Entry 4

In our reading this week, the society of the savages is what intrigued me the most. At first, I thought Huxley was going to use the reservation as a contrast to the society that Lenina and Bernard lived in, showing that living primitively is better than living in London in the future. Lenina and Bernard would question their habits, and embrace the ways of the savages. However, Huxley did not do this; he makes the savages evil and primitive by describing their ritual of whipping the boy. I believe Huxley wrote the way he did as a way of emphasizing the xenophobia and sleep conditioning that has been engrained into the society of Lenina and Bernard. In the future, anything outside of what you are conditioned to believe is so weird, that interacting with other humans that live differently is a recreational activity. This appears again at the end of the novel, when people come to watch John whip himself.

Furthermore, the strength of the conditioning that they go through can be seen again in Linda. Her desire to go back to London and use soma, even after living with the savages and raising a child, shows that the sleep-conditioning of their society lasts forever. I believe Huxley is trying to emphasize just how dehumanized and manufactured human life has become. Just like how an object or a tool has no mind of its own and can never break free of what it was made to do, humans in the future have become the same way.