John's beat-up copy of the complete works of Shakespeare (a gift of sorts from his mother's lover Popé) becomes his means of understanding life and people. For example, during his big "love scene" with Lenina, in chapter 13 of the novel, John expresses his desire for a pure kind of love that can only be consummated in marriage. He stammers fragments from The Tempest—words that the young prince Ferdinand speaks to Prospero's innocent and lovely daughter Miranda:
‘Put your arms round me,’ she commanded. ‘Hug me till you drug me, honey.’ She too had poetry at her command, knew words that sang and were spells and beat drums. ‘Kiss me’; she closed her eyes, she let her voice sink to a sleepy murmur, ‘kiss me till I’m in a coma. Hug me, honey, snuggly…’
As John becomes violent, he searches his store of Shakespeare for words that express his anger and disappointment at finding his Juliet is a mere "strumpet." From the love-smitten Ferdinand he turns to the the insanely jealous Othello: ‘O thou weed, who art so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet that the sense aches at thee. Was this most goodly book made to write “whore” upon? Heaven stops the nose at it…’
Why, do you suppose, does Aldous Huxley give his near-hero John Shakespeare and only Shakespeare as a handbook for life? What are the strengths and limitations of such a guide? What's noble and what's ridiculous about John's approach to romance?
36 comments:
Shakespeare is given to John as a guide to create the gulf across which John and Lenina love each other.
In the Brave New World, only World Controllers have the ability to read 'forbidden' texts. Emotions are dumbed down to silly songs like 'Orgy-porgy' and the bottle song. Shakespeare evokes such vivid passion that it has been withdrawn from the masses grasp.
Therefore, John, who is already exceedingly romantic by nature, believes explicitly in what Shakespeare has to say about love. This allows John to communicate his feelings in a way that is artistic and beautiful. But it also creates unrealistic ideals for John about what women should be like. This is why he reacts so violently to Lenina when she offers him her undying affection.
As Lenina grows up on the teachings and conditioning of her society, John is raised by the passionate literature and thoughts of Shakespeare. In many ways, William Shakespeare and his works could be described as the polar opposite of the so called values and morals (or lack thereof) that is Lenina's world.
Beyond the irony of the situation when considering Lenina and John's relationship, Huxley creates a situation where both sides are seen, but also pushed to an extreme. As a result of the lack of the limited knowledge and view of the world John had, the works of Williamn Shakespeare became his explanation and reference for everything. John the Savage had very set ideas and concepts of what the world and people should be like. His potentially noble ideas of marriage and love and the good of people conflicted with his stubborn and very finite ideals, which were based off those of another to begin with. He could not understand the differences of others and the reason for the difference, thus failing to recognize that Lenina's expression of love may truly be just as genuine as his.
Huxley chooses Shakespeare as John’s only guide in order to create greater conflict between John and the World State, thereby highlighting the insanity of both. Shakespeare not only fills his characters with full emotions, he usually exaggerates those emotions; the effect is exactly opposite to that of the emotional stabilizing devices imposed by the World State: in the World State, people have an artificially low capacity for passion, while on the Shakespearean stage the characters are artificially charged with passion. In the World State, passion is ignored and undervalued, while in Shakespeare it is magnified and idealized. Such a guide helps John to see the ugliness of a Brave New World that knows no love or sorrow and to brace himself against its influence, but it also makes him obstinately idealistic. John does not love the real Lenina. He idolizes Lenina and loves only his image of her. In Ch. 11, after watching the feely, John “was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of.” John’s intense desire to keep his love for Lenina (or her image) pure is incredibly noble, but it is also very frustrating, since we the reader know how undeserving Lenina is for such purity of love. John’s approach to romance is ridiculous in that he is not able to separate drama from reality, or his vision of what the world ought to be from what it really is.
John grows up with beautiful and passionate writings of Shakespeare while Lenina is brought up with the heartless and conforming hypnopaedic sayings of the World Sate. This brings up a direct contrast between the couples way of thinking, John sees the beauty of emotions in the world (or lack thereof), while Lenina goes about feeling only how the World State tells her to feel. This causes the drastic flaw in each of the characters, by falling in love with Lenina John feels as if the only way to act upon these feelings is in a classical and pure way. The same goes for Lenina, while she knows she is quite smitten by John, her upbringing tells her that being tied down to just one person is wrong and the only she can express herself to John is through sex. When the love scene occurs the fact the the two have views on love that are polar opposites come to the surface and the reaction is quite explosive. By giving John only Shakespeare as a model of real life, Huxley sets John's understanding of the world and of love to come crashing down as soon as he enters the Brave New World.
Huxley uses Shaksepeare as the guide for John to illustrate more vividly how void of human elements the World State has become. Love, motherhood, passion and such grand beliefs that are usually linked to basic human traits are portrayed as aftherhoughts and even unseemly. Shakespeare gives John a doorway into a world where emotions are not repressed and frowned upon, but celebrated and revered. Thus John cannot understand why Lenina cannot be a pure spirit and seems uncapable of reciprocating his feelings in way he feels is authentic. Though John is uncommonly enlightened to ideals greater than simple happiness; he lives in denial to practicality. He is unable to see the conditioning of the public and unfairly lashes out with anger. His image of pure Lenina can't be tarnished by reality. The reader feels his heroic qualities diminish and ultimatley vanish altogether as John succumbs to the temptation he so vilified before.
Giving John only Shakespeare to articulate his thoughts and feelings gives him the ability to express himself in the World State when others essentially cannot, but ultimately leaves him frustrated, with unrealistic expectations and no middle ground. Shakespeare exemplifies the values that the World State has left behind. Thus, by understanding John’s emotions as he expresses them through the various works of Shakespeare, we see a direct contrast to the rote hypnopaedic phrases we hear from the other characters. One advantage of Huxley giving John Shakespeare as a guide is that it allows John to be extremely passionate and effusive, whereas other characters such as Lenina, Bernard and Henry do not know how to be. John takes full advantage of the opportunity that he has via Shakespeare to be tremendously romantic, as we see in chapter 13. His approach to romance is noble in that he shows that he is willing to be completely devoted to Lenina. We see this in his desire for marriage and his declaration that he loves her “’…more than anything in the world’” (174). However, John’s approach to romance is ridiculous in that he is much too idealistic. He wants more from Lenina than she knows how to give. John wants in return the complete devotion that he is eager to give her, but Lenina cannot comprehend the idea of being with one person forever because to her “every one belongs to every one else” (48). Huxley uses this conflict to show just how different the “brave new world” has become compared to the traditional world that is familiar to John and is, in many ways, still familiar to us.
I believe Aldous Huxley gave John Shakespeare to create his character and help show how different John is from the others. He seems more human than everyone elso in the book, and is able to show this using Shakespeare. This helps the readers understand the state of the brave new world. Shakespeare consists of an excess of thought and feeling. When Lenina doesn't understand John when he quotes Shakespeare, and responds in meaningless rhymes, the readers see that the brave new world allows for little thought and feeling among it's inhabitants.
I agree with Grace that Huxely has given John Shakespeare to create different morals and roles in the lives of John and Lenina. It contrasts the old world to the new world. In Shakespeare John learns about romance, passion, thoughts, disappointment, joy and all aspects of life that Lenina's world they have been removed. The weakness to learning and living like that of Shakespeare is that it is unrealistic. The feelings and emotions are heightened in Shakespeare often times by irony, such as in Romeo and Juliet when the readers know more than the characters. John wants something he cannot have in Lenina's world even though he wants her. A strength to having Shakespeare as a guide is that he learns the importance of having the happy times and the disappointing times. He learns real emotions and how to love. John's approach of romance with Lenina is noble because he takes it slow with her. He could have her in anytime he wants but he shows self control. What is ridiculous about it is that he has Shakespeare’s ideas of love and romance and he cannot have that with Lenina. He strives for something that is not there.
I believe Shakespeare as a guide makes John a stronger person but it limits his ability to understand the brave new world. John's approach to romance is noble, but with Lenina, the way she was brought up, unexceptable and unrealistic.
Because John was not brought up in the World State, Huxley has given him Shakespeare to let his thoughts come out deeper, more passionately, and let's him express himself in his own way. He also gave John Shakespeare to show how deeply he can love Lenina, shows both of their sides, and how they react to it. John has different expectations about love which leads him to get so angry at Lenina. Because of the hypnopaedic lifestyle, Lenina, and many other characters cannot understand deep and passionate things.
Aldous Huxley gives John Shakespeare as his guide to highlight the irony of a world where “history is bunk” (34). In the World State Shakespeare prevents Savage from living a well-adjusted life. The works of Shakespeare remain great classics, many of the themes still applicable today. However, students struggle with archaic lessons and the antiquate roles of females, such as in The Taming of the Shrew. This poetic literature encourages John to reflect on the world, while those outside the reservation have “not a moment to sit down and think” (55). Shakespeare’s romanticized version of life does not account for the humdrum of many lives, lives without idyllic marriages or majestic deaths. Savage wants to live in a fictional past, as he grew up wishing for civilization. Bryn identifies the ridiculousness of in John’s resulting chivalrous behavior. “He wants more from Lenina than she knows how to give.” Savage strives for the ending of the comedies, but when he finds that unachievable in a world without monogamy, he settles for the ending of a tragedy.
John Savage grew up with the burden of having to protect his undeserving, promiscuous mother who not only spent most of her time satisfying her own selfish desires, but abandoned her role as a "mother." As a result, he was brutally shunned and looked down upon by his peers. He feels accepted neither in the Reservation nor the Brave New World. Because he spent so many lonely years pretty much by himself, he can’t help but be stubborn with his idealistic thoughts.
Huxley decides to give John a book of Shakespeare as his only guide in order for John to express his emotions. In Chapter 8 of the novel, John realizes the power of Shakespeare's words..."What did the words exactly mean...But their magic was strong and went on rumbling in his head, and somehow it was as though he had never really hated Pope before; never really hated him because he had never been able to say how much he hated him. But now he had these words, these words like drums and singing and magic" (89). These words had taught John how to express his hatred for Pope and his emotions were finally able to get some sort of outlet. Soon, John's emotions become as real as the passion he could touch as he read Shakespeare’s works. Even though this book acts as a guide for John to express his feelings, it takes his feelings and thoughts to the extreme, to the point of great exaggeration and makes them more fake than the way they had been before he’d read Shakespeare. He expects too much from the Brave New World with his idealistic hopes, and is greatly disappointed to see Lenina no different from the rest of those he sees as maniacs. As a result, he resorts to violence in order to calm his frustration (seeing that no one can understand him). John’s approach to romance is very much one-sided, selfish, and unreasonable. Because he’s so blinded by his own ideal image of Lenina, he contradicts himself by not seeking out Lenina’s position. She too has grown with the power of words, but instead, they are meaningless words from night-long repetitions. John was noble in that he was sincere with his love for her, but his purity was not enough to reach to Lenina. They both are limited to these words and are ignorant of the conditioning that the other has received; it’s a zero-tolerance relationship bound to fail. Although, John does have human being traits in him that normally would be expected, he is quite different in that he refers everything to the works of Shakespeare and ultimately limits himself with drawn-out emotions.
Huxley creates John as a character who grew up with Shakespeare as his only guide to life. This allows John to be much more expressive and passionate in comparison to the other characters we see in the World State. In Shakespeare's plays, we see the beauty and elegance of love and relationships. Huxley uses this to his advantage as he has the World State and Shakespeare clash by using John to contrast the extreme differences between the two.
John appears to us as a character with more depth and personality It's because of Shakespeare that John can view the World State as morally wrong and disgusting. However, John does not realize how unrealistic his view is. He does not realize that comparing romance in reality to Shakespeare may be too high of a standard. Yet his view on romance is as noble as it is foolish. He strives to keep himself pure and views himself unworthy of Lenina.
John is given Shakespeare as his bible to contrast with the World State. Shakespeare is full of passion; every emotion is over the top and bright and vivid while, on the other hand, every emotion in the World State is dulled or nonexistent. The Utopia that Huxley creates strives to destroy all powerful emotions because emotions are an integral part of being human. Humans use their emotions to become different and unique, and without them, the World State has reduced people into drones who are satisfied by the soma, the sex, and the work they must do. John is the opposite of the World State; he feels everything to the fullest because of Shakespeare, and that makes him too idealistic and passionate. Every situation he is in, he must fit it into Shakespeare, no matter how out of place it is. It is the only way John knows how to deal with situations not under his control.
Lenina is his Juliet, too pure and delicate to be desecrated by sex. John cannot bear to look at Lenina's body, for it would taint her. Lenina is the opposite. Conditioned by the Utopia Huxley, the only way Lenina can express her love is by sex. The two of them reflect how different the two societies pictured in Brave New World can be.
John's reliance on the works of Shakespeare is ridiculous when it comes to romance. Lenina offers John her affection and love through the only way she knows how, and John because of his unrealistic noble ideals fails to see that love and flies into a rage, uttering oaths and curses from Shakespeare. He is unable to come to a middle ground, unable to see the gray area between saint and strumpet. However, John's love is also noble. The love he has for Lenina is completely pure and whole. He is willing to sacrifice sex for something more, which is more than what can be said to some people in today's society.
By giving John Shakespeare as his only frame of reference for life, Huxley set John extraordinarily far apart from Lenina and the World State society. John cannot fit in the World State or in the tribe he grew up in; he is destined to be forever isolated. John was enamored with Lenina, the first woman he ever saw, other than his mother, who wasn’t from the reservation. He saw her as a pure woman like those he had grown up reading about in Shakespearean works. John and Lenina both love one other, but John desires unrealistic romance and Lenina’s only way of interpreting the desire is to offer sex.
John grew up with Shakespeare; he doesn’t know any other way to define the world or express his emotions. Shakespeare molded his outlook and perceptions of the world, cementing his inability to comprehend the seemingly twisted World State society. John is unable to break out of his unrealistic perception of the world, just as Lenina isn’t capable of seeing past her conditioned view of it, and therefore their relationship is doomed.
Raised apart from the New World, John was taught all he knows from his mother and pope’s book; defying the suppression of knowledge that they World State has worked so hard to maintain. Giving John a collection of Shakespeare’s finest works allows him to express his feelings in a way that Lenina can not, a sanctuary that he can recoil into when reality becomes overwhelming. With only Shakespeare by his side, John emulates the intense feelings and ridiculous exaggeration of emotions that plays have blueprinted for him, creating a striking contrast to the emotional void that Lenina is brought up to understand and accept. Everything in his life is compared to the standards that Shakespeare has set; creating an allusion of how love between two people should operate and necessitating the establishment of the drama and passion that Shakespearean characters experience. Through John’s eyes Lenina is “fast asleep and so beautiful in the midst of her curls… so trustful in the helplessness of her limp hands (p.142),” a damsel awaiting a mighty specimen of the male gender to show her the love that she deserves, which blinds him from seeing her true colors, just another puppet controlled by the World State. Some may say that love is blind, but for John it is the ideal love that he has established in his mind that really blinds him.
As Jennifer and Amber said, John search for love with Lenina was "noble". Yet it is as if the ideals instilled him from Shakespeare made John susceptible to any slighty attractive female who would accept him (and his mother) for who he was. Coming from a society where he was constantly ousted for being different, made him gravitate towards any kind of acceptance he could discover. He also had instilled in him the ideals of Shakepeare, where love controls lives, and decisions, ultimately destiny. Midway through chapter seven, just after meeting Bernard and Lenina, John says, "They disliked me for my complexion. It's always been like that. Always." Almost simultaneously he discover lenina in all her "amazing novelty". Yet she is novel to him because he has never seen one like her.
Once in the Brave New World John discovers love there is little more then entertainment, no different then the action of eating, stimulated and automatic. He stills strives for a passionate love with Lenina, one where they would sacrifice their lives for. In his idealism he nears absurd. But as sex is not love, it is impossible for him to ever have love with Lenina. John seems to know this fact, but it disgrace his bible- Shakespeare- not to strive for love, passion in lust.
John’s death at the end seems almost cliché, following the formulaic ending of many Shakespeare plays. It is as if he had to commit suicide or else he would have been a disgrace to Shakespeare’s masterpieces
Even in our society, with our monogamy, John’s search of “love” is extreme. Yes, many of us will marry, and choose one partner. Yet many of us will never discover one who we are truly passionate about. John is valiant in his stubborn, though ill fated choice.
Huxley gives John Shakespeare as a way to express his feelings and thoughts to highlight the difference between the old world and the new world. Growing up, John is constantly aware of the fact that he is alone. His mother won’t acknowledge the role she has in his life, he has no father, no friends and no one to love. He pours his heart and soul into these stories. Because of this, all he understands is what happens the worlds that Shakespeare creates. He understands that there is good and evil, because those exist in the book, so it is not that he is innocent or simple. He is passionate because what he learns is to be larger than life. However, in the World State, Lenina is brought up in a completely different way. She is never alone and is taught not to be passionate. The strong emotions that would bond a mother and child or a married couple do not exist in her world. Consequently, there is a large amount of dissonance between John and Lenina because they cannot express their love for each other. The gap between them is caused by the radical differences in their societies. John is extremely passionate and expresses his love in beautiful verses, but the object of his affections in unable to comprehend the depth of his feelings because of where she comes from. John has a similar problem. Lenina loves him, but she does not know how to express herself. The only way she understands (i.e sex) is the way that John finds repulsive. By giving John Shakespeare, Huxley creates a sadly ironic relationship that makes the differences between the old world and new world much more obvious.
In the Brave New World, everyone is so conditioned against their true feelings and emotions that they cannot properly express themselves. All the main characters in the book have problems simply communicating what they feel to each other.
The reason why Shakespeare is John's one and true outlet of self-expression is because not only does it set John apart as someone who can relay his complex feelings to others, it also shows that he is different intellectually. However, Shakespeare restricts him to certain views on life and love, which if left to his own devices, he never would have acquired. Like an otherwise inarticulate child unable to express himself properly to the outside world, his instincts are to resort to quoting what he knows which is only Shakespeare. That is why his views on love are so skewed, even though he truly does feel something for Lenina, he assumes that true love and romance is exactly like what is portrayed in Romeo and Juliet or The Tempest, leaving no room for a middle ground. As a result of his own kind of Shakespearean conditioning, he knows only the extremes and dramatics of human emotions and can only go so far as expressing himself like other Shakespeare characters.
Aldous Huxley created characters (Lenina and John) that differ drastically in perspective as a way to better show his readers the effects of a utopia. He gives John Shakespeare, which allows John to have incredibly passionate emotions and thoughts. Emotions and thoughts that Lenina is conditioned not to have.
By giving the readers John who is so deep because of Shakespeare, readers can understand how unjust the World State is. The lack of feeling and thought readers see through Lenina and the dramatization of John's give readers a much stronger view.
Huxley used Shakespeare as John's major source of learning and influence to better contrast John's social ideals with that of the World State. While in many of Shakespeare's works the emotional aspect of love is emphasized over the physical one, just the opposite is true in the World State. Without such strong ideals of how love and society should be that were suddenly pulled out from beneath him, John's behavior with Lenina and his actions at the end of the novel would have seemed rather preposterous.
By using Shakespeare as a guide to life, John can find support for his ideals of society. However, he can't seem to understand that literature doesn't always translate perfectly to the real world. When confronted by a problem, like when Lenina began to make advances on him, John is unable to reason or compromise and simply falls back on his predetermined convictions; there is no gray area in his reasoning, things are black or white.
John's opinions and actions may make him noble from the standpoint that he is able to resist temptation (for the most part) and oppose an entire society with completely unwavering morals, but the fact that his views on love, which should be so personal, are constituted by someone else's beliefs and fictional writings make him appear rather incompetent in developing his own opinions.
Huxley used John throughout the story to create a juxtaposition between how life is in the World State and how life was during the time of Shakespeare. As if our lives (the readers) and the World State are not contrasting enough, it seems even more ridiculous compared to the romanticism of Shakespeare. John is clearly limited in his ability to express his emotions, he really has only two extremes, utter happiness and love, or complete frustration and anger.
Since we are neither in the time of Shakespeare nor AF 632, we do not closely identify with either John or Lenina's approach to romance. While John is clearly very idealistic, he represents the purity and true love that we do not see in our world today, or in the world that Huxley created. We can see that although John is trying to express his love to Lenina in poetic ways, it is ridiculous in that nobody but himself is able to understand what he is trying to express.
Huxley gave John Shakespeare as his only guide to show the two extremes of both worlds, where the ideals are opposites. In our time, both of these worlds are almost entirely unrealistic.
A strength of having Shakespeare as a guide, is that his works portray the complexities of human emotions, such as love. Therefore, John has the benefits of knowing and understanding these emotions, while the people of Brave New World do not. However, a limitation of this knowledge is that John views women through the eyes of Shakespeare: modest, pious, reserved. However, Lenina is none of these things, which surprises and upsets him.
John’s approach to romance is noble, in that he believes such a society, as in Shakespeare, can exist. He stays true to his ideals and beliefs, and doesn’t fall under the pressure of society. However, it’s ridiculous that he should have such beliefs because he’s never seen an example of the relationships portrayed in Shakespeare’s works.
Huxley uses John and Shakespeare to highlight the differences between how idealists and romantics want the world to be, and how it really is. John is the ultimate optimist who fervently believes in true love and passion. No matter what happens to him, John keeps these ideals and never gives them up.
Because he uses Shakespeare to interpret the world, John is infinitely truer and more genuine than anyone who has been conditioned. He embraces emotion, all emotion--not just the artificial happiness induced by soma. However, Shakespeare does not prepare him for such a rigid society as that of the Brave New World. The plays are somewhat antiquated, and many of the lessons taught no longer apply to his world, such as the concepts of chastity, modesty, and true feeling. John is not prepared or willing to modify Shakespeare's stories to fit situations other than the medieval times and societies that they're set in, and he almost always takes Shakespeare literally (and sometimes out of context).
It is noble that John is willing to go against the nature of the entire society and pledge true love to Lenina without caring for the consequences. However, John has lived by Shakespeare for so long that he cannot even tell Lenina he loves her without quoting from a play. It's almost as though he can't even imagine a way to express himself other than through Shakespeare, and this is sad, because it seems as though there could have been a poet in him if he broke away from the books for just a little while.
Shakespeare was John's only link to the world beyond the reservation. And with his Shakespeare he idealizes this Brave New World, a place that could possibly be where he belongs. John's idealized BNW stems from the world of Shakespeare where every emotion, every action is overly dramatized. Brave New World represents the exact opposite with emotions and actions suppressed by the World State. Huxley chooses Shakespeare as a handbook for John to contrast the polar opposites of how John envisioned society with reality. While John and Lenina both have their handbooks to life, John’s gives him deep and powerful emotions and Lenina’s controls and limits her emotions to stay flat. Using these extremes, Huxley displays the tension created from love of two people who have been raised with different ways to express it. John’s reponse to Lenina’s approach to love may seem ridiculous; however, Lenina was John’s last hope that some part of his envisioned Brave New World was true and that someone was capable of the love described in Shakespeare. Her response was the final blow that proved to him that he belonged neither to the reservation nor the Brave New World.
John is the ultimate outsider. He does not fit into the reservation because of his promiscuous mother and he does not fit into the World State because he lacks conditioning. The use of Shakespeare allows John to express himself. His impassioned personality provides a direct contrast to emotionally numb World State. It leads John to interpret the “brave new world” through the lens of Shakespeare. It gives him unrealistic standards of love and morality as he sees himself and others filling the roles of Shakespeare’s characters—roles people fail to live up to, most notably Lenina as Juliet. The use of Shakespeare also serves another significant purpose. It serves as a form of criticism which is explained during the final conversation between Mustapha Mond and John. When John asks why Mond doesn’t tell the world about God, Mond responds, “For the same reason as we don't give them Othello: they're old; they're about God hundreds of years ago. Not about God now.” This extends the idea made in chapter 3 that “History is bunk.” The social criticism comes from the realization that the brave new world is not a society for history, is not a society of knowledge and literature, and is not a society fit for Shakespeare. In all probability the audience of Brave New World is familiar with at least some of the works of Shakespeare. This leads to the conclusion that the price of stability is academia and profound fulfillment—a price too large to pay. Shakespeare like John is incompatible with the World State.
Huxley gives John Shakespeare to serve as a foil to the “Brave New World;” it presents tragedy and love in a society that has done away with both. As you would combat fire with fire, the extremes of Shakespeare’s works starkly contrast those of the World State. Though this would imply John and Lenina, ambassadors from different worlds, would be opposites as well, it is ironic that John is as programmed as his fair-maiden turned-strumpet. Our romantic hero has had his fair dose of conditioning. Lenina’s “five hundred repetitions once a week from thirteen to seventeen” are matched by the infinite times John has poured over “Othello.” Half of John’s dialogue is merely quotes. Just as the Alphas quip “a gramme is better than a damn,” John calls Lenina “strumpet,” “harlot,” and “whore.” In context she is none of them, but that is all John knows to name her. As hard as he tries, ultimately, his "passionate" tools cannot defeat Mond, who both controls the world and is familiar with its opposite. The puppet (even a well-read puppet) can’t beat the puppet master. Perhaps only Shakespeare himself could’ve done better. John’s “soul” is but a mockery, with Shakespeare as his wax. His side only seems more attractive and noble because it is the one our society has been conditioned in, and because of that we accept John as a hero regardless of his qualifications. If it is shaped like a stallion and gallops like a stallion, it may still only be a horse’s shadow.
P.S. Is there a way to make the size of the comments’ font the same as the original post? I would resize my browser’s font, but that would make the prompt tiny. Just a minor quibble; no big.
Huxley provides John a Shakespearean view of the world because Shakespeare is an absolute contrast to the World State, giving John a more humanistic characteristic that is much needed in "Brave New World."
Although many of us are not readily equipped with Shakespearean quotes for a literary battle, we can identify with the values that encompass Shakespeare's works: purity, chastity, nobility. These morals and values are more of human nature than of those of the World State. Yes, it can be argued that Shakespeare is too over-dramatized or over-exaggerated in showing what love is, but it is this exact over exaggeration that gives John life to his character. I feel as though most of the characters in Brave New World are dull because its repetitions of hypnopaedia are too controlling to feel excitement towards. The passion that Shakespeare evokes is as exciting as it gets, which is why I think Huxley specifically gave John “The Complete Works by William Shakespeare” rather than a different provocative work of literature. Shakespeare makes John appear more human than most characters in this novel.
I will agree with other bloggers here that there is a downfall to John’s perception of love and the world – that it’s too one-sided. Like, Austin said, “there is no gray area in his [John’s] reasoning, things are black and white.” Because Shakespeare is the only thing that he has read (that is human-like), it is the only thing he understands and is the only thing he can use in difficult situations. He always, always turns to Shakespeare whenever he is in a predicament. This gives him a false perception of the current world (the brave new world). The World State does not have the same passion that the works of Shakespeare does; in fact, it is void of it (unless one counts “orgy porgy” and “erotic play” as passion, which I, honestly, hope one does not). So when John attempts to resist temptation with Lenina, he is ultimately acting as a foreigner to a person who lives in a place where people give into temptation. This makes it difficult for John to connect to the world and makes it ridiculous for the reader to accept since John is so different from the others.
Nonetheless, this difference, however ridiculous it may be, is what makes John a better character (and a better human) than the others. His thoughts and actions may be ridiculous to the reader, but it is only because the atmosphere of the World State makes it so. Out of context, John is near perfect to the type of human that we envision ourselves to be.
P.S. Sorry for the late post. I don’t sleep when normal people do (i.e. I sleep in the afternoon usually and wake up in the late night such as 2:00am). So sometimes, my posts will be within minutes of the prompt posting and sometimes, it’ll be as late as this. Hopefully, I can relax this weekend and get my circadian rhythm working correctly.
Huxley gives John Shakespeare as a way of giving him the means to communicate his feelings, but he will always be speaking to deaf ears. He grew up in a world where he was an outcast, and died in a world that wouldn't ever relate to him. With a Shakespearean approach to life and love, John can never be with Lenina. She can never stop being what she was made to be, and John's Shakespearean way of thinking will always be in conflict with the rest of the world. John asks too much of love in a time where people don't fully understand it, and cannot receive the love he seeks because of that.
I agree with the comments above, those mentioning the difference of morals. Shakespeare demonstrates peace and deep thought. While those songs and poems from the new world represent puddle deep thought. This difference hinders John and Lenina's relationship. They have completely different bases of knowledge which leads to a divide in communication. John can't really understand her and she can't really understand him completely, this leads to John's anger.
I believe that Huxley gave John Shakespeare to build his character. This gift of Shakespeare moves John from, in my opinion, a flat character to a round character. It gets me thinking about John and his thoughts. Which in-turn keeps me turning pages.
Shakespeare, as an author, is known to portray in his characters a wide range of emotions felt by people of the "real world." He shows their lovestruck elation and adoration, yet also their bitter agony. By having John express his emotions with Shakespeare, Huxley reinforces the strength of these emotions.
Despite the strength of Shakespeare's writing that supports Huxley's characters, the limitations of such are apparent as well. Shakespeare's works are mostly focused on one era; an era that is vastly different than his own. Though the emotions displayed are often the same, it does not provide further understanding of the strange utopia he has been thrust into. Using this one writer's works as a guide may not provide a complete perspective.
I see little of John's actions to be "ridiculous" concerning his outlook on love. He realizes that sexuality is not a thing to be flaunted and treated lightly, as Lenina has been conditioned to think. The fact that he expresses his frustration with his Juliet in violence, however, is not a healthy solution and should have been repressed.
We're all familiar with the proverbial phrase, the early bird gets the worm. This post is definitely not the early bird (Yes I'm bringing tissues). Indeed I would say it's the bird that forgot to reset his alarm clock. Therefore in answering these questions I'm going to see if I can't find a grub instead of seeking the worms that have already been taken.
One reason Huxley may have chosen to give John shakespeare as a handbook is because, Huxley, as a literary snob, realized that shakespeare is a widely acclaimed author revered even by literary snobs. This meant that he instantly had a plethora of widely respected quotes to use at will, in or out of context, that would add immediate depth to his work. It's like throwing vanilla bean ice cream into your milkshake; it's hard to go wrong. The only potential disadvantage is the author may create so complex a conglomeration of connotation and hidden meaning that the reader is left staring at mixture in the bottom of the blender wondering what it was meant be.
It's noble that John desires to find a wife with ideals that match his own based on a more pure kind of love. The only thing that's ridiculous is that he's looking for a dove in a flock of crows. He needs to change locations, maybe even cruise some islands looking for like-minded maidens.
Using Shakespeare as a guide, I think Huxley wanted to create a contrast between the simplistic Utopian speech of the Alphas, Betas, etc. and the rich nature of the world as it once was. John becomes the purveyor of Shakespearean depth, so to speak. He is the character we most relate to because, although we all may not read shakespeare, it's the depth of the plays we can more relate to than the utilitarian simplicity of the Brave New World. Shakespeare seems to be like a light at the end of the tunnel, a small reminder of what we'd be losing if we forgo the art and absolute truth of the real world. When I think Shakespeare, I think passion, art, and truth-- all aspects that this Brave New World is trying to eliminate. As a satirical novel, I think Huxley wanted the Shakespeare to bring light to the shortcomings of this new society.
As far as limitations of such a guide, John is never truly able to come to grips with his and Lenina's epic differences. Although this holds an important place in the novel, John's shakespearean references and dialect further create a chasm that neither Lenina or he can overcome. And as we discussed in class, though they realize they are in love with each other, they are stricken with problems. Firstly, Lenina can not come to grips with this feeling, this "love," when all she has ever, or was supposed to have ever, dealt with was the physiological act of love. John on the other hand, often compares Lenina with Juliet and can not come to grips with why she is so different from Juliet.
The works of Shakespeare are forbidden and are unknown in Brave New World, much like John himself. And since Shakespeare's words are filled with human passions and emotions Huxley uses it to make John stand out even more in contrast to the almost emotionless world of BNW. John becomes a vessel of Shakespearean passion in a passionless place and so it creates interesting conflicts when both worlds collide.
But by being filled of Shakespeare only, John's thinking is limited and in ways prude. The only experience he has is from books which isn't a replacement for real life. When he is faced with a situation, the only guide he has for a reaction is Shakespeare. In a way he is also conditioned like the people in the BNW. We see this when he becomes angry at Lenina after she tries to seduce him. His thoughts went directly to Othello, instead of being a real man and going for it.
I think that Aldous Huxley’s reason for giving only Shakespeare as Johns guide through life was to continue promoting his theme of the incompatibility of happiness and truth. In the Brave New World society, everyone does everything they can to avoid facing the truth about themselves and about their situations in life. The almost world-wide use of the drug soma is a perfect example of the willful self-delusion. While others use soma to fly high in the clouds, John Savage uses Shakespeare. He avoids the truth of this new world that’s shoved in his face, by insisting on viewing Lenina though the lens of various fictional characters; first as Juliet and then later as the “impudent strumpet”. John is happier (at first) seeing Lenina through the rose-colored glasses of Shakespeare’s prose.
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