CHAPTER 11

Summary:  

The 11^th chapter is about the first days of John and his mother Linda in the New World. Everybody wants to see John and he becomes a society hit but no one wants to see Linda because she is old and fat. She’s happy to be back in the “Brave New World” and she is glad to have her Soma back, so she’ always at a Soma-holiday.

Bernard, who always was the looser, isn’t the bad man anymore and he thinks he can have all women he wants to have. Behind him all people talk bad about him but it doesn’t matter to him.

One day Bernard and John go to the Eton school together. It’s a school where children learn how to work in their job (conditioning….). John asks directly if they read Shakespeare but for the teacher such books are just an amusement and an unimportant thing which the children don’t need in their live. For him the book is very important and he can’t understand why they don’t read it a t school.

At the same time Lenina talks to her friend Funny and they talk about John. Lenina has had one night with John but they hadn’t got sex, what Funny and all the other people can’t understand. Lenina likes John but cannot tell if he likes her, too.

The same day John and Lenina go to the movie house together and all people were enthusiastic about the film, just John hates the movie, but it reinvigorates his passion for Lenina. His shame at his physical desire overwhelms him. To Lenina's bewilderment, John refuses to have sex with her. He locks himself in his room and reads Shakespeare's Othello. Lenina returns to her room and takes soma.

Characterisation of the people:

Bernard: before discovering John he was lonely and isolated, when they come back he is very popular and thinks he can have any woman he wants. But behind him most of the people talk badly about him but it doesn't matter to him.
His friendship to Helmholtz is very important because he supports Bernard in his opinion that the World State must be criticised.
 
John: He is the popular boy in Brave New World. On the Reservation he was an outsider because he was made in the New World and that's why he isn't accepted on the Reservation.
He loves his Shakespeare book and has been influenced by it (for all his life). Because of his knowledge he is something special in the New World.
He loves Lenina, but he doesn't like the kind of loving each other like they do it in the New World. He wants real feelings, but Lenina doesn't agree with it (and doesn't understand what he means).
 John is afraid of his mother because she always takes Soma and because of this he goes to a doctor and talks to him.
 
 Linda: She's happy to be in her "Old" World again and the first thing she does is to take Soma. From then on she takes it all the time. She isn't really popular in Brave New World because she is old and fat and that's why she keeps a distance to the other people.

Function of the chapter:

It's the first chapter where a man becomes popular and accepted in the book. This chapter wants to show the differences between both worlds, the old world and the Brave New World. It is shown by way of John that life in another world is hard and that he can't live there without thinking of his former life. John, who represents the Old world in this book, bases his view of life on his Shakespeare book and he also lives like that in the New World (school--> asks directly if the students read Shakespeare there.) It's really hard for him to live in the New World because everything is different from his former life/life on the reservation.
I think this is the major function of the chapter to show the differences between the two worlds when they come together .

Themes/Topics:

I thing the biggest theme in this chapter is becoming part of the new world and being accepted by having success. Another important aspect is that the differences between both worlds are shown and the difficulty of John to live in this new world (John wants real love to Lenina, he sticks to his old life with his Shakespeare book--> at school he asks if the students read Shakespeare).
Another important aspect in this chapter is the education of the children which is connected with John's difficulties in the New World. He can't understand why the students at Eton school don't read Shakespeare or other books.
 
John, who is the central character in this chapter, wants to make real love to Lenina like all people did it in the Old world, but it isn't accepted in the New World and nobody understands why John wants to do it.

Style:

Most of the chapter is presented in a narrative way, just in some parts there are also dialogues.

Personal comment:

I think this chapter is very important for the book, because you can see that after every high time there comes a bad time again, like Bernard in this book.

I think the differences between the two worlds, the Old World and the New World, is presented in a very good way and you can see very well how hard it is for a human being to live in a quite different way of life.

The 11^th chapter in one of my favourite chapters because there is a lot of action and you can also see feelings of the people from the New World, like Lenina (“John is very sweet”), what you can’t see anywhere else in the book.

Relevant Quotations:

- “Do they read Shakespeare?” asks the Savage ….  “Certainly not” said the Head                    Mistress, blushing….. “….We doesn’t encourage them to indulge in any solitary amusements” (page 147)

- “Because, of course, the first thing they all want to know is what’s it like to make love to a savage”. (Page 149)

-  “Five minutes later he was back in his room. From its hiding-place he took out his mouse-nibbled volume, turned with religious care its stained and crumpled pages, and began to read Othello …… Drying her eyes, Lenina walked across the roof to the lift. On her way down to the twenty-seventh floor she pulled out her soma bottle. One gramme, she decided; would not be enough…. Shook out three half-gramme tablets” (page 155)

 BY MATTEO & STEFI