CHAPTER 17

CHARACTERS:

Mustapha Mond is the protagonist of this chapter. In the dialogue with John he explains his story and the moral of this society. He reveals himself very different from the description of the first chapters. -
John represents the rebel of this society.
He refuses the thoughts of Mustapha Mond, the society, Lenina….He is also an outsider in BNW and the so – called Savage. In this part of the book John is the main character. John´s behaviour helps the reader not to lose the sense of the books context. Perhaps John shows Huxley´s point of view of such a state. John’s rebellion against the philosophy is good but his self – violence shocks the reader.
Helmholtz Watson is, for me the anti-Mustapha Mond . He is an outsider for his big intelligence and for this reason he can know the limits of this society. He is very similar to the young Mond.
Bernard Marx, the friend of John and Lenina, in this chapter isn't very important. In BNW Bernard is an outsider in his world. He is not satisfied with himself and he has real complexes because of the differences to other people. Bernard does not want to be an outsider. This is shown in this chapter because he does not want to go to the island.

SHORT REPORT:

  In this chapter there is a very interesting dialogue between Mustapha Mond and John. The controller explains to the group composed of John, Helmholtz and Bernard ,the moral of this society. But John and Helmholtz don’t agree with him and say their personal observations about god, religion and death….

THEMES PRESENTED:

In this chapter Mustapha Mond and John represent two types of different mentalities, but at the same time two very similar individuals.
When Mustapha Mond speaks with John and his friend Helmholtz Watson, we can deduce the real mentality of this "strange" character.
He says that when he was young he liked science, religion, art (as John the Savage), but after Ford, he refused this type of thoughts and became one of the ten controllers of the BNW.
After that he explains to Helmholtz the bases of this society with some meaningful sentences In this chapter the main topic is the dialoge about literature. The old literature must be forbidden because nobody would understand the topics of the literature. John wants to express his feelings by quotating for example Othello by William Shakespeare. But those feeling do not exist in BNW.

RELEVANT QUOTATIONS:

" Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness" Mustapha Mond.
" Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't ", the danger of the truth " But truth's a menace, science is a public danger", moreover criticizes the past world." Mustapha Mond
" What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when anthrax bombs are popping all around you ? That was when science first began to be controlled, after Nine Year's War" and "Happiness had got to be paid for ".Mustapha Mond
OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE STYLE:
We can say that in this chapter there are mostly dialogues, between Mond and John, Mond and Helmholtz, John and Helmotz and consequently there aren't psychological descriptions or descriptions of the environment.

WHAT THE CHAPTER REPRESENTS IN THE WHOLE STORY AND PERSONAL COMMENTS:

This story represents a fundamental part in the story, because after 15 chapters we can know the true origin of this terrifying society!!!! We know the true Mond, the true Helmotz, after too much description Huxley does a (indirect) psychological description of these characters with the use of dialogue. The different parts of this dialogue represent the different types of mentalities of two different societies. ( anti-utopic and utopic , because I think that John is a naïve person and also his imaginary society is utopian).
For this reason I think that the XVI chapter is the most important in the story.
I think this chapter is very important to understand the conflict between John and BNW but also the misunderstanding of Helmholtz and Bernard. Mond is the person who explains the structure of the world to the reader. It shows BNW is a lot more than technology and science and that especially Mond is in an inner conflict with himself.

MAURIZIO AND KATHARINA P..