Alliteration and the Night Sky

"Lenina remembered her first shock of fear and surprise; her speculations through half a wakeful hour; and then, under the influence of those endless repetitions, the gradual soothing of her mind, the soothing, the smoothing, the stealthy creeping of sleep..." - Brave New World, page 74.


This alliteration jumped out at me as soon as I read it.  The repetition of the s's has more of a harsh feeling to them than if it were any other consonant being used.  It reminds the reader of a snake with its hissing sound and therefore gives out a negative connotation.  But the other part to this alliteration is the negative diction being used.  Words like "creeping" and "endless" are sprinkled throughout.  Could this be more than the writer's disaproval of technology and how it interferes with the peacefulness of sleep?  Could this also be Lenina's inner-self feeling animosity towards the conditioning and technology used against her and the others as children?

Later on in this same chapter, Huxley describes a scene where Lenina and Henry are completely unaware of the night sky and the stars because of all the artificial light being created by signs and electricity.  When I read this I thought to myself, "Oh my gosh, this is just like our world, today!!"  People living in the city have no clue of what the night sky truly looks like and one can really only see this beautiful spectacle by traveling to the country side or somewhere far away from the bright lights.  Maybe we are in a way heading towards this new future that Huxley describes.  Hopefully it won't have to come to all of this mind conditioning and what they seem to believe is pure happiness.