Brave New World

Chapter 16 begins with the three friends, John, Helmholtz, and Bernard in an interrogation room. Mustapha Mond soon joins them and says, “So you don’t much like civilization, Mr. Savage” (218). Bernard is at first horrified and begins to interject but then is quieted by a glance from Mond. They begin a conversation, mostly between Mond and John, but with interjections from the other two about the positives and negatives of civilization. Mond reveals that he knows Shakespeare, to John’s delight, but then reveals that it is prohibited, which is news to John. When John asks why they can’t update Othello for a modern World State audience, Mond responds, “Because our world is not the same as Othello’s world” (220). Instead, Mond continues, everyone is safe and happy, and cannot possibly understand something like Shakespeare. Mond even agrees when John objects that this kind of happiness seems “horrible,” adding, “Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery” (221). Mond then discusses the necessity of the caste system, and why everyone cannot be Alphas, following that up with the fact that even science can be dangerous, and must be tempered. When Bernard and Helmholtz learn that they are to be sent to islands where they can be free though unable to leave, Bernard has a breakdown and is escorted from the room. Mond explains that he chose not to have the island for himself in order to serve the greater good, though he would have preferred it. Helmholtz chooses an island with “a thoroughly bad climate” to aid his creativity, a notion of which Mond approves.  

Chapter 17 picks up where Chapter 16 leaves off, in the same room, though now with just John and Mond. They discuss the nature of God and the role that the concept plays in happiness and a stable society. Mond says, “You can only be independent of God while you’ve got youth and prosperity; independence won’t take you safely to the end” (233). In the modern World State, on the other hand, God “manifests himself as absence” (234). The two go back and forth, John referring back to Shakespeare and claiming there is “something in living dangerously,” instead of safely, and Mond counters that this is why they have “made V.P.S. [Violent Passion Surrogate] treatments compulsory,” as a means to simulate “fear and rage” (239).

The conversation and chapter end with John maintaining his defiance: “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin” (240). Mond replies, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy,” and he welcomes John to it (240).

In the final chapter of the novel, Helmholtz and Bernard pay John a visit before they leave for their islands. John is feeling rather ill, claiming that he is purifying himself of civilization in the Indian fashion, by drinking “mustard and warm water” (242). He then reveals that he requested to go with them, but Mond wouldn’t let him, saying “he wanted to go on with the experiment” (243). John says, “I’m damned if I’ll go on being experimented with” and that he’s leaving as well, in order to be alone (243).

The chapter continues with John taking up residence in an abandoned lighthouse and removing the conveniences and punishing himself regularly in order to avoid contentment at any cost. He fashions a whip and routinely self-flagellates. He is eventually seen, and a reporter arrives, asking for “[j]ust a few words from you, Mr. Savage” (249). John runs him off only to be swarmed over and over by tourists and reporters. He reveals that part of his self-flagellation is to punish himself for thinking lustfully of Lenina, even still. At some point, a documentary filmmaker captures candid footage of John, after which even more people flock to him. Finally, Lenina herself arrives, and John goes into a fury. The novel ends with a final visitor stumbling on John’s body, which is hanging from the rafters.