Brave New World IHubReads Chapter 3

Adding onto the last two chapters, chapter three contributes by explaining the settings to the readers in a new way. Chapter three consists of series of events that contradict our current common beliefs. By going through events like children playing erotic games, talking about families as if they are strange things, and talking about pregnancy substitutes, the author forces the readers to realize the differences between their world and ours, and to throw questions at themselves. The new way that chapter three adopted  further more represents the differences between the characters’ view and ours, by letting us hear them talking about us. By listening to the Controller and DHC recalling and explaining our current lives, and watching the students’ reactions, the readers are able to see the contrast between the book’s way of thinking and ours, and better understand the setting of the book. If chapter one and two were about describing the physical and cultural setting of the book, chapter three, by showing the readers the reactions and the characters’ way of talking, was able to show the readers the actual people’s way of life, and thinking shaped by the physical and cultural background settings of the world they are living in. Some new characters that came out in this chapter were the Controller, Fanny, Assistant Predestinator, and Bernard. The entrance of the Controller was enough to show how high he was in the social class. Even just by reading chapter three, we could see that the Controller was a round character who was not like other regular flat characters in their world. He not only had the knowledge of history, but also had the wisdom to try to understand and consider the attributes and the flaws of both political systems; of their world and ours. The phrase in page 30 does well to describe how he was a round and considering man, “There were those strange rumours of old forbidden books hidden in a safe in the controller’s study. Bibles, poetry – Ford knew what.” The fact that such rumours were half-true, and that the Controller was even familiar with books that may be considered to be a book against the state, shows that the Controller is at least not just following the rules because he was told. He seeks more knowledge and information for him to decide the rights and the wrongs for himself. The next characters, Fanny and Assistant Predestinator, seem to be flat characters, who just came out to show the contrast and the relationship between the important characters. On the other hand, Bernard was a man who was different. He first of all hated what everyone else liked, and was also physically different. The world motto: Community, Identity, Stability didn’t fit for him. His way of thinking was the opposite to the world he is living in, but at the same time, due to this fact, he was able to become a character that the readers could finally relate to. Some new characteristics that were shown in this chapter were about the two characters: Henry and Lenina. We could see that Henry was the perfect guy in his world, “the perfect gentleman” (page 37). On the other hand, Lenina was a bit special; she preferred to stay with one partner, and she decided to go out with Bernard whom everyone avoided. There were mainly two things that I found interesting in this chapter. The first one was on page 30 where the author’s style of writing suddenly changed. The setting of the conversation began changing from place to place. I tried to find some kind of relationship between the dialogues but it was hard to find something that stuck out. This was something worth inquiring into. The second thing that I found interesting was on page 44 “Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches.” This seems to be one of the mottos of their world. Through this phrase we can see how the stability and community instead of individuals were successful because of this kind of idea. By using drugs called ‘Soma’, and hiding the concept of love and passion from the people, which is the idea of ‘Ending is better than mending’, the state was able to build a society where there were no deep attachments towards each other; therefore nothing important in their lives.

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