Like locusts they came, hung poised, descended all around him on the heather.I guess the paparazzi is terrible in their time, too. All John wants is to be left alone, to purify himself and prove himself worthy of God and goodness. The people don't seem to get it, even after he beats up a guy! I think this has to do with their conditioning; they think no one should be alone.
John's whipping himself seemed to be his way of accepting Mustapha's "gift" of unhappiness. Strangely enough, that actually makes sense. It is only through suffering that one can find true happiness.
Now, I'd like to mention something that reminded me quite a bit of The Lord of the Flies:
Drawn by the fascination of the horror of pain and, from within, impelled by the habit of cooperation, that desire for unamity and atonement, which their conditioning had so ineradicably implanted in them, they began to mime the frenzy of his gestures, striking at one another as the Savage struck at his own rebellious flesh, or at that plump incarnation of turpitude writhing in the heather at his feet (pg. 258).The excitement of pain attracts the people because it is new to them. Then, with the intensity of emotion and with the chanting and singing, the heat of the moment led them to behave as true savages (much like the boys in The Lord of the Flies when they kill Simon). Now, I could be reading too much into this, but I'm almost 100% positive John beat Lenina to death in his overwhelmingly intense emotional state.
Until next time,
Alysse
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