John The Savage Alienation

Theme Statement: All civilized objects, activites, and souls, have inner savage which is held back by forced law, until power brings out the savage in everyone and everything.

The lack of individuality caused by there being no freedom in the novel is an evident message in the book, especially through the characters John, Lenina and Helmholtz. John wishes to be part of the savage rituals, but is unable to do so because he is not considered to be a true savage. He believes that he can do

In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Huxley uses the comparison of two places, the Savage Reservation and London, to build the backbone of the novel. The Savage Reservation and London are used to show two extremes that society has created in Huxley’s novel, these two extremes convey the uncivilized manner of what is seen as savage and the machine-like, futuristic cleanliness. The juxtaposition of the Savage Reservation and London strangely bring both locations into focus for the reader. Although Huxley creates two different societies neither one of them is a true utopia, because in a true utopia humanity wouldn’t be lost.

In Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel Brave New World, John (referred to as “the savage”) is the voice of freedom in a society ruled by an inexorable pursuit of superficial happiness. In the dystopian setting, the world controllers maintain public satisfaction “but at a very high price—the sacrifice of freedom, individuality, truth, beauty, a sense of purpose, and the concept of God” (Neilson). John’s unorthodox beliefs about monogamy, God, drugs, and freedom clash with that of the overwhelming majority of people in the totalitarian London utopia. This barrier is rooted in John’s natural moral development as opposed to the artificial conditioning of the rest of society and it leads to John’s complete isolation from the people of London.

Since the beginning of modern civilization, people have fantasized about a world without conflict, disease, aging, and violence. In Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel, Brave New World, the protagonist John the Savage travels from the Savage Reservations to a completely new society in which people are being controlled by the government. Once there, he realizes that he cannot exist in this strange place because the people lack humanity and genuine happiness. In the novel, Huxley reveals that true happiness depends upon the ability to confront and experience a wide range of emotions, both adverse and favorable.

The Brave New World offers its citizens possibilities that the savages in the Savage Reservation do not have access to. It provides them with sustainable comfort, and positive feelings. The Savage Reservation provides pain and a lack of cleanliness that makes it habitable solely to its savage population . Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a preferable living space that has a better quality of living, offers stability and community to its citizens, and has a cleaner lifestyle than the savage reservation .

Damon Knight’s “The Country of the Kind” follows a narrator who the audience at first knows little about, who lives in a society that is different from the norm, but is also initially left ambiguous. This sense of the unknown exists up until the narrator stumbles upon a pamphlet which opens up new viewpoints to the reader. The pamphlet serves to create three new perspectives in particular, all of which significantly shift the reader’s understanding of the story. First, it gives the reader a chance to understand the narrator and sympathize with him. Second, it offers a new perspective on society and their overall conception of what defines a utopia. The third and final perspective is that of the people who live within this society, and their interactions with the main characters. These three new perspectives prove to be formative in understanding the main character, his interactions with other characters in the story, and the role of society.

Even though John grew up on the reservation, he was not accepted by the community there. His complexion, along with how his mother behaved made it increasingly difficult for him to be accepted into their culture. The boys would shout, “Not for you, white-hair! Not for the son of the she-dog (Pg.127). John wasn’t allowed to participate in rituals and was rejected by many that lived there. So, he decided to have his own rituals. He once went into the wilderness and began crying, but thought, “...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” (Pg. 127). In addition, John’s mother would behave promiscuously as was a normal part of life in the Other Place, but not the Savage Reservation. He was then mocked and, sometimes, even violently hurt, because his mother’s actions were seen as very inappropriate and immoral (Pg. 121). John simply wanted to be a part of Indian life and culture, but felt as far from that as possible. He wasn’t only exiled from his community, but also from the Other Place. John was looked at as the “Savage” who acted much different than they. Later on, he became a spectacle for people to watch and laugh at (Pg. 227). His background was one that people there thought was shameful and something not to be spoken of. John had his fair share of alienation from both his own Indian community and people in

When these and other questions weigh upon his mind he begins to realize that something is fundamentally wrong with the world he is living in. In Brave New World the main character, Bernard, is set apart from society by physical differences, which, in a society of ‘engineered’ people is extremely inhibiting. It is these ‘defects’ which cause him to look for a deeper meaning than the drug induced happiness forced upon him. These characters, although alienated in the novels, are believable and rational. The acts of their questioning in their search for the truth and real emotion persuade the reader to do the same thing. It is in this manner that the utility of these novels becomes apparent; through the demands they make of the reader personally - a superior social commentary, one that demands interaction, is born.

What is the Noble Savage? Authors James Fenimore Cooper, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Pontiac, and Mary Rowlandson seek to answer to that very question in their respective writings. Each author has a different take on the Noble Savage—some focus more on nobility rather than savagery, others do the inverse, and some have a good balance of the two. When coupled together, the varying viewpoints lend themselves to paint a great picture of what the Noble Savage truly is: a complex archetype. After examining each of the works by the authors, I have concluded that the two aspects which make up the Noble Savage—nobility and savagery—are found in how they carry themselves, how they live, how they go about killing and why, and ultimately how they feel

The satirical world that Aldous Huxley curates in Brave New World possesses a futuristic society that the culture of today has yet to reach. Within Huxley’s novel, the residents of London devote themselves to the World State and live by the infamous motto: “Community, Identity, Stability” (3). They pride in sexual activity and view themselves superior to other regions of the world. They travel to savage reservations, such as Malpais, for vacations and romantic getaways to observe the savage people, who are uncivilized and lawless to the World State’s standards. Throughout the novel, Huxley hunts for true civilization through the parallel societies of the World State and Malpais. By creating Bernard Marx, an Alpha-Plus, and John the Savage; Huxley was able to connect the two worlds with different customs to conceive a clear discovery. The contrasted characters in Brave New World showcase the seemingly different forms of life, yet contain the same underlying flaw. Huxley built his novel upon the idea that the greatest comfort to people will bring the greatest pain.

John, a savage, has never been able to fit in society. Moving through two contradicting societies, John is unable to adapt to the major differences of the civilized society due to the different ways upon how it is conducted. Living with the savages, John feels isolated from the savages as they exclude him from most of their norms. John wanted to

In the following novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, there was one particular character that stood out to me, due to his situation. John the Savage, who Huxley compares the essential and civilized societies of the future was one of the main characters in the book. He is the son of the Director and Linda, and was born and raised on an Indian Reservation. The reservation takes place in New Mexico after an accident stranded Linda there, and the Director assumes she was dead, and returned to his civilization without her. John, as of right now it twenty years old, tall, and very handsome, and raised in an Indian culture. His mother Linda has told him tales when he was younger, and he now has a Utopian view of civilization based on that, as well

Upon Lenina and Bernard’s arrival to the Savage Reservation, Huxley immediately depicts the setting as one in which that only creatures who are inferior to humans could survive. The first descriptions of the reservation starkly contrast the efficient, hygienic, and affluent world the civilized characters are used to with “unfavorable climatic or geological conditions [and] poverty of natural resources,” (Huxley 162). In addition to adverse environmental issues such as hot weather and location, a straight fence of "the geometrical symbol of triumphant human purpose," encloses the inhabitants (Huxley 105). Huxley discernibly constructs the reservation as a confined space with “no escape” and “perfectly tamed” savages (Huxley 102, 106). The connection

For a society like this to work in reality, everyone living in in it cannot know of life outside of that society. In other words, one cannot take someone who knows freedom of choice, expression, and thought and place them in a society devoid of those things. They will know that something is wrong, and will not be able to adjust to the strict rules of society. John “the Savage” was taken from his life outside of the “perfect” society. In his life, he experienced pain and suffering in many forms and when he was brought to society, all the sufferings were taken away and replaced with an easy lifestyle. John was not brainwashed, he knew what freedom was, and he hated life there so much that he ultimately kills himself to escape from it. In