The Faces Of John

The Faces of John

"The Savage"

As man has progressed through the ages, there has been, essentially, one purpose. That purpose is to arrive at a utopian society, where everyone is happy, disease is nonexistent, and strife, anger, or sadness are unheard of. Only happiness exists. But when confronted with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, we come to realize that this is not, in fact, what the human soul really craves. John also known as "The Savage" grows up away from this society and has to choose between life of freedom or a life of control. John is like many other characters in this story and is used in a way none of us may realize while reading this story: to his relation with the world state, his ability to relate to others, and his uses in the new world.

In the utopian society that Huxley presents, everyone is content. There are no differences. Everyone is brought up to be happy, and most do not even know what sadness or anger is. All is cured artificially through surrogates or drugs. Even happiness is not unique to the individual. The motto of the "Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre" where the humans are cloned is "Community, Identity, and Stability" (1). Identity being one of the key focuses that Huxley shows us throughout the trials and tribulations of John's life. John grew up knowing a mother, friends, life without restrictions, and grows up to be purely unique. This separated him from most of the "civilized" people in the new world. The members of the civilized society are not given any sort of mental flexibility. If you spend time alone, or think, you are considered strange, and are considered an outcast. Nobody wishes for this, and so correspondingly nobody commits this unspeakable crime. Everyone goes out at night with a different partner, or takes a few grammes of soma and goes to bed for a soma-holiday. Nothing new, nothing different. Each member also has a predestined future. They all develop in their fetal stages inside a jar, where they are provided with their needs, are vaccinated against all known diseases. Also, special treatments are performed to aid in the mental growth of the individual after 'birth', according to their future occupation.

"The first of a batch of two hundred and fifty embryonic rocket-plane engineers was just passing the eleven hundredth metre mark on Rack 3. A special mechanism kept their containers in constant rotation. `To improve their sense of balance,' Mr. Foster explained. `Doing repairs on the outside of a rocket in mid air is a ticklish job. We slacken off the circulation when they're right way up, so that they're half starved, and double the flow of surrogate when they're upside down. They learn to associate topsy- turvydom with well being; in fact, they're only truly happy when they're standing on their heads (11)."

All two hundred and fifty beings will be the same - they will look alike, talk alike, act alike, have the same job, and generally be the same people inside different bodies. One never knows which is which.

John may be different in some degree due to being known as a "Savage," Which he was called because he was not created in a jar. John is the son of Linda and the Director of the London Hatchery. When John grew up his "Mother" taught him to read and write. John's entire worldview is based on his knowledge of Shakespeare's plays which he quotes quite often in the novel. John is the only main character that has grown up outside of the society, and is much like 3 other characters that have grown up inside the society. Though this may seem unlikely he is a lot like Mustapha Mond the World Controller of Western Europe, Bernard Marx an Alpha male, and Hemholtz also an Alpha male. When Mustapha Mond was a young man he loved science and read literature which has been banned from the new society. Mond loved reading the works of Shakespeare and other books on religion. "Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about my ears and sometimes voices (148)." He is most like John in the sense that they both were ripped from what they loved, Mond and his love of science and John with the love of his family. Mond was given an ultimatum either conform and become a World Controller or be exiled to an island with the rest of the thinkers. Bernard, Hemholtz, and John are a lot alike because they feel that something is terrible wrong with the world around them. Bernard being an Alpha male is considered inadequate to his colleagues because he is physically different from other Alpha males.

"He's so ugly!" said Fanny. "But I rather like his looks." "And then so small." Fanny made a grimace; smallness was so horribly and typically low-caste. "I think that's rather sweet," said Lenina. "One feels one would like to pet him. You know. Like a cat." Fanny was shocked. "They say somebody made a mistake when he was still in the bottle-thought he was a Gamma