Page 208 - DENG404_FICTION

Fiction

Notes

Notes The drug ensured that people would spend their time hallucinating rather than
thinking. The government continues to distribute soma to its citizens every week.
Meanwhile, Lenina Crowne, a Beta Plus, discusses her four-month relationship with Alpha
Henry Foster with her friend Fanny Crowne, a Beta. Fanny is upset that Lenina is having such
a long relationship with only one man. She quotes the phrase “everyone belongs to everyone”
and tells Lenina to have sex with other men. Lenina agrees with Fanny and tells her that she
likes Bernard Marx, an Alpha Plus, and has decided to join him on a trip to the Savage
Reservations. Fanny is skeptical and says that she thinks Marx is a loner and an introvert.

Bernard Mar is a specialist on hypnopaedia. The reader first meets him while he eavesdrops
on a conversation between Henry Foster and another worker. Foster and the other man are
discussing Lenina and Foster tells the man he should “have” her, implying sexual relations.
Marx gets upset when he hears this, indicating that he is in love with Lenina.

Analysis
Chapter 3 introduces many of the main philosophical issues within the novel. Huxley presents
the social necessities for perfect stability within his society. These include the role of consumption,
the interplay between sexuality and emotions, the role of history, and the redefinition of
religion.
Society views consumption as beneficial. The society believes that more consumption means
more production of good, which will increase the number of jobs and keep the society fully
employed. Examples of how consumption is increased include hypnopaedic phrases that tell
people to throw away old clothes and buy new, indoctrinating Deltas to enjoy country sports
so they will use the state transportation system to exit the city, and complex machinery being
required for any sort of sport or game.
The interplay between sexuality and emotions is complex. Huxley realized that monogamy,
sex, and family ties generate most human emotions. Thus, the society rests on promiscuity and
baby factories. The goal is to eradicate emotions by replacing them with pure sexual desire
and nothing else. This, combined with the baby factories, destroys family life and monogamous
relationships. The state directs most emotions, which is necessary for social control and stability.
Interestingly, George Orwell used the opposite technique in 1984. Orwell banned sexual relationships
in order to eliminate dangerous emotions that might go against the state. However, since both
authors realized that sexual emotions destabilize society, each technique achieves the identical
goal of elimination of sexual emotions.

Task What work does the conditioning do? Who gets conditioned? How does hypnopaedia
work?

Society views history and religion as dangerous and potentially corrupting. Having a history
gives people a sense of time outside of their own lifetimes. This in turn makes people think
about progression through time, which is something the society cannot permit without causing
social upheaval. Thus Huxley uses the quote from Ford, “History is bunk,” to indicate that
history is worthless and should not be studied. The Controller describes history in a way that
further emphasizes its negative aspects. He also blames Christianity for the inability of past
societies to achieve ectogenesis (in this context Huxley means growing babies outside of the
human body).

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