Brave New World

Also split into two parts, the first part of Chapter 5 returns us to Lenina and Henry’s date. They pass the Crematorium and Henry reflects that “All men are physico-chemically equal” (74). Lenina mentions she’s glad she is not an Epsilon, but she doesn’t “suppose Epsilons really mind being Epsilons” (74). Henry confirms this, saying, “And if you were an Epsilon [...] your conditioning would have made you no less thankful that you weren’t a Beta or an Alpha” (74). They take soma and go dancing at the Westminster Abbey Cabaret, feeling the euphoria of the “soma-holiday” (77). Their night ends back at Henry’s apartment, with Lenina not forgetting to take her contraceptives, despite the soma buzz.  

In Part 2 of the chapter, we return to Bernard, who, taking leave of Helmholtz, hurries off, running late to his semiweekly “Solidarity Service day” (78). He joins a group of eleven other people to perform a ritual of sorts, taking soma in order for the “[t]welve of them […] to be made one, waiting to come together, to be fused, to lose their twelve separate identities in a larger being” (80). Throughout the ceremony, the others in the circle seem to be having authentic experiences, chanting that they “hear him” and “He’s coming” (83), him presumably being the aforementioned “larger being.” Bernard, on the other hand, begins the experience, thinking, “It’ll be a failure again” (82), and, though he tries to fake it, remains unmoved and individual. The chapter ends with him “utterly miserable” (86)

Part 1 of Chapter 6 opens with Lenina attempting to balance Bernard Marx’s “oddness” with the opportunity of going to the Savage Reservation that he represents, as such a trip is something that very few are permitted to do (88).

In an extended scene, we see one of their dates together, in which Lenina is constantly repeating the hypnopaedic axioms conditioned into everyone (“A gram [of soma] is always better than a damn” [90]), while Bernard continuously strives for a more individual and unique experience with her, hating the standardized conversation she offers (“Oh, for Ford’s sake, be quiet!” [90]). In one scene, he hovers his aircraft over the ocean in inclement weather, saying it makes him feel “as though I were more me, if you see what I mean. More on my own” (90). Lenina, however, a dutiful consumer, finds it “horrible” (91). In response to the mantra “When the individual feels, society reels,” Marx says, “Well, why shouldn’t it reel a bit?” (94). Part 1 ends with Lenina’s shallow appreciation for his “awfully nice hands” (94).

In Part 2, Bernard speaks with the Director about signing his permit to see the Savage Reservation in New Mexico with Lenina. The Director, clearly weary of Marx and his occasional “lapse from a proper standard of infantile decorum” (98), attempts to dissuade the visit by telling him about a time, twenty or twenty-five years previous, when the Director himself had visited the same reservation with “the girl [he] was having” (96), but they had fallen asleep, waking to a horrible thunderstorm, and she had been lost, and presumed dead. Marx is unpersuaded, and the Director warns him that he will have him transferred to a post in Iceland if he does not shape up, though Bernard remains defiant.

Part 3 jumps to the trip to the Reservation, and Bernard and Lenina’s welcome and orientation from the Warden. The Warden and Bernard tell Lenina what she is in for: “about sixty thousand Indians and half-breeds...absolute savages [...] still preserve their repulsive habits and customs...marriage if you know what that is, my dear young lady” (103). We also learn that Bernard’s friend, Helmholtz, has found out that the D.H.C. is actively trying to have him relocated and has conveyed that information to Bernard. The chapter ends on the cusp of the two entering the Reservation, Bernard promising “they’re perfectly tame; savages won’t do you any harm” (106).