The first half of chapter 4 was about a conversation between Lenina and Bernard. Lenina and Bernard met in public and Lenina accepted Bernard’s invitation where everyone could hear. However, for Bernard, it was embarrassing to talk about such things in public. In this scene, by peeking into Lenina’s thoughts, we can assume one of the reasons why she accepted Bernard’s invitation. “Anyhow, she was publicly proving her unfaithfulness to Henry. Fanny ought to be pleased, even though it was Bernard.” (Page 51) By looking at this phrase, we can see that part of her reason was to prove to everyone that she was no longer abnormal and fit into the community. The other half of this chapter was focused on Bernard’s perspective. It showed a glimpse of Bernard’s life and his complexes. After this came the communication between Bernard and Helmholtz Watson. A friendship between two very opposite men was very interesting to see. Bernard was the outcast of society; in some sense lower than the Epsilons in the community’s view, while Helmholtz was the famous; the role model. But at the same time, the fact that even the two opposite people in the society ended up with the same idea that there was something more, could be evidence to support that their idea was true. A new character that came out in this chapter was Helmholtz Watson. He was a man of admiration itself. He had a handsome body, intelligence, and girls. He was the exact opposite of Bernard. This chapter also did a good job of allowing the readers to further understand Bernard’s life and his characteristics. There were several things that caught my attention in this chapter. The first ones were phrases on page 56 and page 58 “Those who meant well behaved in the same way as those who meant badly.”, “The mockery made him feel an outsider, and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility around by being alien and alone.” These phrases were from Bernard’s point of view. However, while I was reading these, they reminded me of the disabled people in our current world. I thought that these phrases not only described Bernard’s life, but also described how the disabled people in our world feel when they are often seen differently, just because they are physically and mentally different. The second thing that I found interesting was on page 57 “Wretched, in a word, because she had behaved as any healthy virtuous English girl out to behave and not in some other, abnormal extraordinary way.” This phrase was interesting because even though the word ‘wretched’ was supposed to be bad, the rest of the phrase which described the victim didn’t have any bad words. The next thing that I found was on page 56 and 57. “’My word,’ said Lenina, ‘I’m glad I’m not a gamma’”, “’I am I, and I wish I wasn’t’”. The first quote was from Lenina while the second was from Bernard. We can see a clear contrast between these two. If you recall, there was a similar phrase on page 25 “I’m really awfully glad I’m a beta because…”. This was the phrase that was repeated to people every night when they were infants. By looking at those three phrases we can see the clear difference between Lenina and Bernard. While Lenina is living as the state wanted her to, Bernard was clearly defying what he should not have been able to defy, according to the information we knew about the power of hypnopaedia.

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.

After finishing the tour in the Decanting room, the students and the DHC moved into a room called Infant Nurseries Neo-Pavlovian conditioning. In that room, the DHC presented a performance to the students, that demonstrates the use of hypnopaedia. One example of how the infants were trained was using terror and pain to make them hate books and flowers. DHC gave the infants some books and flowers, and gave them horrible sounds, and gave electrical shocks to them. Also, when they were sleeping, very quite repetitions of rules and policies they need to follow were being whispered in order to shape their moral personalities. Chapter 2 touched more upon the political shape of the world. The demonstration that may be viewed by the readers as a cruel thing to do well explained the functions and the differences of social classes. The way they were training the children was to ignore the children’s freedom, and predestine their life. This tells the readers that the political state of the world is more towards communism where the community as a whole is more important than the individuals. There weren’t really any new characters that were introduced in this chapter, but through this chapter some new characteristics were revealed from the DHC. One major thing that was revealed was “”But all these suggestions are our suggestions!”, “Suggestions from the State”, “It therefore follows…””. By this phrase, we can see how DHC understands the problems around freedom and predestined lives.

My book for the IHub reads is ‘Brave New World’ and this blog is about chapter 1. Chapter 1 focuses a lot on describing the setting of the story. The story, told in third person omniscient view, begins in a building called ‘Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre’. In chapter one, the author uses a scene of Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning(DHC) giving a tour around the building and explaining the functions of each room to the students to indirectly inform the readers of what kind of world they are currently living in. Instead of just laying out the settings word by word for the readers, the author uses the characters’ thoughts and actions to allow the readers to guess the settings by themselves. By going through a tour around a building that functions as the foundation of all the strange characteristics that the world is built on, the readers are able to find the differences of our world compared to theirs, and set the basic background information about the world, which will later allow them to easily understand some of the odd principles and actions that the characters in the book are living by. By explaining to the readers the reason and the function of a fertilizing room, the readers get to know that the people living in their world no longer seek to be viviparous. By explaining the detailed process of bokanovskification, the readers get to guess the era and the political principles that the world is in. By furtively mentioning the World Controllers, Epsilons, and their social destinies, the author gives a hint to the readers about the social class and the discrimination that the people in the lower class are forced to undergo. The three main characters that chapter 1 reveals are the DHC, Lenina, and Henry Foster. DHC seems to be a very informed man with a lot of knowledge about the system of the world. Henry Foster appears to be very involved in his work. However, a quote in the chapter “He was going to say future World Controllers, but correcting himself, said ‘future Directors of Hatcheries’ instead.” (page.11) shows that he is a very sly canny person. Lenina was another character whose characteristics weren’t fully shown, who has a professional relationship with Henry Foster. There are two main things that I found interesting in this chapter. One of them is at page 5 “Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines”. The adjectives that are describing both twins and machines are exactly the same. This rhyming quote seems to work as symbolism for how the people in this world view humans as nothing more than workers made to function as another kind of machine. Another thing that caught my interest was on page 13 “That is the secret of happiness and virtue-liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.” I don’t know for sure if the author used the word ‘unescapable’ on purpose, knowing that the proper form is ‘inescapable’, in order to stress this point, but the reason why this phrase caught my eye was because this phrase sounded like it created a Utopia for everyone. In the current era, lots of people complain about how they have to give up what they want to do, and do what they are good at. Often the things that we are good at are not the things that we want to do. Reading the phrase from this era’s view, making people like what they’ve got to do really seems to be the secret of happiness and virtue. However, one thing that we have to also recognize is the word ‘unescapable social destiny’ Even if we were to like what we are supposed to do, if it’s an ‘unescapable social destiny’, would it be true happiness? Would living in a world without challenges and freedom really be a life worth living for? Would happiness gained without suffering and pain really be happy? These questions seem to be the main ones that the author is asking in the book ‘Brave New World’.