Multigenre Letter

Dear Reader,
This project has been a long, complex endeavor, which at times was tedious, and other times enlightening. When I started, I had a good idea of what I wanted to read and what I wanted to do. The book I chose, (I know "book" isn't very specific, but I'm not sure what else to call it) The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow was one I had been intending on reading for long time, but never got around to. So I took this chance to read it, and I have learned a lot from it, not just the math behind many of the methods outlined in the book, but also the impact those methods have, and the opinions society has of applied math. The book itself is not very clear on a purpose, as Mlodinow just rambles about math while intertwining little stories here and there, but it was obvious that one of his frustration had to do with the way math is treated, taught, and applied. And so that became the topic of my multigenre research project.
When I sat down to do my first blog post, I had no idea how I would be able to come up with four different genres to write for this project. There was no way I could write a poem about math, or a story that teaches math. And so my project evolved into something more having to do with the applications of math, of how we, as a society, treat math, and what are some flaws in our ideas. I also got a great idea from Cammy, which I'm pretty happy about. The more I read, and the more research I did, the more I realized that there was a real problem with the way we teach applied math/statistics/data analysis. I never thought that there would be so much out there about how statistics are misused in everyday life, because, well, those facts would probably be statistics as well, which would seem a little hypocritical. But there was real material out there, and a lot of it I wasn't able to incorporate into the expository essay, because I heard from the grapevine that it shouldn't be too long. (My first draft was 7+ pages long in Word.) From this material, I got more ideas as to what I could do for the four pieces, and they were less about the math, and more about the philosophy behind the math and stuff.
My golden thread, was the quote "They don't understand. They don't understand the principles of randomness." I picked this because the book was about randomness, and I wrote about probability and how people don't really understand much of the math behind every life. I couldn't come up with a good symbol that I could actually intertwine into the four pieces. I intended for the reader to end every piece thinking about whether or not they truly understand many of the decisions they make every day, or many of the things they hear. So I placed my golden thread at the end of every piece to emphasize it and hopefully give it a little more force.
I intended for my project to be eye-opening for people who don't understand math like I do, who have never given things like the math behind the success rate of medical tests a second thought. But it was hard for me to actually create something that would make sense to someone without extensive training in math and statistics, since I am very biased, and all of it makes sense to me. I certainly hope that I achieved this goal to some extent, thought I think maybe there should be more walkthrough of the math than I had actually included, or at least a little more elaboration. I am pretty satisfied with the result of the project, and I hope you are too. I appreciate you taking the time to read this letter and the project.

Sincerely,

Justin Liao

Why Math?

Many people ask, "Why do I need math?

I know how to add, how to subtract, divide, and multiply."

But tell me this, what do you know about probability?

Do you know what expected value is?

Or combination or permutation?

We lose when we play the lottery, we lose at roulette.

We lose at blackjack, slots, and craps.

Doctors make mistakes conveying probabilities

Of sickness or infection to patients.

Courtroom testimonies that are full of crap,

Are accepted as reality.

CEOs are worth billions of dollars,

After a single year of good performance.

But in the next years they aren't worth half that much.

But we can stop wasting our time and money,

If we take the time to learn more about stats,

And probability.

There are mountains of data that surround us,

And processing it is difficult.

Learning stats and probability,

Let us make better life choices.

But for now they don't understand.

They don’t understand

The principles of randomness.

Something Needs to Be Done

Dear Mr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson,

I have heard a lot about your activities in promoting the STEM sector of education and economy. You give me hope for a better future for the STEM sector in the U.S. by championing STEM education. Student these days in the U.S. do not receive enough training on probability, statistics, and other real-world applications of math that is more advanced than arithmetic. Every year, people as a whole lose millions on lottery tickets, hoping for that slight chance to win big. Many others go broke trying to gamble their way back from debt in a casino or other setting, a statistical improbability. People do not understand that in a casino, the house always wins in the long run, so playing more loses more money, and playing three other people in poker, even if you are twice as good as any of them, there is still a negative expected value. Students no longer know what nCr is, or what the Monte Hall problem is. In fact, very few of them can even solve a probability problem using a simple, case-by-case basis to decide whether or not a decision is beneficial.

The lack of mathematical understanding of real-world situations is hindering our children substantially on the world stage, especially against countries like China, who are in close competition with the U.S. Despite being the most powerful and technologically advanced nation on the face of the planet, our students' average mathematical capabilities rank 25th in the world. In fact, this mathematical deficiency even extends to doctors, who have a responsibility to inform you of the results of your tests. I myself have been subjected to this lack of understanding.

My doctor told me that there was a 99.9% chance I was going to die within 10 years. I had tested positive for AIDS. However, after a little research I discovered that the doctor had reported the probability that I had tested positive for AIDS given that I had AIDS, instead of the probability that I had AIDS, given that I had tested positive. In reality, I did not have AIDS, and the true probability my doctor should have reported was 1 out of 11. Even professionals who should be trained against making such mistakes are showing holes in their learning. This is a clear indicator that skills related to analyzing data and calculating probability is severely lacking here in the US, and something needs to be done.

Since you are so well liked and well known, I hope that you will champion the improvement of mathematics classes throughout the nation as you do with science education. The children of America and its future depends on the realization of this problem and on how the administration deals with it. If we hope to continue producing the world's top scientists and engineers, as well as overall, educated populace, I am sure you'll agree with me that this problem must be addressed, because right now, they don’t understand. They don’t understand the principles of randomness.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Mathematician

If Probability Was Person

Probability is not very popular. He doesn't have many friends, and the only ones he has think he is annoying. Probability is a very complex person, which only a few can figure out. He feels lonely sometimes, and often quite useless, despite his great potential. The only true friend to Probability is Statistics, who needs Probability for much of his job. Probability and Statistics get along well, but there are days when Probability feels that Statistics doesn't need him anymore.

Not so long ago, Probability was diagnosed with attachment disorders and given medication. However, his medication doesn't always work well and some days he feels particularly bad. Statistics often tries to comfort Probability, who desperately clings on to his only true friend. One day, Probability is feeling especially down, and Statistics is away on a business trip, one that does not require help from Probability. It was then that Probability decided that if no one wanted him or needed him, he might as well just end it all. So, he went to the top of the tallest building in his city, and as he was standing at the edge of the roof, he told himself, “No one cares about what I can do. No one cares about my factorials, or my permutations. No one cares about how I could contribute to society.” And so, Probability jumped off the building, and died.

The next day, Statistics returned from his business trip to find that everyone had gone crazy. Without probability, people could not make good life choices. Some were jumping off rooftops, believing they could fly. Others were gambling away millions on ridiculous bets. A select few even played Russian Roulette with five bullets. Statistics, after spending so much time with probability, understood some basic principles, and was not vulnerable to stupid decisions. As for everyone else, they don’t understand. They don’t understand the principles of randomness, they don’t understand probability.

A Mathematical Day in the Life of Bob

7:30 a.m. Bob wakes up, showers, brushes his teeth, eats breakfast, and watches the news. The weather comes on every 10 minutes for 2 minutes, breakfast takes 10 minutes, so there is an 83% chance of Bob catching the entirety of the weather while he is eating.

8:30 a.m. Bob shows up at the train station. The train arrives every 10 minutes, stops for 20 seconds, so only a 3.3% chance a train is stopped at the station when Bob reaches the top of the platform.

8:45 a.m. Bob gets of the train and walks two blocks to his office. The two traffic lights are green for 30 seconds, flashing for 15 seconds, and red for 45 seconds. There is a 11% chance that Bob is able to walk to the office without having to stop at a traffic light.

8:55 a.m. Bob arrives at the office building. The elevator is constantly going from floor to floor, but consistently returning to the first floor, since people are always waiting for the elevator before work. Average time between the elevator arriving is 45 seconds, standard deviation is 20 seconds, so the probability of an elevator arriving within 15 seconds of Bob arriving is 7%.

8:56 a.m. Bob arrives at his floor, but doesn’t want his boss to see him, because his boss is always asking Bob to fetch coffee for him. The boss looks out his door for 10 seconds every 30 seconds. It takes Bob 15 seconds to walk to his desk. Probability of not being spotted by his boss is 16%.

11:17 a.m. Bob is getting bored, so decides to go on Facebook. Bob switches between his work and Facebook every 30 seconds, and his boss, while walking around, can only see his screen for 10 seconds, but will see his screen 3 times. Probability of not being caught is 11%.

1:00 p.m. Bob is going out to lunch, but doesn’t want to run into a co-worker he got into a fight with yesterday. They are both going to the same restaurant and ordering out. Bob will be there for 7 minutes, and his co-worker, being indecisive, will be there for 8 minutes, both between 1:00 and 1:30. The probability of them not running into each other is 44%.

1:50 p.m. Bob is heading back to the office. However, he knows that there is a planned protest that will be on a street he needs to pass by, but he doesn’t remember whether it is at 1:45 or 2:45. It will slow him down 10 minutes, but taking an alternate route guarantees an extra 4 minutes. The best decision is to take the extra route, which has expected value of 4 extra minutes as opposed to gambling, which has expected value of 5 extra minutes.

4:00 p.m. Bob has a presentation to make, but he is unprepared. There are five people going before him, and Bob thinks that they’ll take an average of eleven minutes, with a standard deviation of 3 minutes. There is a 23% chance he will escape without having to present.

6:05 p.m. Bob is going to dinner with a few of his co-workers later, and stops by a convenience store to buy a lottery ticket. He pays one dollar for it, which is more than it is worth. Taking into account all of the other prizes than can be won, as well as the probability of someone else guessing the same numbers as him, the expected value of the ticket should be 97 cents.

9:17 p.m. Bob is at the bar with his co-workers. One of them bets him $100 that the Blackhawks will lose the series against the Ducks, but if he is right, Bob will have to pay him $115. The series hasn’t begun yet, and the Hawks are considered better than the Ducks, with the Hawks projected to win 55% of the games. If these projections are correct, Bob should take the bet, which has an expected value of gaining him $15.

11:00 p.m. Bob is drunk, arrives at home. Across the street, a neighbor and his wife see Bob, and try to guess where he’ll step next. But a drunkard’s walk is almost completely random, and they don’t understand. They don’t understand the principles of randomness.

An Analysis and Solution of the Problem of Probability and Statistics

Statistics and probability appear in everyday life, and yet the average high school student only encounters a very basic form of probability and no statistics in school. In an age where data is all around us, curriculums all across the nation are lacking a sturdy data analysis course that teaches young adults to understand information given to them every second of every day and to make conscious, logical decisions with that information. A lack of understanding of statistics, probabilistic theories, and data analysis not only applies to the average American, but to some experts too. This deficiency in the American general intelligence starts with outdated curriculums, and spreads to many other fields of work, such as medicine or law. As applied mathematics, the umbrella name for probability, statistics, data analysis and a handful of other types of mathematics, becomes more important in everyday life, the general populace will become more misinformed and make worse and worse decisions.

Many people depend on their doctors to help them get into better health, to diagnose them, and to prescribe medication. But many doctors lack the statistical education and knowledge to do such things, and most patients don’t even realize it. In a Los Angeles Times article discussing medical journals, David Shaw, a journalist, expresses that, “The other problem with media coverage of most epidemiological studies, scientists say, is a misunderstanding and misuse of statistics” (Shaw). The media coverage in this case are the medical journals. They are doctors’ main source of information on studies done by other doctors\. Because these journals discuss and analyze statistics, their misuse or a misunderstanding of statistics could lead to a domino effect, leading to repercussions beyond a single study. A lack of understanding of statistics on a medical journal’s part could lead to grave mistakes in the field of medicine, a field people rely on for their well-being.

But mistakes made in medicine can also be made when diagnosing. When this happens, patients are directly affected. Leonard Mlodinow, a professor of mathematics at Caltech and author of Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, describes an encounter he had with his doctor, which almost led to disaster.

my doctor told me by telephone that the chances were 999 out of 1,000 that I’d be dead within the decade… My doctor had confused the chances that I would test positive if I was not HIV-positive with the chances that I would not be HIV-positive if I tested positive… He should have said, ‘Don’t worry, the chances are better than 10 out of 11 that you are not infected’ (Mlodinow 115).

Mlodinow was lucky to know enough statistics to be able to figure out that his doctor was wrong. But most people don’t, and wouldn’t question a doctor, because they assume that doctors know better. But if doctors do not understand probability, who knows how many people were incorrectly diagnosed with certain diseases? The nation needs more statistics education so that doctors do not lie to patients, and patients are smart enough to figure out when it’s happening.

Medicine is not the only field that uses statistics. Courts oftentimes employ statistics as evidence. Because the jury is selected f as people from every walk of life, it is almost guaranteed that there will be someone without education in statistics. In a California Court Case, statistics were used to convict an innocent couple. According to the Harvard Law School,

Applying the product rule to his own factors the prosecutor arrived at a probability that there was but one chance in 12 million that any couple possessed the distinctive characteristics of the defendants… the ‘product rule'’ would inevitably yield a wholly erroneous and exaggerated result (Sullivan).

In this case, the expert statistics witness had offered statistics, which had no basis, and applied a statistical rule that was not applicable to the situation, and arrived at incredibly slim odds that the accused was innocent. The jury, which in general did not understand the mistake that the “expert witness” made, convicted the defendant. It turned out that the defendant was innocent, and eventually, they were released. But this mistake is important because it illustrates that with the right manipulation of statistical functions, an expert could convince a jury that just about anyone is guilty.

Secondary education in the U.S.A. may hold the answer as to what the root of the problem is. In public school Evanston Township High School (ETHS), which over 2500 students attend, students are required to take three years of mathematics courses. In those three years, probability is only touched on in Algebra 1 and Algebra 2, and not discussed in Geometry. Statistics is not present anywhere in those three years. ETHS offers AP Statistics, but it is not a required course, and many students do not take the class. The solution to the problem of education in applied math fields such as probability would be to put it in the mandatory curriculum of every high school in the US. That way, no one will be caught off-guard and everyone will be able to make better decisions.

Works Cited

Sullivan, J. "People v. Collins 68 Cal. 2d 319, 438 P.2d 33, 66 Cal. Rptr. 497 (1968)."People v. Collins 68 Cal. 2d 319, 438 P.2d 33, 66 Cal. Rptr. 497 (1968). N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2015.

Shaw, David. "Stories on What You Eat, Drink Reflect Lack of Context, Appetite for Conflict." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 14 Feb. 2000. Web. 18 May 2015.

Mlodinow, Leonard. The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. New York: Pantheon, 2008. Print.

2nd Blog Post

Since my last blog post, I've been able to confirm multiple things about my project as well as finish my book. First, I'll talk about the book. Once again, my book is The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow. The book comes to a close with Mlodinow tying together all of the different types of probabilistic theory and data analysis into one greater meaning. He discusses how we may feel we are in control of a lot more in our lives than we really are. For example, Mlodinow asserts that one of the factors that contributes to success, especially financial success are chance encounters. These can happen completely randomly, and we have very little control over these matters. Randomness can also ruin our lives, as Mlodinow points out by telling a story about his mother, who was in the Holocaust. Mlodinow's mother witnessed the death of her sister in the Holocaust, which led her to believe that you can't plan for anything in life, and that we should not even try to plan, just go with the flow. Mlodinow disagrees with his mother, saying that maybe we don't have as much control as we would like, but we do have control, we can make choices that affect our lives, and that we would probably go insane if we truly believed that we don't control our own paths in life.
Throughout the entire book, Mlodinow teaches the reader, me, about different types of probabilistic theory and data analysis, while telling stories about certain famous mathematicians. However, Mlodinow is pointing out, whether he meant to or not, that education about the kinds of topics presented in his book are lacking here in the US. This inspired me to look deeper into how much of probability and data analysis we actually teach in school, which in my experience is, unless you specifically take electives that are geared toward those topics, is none. I also want to look into how that lack of understanding affects situations in the real world, because Mlodinow talks about real-world situations that involve incorrect applications of math, even in his personal life. My expository essay will probably deal with how a lack of understanding affects our lives, and how deep it actually goes. For example, I found a court case in which probabilistic theory was incorrectly used to convict a couple of theft. The case was later overturned, but that is still just awful.
As for my pieces, I will take Cammy's advice to try and write something like a day in the life of some person, and calculate some probabilities. I think that it is a great idea, and that it will be fun to come up with a bunch of different scenarios that I can apply math to. Also, I want to write a letter of some sort, maybe to the author, or maybe to a famous/influential STEM person. Third, I was thinking about writing some kind of story, illustrating what would happen if humans didn't understand probability. There would be quite a few funny things that could happen in that case. As for the fourth, I'm not sure, maybe a math collage?
Finally, the reason the book is called the Drunkard's Walk is because the way a person walks when drunk is extremely hard to predict, and is almost completely random.

Randomness in our world

For my independent reading book, I am reading The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow, a nonfiction book about applied math. In this book, Mlodinow discusses theories of probability and how we, as humans, perceive a series of events. He writes with a passion about mathematics and what it reveals about human behavior and the world around us, offering humorous stories and detailed references.The book is based upon the fact that much of the math that resides behind seemingly coincidental or surprising events often indicate the exact opposite. Mlodinow also discusses how we see patterns where they don’t exist, or use strategies to solve problems that are not the best. Take, for example, trying to guess whether or not a light will appear green or red. Mlodinow asserts that, if you are given the fact that the light shines green 75% of the time, and red 25% of the time, most humans would try to match their guesses with that proportion, guessing green 75% of the time and red 25% of the time. According to the math, doing so would, on average, yield a correct guess only 60% of the time, while guessing green every time, a strategy used by rats and other animals, yields a correct guess 75% of the time, thus outperforming the average human. Another example presented, like many of them, is from the lottery. In Germany, in 1995, the exact same lottery numbers, consisting of 6 numbers from 1 to 49, were drawn in two consecutive days, the first repeat in 3016 drawings. The participants were flabbergasted by the result. What were the odds? The chances of this happening once over 3016 draws comes out to be about 28%. Not bad, huh?

The book continues on, mentioning famous problems such as the Monty Hall Problem, and mentioning famous mathematicians like Bernoulli or Cardano. Ideas such as regression toward the mean are brought up, as well as issues such as how much a CEO should be paid. There are many issues that are brought up in this book that are possible routes for research and/or an expository essay, and many more unexplored phenomena out there in the world just waiting to be found. There are just so many interesting things that happen in everyday life that we think is random or coincidental, when they should be expected on a day-to-day basis. Such as the probability of running into an old friend, or finding the parking meter that still has an hour on it. These ideas of human fallacy and misunderstanding of probability and patterns could definitely be built up into a multi-genre research paper, since they appear almost everywhere. The idea that there is so much that we are doing wrong, or going about the wrong way to do things excites me, and the mathematics that can guide us toward a better path intrigues me.

The Price of Happiness and Stability

In the book Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, the topic of price is brought up many times. I’m talking specifically about the price of happiness in the society of the future. Through most of the description of the society, readers can see what people have paid in order to be “happy.” In the first chapter readers are introduced to predestination, when students are given a tour of the hatchery, where it is explained that “‘We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers’” meaning that people no longer get to choose what they can be (Huxley 13). As more and more information is given to readers about the society, it is possible to see all the differences between their society and ours, and see everything they have given up. During John’s encounter with a World Controller, Mustapha Mond, they discuss all the things that are being given up. The Controller says that “You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high are. We’ve sacrificed high art” and also that “‘we can’t allow science to undo its own good work. That’s why we so carefully limit the scope of its researches” (Huxley 220, 227). Later, the Controller states that they have given up religion as well in order to be happy.

At the beginning of the book, the one person who is unsatisfied with all the concessions is Bernard Marx. He wants to be able to love, to have privacy, etc. When he talks to Lenina, “‘I want to know what passion is,’ she heard him saying. ‘I want to feel something strongly’” and later, he also asks Lenina “‘wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? in your own way’” (Huxley 94, 91). Bernard has a reputation for being unorthodox and for going against the flow. He doesn’t like society the way it is run, and believes that they are giving up too much in order to experience happiness “‘everybody else’s way’” (Huxley 91). However, once Bernard brings John to civilization, and he becomes popular, he sort of drops those ideas, and “Success went fizzily to Bernard’s head and in the process completely reconciled him... to a world which, up until then, he had found very unsatisfactory” (Huxley 157). Then, when threatened to be sent to an island, he drops all of his previous values and opinions, and says “‘You can’t send me. I haven’t done anything. It was the others... Oh, please don’t send me to Iceland. I promise I’ll do what I ought to do’” and in that moment, he abandons his previous beliefs about the price of happiness being too high, and obviously he would rather pay that price and be happy like everyone else than to go to Iceland and risk not being happy (Huxley 226).

The role that Bernard plays of criticizing the society is taken over by someone who has deeper morals, and adhered more strongly to their values. That person is John, the “savage.” Many time throughout the book, after he is introduced, John quotes from the Shakespearean line that goes “How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in ‘t!” This quote has significance, because it symbolizes John’s opinion of the new world he is exposed to. He starts off saying it earnestly, and each time he says it there is more and more sarcasm, until the scene after Linda, his mother, dies, he says “‘How many goodly creatures are there here...How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world’” but this time, “the singing words mocked him derisively” (Huxley 209). He no longer believes that the world is good anymore. He believes that they have sacrificed too much for what he calls, “‘false, lying happiness’” (Huxley 179). When John and Mustapha Mond, the Controller, are discussing the pros and cons about the society they live in, Mond says that they have things that have “‘All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences’” to which John replies, “‘But I like the inconveniences’” (Huxley 240). Mond then asserts that “‘We prefer to do things comfortably’” and John responds with “‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin” (Huxley 240). Mond tells John that

“you’re claiming the right to be unhappy… Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind” (Huxley 240)

To which John replies, “‘I claim them all’” (Huxley 240). This conversation sums up everything about costs. John wants things that are human, he wants to have religion and art, he wants to feel, but Mustapha Mond would rather people be happy than to have all those things. Everything that he sees, all the sacrifices he has chosen to take, as a World Controller, to him are worth it. The price of happiness is lower than the reward. The same goes for Bernard. Though he may have started off thinking that he would rather feel and be happy in his own way, after tasting what happiness in their society is like, he realizes that he would rather be happy than risk not being happy but have the ability to feel. However, John thinks that the price is too high. Everything he sees, the absence of religion, of high art, makes him sad, and the presence of unnatural things, like the Bokanovsky group of Delta children at the hospital, appalls him. He believes that the happiness is too fake, and that the price paid is too high. All the characters have their take on whether or not the price is worth it. Lenina’s is shown when Bernard talks to her about being free and having your own kind of happiness. Helmholtz’s is shown when he says he would rather go to the island and meet people like him and risk not being so happy. The description of the society emphasizes the loss, the social predestination, the strict caste system, etc. and the gain, the happiness, the drug, soma, which doesn’t have side effects, the open sex life, etc. This trade-off the referred to throughout the book.

My methods of close reading allowed me to see some things I would never have seen before, like how the Shakespeare quote is symbolic, or how John’s slut-shaming of Lenina and the rest of the society is the opposite of what happens in Daisy Miller: instead of everyone shaming one person, it is one person shaming everyone. I paid a lot more attention to detail, but mostly I looked at symbols and a little bit of intertextuality, but I was able to find quite a bit of. Besides the obvious direct references to Shakespeare, there is sort of a link to Romeo and Juliet between John and Lenina. They both want to be together, but they can’t because their society sets them apart. Then one of them dies and the other commits suicide. I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but there are others.

I really liked the book and would recommend the book to other people, because even though it was written the early 20th century, there are still many concepts that apply today. For example, instead of trading freedom for happiness, today we trade freedom for safety, in the form of laws such as the Patriot Act, which guards us from terrorists, but also opens up the possibility of our house being raided randomly. We also trade privacy for security, in the form of the NSA monitoring our communication. The book’s satire and sarcasm is also very humorous, and makes for an entertaining read. There are also probably many more deep messages that I didn’t catch, so I would like you to read it and tell me.

Shakespeare is everywhere

In the last part of Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, John, the “savage,” becomes very upset with the new, civilized world that he now lives in. He believes that their happiness is “‘false, lying happiness’” and he is frustrated because he in love with Lenina, and wants to do something noble for her, but she doesn’t understand love, nor does she understand why he wants to do something noble for her (Huxley 179). Eventually, Lenina makes a move on John, but John is shocked by her actions, and angrily refuses. He then goes to see his mother, Linda, who is on her deathbed. Just as Linda dies, a group of Delta “twins” come in to be conditioned to death. Their behavior offends John, because they do not seem to be sad that people are dying, and John believes that death is a sad thing. When he leaves the “Park Lane Hospital for the Dying,” he sees some Delta workers receiving soma, a drug, and decides that he needs to speak up against the society he deems indecent. He makes a speech and throws the soma away, but is arrested by some policemen and brought before the World Controller of western Europe, Mustapha Mond. There, they discuss the benefits and pitfalls of the new society, and John decides that he likes his ways better, stating that “‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy’” as well as “‘the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy;’” etc. (Huxley 240). John then moves to the countryside where he resides in a lighthouse, and tries to live off of a garden the tries to make. But reporters find him and video his “weird” actions, and eventually Lenina comes to see him. John gets very mad, and whips Lenina, presumably to death, and, the next day, commits suicide.

Throughout the book, John often says a specific quote from Shakespeare, “How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in ‘t!” He doesn’t always quote the entire section, but says bits and pieces of it a lot. In the beginning, the first time he says it is when he is invited by Bernard Marx to go to civilization with him. John is very excited because his mother has told him a lot of things about their world, like how everyone is happy. Once he arrives to “civilization,” John begins to realize that “civilization” was not what he was expecting. To him, it lacks essential values, like tears, or virtue. He believes that “civilization” is just “‘getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it… Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It’s too easy’” (Huxley 238). Eventually, when John exits the hospital for the dying, he states, “‘How many goodly creatures are there here...How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world’” except this time, “the singing words mocked him derisively” and he is quoting Shakespeare sarcastically (Huxley 209). The quote is a symbol not only for John’s opinion of the civilization in which the book is set, but also for the readers’ opinion of the civilization. The people in the civilization are no longer goodly, their happiness is fake, and their world, artificial. The people that inhabit the civilization may no longer be human, because they have lost everything that makes them human, their freedom, their independence, and their emotions. The World Controller states that “‘Happiness has got to be paid for’” and John is saying that the price is too high (Huxley 228). His sarcasm in quoting from Shakespeare indicates his loss of hope and confidence in the civilization, which I believe reflects of Huxley’s opinion of where the world was headed in his time.