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.