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Fiction

Notes

Did u know? John’s constant discussion of his feelings and quoting of Shakespeare confuses
Lenina, and she only understands him after he tells her that he loves her.
Lenina responds by stripping off her clothes and trying to kiss him, a natural reaction given
her cultural upbringing. John, however, reacts first with shock and then with rage. He screams,
“Whore, impudent strumpet,” and he flings her away. While John tries to slap her, Lenina
runs into the bathroom and shuts the door. She begs him to return her clothes and belongings.
The phone rings and John answers. Learning that Linda is sick, John rushes out of the room,
leaving the terrified Lenina in his room.

Analysis
Lenina’s desire for John shows that she has fallen in love with him. Her new emotional
monogamy goes against her conditioning. The fact that s experiences new emotions throughout
this experience makes her actions and thoughts more like those of an individual, creating a
sense of inner conflict. Thus, she constantly requires soma in order to interact with John,
taking it during their first date and again before going to his house.
Since Lenina has no conception of other cultures and traditions, let alone the Indian traditions,
having sex is her conception of love. When John tells her he loves her, she logically assumes
that he must want to have sex with her. The entire scene of Lenina going to John is an
assertion of individuality, but after her stripping naked causes John to erupt in violence, she
immediately reverts to the security of her sociological ideals. Consequently, Lenina quotes her
hypnopaedic learning to John while she is in the bathroom. His reaction and their subsequent
struggle destroy Lenina’s move towards individuality.
John’s actions are enigmatic at first but logical in light of his pat. John tells how he used to
become furious at his mother because she would have sex with so many men. Since he shares
monogamous ideals with the Indian tribe, John has a great deal of suppressed anger towards
his mother. Thus, when Lenina strips for him, she becomes everything he hates about Linda.
At that moment, she loses the power of being desirable to him. In the baseness of nudity,
Lenina becomes an object that embodies his mother’s base attributes. As a result, John takes
all of his rage out on Lenina and drives her away from him.
Lenina’s nakedness may also reflect the unveiling of her society’s true nature. Like Lenina, the
society seemingly promotes beauty, happiness, and perfection. However, when stripped of its
garments, the society appears just as base and human as the Indian society that John left.
Lenina’s nakedness causes John to realize the gross imperfections of the dystopian society. He
realizes that he cannot survive in this society any more than he could survive in the Indian
village. Ironically, whereas John struggled to belong to the Indian social structure, he now
struggles to avoid his new society.

Chapter 14

Summary
John goes to the Park Lane Hospital for the Dying to see Linda. He encounters the head nurse,
who seems astonished that anyone would want to see the dying or dead. Since society has
abandoned individuality, they consider dying as beneficial to the population.
John finds Linda in an unconscious state and tries to rouse her. Meanwhile, the head nurse
leads an entire Bokanovsky group (a large group of identical twins) into the room for their
death conditioning. The boys act as if they are in a game room, and the head nurse encourages
them to have fun. The idea is that if death and fun intermingle, then people will lose their

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