Literature Analysis #2

Brave New World

1. There is so much to the plot of this book, so I can only hope that I do it justice. Huxley sets the book in A.F. (after Ford) where the point of A.F. is that people are created by mass production, are trained to be in castes, trained to know only what they are told, and are matured by the age of four. And sexual activity is encouraged. The story is about Bernard, an alpha who does not fit in physically or mentally to the "brave new world". He rebels, meets "savages" outside of his world, brings them back to live in the world he disgusts so much, and soon one of the savages, John, gets too overwhelmed by the non-feeling, twisted world of not-so-free thinking.

2. The theme of the novel that I caught was freedom of the mind, and the ability to think and feel freely. Everyone takes something different from a book they read, depending on their standpoint and personal experiences. In my mind, while reading, Huxley proves how important our own humanity and feelings are to society, and how nothing would be normal without it. It occurs over and over in the book, so it just makes sense.

3. The tone that Huxley carries throughout the novel changes sometimes, but he is pretty dramatic and wise about most of the situations. “I am I, and I wish I weren't.” “No social stability without individual stability.” “...most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.”

4.

• Personification: “I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then," he added in a lower tone, "I ate my own wickedness.” 
• Allusion: "You got rid of them. Yes, that's just like you. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether 'tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows or outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them...But you don't do either."
• Parallelism: “I want God, I want poetry, I want danger, I want freedom, I want sin.” 
• Rhythm and rhyme: “Ending is better than mending.”  
• Alliteration: "Mustapha Mond"
• Oxymoron: “Pain was a fascinating horror” 
• Simile: “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” 
• Verse: “The more stitches, the less riches.” 
• Imagery: “A squat gray building of only thirty-four stories.” 
• Amplification: “Words can be like x-rays if you use them properly - they'll go through anything.”

Characterization

1.Indirect: “All alone, outside the pueblo, on the bare plain of the mesa. The rock was like bleached bones in the moonlight. Down in the valley, the coyotes were howling at the moon. The bruises hurt him, the cuts were still bleeding; but it was not for pain that he sobbed; it was because he was all alone, because he had been driven out, alone, into this skeleton world of rocks and moonlight. At the edge of the precipice he sat down. The moon was behind him; he looked down into the black shadow of the mesa, into the black shadow of death. He had only to take one step, one little jump.. He held out his right hand in the moonlight. From the cut on his wrist the blood was still oozing. Every few seconds a drop fell, dark, almost colourless in the dead light. Drop, drop, drop. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. He had discovered Time and Death and God.”
Direct: "A squat gray building of only thirty-four stories."

Huxley uses the indirect to build up the feeling that you are actually there, while using direct characterization to paint an image for you in your head.

2. Huxley's syntax stays constant, and his diction changes based on the situation at hand. During the beginning of the book, he used bugs at one point to describe the dystopia and the people that were living in it. Different characters called for different words and descriptions. He described Bernard as a too-small-for-his-own-good Alpha who doesn't belong as much as Hemholtz does.

3. The protagonist, Bernard, is definitely a round dynamic character. He changes throughout the book from someone who is closed minded with his thoughts to someone who is capable of speaking his mind and setting forth his feelings about the twisted world they live in.

4. After reading this book, I feel like I understand the constant breakdown of emotions and feelings encompassing John and his constant battle against the confusingly robotic world that Bernard resides in. It made sense to me from the very beginning how frustrating the dystopia was without common ideals and differences of opinion.
"He was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of." Here, Huxley is describing what John is feeling as Lenina seduces him; he feels so lost in himself and the world he is living in. But somehow, he conjures up the power of resistance.