appalled when a young man comes out and is ritually whipped until he collapses.

The dance includes extremes of pain and feeling that Lenina can’t comprehend.

After the dance, Bernard and Lenina meet a young man who’s dressed like an Indian, but has blond hair and blue eyes. He says in peculiar (Shakespearean) English that he wishes he were the one who had been whipped. Lenina asks him a question, and the man stops short. He has never seen a white woman before. He thinks she’s beautiful.

The young man wants to feel powerful emotion (and does when he sees Lenina). Shakespeare, with his plays that capture all the range of human experience and passion, is a perfect symbol for such a wish.

Under Bernard’s questioning, the man reveals that his mother was from the Other Place outside the reservation, but got separated from the man who was his father. Bernard realizes with great excitement that the Director is the man’s father.

Bernard sees a chance for revenge, a very “human” desire that would be foreign to most members of the World State

The man brings Bernard and Lenina to his mother’s house. Her name is Linda. She’s overweight, looks horribly old, and stinks of alcohol. But she’s overjoyed to see people from the World State. She corroborates the story her son, John, told.

Though in our culture a mother is a symbol of purity, selflessness, and beauty, in World State society the idea of a mother is dirty. This difference shows the power of conditioning.