How Is John Alienated?

How is John Alienated?

English Language and Literature 4U

Mr. M. Kaminski

November 3rd, 2015

Prompt: With reference to a work studied in this course, identify ONE character who is alienated or marginalized. State the nature of the character’s alienation AND show how this alienation reveals his or her society’s attitudes or moral values.

In the book “Brave New World”, one of the main characters, John, is socially alienated. John’s social alienation shows that the B.N.W society has different social attitudes and moral values than his own. John is alienated from the World State as soon as he arrives, the two societies conflict with each other forcing John into even more isolation and he also does not agree with many things that the World State have implemented into people’s lives. These are all leading factors to John’s alienation revealing different social attitudes and moral values.

John is alienated from society as soon as he arrives in the World State. The people of the World State see him as an outsider and continuously make fun of him. When John first arrives, he is given a tour by the provost. During the tour, John asks many questions and feels like he is the odd one out because he doesn’t understand a lot of the things happening in the World State. These examples prove that when John first arrives he is socially alienated. The savage quickly learns that the World State’s moral values are completely different from his own.

Throughout the book, John becomes more and more isolated from the B.N.W society and the Savage society. While John lived in the savage reservation, his mother slept around with quite a few men. In the B.N.W society, everyone belongs to everyone. Even though they are conditioned to think like this, John doesn’t agree with how people could be so emotionally detached. The savages are supposed to only have one person they can be promiscuous with at a time. Unfortunately for John, Linda grew up with the B.N.W state of mind where it didn’t matter the amount of times you slept with others. The savages looked down on Linda because she was sleeping around with multiple men. Their point of view influenced their opinion on John. They would look at him as he had the same mindset as Linda; eventually leading to his isolation. The social attitude that Linda grew up with had a big effect on how John was treated in the savage reservation. The culture of the B.N.W conflicts with John’s life when he is still living in the savage reservation.

Another example where the two societies conflict with each other is when John moves to the World State. Although John becomes popular due to the fact that he is from the savage reservation, he is still frowned upon because he is still culturally a “savage”. The people of the World State are unable to accept him for who he is because he is not born in the World State. The savage culture is not accepted even though John is considered interesting for being from the savage reservation. John quickly becomes socially alienated from the population of the World State. Not only does the B.N.W culture influence his alienation in the Savage reservation, the savage culture also leads him to isolation in the B.N.W society.

John does not agree with many things that the World State has implemented into human life. While John is living in the World State he soon discovers Soma, a drug that most of society takes to make them feel more relaxed. John does not agree with this at all because he thinks that the people should be free to feel emotions and not be able to take a drug that gives a picture of a happy life. He thinks that without these emotions and feelings, the people are not living as “real” humans.

““Free, free!” the savage shouted, and with one hundred continued to throw the soma into the area while, with the other, he punched the indistinguishable faces of his assailants. “Free!” And suddenly there was Helmholtz at his side-”Good old Helmholtz!”-also punching-”Men at last!” - and in the interval also throwing the poison out by handfuls through the open windows,” (Huxley 214).