BNW Essay

In the novel, Brave New World, the character, John the savage, is an example of a character who through his alienation with both the civilized and savage worlds reveals the society’s assumptions and moral values or in this case lack of moral values.  This alienation is John primary motivation for his actions and behaviors.   He is not completely accepted on the Savage Reservation because his mother was from the “civilized” world state and so he is willing to take his chances in that world and leaves the Reservation.  He then finds himself appalled by the shallowness of this “civilized” world.  This fundamental conflict between his values and the reality of the world state creates such an internal conflict that he eventually commits suicide.

John was born and raised on the Savage Reservation where the traditional values of marriage, natural birth, family and religion still exists, but he has not been accepted into their culture because his mother was a Beta-minus accidently left on the Reservation while she was pregnant. John main source of moral education has come from the reading of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.  This makes John way more moral than the mindless conditioned inhabitants of the civilized world he finds after he leaves the Reservation.  The “utopian” society has been created by advances in science and technology that compensate for the potential sources of instability in a society, by getting rid of parents and families, and by scientifically engineering each person in test tubes from fertilization to decanting, women no longer give birth, and then by behaviorally conditioning the mass produced population during their youth for their specific purpose in society.  Should there ever be a moment when one becomes the least bit dissatisfied with some aspect of their lives, they can simply pop a few pills and be brought instantly back to “enjoying” their inescapable social destiny.  In the new world order, stability and happiness are more important than humanity and can only be achieved by sacrificing love, family, art, science, and religion. John concludes that without these, life is not worth living.  If you equate freedom or purpose of life with the ability to choose, you can see that in the utopia of a Brave New World there is no freedom or purpose in life and in the end the savage commits suicide.  John says towards the end of the book: “I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."  Wanting these things is what gives live meaning otherwise you just have an existence, but no meaning.  

John’s alienation from the other members of both the savage and civilized worlds in the novel, motivate him to understand his own morality and question the morality of the civilized world.  John, the Savage, ironically becomes the symbol for real civilized behavior.  The new world state’s motto is “Community, Identity, Stability” which is achieved only through the misuse of the sciences such as biology, physiology, and psychology.  Community is achieved by creating a single identity of “every one belongs to every one else” and genetic engineering and physiological and psychological conditioning allows for the creation of social classes of individual programmed to be completely accepting of their designated class. Despite not being a product of these abuses, John cannot accept his own shortcomings and his internal conflicts eventually cause him to commit suicide.