He woke once more to external reality, looked round him, knew what he saw-- knew it with a sinking sense of horror and disgust, for the recurrent delirium of his days and nights, the nightmare of swarming indistinguishable sameness.It is right there that I consciously realized that, in spite of their motto of "Community, Identity, Stability", there is no true identity in this society. All those in the lower castes look exactly the same, work the same jobs, are raised the same way, and think the same way. The Alphas may not look the same, but they are conditioned to avoid being alone-- the only time when true thinking about individuality can occur. The Controllers of this new world really thought things through when they were planning this. Identity and individuality can lead to "heretical" views. By elimintating identity, they eliminated any chance for people to have opinions and ideas of their own. For people like Bernard and Helmholtz, I'm sure they have a secret place to hide them and their revolutionary ideas. Maybe it's Iceland, and that's why the DHC was going to send Bernard there!
Also in this fifteenth chapter is John's epiphany that he must do something to try to save these people.
Fiendishly laughing, they had insisted on the low squalor, the nauseous ugliness of the nightmare. Now, suddenly, they trumpeted a call to arms (pg. 210).
And suddenly it was luminously clear to the Savage what he must do; it was as though a shutter had been opened, a curtain drawn back (pg. 210).I'd like to comment on something Max Browning mentioned in his seventeenth blog post:
The epiphany was in figuring out that the soma that the world was giving Linda had actually shortened her life significantly through a type of poison . . .Unlike Max, I thought the Savage meant a metaphorical poison, not a literal one. I could be totally wrong here, but I thought he meant that it was keeping them from being free to think clearly and to feel real emotions. Just a thought.
Until next time,
Alysse
I seemed to recall when Linda went to the new world and they mocked her, they gave her soma knowing it would shorten her life. I cannot remember for certain if John was there or not, and that was why I believe i actually made that comment; however, I definitely agree that there could be a more symbolic meaning of the poison. In fact, having finally finished the book, I would have to agree with you now.
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