Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Mirror-Doubles?

"Oh, my dear, my dear."  The torrent of words flowed sobbingly.  "If you knew how glad - after all these years!  A civilized face.  Yes, and civilized clothes.  Because I thought I should never see a piece of real acetate silk again." - Brave New World, page 119.


In this chapter, Lenina meets a woman named Linda who has been trapped on the Reservation, forced to learn its ways and customs.  Linda openly expresses her hatred for this place and can remember everything about the "Other Place."

I could not help but notice during this chapter that Lenina and Linda seem to be mirror-doubles of each other.  Their names are even incredibly similar.  Lenina complains during this entire chapter leading up to the meeting of Linda of how aweful the reservation is.  She wishes she could have some soma and wishes they could just leave repeating over and over again, "I don't like it."  Linda later reiterates the awefulness of the Reservation explaining how she has suffered.  There was no soma for her to take so she had to resort to mescal which is probably the equivalent to alcohol from our time.  Also, Linda's fate, to become a mother, is so unspeakable that Lenina shudders at just the thought of it.  This is almost like what could have been for Lenina.  Lenina sees Linda as how she might have turned out in different circumstances.

2 comments:

  1. I agree with your comparison here. I think that Lenina is relieved that it was Linda, not her, that ended up on the reservation.

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