Brave New World: Characters

Bernard Marx — An Alpha male who by some chance is physically much smaller than Alphas are supposed to be. Bernard’s small stature has given him an inferiority complex. As a result, he feels like an outsider to World State society for that reason is more self-conscious and more of an individual than other citizens of the World State. This outsider status and individuality allows Bernard both to recognize and criticize the flaws of the World State. But his inferiority complex also makes him defensive, resentful, jealous, cowardly, and quick to boast.

Helmholtz Watson — Helmholtz is the opposite of Bernard: he is the perfect embodiment of an Alpha male. But just as Bernard’s imperfections make him an individual, Helmholtz’s perfection makes him individual. Everything in life comes so easily to Helmholtz—from women, to physical prowess, to professional achievement—that he comes to believe there is more to life. In looking for ways to challenge himself, he realizes the limitations that the World State imposes on its citizens. Unlike Bernard, who often seems to be compensating for his insecurities, Helmholtz is generous, kind, and fun-loving.

John (the Savage) — Because of an accident, John is born to a woman from the World State, Linda, who gets stranded in a Savage Reservation. He spends the first twenty years of his life on the Reservation, and though the Reservation natives treat him as an outsider he still picks up their religious and moral values (which are much more similar to our own values today than to those of the World State), and develops a love of Shakespeare. John is eager to see the World State since his mother talks about it as a paradise, but once there he thinks the World State culture is immoral, infantilizing, and degrading to humanity.

Lenina Crowne — A beautiful Beta woman. She is slightly unconventional in that she has a tendency to date only one man at a time, but otherwise she never challenges her conditioning. During the novel she dates Henry Foster and Bernard Marx, but ultimately becomes obsessed with John because he does not immediately sleep with her.

Mustapha Mond — One of the ten World Controllers of the World State. Mond was once a physicist who loved truth and science so much that he carried out some secret experiments. He was then given the choice of becoming either a World Controller or going to an Island where he could continue his experiments. Mond chose to become a World Controller, and while he has read Shakespeare and loves truth, throughout the novel he holds up happiness and stability as more important than, and mutually exclusive of, love or truth.

Linda — A Beta-minus woman, who is separated from the Director in storm during a visit to the Reservation. Though she had taken all the proper precautions, she was pregnant with John when separated from the Director, and was so embarrassed at giving birth that she didn’t try to leave the Reservation. Her World State belief in promiscuous sex and drug-taking make her and John outcasts in the Reservation. Once she returns to the World State she drugs herself into a permanent soma-stupor until she dies.

The Director (Thomas) — A pedantic, charmless, pretentious, and thoroughly conventional Alpha male who runs the Central London Hatchery. He takes exception to Bernard’s unconventional behavior, but Bernard discovers and reveals that the Director abandoned Linda in the Reservation and unknowingly fathered a child: John.

Fanny Crowne — Lenina’s friend and coworker at the Hatchery. Fanny is even more conventional than Lenina, and essentially speaks, acts, and thinks exactly as she was conditioned to.

Henry Foster — One of Lenina’s lovers. He is a supremely conventional Alpha male, and an employee at the Hatchery.

Benito Hoover — An affable though rather hairy former lover of Lenina’s.

The Arch-Community-Songster — The World State version of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Popé — One of Linda’s lovers in the Reservation. He brings her drugs and gives John a book of Shakespeare.