"Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north- east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east…"
Interpret this final paragraph of the book--not just as John Savage's end, but also in light of the simile that Huxley uses. What was John seeking, and how did he fare in his quest? Does he represent anyone besides himself?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
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By ending the book with John's suicide, Huxley stresses the concept that BNW is a condemned society. The reader may have previously thought there was a chance that more individuals, like Bernard and Helmholtz, would begin to emerge, and society could be changed. However this quote demonstrates the hopelessness of that cause. John was, in many ways, a symbol of truth and humanity, but even he fell to the promiscuity and shallowness of society. The compass needle represents how he was searching for something better in society, but he never found it.
By failing to uphold his values, John represents more than just his own downfall. Every other character in the book who tried to stand out, or pursue something which went against society is represented in this quote. It's true that Bernard and Helmholtz left society, but if they had remained, the same would have happened to them. Huxley uses John's death as a symbol that anyone who tries to defy society will eventually fall.
Also, it is Ironic that Lenina, one of the few people who stood a chance of being intimate, was indirectly the cause of John's death.
Building off what of Shawn said, the suicide of John not only represents the ideals and values of humanity, but also that humanity seems to have lost its way. By describing the direction in which John’s feet were spinning, it feels as if that is a symbol of where humanity is – lost and forever running around in circles, unsure of its purpose. Perhaps John was simply the means to try and deliver humanity to an inhuman world, but in the end was still blown off course by falling into the traps of the Brave New World. He, as the turning feet shows, has become another person lost to the depths of the Brave New World. The small bits of humanity as represented in John have been engulfed by the infantile world of Huxley’s creation.
When “Huxley uses John's death as a symbol that anyone who tries to defy society will eventually fall”, Huxley also shows that anyone who tries to bring humanity to an infantile world is also doomed to fail. Maturity and emotions cannot mix with the Brave New World, and anyone who tries to do so will be defeated, whether through exile of death.
When John chose to take his own life, given the huge amount of attention he had recieved upon coming to the Ford, i would've guessed that there would be quite a memorial service. But then i remembered that sadly, no one mourns for their dead, and as Huxley states in this simile, their life will continue on as if nothing happened. Tick tock tick tock. The people of the Ford continue spinning around the clock, living in the soma haze that is their life.
John was seeking the romanticized life he read about in Shakespeare. It seemed as if he desired Lenina, but he really desired the Juliet that Lenina could never have been. He wanted a life where he could love a woman, and she would love him back. When she exposed herself to him that night, he was appalled at how horribly she misunderstood him, and in furstration at his idealized life crashing in about him, started spewing Shakespeare.
So due to the programming of Fordian society, Lenina made his quest come to a crashing halt, that ended up in his hanging himself.
I think that John represents anyone that has ever fought for love. Or even more broad, maybe anyone that has ever fought for change or individual ideas. I'd agree that John represents Helmholtz and Bernard, but i think he also represents the director, and that tiny part of Lenina that makes her want to love..unfortunately for John, she just doesn't know how.
I agree with Sean and William. The most direct implication is that John has lost his sense of in society; his internal moral compass has lost its true north, and is instead bound to spin without purpose. He was always an outcast, nothing more than an amusing curiosity in the super-homogenous culture of the World State (“Do the whip stunt… we want whip!”). But when he consummates his affection for Lenina, his auto-draconian-cum-masochistic tendencies manifest themselves (if he were alive in today’s world he would probably be a Mater Dei Catholic). His upbringing and familiarly with culture is so oddly yet specifically defined by the tribe and Shakespeare that he can’t reconcile his emotions and actions with his unremittingly high standards. In the end, his sense of place in the world was simply shattered, and his head spun so fast it caught his feet.
John was at once seeking sensibility and perfection, whose paradox was his ultimate undoing; he desired both, and the BNW society gave him none of the former and a drastically different interpretation of the latter. In terms of sensibility, he could not find it internally, wracked by his sever chronic heart throbs for Lenina and decimated by Linda’s death and the civilians’ indifference to it. His ideal of societal sensibility was also a polar opposite of his observation of a world of infantile happiness and lack of knowledge – a society like the World State simply did make sense to him, considering his background. More important however was his pursuit of perfection. He was clearly aware of what perfection wasn’t, having lived an outcast in a desolate reservation all his life. But his imagination of perfection, shaped to a large degree by Shakespeare and defined by human universals, could not be reconciled the World State’s state of affairs; how could he deny that it was anything but perfect? This absolute dissonance between his paradigm of perfection and the Brave New World’s drastically different yet more successful interpretation of the said object eventually became a significant contributor is his end mentality and suicide.
Like Sean said, John symbolizes, in his own way, humanity.
Throughout Brave New World, John is trying to reconcile the gap between him and Lenina, trying to impress her like the classic heroes of old did their loves. However, in attempting to do so, John also must compete with the values of the World State, something he can’t do because the very values it upholds go against the values he holds dear. John was not conditioned from the moment of conception, nor did he experience decanting, hypnopædia, or any of the other delights his fellows in the World State did. Instead he was raised in a world where love, pain, sadness, loneliness, anxiety, and other emotions were not forbidden, and in some cases were embraced. These are things also present in the modern human experience, but are lacking in the experience of the average World State citizen (assuming that Bernard and Helmholtz were not once-in-a-life-time incidents). Instead, they are replaced with ideals of comfort and convenience, promiscuity and detachment.
John fails in swaying Lenina, and seeing that her values mimic those of the World State, he flees. But his flight is to no avail, because just as convenience and comfort can tame the strongest wills, so too does the society of Brave New World tame John. It follows him to his lighthouse, and there John capitulates. He gives up on his own values because those of the World State are so overwhelming. As Sean and William have both said, John ultimately shows that humanity cannot succeed where simpler and baser values have taken root and overthrown that humanity. John’s participation in the orgy and subsequent suicide effectively and symbolically kill humanity, and leave him spinning, facing no certain direction. Like those citizens of the World State, he has lost his way, the fate of all who choose to step away from what makes them human.
Looking at the compass from a geographical standpoint, when John's feet start to turn to the west he is turning towards his home which is the reservation in America. The reservation is the type of society John wants on the emotional level. They have love, hate, guilt, all the things he values and appreciates. But John comes to realize that there is no Lenina in the savage reservation and there are non of the refinements he has fantasized over in his brave new world. So his feet start to slowly turn back east towards England and starts to see that he can have Lenina but he can't have her the way Romeo has Juliet. Shakespeare represents everything John is and realizing he doesn't fit the mold or criteria of either society is what leads him to his death.
John represents any anomaly in a Utopic society. He shows that his values of art and love cannot exist in pleasant ville. Because if there is love then there will be hate. John and everything he represents cannot coexist peacefully with brave new world. It's either one or the other, Quoting Harry Potter's prophecy: "And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives".
Ya cant believe I quoted Harry Potter, but it sums up the idea that John's ultimate enemy is Utopia and Utopia prevailed in the continuance of existing as a society.
Sean and William's idea about Huxley using this last paragraph as a simile to represent BNW's lost society seems to be true. John's death depicts this by comparing his hanging body to a compass, a compass which he, himself has tried to use but in the end he could not find a way to use it and it lead him to his demise. Not only John but all of the characters in the novel which tried to find a way out of this controlling society such as Helmholtz, Bernard and Lenina. All of who were not able to surmount the clutches of Huxley's omnious society and John's end clearly shows that.
This simile creates an impact on Brave New World, the ideas which it represents, especially since it is how Huxley decided to end the book. It shows that this type of society cannot exist due to the fact that humans can not function in this way. They have to experience life as it should be, with all of the positives as well as the negatives. Human nature does not allow us to be shielded and protected from the things in life which we are meant to feel. That is what John the Savage longs for even until the moment he takes his very last breath. The idea that if such a world were ever to exist and people like John who were to find out the true reality of this civilization it would lead them into a world full of dismay and confusion.
Aldous Huxley must have had an entire arsenal of figurative interpretations of death. Yet he only ended John’s suffering through the coup de grâce of a metaphorical compass. And it was tactfully and tastefully done. As Sean and William point out, John has lost his proverbial sense of direction. His internal compass doesn’t seem to have an established north, and his feet are like unenthusiastic partners in a tired old dance—swaying lamely back-and-forth with a set pattern.
However, the two claim that John is the symbol of “humanity.” And that’s arguable. For, John doesn’t necessarily seek out those human qualities of—as Maureen said—“love, hate, guilt, [essentially] all things he [supposedly] values and appreciates.” If he truly wanted those ideals, then he would have opted to stay at the reservation. So, one could disagree with Maureen in the terms that John wouldn’t want to go back to his old society. His life in Malpais wasn’t exactly a jolly-good time, despite the level and depth of “humanity.”
While John may have the qualities inherent to human nature—after all, he is a walking, talking Shakespeare buff—he never once searched for others with those same characteristics. Rather, the north to his compass is a deep and meaningful relationship. Intimacy. His little feet/compass-needles fruitlessly search for that all-important direction. The difference here is that John knows where humanity is, just as he knows where its polar opposite resides. With that in mind, Huxley could have had John lying on the ground with an outstretched hand ominously pointing in the direction of his mother-land.
Elizabeth put it best when she said, “John represents…anyone that has ever fought for change or individual ideas.” But, moreover, John is representative of anyone who has lost in that battle for justice. John was the “individual” searching for a relationship, for someone he can spend some meaningful time with. In essence, John is less of Bernard and Hemholtz, and more of a Winston from Nineteen Eighty-Four. The two are weak and flawed revolutionaries—triangular blocks that try to fit into a too-small-square-hole. The perfect society envisioned by both of them is a quasi-fantasy; the oppressive world they live in won’t necessarily conform to their “outrageous” restrictions. Hopelessness is a common thread that links these two together. Their desperate and futile attempts to bring forth a change are defeated, and they are left "to suffer the slings and arrows of" an ever-constant, leviathan-like society.
Thought the last paragraph of the novel concentrates mainly on the death of John, the people who saw John dead also have to be considered. The people walked toward John could represent the unhurried compass needles. They walked slowly up the stairs and then slowly back down without a pause or change in rate. The simile shows that just as surely as a compass will show you the correct direction, the people in the Brave New World society will follow thier conditioning. Huxley's final statement shows the impossibility of changing a society so set in its ways.
John seemed to be searching for a sense of belonging throughout Brave New World. He was looking for this even before leaving Malpais, where he never belonged. He is always looking for someone to have an emotional attachment to and the new world that he comes to provides an even lesser chance of that. In the end John seems to fail in his search for a change in the world. As Ian put it,"...because just as convenience and comfort can tame the strongest wills, so too does the society of Brave New World tame John"(Ian Mitchell). John was probably the strongest willed resistance possible because he didn't have conditioning. He had the ability to do what Helmholtz and Bernard could not, but even he wasn't strong enough. It would take many people who didn't have conditioning to even cause a small stir in Brave New World's society.
Elizabeth's point of who John represents is excellent. John does represent anyone who has fought for not only love, but freedom. He also represents his heroes like Shakespeare, because it was for his ideas that he was fighting for. He doesn't represent Helmholtz or Bernard as much, because they were searching for different forms of satisfaction. In the end, John sees himself falling victim to society and finds death as the only way out.
John’s death was the result of his loss of purpose in life. He life was like the compass, constantly changing direction. He started wanting to belong to the tribe at the reservation, but they never fully let him. Then he wanted Lenina, but then realized she would never be what he wanted her to be. At the end of the book, like the beginning, he wanted a society he could belong to. Like Maureen quoted “Neither can live while the other survives.” John realized that he never would fit into, and could never change, the Brave New World culture, causing him to end his life.
His loss of purpose is parallel with Bernard’s loss of moral direction after he brings back John from the reservation. In the first half of the book he continually rejects his societies ideals including promiscuity and ideological conformity. But once he becomes popular and feels like he belongs his compass switches directions. Once he falls out of trend he switches direction again, and is taken to one of the islands.
Many have said previously that the compass represents how the society of Brave New World is doomed. However, a different idea that is present is a warning that Huxley wants to give to the world. The warning that this society is imminent, the compass represents the different stages one society must go through in order to reach the final society of Brace New World. Once a society reaches the full circle of progress to the futuristic society, there's no going back.
John seemed to be seeking the Shakesperean life, as Elizabeth said, a life that was full of emotion. In the works of Shakespeare, life was a world that encompasses all the good things about both of his worlds. In the end, his quest of gaining the best of both worlds in one world failed in the end. He chose to be alone and go through all the ideals in the reservation alone. He ended up throwing himself into the hardships of both societies. Pretty soon he couldn't do anything except to give in.
John represents Helmholtz, Bernard, and anyone who wants to break free out of the Brave New World society, as previously said. But there's another person that John seems to represent, Mustapha Mond. Both men were educated in things that were taboo at the time. They both also had to choose between an easy and hard way out of their predicament. They both chose to give up their lives in one way or another. John, literally gave up his own him. Mond, gave up his life of looking for more scientific knowledge.
In the novel, John is a pioneer, blazing new trails that break from the normal "mold" of BNW society. Throughout the novel, he stands strong and determined unwilling to conform to society's normalcy.
Yet in the end, John's suicide is proof that eventaully the society's power and control consumes even the strongest. Huxley wanted to show that the society took over anyone-even John.
All of his life John, struggled to fit in. He craved intimacy, he longed for genuine relationships yet he never really found what he was looking for.
On the reservation he found his life to be hellish and painful. When he arrived in the society he longed to fit in with Lenina and others yet he never fully did.
Huxley's metaphor of the compass represents John's unending search for something real and deep- something tangible, something he never found.
Like Shakespeare's characters John wanted to live a life filled with intimate love, passion and emotion. Instead the life he lived seemed to be one of emptiness and desparation.
He tried so hard to embody that lifestyle, living out on his own, with determination and gusto, yet in the end the complications and hopelessness were so intense he had no choice but to end it, the only way he knew how.
As John begins to question the world state, the book clearly outlines two choices for him to explore; go back to the reservation and be consumed by Shakespeare or continue in the hell state that Brave New World has created. He no longer can or wants to explore the world state but feels if he went back to New Mexico, there would be no fulfillment. These two divisions seem so black and white but fail to find the intricacies involved. These particulars include the characters that we so vividly come to know in Brave New World.
This quote also explores a scene in the hospital where Linda is on her deathbed and the children boisterously squeal because of how John is responding to a normal cycle of life. Johns emotional state is torn into a million little pieces at this point, similar to the simile that we are writing about now. Although the compass is slowly exciting a response, John simply does not know how to respond in this situation so he lashes out and therefore brings a conditioning disaster. Similar to what Elizabeth said about the Shakespeare type of life that John wholeheartedly expected for himself, he also had funeral expectations that failed to exist. It’s as if the moment John realized Linda was dieing, he ran in each direction, looking for a piece of his heart that will never live.
Maureen, last year I was thinking about Harry Potter and the parallels that it draws to numerous books that I’ve read including 1984 because of the ministries, control, class consciousness and other aspects. But now I understand that although J.K. Rowling wrote a fabulous series that has inspired many children to read, most of her ideas come from other older literature. But I really like the quote you used. And I still love Harry Potter.
Katherine, duhhhh I know that, but thanks anyway :)
As Sean said in his response, John represents not only truth, freedom and natural, unalienable rights but also as Elizabeth said, anyone who has ever fought for a change in ideas. John feels that he and others have the right to think for themselves, have a right to feel pain and love and grief. However the people of the World State share none of this with him. Since they cannot feel any of the affections and ideas that John believes, the quote obliterates all hope for a change in ideas, thought or society.
At first, when John chose to live in the country outside of the city, he was pretty happy with his life and decision to get out of the city. He finally found a place where he could be alone and in nature; a place that reminded him of his old life at the reservation. Until reporters started showing up at his lighthouse, he was living happily. Only when reporters and people from the World State started to visit did John start to lose hope. They made him uneasy and uncomfortable. In the end, the people were as big a part of his suicide as anything else. Although he didn’t fit into either society, the people who visited him convinced him that there was no way out.
As other have said, his moral compass was no longer pointing north, spinning uncontrollably around. I agree with how Maureen geographically described his feet. West towards the ideas and affections he wants and East towards a place too perfect, too inhuman for him to live. Also his feet resembled what he wanted; a new direction to wander, a way of life and society where his ideas are accepted and embraced and also a place where he can live and fit in with society. His feet never found that direction.
John’s death represents that no one like him could change the World State by themselves. The change would need a group of people like John. However this could never happen since no one is conditioned to believe outside of what they were taught. Even people like Bernard and Helmholtz would not be able to help since they have been conditioned and have been a part of society for so long. His death shows that the World State society will never change.
“John represents anyone that has ever fought for love”, for change or for individuality (Elizabeth). Yet, at the same time, he also represents “humanity” as a whole striving for “truth” (Sean). When John comes to the New World State, he is, at first, eager for the new endeavor. Being condemned as an outcast on the savage reservation, he is seeking acceptance and love; the love he knows can exist; the love of a Romeo and Juliet and other Shakespearian romantics. When he can’t find this love and acceptance in New Mexico, he thinks that surely it must exist outside, out in the Brave New World. His desires and, some would argue, his needs for intimacy and relationship are what cause him to change direction. These wants, in fact, are the directions themselves. When he seeks one thing, he sets himself in one direction. When he seeks another, he changes his course. However, in a society where there is no possibility for love and intimacy, John is unable to point himself in the right direction. The truth that he seeks cannot exist and, furthermore, is shunned from the society.
The realization that he is lost, confused, and unable to pursue the truth and his desires causes John to become insane. Not only is he powerless to set his feet in the right direction, but the society that has evolved cannot have a true north. If there is no true north, if there is no truth at all, how can John possibly find his way, find love, and find the path that is set for humanity in such an inhuman world? When all that is fed to humanity is deception, when all they see is the wool covering their own eyes, there can be no pursuit of anything more than what they know. The ignorance of this society is such that they don’t even have an established north, or posited concept of any desire for something more. North then, is representative of desires. However, when John is thrown into the world state, a place of unclear direction, he too loses the “true north” of his “internal compass”. So corrupted after time in the World State, he loses sight of what he was striving for. Lelina’s misunderstanding of his love causes him to realize that this love he had once fantasized about through the words of Shakespeare, does not exist; the things he once desired cannot exist; his internal compass that points him in the direction of his aspirations, is spinning uncontrollably.
Alone, John stands as an individual trying to promote his individuality, trying to find love, and trying to change the society. However, when the world around him comes crashing in, destroying his solitude, and taking away his desires that once gave him a purpose, he is left with feet spinning above the ground with no idea where to step next. I agree with Chris that John’s death represents that no one could change this society on their own. The unfortunate realization is that, even an individual at strong as John will fall to the blind, lost, and corrupted society when they are the only one fighting for the cause, for love, for change, and for truth. Through the depicted analogy of John’s death, Huxley gives humanity this fair warning.
Throughout the book, John deeply seeks personal relations and intimacy, like that of which he has read in “Romeo and Juliet”. He escapes his home in New Mexico for hopes of a better life in the “new world”, only to realize that this is even farther from what he is looking for. The night previous to John’s suicide, he was given soma. When he woke up and found this out, he was so terrified; terrified that he had fallen under the convenient, emotionless lifestyle of the new world. His drastic decision to kill himself shows how deeply he opposes this existence.
John, in his short life in the new world, represented all those who were “outside of the box”, such as Helmholtz and Bernard. John shows one of the two outcomes of characters such as these; collapse (suicide). Bernard and Helmholtz represent the only other solution for those who seek more: leaving the society for a more free and inconvenient one. John could not bear to go back to the alternative society in New Mexico, due to his strong attraction and love towards Lenina. His death represents the fact that in the new world, you are either emotionally dead, (more so inexistent of emotions), or physically, literally dead. The Brave New World does not accept those who wish to differ from society. The only way to survive in such a place is to be emotionless, and to have abundance in soma, of course. John represented a piece of granite, peaking through the wax. Alas, the wax “thoroughly and efficiently” destroyed his soul, before more unthinkable emotions, such as love, could be expressed.
I disagree, though, with Ben W. on the fact that the compass needle represents how John is unsure of his morals. I think that John was very sure of his morals, he just didn’t know how to achieve them, and that is what caused his suicide. John cannot find a society in which he can both practice his morals as well as attain his desire for love.
I believe that the needles also represent the majority of the society in Brave New World. They seem to all provoke and pester something potentially terrifying and different, such as Linda dying old and ugly, or John’s refusal to partake in society. But, once the “alien” gives society the negative attention it desires, all run back petrified to the north, the normal. Soma fixes this fright, but does not stop another from coming back. The best example I can think of to describe this is that of a young, ignorant child (Brave New World’s society), bothering a sleeping cat (John). This harassment continues to the extent that the cat scratches the child, resulting in the child’s screaming and running to the mother (soma). The mother tells the child that he is innocent, and the cat is evil. Thus the child abandons that cat, and begins to pester another, destroying one cat’s peace at a time. Brave New World’s society will continually have outcasts, and the perfectly washed out embryos will incessantly destroy them.
When I read this paragraph, and the events leading up to John’s death, all I could think about was how similar it was to the first time we met John, and the human sacrifice performed at the reservation for their gods. One of the first lines we hear from John was when he said “I ought to have been there (receiving the whipping). Why wouldn’t they let me be the sacrifice? I’d have gone round ten time-twelve fifteen. (116)” One of the first tings we learn of John, before we even learn of his name, is that he needs to show people how dedicated he is to his beliefs, a symbol of what he believes in. Even if that means he is a martyr in doing so. Who know what would’ve happened if he stayed in the reservation, but he was thrust into the brave new world, and he was now faced with two world ideas that he never felt a part of.
Throughout the story John constantly struggles between his two worlds, and can’t find anywhere he believes is the correct place for him. This tension rises inside him and finally climaxes in the last few pages where he first tries to whip himself to death defending his first beliefs by attempting to sacrifice himself, but fails. Next John partakes of the orgy-porgy that follows, a representation of the new world, but that too fails to bring satisfaction. John did the only thing he knew what to do to show the world what he believes in. John decided to kill himself in a unique way, never discussed, and to defend his equally unique beliefs.
I really liked Maureen’s comments about how John’s feet pointed from the reservation to England, that even in death he still hadn’t decided which society was correct or all were wrong. I thought this really supported my ideas that John’s death wasn’t only a symbol of how this fictional society was all-powerful and could defeat any threat, but that John represented anyone who may find conflict in situations. Where all choices are wrong, and we may need to take a stand, even if we don’t have a solution.
As for what John was seeking, I believe it can best be encapsulated in two words, truth and love. John’s biggest battles were the ones he fought for truth and love. John sought a life of Shakespearean proportions and ideals. He fell in love with the idea of Lenina, as Juilet, and not with Lenina herself. Within that fight for love, he wanted to find truth. He was naïve and believed that if he viewed the world though the eyes of Shakespeare, he would find this truth.
There’s a song called “My Bad Days” by Okkervil River that I fell touches on the idea of “spinning”, uneasiness and lost of direction that the compass in that passage signifies. A portion of the song goes like this, “Dear Mother, we’ve all got bad days, and I know you’ll understand. Where we open up a foreign door with a pair of foreign hands. Where we find ourselves alone at the foot of a pair of foreign stairs…there’s a string that runs through our bad days, and if you pull that string real tight, the days all crumple together and all that you see is night. And the doorknob becomes your enemy, and the window you see through a haze.” What I am trying to get out of this fragment from “My Bad Days” is the idea of things crumpling together or caving in until “all you see is night”, or where you suddenly become unsure of the direction that you are heading or even of the direction that you originally intended to head.
Of all of the above responses, I believe William touched on it best when he said, “By describing the direction in which John’s feet were spinning, it feels as if that is a symbol of where humanity is – lost and forever running around in circles, unsure of its purpose.”
Finally, Elizabeth put it best by saying “John represents…anyone that has ever fought for change or individual ideas.” As well “John represents more than just his own downfall. Every other character in the book who tried to stand out, or pursue something which went against society is represented in this quote” (Sean). Once John arrived in the “civilized” world, he had to begin his fight for change. He was able to see how corrupt this civilized society truly was and therefore tried to invoke change.
I believe that John's participation in the “orgy” and as well as his suicide can be viewed as the result of an insanity created by the fundamental conflict between his values and the reality of the world around him.
John's suicide in the end was, as many have said, signified Huxley's warning to the society. In addition, this simile can also be interpreted as the chaos and repetitive state the world had become. Much like what Grace said about the full circle of progress and how we can't get out of it once it is complete.
In Brave New World, John has been seeking perhaps where to fit in between his two worlds. He loves Shakespeare and old culture but he also want to fit those into the new world. However, John only got confused and lost in the process of what little rebellion he had.
John here represent most people in the World State, or the future. It is either you confirm and go with the changes the world makes, or you are abandoned and very much cornered in a dead end like John was.
As many people have stated in some form or other, John’s suicide signifies a loss of hope.
Compared to the Brave New World’s society, john represents everything immoral. He is a romantic and un-promiscuous; he refuses soma and even shows sadness, rage, and grief. He was even born naturally by a mother. John defies all of their ideals, yet in a way he is their moral compass. He is the one hope left for them, but when his own ideals and morals break down, he is too lost to help them.
John’s quest was to find meaningful relationships, and true intimacy. He did manage to care deeply for people, but he never actually reaped the benefits of that love. It just came back to hurt him each time.
His own mother, Linda, was not great role-model, and was a major disappointment. She didn’t care for john as much as she cared for herself, and spent her final days stocked up on soma, before she passed away. John loved her, and was greatly hurt by her death.
Lenina was his romantic desire, and he wanted to be a gentleman for her, but Lenina did not know how to love him back in the same way. She knew only physical intimacy but not emotional.
John was even rejected by his own father at the first sight of him when they met.
The closest he ever came to a true relationship was his friendship with Hemholtz, and he was exiled to an island.
Needless to say, John’s quest was never achieved.
Despite his own pain and suffering at the end of the book, he is in a situation where he has the BNW’s attention. Everyone is watching him and waiting for what he will do next. Even though they are not watching for the right reasons, or with the right responses, their attention to him gives him power. If he had not had his will broken down by their society and his own great disappointments, he may have used that platform to influence at least one more person in that society.
John did influence them, but not in a profound enough way to have a meaningful impact. He was the hope for BNW, but BNW corroded his hope, leaving him and the society back where they started, lost.
We all know that John was different from all the other characters; he may be even comparable to Bernard and Helmholtz, for they all had possessed the natural human-like characteristics (humane universals from Shakespeare). He left his reservation and stepped into World State in awe and astonishment; he was an eager boy, wanting a taste of everything in the World State. Soon after Linda’s death, he realized how different World State. World State did not permit John his innate political freedoms. In his conversation with Mustapha Mond, he declared that “claimed the right to be unhappy (240).” This clearly shows his dissatisfaction with such a society, thus John escapes to a new world. His intentions in the new world were simple; he was there to only Linda, practice inconvenience (farming, making bows and arrows), and to purify himself of the World State practices. In the end, the invasion of the “civilized folks” ultimately led to John’s death. Clearly, he hasn’t been truly almost satisfied with any of the places he has resided in (which is a human characteristic, for there isn’t a perfect place on this earth and one can never be fully satisfied).
A compass will always and forever point north, and for Aldous Huxley to create such a representation of the compass makes us all wonder. Even when it came to his death, John was not at rest when it came to his fate. He has yet settled in a place where he can live in indifference and act humane. I agree with Mo on how, “When John's feet start to turn to the west he is turning towards his home which is the reservation in America; his feet start to slowly turn back east towards England…” But another comment about this simile is that we are uncertain of the whereabouts of the places the compass is pointing, but what is almost certain is that John is not at rest and uncertain. His feet will only stop turning once he discovers a place where he can express his deep emotions of grief, love, intimacy, and tragedies.
After John entered into the new world, he tried desperately to follow his own morals and live apart from the rest of the new world society. Ana said that John was certain of his morals but was unsure of how to achieve them, ultimately that led to his suicide. He swore that he would not give in to the temptations of the new world society. But the night before John died, he took soma for the first time, he participated in an orgy, and other events followed. His sudden death the morning after was more likely because he fell into the traps and he was very ashamed.
Elizabeth and Sean said it best when they said John represented those who wanted to fight for change. John wanted to find love and change the way these people lived. The compass could have been those things he was trying to follow and find. John’s feet aimlessly turning could have been how he lost his purpose and direction.
Huxley use of John’s legs being part of the compass seems to signify, as Grace has stated, that he is warning the people of Brave New World that once they have started down a path, they will continue to follow it. They will not stop until they have reached this new state of living. This simile can also represent how torn John was between the world he lived and the Shakespearn life he read about. John, in is confusion between the two worlds, represents the struggle all people must undergo between conformity and rebellion.
John grew up hearing Linda’s stories about the World State. Linda told him how comfortable and perfect the World State was; how it was the opposite of the reservation. Without hypnopaedia to explain the World State’s true nature, John imagined a world like Shakespeare – filled with passionate emotion and ‘happily ever after’ convenience where he could embody Romeo’s nobility and romance (but achieve a better end than he). More than anything, he desired nobility: to hurt deeply and work devotedly and so earn the ultimate respect and status. When Bernard brought John out of the reservation John expected a Shakespeare world. He knew what he looked for didn’t exist on the reservation. But John didn’t find it in the World State either. He quickly discovered that no emotion of that caliber existed outside of Shakespeare. Even he, free of hypnopaedia and conditioning, couldn’t resist the pull towards promiscuity, and through promiscuity he lost all hope of being better than what he saw in the World State. He could not achieve nobility, and the disillusionment drove him to his death. Just like the ‘compass needle’ turning listlessly, first one direction and then back the other, John’s life ended with no more direction or purpose than any of the BNW characters.
Like Grace said, John’s death is a warning to stay away from the World State society. It is not, as others said, representative of humanity’s downfall, because Shakespearian depth of emotion is more human even than lust. This last paragraph is the closest Huxley comes to telling a parable. In history, a love/peace movement has always fought to save humanity from baseness. But Huxley warns that if society gets as low as the World State, there can be no turning back.
Huxley ending the book with John’s suicide was to emphasize that society is doomed as many have said. John represents humanity and his turning feet symbolize humanity being lost in this new world. John was the one person pure and hopeful enough to bring change into society, but his death showed that it was hopeless.
It seems that John’s purpose was to find a home- a place to fit in. His turning feet can also symbolize his lost quest for finding a place to fit in or the uncertainty of where he fits in. He was an outcast at the reservation, he longed to fit in and be accepted, but never was. He then looked forward to a new home in the new world, and wanted to fit in, but his Shakespearean ideals never allowed him to. His quest seemed doomed, this created aggravation in him, which in turn led him to isolate himself. He also craved intimacy and companionship with an idolized Juliet version of Lenina and when she failed to live up to that idolization, it further aggravated and confused John. He wanted passion, emotion and love, in a world where they didn’t exist and he couldn’t comprehend why. His intense desires and the even more powerful complications they created, only resulted in madness. In the end the only way he knew how to end the madness was to end his life.
I honestly had to read the last paragraph of the book four or five times before I even grasped what had happened, much less what the simile represented. Building off of what Monica and a few others have said, I agree that John’s suicide represents a lack of hope for the future of the new society. The turning of John’s feet represents his journey in life. He pushed himself as far as he could in the brave new world, but reached a point where he could go no further with his morals and Shakespearian expectations, just as his feet could turn no further in one direction. They paused, and then reversed to go right back where they came from and start the cycle all over again.
Much has been said about John seeking intimacy, authenticity and humanity; we have said that the slow and irresolute moving of the compass means that John never found his way to any of those things. It’s a constant indecision between Malpais and the brave new world. The constant swinging from one to the other shows that the answers he sought could not be found in either place. So, he went instead to death – a place where a compass can not point. The compass metaphor is revealing in what it cannot show.
Addison mentioned a great point about the blood sacrifice performed at the reservation. John killed himself out of a need for exhibiting destruction not for loss of purpose. Therefore, John represents one who is willing to die, even in vain, in order to condemn all those ugly human things which are worse than death (I know it sounds cheesy).
Everyone has done a great job analyzing John’s death as an event. I am basically in agreement with the vast majority of posters so far: the death of John the Savage is significant as a testament first, to the power of the World State and what it represents, and second, to the inexorable power of the “we” in opposition to the “I”. To clarify, the deeper implications of the World State’s existence are more easily recognized when one views it much as you would a mathematical expression: as a whole that is a result only of the sum of its parts. Thus, it becomes necessary to pick apart the parts of the World State: the ten World Controllers, the Alpha-Beta-Delta-Gamma hierarchy, and, most potent of all, unceasing “happiness” facilitated by a carefully studied ignorance of select societal flaws in the brave new world. In this light, when John meets his downfall at Lenina’s hands, he really falls to the “happiness” of the brave new world—“happiness” and its accompanying pleasure-seeking. As to the question of the “we” over the “I”: consider that Chinese parents teach their children to value the power of the community with the following exercise—first, they give their child one chopstick and ask them to break that single chopstick. The child usually manages this task with ease. Then, they hand the child a bundle of ten or more chopsticks and ask the child to repeat the task of breaking these chopsticks. The child then tries—and fails—to break the bundle of chopsticks in half as he or she did with the original lone chopstick in the beginning. This lesson is directly applicable to John’s experience with the brave new world. He is the first chopstick, and the World State and its components are the second, bundled group of chopsticks. Where John breaks in half—or succumbs to the temptation of suicide—the World State survives, bolstered from the inside out by its very structure.
On a more specific, isolated level, John’s death takes on a more nuanced tone when one considers the means by which he chose to commit his suicide. He certainly didn’t choose the easiest way to take his own life—stabbing himself would have been much more expedient, and drowning himself would have produced much less hassle for himself. Why, then, choose death by hanging? The answer can be found in the act itself: if one has ever seen someone draw their finger across their throat to signify that they’re “dead” by some misdeed or other personal folly, then they will recognize John’s surrender to the World State is completed through his hanging: this is an act that symbolically offers up his neck to the world state, as if he were a human sacrifice in the tradition of Aztec and Maya human sacrifices in pre-colonialist South America. This leads to the next point: the American resonances of John’s neck-offering to the World State bring him, on an abstract level, back to Malpais, where the Indians are obviously of some sort of Southwestern native heritage—quite possibly distant descendants of the very South American civilizations whose sacrificial rituals John—probably unconsciously—emulates in his own hanging.
On the topic of the “unhurried” compass needles that Huxley compares John’s feet to, Maureen’s explanation seems most elegant in its connection between the direction of John’s feet and geographical locations important to his overall character development throughout the book. To add to that, the very fact that the “compass needle” fails to point to true north represents John’s—and, by extension, his fellow dissident Helmholtz’s—struggle to find a true “direction”—or, more explicently, a purpose—to his life.
"explicently" above should read "explicitly"- sorry about that.
Alaina said: "John represents one who is willing to die, even in vain, in order to condemn all those ugly human things which are worse than death"
And John is not the first in literature to try to cleanse himself of the horrors of "humanity" by harming himself. Oedipus does the same in gouging out his eyes. The difference is that Oedipus does it because of the people he has hurt and the plague he has brought; because of his own crimes. Though tragic, Oedipus' end can be considered brave or an act of dignity. John is simply unable to fight against the society anymore. He has lost his way to the Shakespearean ideals he wanted, and the compass that guides him leads him in circles, never able to escape the New World State. John's death is more tragic that the Greek king's, because John finally breaks. In his last day, he harms both himself and the person he thought he loved in an attempt to save himself from society, but society gets the best of him and he is left with nothing. Again, as Alaina said, John kills himself not because he has no direction in life, but because he was not able to continue his direction when it clashed with society's.
I agree with Maureen on what the compass represents. John wanted both the morals of his old society, and the love that Lenina offered him in the World State. His rotating between directions of the compass in death represents his indecision in life. His emotions rapidly change between his love for Lenina, and his values of marriage. He realizes he cannot have both and eventually gives in to Lenina at the end. When he awakes from his frenzy, John remembers his morals and hangs himself.
Ning Ning brings up an interesting point on how John chose to commit suicide, but I disagree. Most of John’s life was committed to self-denial and purification. He shows us this by his self-flagellation and purging by mustard water. John's suicide was a final attempt to cleanse himself both of the World State and of his wrongs. Instead of taking an easier way of suicide, John chooses hanging as a last way to cleanse himself and escape society.
Although Johns hanging is his final escape from society, it also shows he is more like the people of the World State than he thinks. In a society where people ease their troubles through soma, John is determined to face his humanity head on. His suicide is a weakness to his morals. Rather than face his emotions and learning to live with society and his past acts, he hangs himself. This reminds me of soma being used to escape emotional problems by the people of the world state.
John is stuck at a standpoint, the compass representing how at one moment he tries to adapt to the customs of the World State then reverts back to the so-called "savage" mores. So the compass more or less is really a moral and internal compass and the struggles he tries to endure, the horrifics of the Society. At the end of the novel he ends the "unhurried compass needles" though it is actually an act of strength. He wants Lenina to feel hurt, to really get her compass going, to help her realize that she is in love with him. Suicide in the World State is, I am assuming, unheard of. Why would one end one's life if life is of perpetual happiness so John really questions if that really is happiness and if iit truely happiness because happiness only taste as sweet when suffering is experiened. John is the poster boy of the whole theme.
John desperately tries to represent the embodiment of Shakepeare's works, which portrays the spectrum of human emotions such as love, tragedy, and whatnot. Like "Leslie Simmsons" said, John grew up hearing stories of the World State, envisioning it as a perfect, ideal world. John quotes from The Tempest, "O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!" he assumes the people of the World State are a kind that can come as close to protray Shakespeare though ironically is quite the opposite.
To start off, I concur with Maureen in that the direction(s) of John's final dance with the BNW hold some significance. He starts off to the north, casually drifts westward toward his native reservation, then slowly returns to the east. The simile perfectly showcases his state of perpetual indecision and dissatisfaction. While he was on his reservation he could do nothing but dream of a life in a world he knew only through Shakespearian rhetoric. Yet as soon as his over – romanticized dream is achieved, he finds that he loathes life in such a society, and in the ultimate act of futility, tries to change a world he can't even face, let alone comprehend. He is indecisive even in death. Going one direction, then another, then another.
Touching on what Sean initially said, John does seem to be a symbol of mans' folly. Here is this young, uneducated man from a reservation who is naive enough to think that he can change a world that even some of the most educated and refined Alpha members ( Helmholtz and Marx) couldn't. He is a dreamer in the truest sense of the word, but this may have been his downfall. He was constantly trying to rationalize an irrational world, and trying to make it conform to his ill – conceived Shakespearian ideals. He would have been better of quoting Milton, as “myself am hell” seems more conducive to John's character – and the very world that it fell to pieces in – than anything Shakespeare ever wrote. Eventually, the society finally drove him to the breaking point. After betraying his ideals, he realized there was only one true form of escape. If he wanted solitude, he got it.
John is seeking a more civilized version of the freedom and individualism he had back in the reservation. What he didn’t realize was that there is no escape, no way out. With John’s death came the death of all hope of the society. He was all that was standing against the Brave New World. A compass is symbol used for finding the right path. John is unable to find the right path though not for lack of trying. The only way he could find the freedom was in death leaving the world lost without a compass or hero. As he explained in his foreword to Brave New World, Huxley later regretted his decision not to give John a third choice—a middle way between the Savage Reservation and the world of the civilized---however, the ending of the book leaves the reader with a melancholy feeling.
John, when he was alive, had some sort of potential to be a hero. He came from savage-land, the place where values and morals still existed. Braving the new society, he stood strong in his values. He believed in the existence of love and true happiness, and consequently in the existence of pain and sorrow. If things never turned out rotten with Lenina, which lead him down a path of moral decay, disappointment and death, subconsciously he would have tried to convert a whole society to have values, emotion, and thus humanity, all over again.
As others have said, he was unable to comprehend the society he was in, how these citizens were satisfied with their never-ending soma stupors. His own "conditioning" by the Indians and Shakespeare encouraged emotion rather than banned it. Sacrificing his values to always be pleased did not make sense. John could not realize that the world had voluntarily opted for its mentally-limited existence.
Ultimately, John could not "fix" this society. He had no ability to persuade using obsolete Shakespeare quotes; the society had no way to be convinced. He was doomed to failure, unless there was some sort of miracle.
If Brave New World ended with John's success at reverting society to what it was, the book would no longer be a commentary on the impending death of all that makes life worth living. So, unfortunately, John received the opposite of a miracle. He was degraded to the standards of the society (as demonstrated when he succumbed to the "Orgy-porgy"). Upon realizing how he had failed his expectations, he committed suicide. His suicide was an act of hopelessness. It showed that not even a person with the most intense values could stand against such a devolved, but massive society. John's feet unhurriedly changed between arbitrary directions--they were compass points leading to nowhere. John's feet once lead to a society formed on values, but the path was grown over and missing.
This is Maanas Tripathi
The compass simile is exactly that: a simile of a compass being used to point towards "truth" or "the way" or whatever.
But if we remember the intent of Huxley's writing, it becomes clear that the simile of the compass also describes the search for a way to keep humanity alive in an age of technology. Brave New World was written as a cautionary tale, and Huxley himself stated in 1958 that the world was approaching his predescribed state.
Huxley cannot have possibly been describing "John's search for the truth". As I have reiterated many times, if this was Huxley's intent, he could have chosen to make John a multifaceted, open-minded, protagonistic character. But instead, Huxley made John narrow-minded, Bernard-like in his desire for social dominance (the whip scene and his comments that he was superior to the natives) and quite dogmatic. Obviously, Huxley was looking for something else with his metaphor.
I agree with many of you that John's death shows the seemingly inevitable "victory" of the world state, but i don't necessarily believe it is a matter of total surrender. I believe it is more of an attempt by John to preserve his own sanctity; perhaps send a message to those who stumble upon him; in essence, to be the sort of "hero" that many of us were hoping him to be. But it seems there are no martyrs in this world. Perhaps in his own mind he thought his death would have meant something. That somehow he would be forever revered like the characters in his beloved Shakespeare plays. But what did he die for? And more importantly; who cares?. It seems that the ancient notion of the "hero's journey" can't be understood in a society that can't understand the purpose of struggle for a nobler cause; let alone death for one. Maybe it was a final desperate attempt to make himself "special" in the eyes of Lenina. Would Lenina mourn for him? We never know how the People of the World State react to John's suicide. But judging how they reacted to Linda's death, John probably died without the sympathy of anybody and still is in search of a purpose.
On the other hand, maybe the issue here isn't even "purpose". Perhaps John's feet represents the quest to find , more fundamentally, any glimpse of hope whatsoever. Does Huxley leave any hope for the New World? Is there enough innate power in the human race to reverse the effects of the World State?; Or is Huxley warning us fiercely to never arrive there in the first place?
The society that John lived in was filled with convenience and comfort. To me convenience and comfort is like sleep. You can only fight it for so long, then it gets you, no matter how much you fight it.
This is what happened to John, he finally gave in to the flesh's desires and had Lenina. But after this happened he just couldn't live with the guilt and so killed himself.
It was hard to live with the fact that he had become the exact thing he was fighting against. The society's pleasures and pressures had finally got to him and that for John was a fact that he couldn't live with
This simile paints a disturbing picture of John's death but it also in a sense paint a picture of John's life. Through all his life, John has been seeking the truth and proves to himself why he is living. He was born into a bipolar situation, he lived all his life in a savage reservation yet his mother was from another world.
A compass, a tool that helps someone finds their way, a tool that helps point North which could be the "right direction". However, the compass described is spinning round and round, therefore describing someone who is lost. Ever since he was born, John wanted to understand the situation he is in. He was torn between his mother and his surroundings.
"The boys began to point their fingers at him. In the strange other words they said that Linda was bad; they called her names he did not understand" Chapter 8.
What John was seeking was the truth, that's why he agreed to go back to the World State to meet his real father. He was also curious to know about the world described to him by Linda in his childhood. He achieved in seeking this truth, but it conflicted with his ideas and perhaps his previous perception of the truth.
Having learned the truth, he wants to go back to the reservation. However, the one thing keeping him back is Lenina. He knows he can never make her understand how he feels about her, yet he can't get her out of his head. I like Vivi's idea on how John's life wasn't settled when he died. Even after enduring extreme measures, he still could not find his way. Therefore, he only choice now was to kill himself, so that he wouldn't have to find himself.
Like Grace said, the simile also represents Helmholtz and Bernard. Both of these character feel like they don't belong in the society they are in. Helmholtz in particular, wants to understand more about him and why he is here. That's probably why he and John became very fond of each other. Bernard on the other hand, relates to this simile because he turns back and forth in his thinking throughout the story. First he hates the society he’s in. Then later when he is accepted, he suddenly thinks he belongs and is better than his former friends like Helmholtz. And finally, when the dust settles, and Bernard comes down to Earth, he comes crawling back to Helmholtz. Although suicide is quite a cowardly act, it is not in John's case because he was put in a bad situation. His love for Lenina was strong, but so were his ideals.
When John the Savage came to the new world, he tried to bring with him his culture and own life, including his mother. But seeing how it all turned out, he failed. His mother dies and he himself is afflicted with the new society's ills and eventually kills himself to escape it all. The World State permeates through his being and affects his mind, and causes him to slowly slip into the miserable existance of all others in the brave new world, such as finally giving into Lenina's desires.
Huxley's point to ending the would-be hero in such a depressing manner, is to crush all hope that may have occured in the minds of the reader. Huxley seeks to depict a world where in no real joy can be found, and to paint a picture of a horrid reality, if we let such an attrocity come to pass.
John loosely represents hope. He carries the old world traditions of morals, what we would find an acceptable society, and is kind of becoming the hero, untill his death at the end of the novel. This is representative, as has been said many times before, as the death of hope, and that such a society as in BNW has no need for common decency and humanity. John's corpse stands as a stark warning that such an end awaits us all if we should choose so foolishly as to take the same path as those in the World State.
John was undecided during his stay in the new world. He first came with Bernard with elated feelings and hopes; he moved east. Then Lenina made him desire the new world again, and he moved farther east, only to move back west because of the different ideals and human persepectives. John also represents the whole of human nature. Humans who follow their individuality and nature cannot endure in a society such as in BNW. As William H. said, Huxley "uses John's death as a symbol that anyone who tries to defy society will eventually fall". People who hold true to Shakespeare and the same human universals that we hold today cannot function and reign free in a world of so many mental and emotional constraints characteristic of infantile worlds like Huxley's. John had those universals and understood the feelings; however, his human universals never met reality and without experiences to learn by, John was aiming for perfection in a society whose definition of perfection was completely different. He wanted to be just and correct in moral standing, but the heavy burden that guilt can be plucked his last nerve. John also shows Huxley's aim to show a human from our current world trying to endure in an artifical world. John was looking for a purpose in life, like us today whether it be just a life goal concerning a dream income or a spiritual goal about heaven and hell. He wandered for that purpose but overwhelmed with a lack of purposed and overwhelmed by lonliness, he sufficed to the new world.
I'm really impressed by all the depth and breadth of everyone's thoughts in this paragraph.
Huxley’s final paragraph of John’s ultimate demise employs sophisticated and unique diction to convey suicide. By the hanging feet over thin air, it’s apparent that John hanged himself, but the description itself is what makes the suicide so elaborate. I was particularly intrigued by Huxley’s continued use of the term “unhurried,” a unique word for such a scene. Unhurried is usually used in the context of taking one’s time without the pressure of a clock. Here, it is referring to the legs of a corpse hanging in the air. But naturally, Huxley had a more subtle meaning to this. He uses unhurried to describe lazy motions, specifically the lazy actions of the World State. Instead of promptly pointing in one direction, the World State is a movement of people with neither a direction nor an impact. Like a broken compass, the World State is a broken society that continues to spin around in circles. I think William said it very nicely here: “It feels as if that is a symbol of where humanity is – lost and forever running around in circles, unsure of its purpose.” To me, that’s how I feel Huxley thought of the Brave New World, a society living in a dream world that simply won’t wake up to reality. Rather than solving problems, the World State avoids them.
This doesn’t seem to be a popular thought, but I concur with Karissa. John is simply seeking acceptance; he isn’t seeking reformation to change the society for its own benefit. He was unwanted at the Reservation and merely an object of speculation at the World State. Neither wanted by the civilized world nor the “savage” world, John was in the worst of both worlds. Unloved by his mother, abandoned by his father, and merely lusted for by Lenina, John was faced with such a dilemma that he decided that others should change for his own content. John fails. John’s death and his tainted act of participating in the sex frenzy indicate that he is giving up to the World State. He was unable to change the mindsets of nearby individuals, and instead, he too became one of the mindless Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons.
What makes John so interesting is that he’s not the hero that’s trying to save mankind. In fact, his motivations are unrealistic, selfish, unfair, and even fairy-tale-like. But what makes the motivations similar to any other individual is that he desires the basic needs of every human being—the need to feel accepted, loved, and admired. In this outlook, he has the motivations to represent himself. He wishes to stand apart as an individual that puts him above others as demonstrated by John’s proposal to Lenina that he was willing to undergo hard labor for her. John’s death is a great example for the quote we worked on in class, “Comfort and convenience possess a magical power; little by little they suck in even people with strong wills.” Even though John was willing to suffer through tremendous pains, the World State still consumed him.
I believe that in this last paragraph of the book, John represents anyone who has ever fought for something and never quite got it. Just like a lot of others have said, the simile refers to John seeking for his place in society and never actually finding it. He never felt like he belonged to either society. I like what Hellina said, that “A compass is symbol used for finding the right path. John is unable to find the right path though not for lack of trying.” John’s compass never pointed him in the right direction, for no direction was the right direction. He felt alone no matter where he went, which continued on to his death.
Hitherto, Minje’s post has been most profound in capturing the struggle within Huxley’s own mind in how he might best convey his final massage in the last paragraph of the book. It seems given then that further analysis on that objective should be provided. Plainly speaking, John was seeking for two things during his quest into the brave new world: love and truth. He looked for truth by finding purpose, and found purpose in love. So all in all, John was seeking Juliet: the romantic ideal created in his mind by the most prototypical author of western civilization, Shakespeare. But John was also searching for more. In his own words, John claims the “right to be unhappy” and adds: “I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” One might immediately say then that he fared quite poorly in his pursuit, as the novel ends with him delicately spinning on the axis of his neck, rope having smothered his defeated final breath. Yet, further analysis leads one to conceive John as an individual, who fought valiantly against the world-state, and instead of eventually succumbing to its power, overcame it through his very suicide.
This conclusion of John’s “victory” over the world-state becomes clear when viewing the context of the story prior to his suicide. Just before committing this final act, John consummates his love with Lenina, as a huge crowd surrounds them, chanting encouraging yelps of “orgie porgy.” This act reveals that the world state did end up having temporary power over John, by eventually leading him to the promiscuous act he so detested previously. Thus, as a way of purging this indecency from himself, John decides to act against the corrupting force of the government by destroying himself, so that there will be no more opportunity for such conversion to “comfort” or “convenience” under the reign of technology.
John therein represents the entire assembly of individuals who seek to be just that, individual. He represents a failure to be able to transform the whole of society, but at the same time success in being able to preserve the sanctity of the individual by means of killing all that tempts evil. In the case of John, killing this force within him required killing himself. However, this metaphor perhaps represents more about the future of civilization itself than John himself. The swinging of John’s feet in alternating, unsure direction reflects a predicament of society more than the relationship of John with the world. The compass needles that cannot decide what direction to take resemble society after all hope has been removed, as John was the paramount hope for revival in thought and individual reflection. Now that he has gone, Huxley attempts to illustrate the unknowing confusion and uncertainty society will face without any sort of hero. The reader is essentially left with no idea of what is to come. And as Minje stated, this confusion imparted on the reader could be intentional by Huxley as to warn the human race from ever entering such a new world.
This final paragraph of the book clearly depicts John's search for meaning to his life. I, too, like what Helina said about the fact that John never quite found what he was looking for, though defintely not for lack of trying. He searched as hard as he could for everything he wanted out of life; he endlessly searched for individuality, purpose, love and recognition. Yet when he realizes in the end that finding these things in the Brave New World is pretty close to impossible, he is devastated. Comparing his dangling feet to a compass signifies his endless search for something more.
I think that this similie could also be paired with Helmholtz's and Bernard's struggles. All three were aware that this life was meaningless and were searching for more. Perhaps Bernard's search was less vigorous than Helmholtz's, and even Helmholtz's search was less vigorous than John's; but they were all based upon the same desires nonetheless.
The major consensus of the ominous ending to Brave New World seems to consist of the ideas that Huxley used the compass simile to illustrate how John was lost; John was seeking acceptance, intimacy, and love; and that John represents those who possess unconventional ideas, but are then won over by society; however, the two latter ideas appear to be less developed than the first and so that will be where this analysis begins.
Most interpretations seem to point out that John was seeking the acceptance, intimacy, and love of a personal relationship with Lenina, but it is important to also recognize that he must have been searching for something similar with the others around him as well. John is truly what it means to be human because of his search for intimacy and his actions only further prove this thought. In the book, John demonstrates a sort of dependency on several characters in the book, the most obvious one being Lenina. The other characters are Linda and Mitsima. Linda is the strongest and most touching evidence of John’s quest for intimacy, because he still loves her and grieves during her death as his mother despite the troubles that she causes him by being incapable of fully loving him back as her son and not conforming on the Savage Reservation. The love that John exhibits for Mitsima is also touching, for he keeps having flashbacks to their friendship on the Savage Reservation. He depends on his friendship with Helmholtz and Bernard as well, to some extent. Unfortunately, in the end, John is unable to find anyone capable of returning the same level of intimacy he feels and hence, remains alone, which prompts him to give into the pressures of the World State. As Firchow states about Bernard, “He is willing to settle for less because it is so much easier than trying to strive for more” (146).
Maanas brings up a good point that it must be remembered that Brave New World is a cautionary tale that focuses on the extremes of technology. John does represent concepts such as humanity and the power of the mass over the individual, but specifically he also serves as the evidence that the pursuit of more advanced technology and the efficiency associated with it can go so far as to eliminate all of their moral obstacles and eventually become irreversible. Call it optimism, but the individual does have the capability to sway the mass—unless the mass has been conditioned to the extent demonstrated in Brave New World.
I fully agree with what Sean, Ben, and several others have mentioned regarding the simile. John was searching for something in life akin to the existence portrayed by Shakespeare. His death shows the downfall of these ideals and a loss of hope for society.
However, the spinning of hid feet also portray John's struggle as an outcast. In the reservation, John was always excluded, as seen in the ceremony with the native boys. In London, John was an exhibit animal. John never seemed to fit in, and he struggled against this his entire life. Huxley indicated, through his illustration of John's spinning body, the lost nature of his soul, in addition to the lost nature of humanity as expressed by several other individuals.
I have been trying to post for the last 10 minutes but the computer was not letting me. So sorry I am a minute or two late but here is my take:
This quote really amazed me; I was awestruck at the fact that John committed suicide to escape from the worlds he did not fit into. For such a strong minded young man to give in to the conveniences he so intensely loathed perplexes me. John originally claimed the right �to be unhappy� and the fact that he could not take the unhappiness in certain contexts makes me wonder. I concur with many people above when I say that he did not fit the mold of the new world or the �savage� world and therefore was not accepted. Although John�s disgust (with himself) and frustration may have induced his suicide isn�t that also a form of instant escape? As the compass simile clearly demonstrates he lost his direction and decided not to live in societies which he could not cope. However committing suicide is yet another convenience.
Although dieing also represents eternal solitude and seems to be the only place John could reside in peace, it is with out temptation as well, which is what truly tortured his mind. "No more than sleep. Sleep. Perchance to dream... For in that sleep of death, what dreams?" (227). His lust for Lenina forced him not to accept himself as well. I strongly believe it is easier to be weak and give up. He gave in to his emotions on some level rather than drawing strength from them. If giving up on life is the answer then I do not agree.
The question in my mind is what is the purpose of defying a society of the new world? Can it be achieved? As William H. noted, Huxley "uses John's death as a symbol that anyone who tries to defy society will eventually fall". John did fail but was it his lack of will and ability to cope, or the system that overpowered him? There is a profound relationship between John and the people around the world today. We all struggle to express our individuality and cope with our desires.
We all search for a niche, a place where we fulfill a purpose � but John was slightly different from the rest of us - he was searching to earn his happiness. He was searching for a society that fit his morals, beliefs and ideas. Society made him not accept himself (as he betrayed his ideals and gave into his desires) but he did not further conform to the new worlds� ideals.
The compass represents John's movements of being a conformist of the new world, and then becoming savage and back again, thus showing his indecisiveness. John searched for his place in the society where no individuality existed. He searched, but ended up not finding it. In the society, he felt alone. As the compass turned for another direction, John tried to find his place again, but failed, and was still alone, leading him to his death.
In response to Brittany's comment I too believe that the similie of the compass was the symbolism of being lost. John had been living in three worlds, the world state,the reservation and his made up Shakespearian world. John made it clear in earlier statements that he was a moral person, he made it clear that the world state was not his perfect society.
John was placed into an atmosphere that he couldn't comprehend at first but as he slowly came to the realization of the world states corruption and it broke his heart,because he had a heart, he was the only one with true deep emotion. John had no direction to follow. He was simply placed in a world where the only direction was no direction. A world like that would lead a moral man to his death.
When I read the passage another time, I noticed something. In the first line it states "...like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned...". The feet. Not "John's feet". Or even "The savage's feet". Just "the feet". Did Huxley do this to drive home the fact that John was no longer a living being? Or was there deeper meaning behind it?
I believe that the feet symbolizes humans; that we will always be trying to find a balance between being satisfied and being happy, being stable or being joyful, Utopia or Distopia. We never may find a middle ground, as John did not. We may forever be turning between from North to Southwest, and slowly back again.
yo...
Mr.Hardin i tried pasting my comment again but it still won't post
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