Death and More Violence

"The Savage stood for a moment in frozen silence, then fell on his knees beside the bed and, covering his face with his hands, sobbed uncontrollably." - Brave New World, page 206


I feel as though there is just so much in this chapter to talk about.  I'll start out first with the obvious difference between the way John reacts to death and the way most Fordian civilians react to death.  John mourns and cries over the death of his mother whereas everyone else sees death as inevitable and definitely not something to fear.  They only feel this way because they are conditioned to feel this way.  This concept, unfortunately, is not what I consider to be the most important concept of the chapter.


The next thing I would like to discuss is the powerful impact soma has on these people.  The reader already knows how much they depend on soma and understand the huge impact it has on their health, but John gets a first hand account of how powerful it is when he can't even get a few sober sentences from his mother on her death bed because she is so engulfed in a soma holiday.  She is unable to even give her last goodbye because she is in such a trance.  As a side note, I just recently went on a vacation to Washington, D.C. with my family and this chapter sort of reminds me of when we went to Arlington Cemetary.  Here is a picture of what it looked like there:

The final and I believe most important aspect to this chapter is John's actions towards the end.  From the previous chapter, we saw a very violent side of John.  This time, he lets his anger out by pushing a child so hard that he falls to the floor.  I believe that his violence will only escalate and manifest itself in greater ways towards the end of the novel.