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wingedbeastI spent the last part complaining about the colonial attitudes of Lenina and Bernard. And, in part, that's what Huxley intended. In part, it isn't, because I think we're supposed to side with Bernard on this, not siding with Lenina when she's the only one who will even express a desire for the lack of a human sacrifice.
But, all of it is necessary in order for John to happen the way he happens.
Without a hefty amount of colonialism, neither European bloodline nor the ability to speak English would be all that important, here. It might be a consideration, but given the religious diversity that indicates influences from the Americas, Europe, and China, the savage reservation would likely have been ethnically diverse at least at the beginning.
And, while English... isn't a simple language. It has rules, but it has exceptions and those exceptions don't make sense unless you know the history of the language. (Plural of ox is oxen, now plural of box... now make sense of pluralization of words that end in "ox".) But, it's not impossible to learn and speak well.
In fact, I'd say that the Savage Reservation has an active interest in learning the language. When you're kept weak and there's a unified "civilized" culture out there that could easily destroy you if you're a little too annoying (as evidenced by that electrified fence all around), there's a good reason to have a few people who know the language and know the culture as best as possible.
Bernard's initial astonishment to both facts just doesn't make sense without this colonialism.
Of course, there's also a couple parts about John that only make sense in light of Huxley's colonialism.
For instance...
Now, I get that there's some novelty here. And, after all, the only woman of John's race that John has seen was his own mother. But, and there's an important but here, that doesn't mean that women of his race are automatically more attractive to him.
Fun fact about human appreciation of beauty, it's heavily influenced by repetition of exposure. Now, humans also have a tendency to find appeal in the exotic (which Lenina would be to John as John would be to the culture around him). So, there's no reason for John not to find Lenina attractive. But, neither is there a reason for the narrator's relation of what causes John's reaction to be so down on women of color.
Common Huxley, you don't need to put other women down in order to complement Lenina.
And, that's a bit odd to me. It's not like John is wholly separate from the culture of the reservation. He might be an outcast, but part of his introduction was his complaining about not having been the sacrifice, not proving that he was a man by walking more circuits around the snake-pile while being whipped. In fact, that's a part of the issue with John. He's taken on the influence of the culture in which he was raised.
At least, that's the explanation I work with. I get the sense that Huxley, much like Orwell with Julia's nigh-inexplicable kink, thinks that some elements of his culture are just basic nature.
And that is my transition to Linda.
Linda is primarily present as John's mother. She'll also serve another purpose in the story, in being the controversy that takes down the Director of the Hatchery and Conditioning. Beyond that, Huxley seems to give little thought to her. She's gone John's entire life plus nine months in this culture, living this life and, aside from being a little uncouth and significantly out of shape for Fordly expectations, hasn't adapted at all.
She hasn't learned to mend things. She hasn't learned any of the locally necessary skills. She hasn't learned that, maybe, sleeping with other women's husband's might not be the best idea. She doesn't even adapt to the knowledge that this is a different set of conditions to her own.
I fully understand why Fordly society would have such hypnopaedic wisdom. In a society where the supply of stuff (such as clothes) isn't a concern but the maintained economy via the consistent flow of capitol via purchasing and wages is a concern, yeah, you want people buying new stuff rather than fixing old stuff. I assume that Fordly society, as a part of their desire for stability, makes sure that people have the wages necessary to be able to afford to spend what they need to spend in order to maintain the economy (something they have over America).
But, to go all those years, nearly two decades, having never figured out that this is a situation where supply is more of a concern than demand? Okay, she wasn't taught about economics and was only conditioned for her particular place in the economics. So, she wouldn't have that language, but still. I find myself mystified that she'd go all this time and never, once think "okay, maybe I'm the one who needs to adapt"?
I kind of have to wonder how she survived all this time... how she gained all the weight she did. She doesn't have and has refused to learn any valuable skills. She isn't explicitly a prostitute, though she does have men over frequently. Did she learn and it either wasn't mentioned or I just forgot?
Of course, one element of her highlights something about Huxley's creation that I highlighted before and I want to highlight again. She has sex with several of the men around, including the husbands of some of the women. When said women take issue, she explains the civilized way. And, this is a reminder that Huxley hasn't created a sex-positive world here, hasn't imagined that as a possibility of the changes and expanding options going on in his day. Linda isn't a sex-positive woman finding herself in a purity culture for all this time. She just moved from one purity culture to another.
And, for some reason, John really took issue with it.
I can guess that John's issue, his eventual violent response to one of her lovers, has something to do with the judgment cast from the culture of the savage reservation. But, that's not made clear and, aside from a few names of a few of Linda's lovers, the people of the reservation aren't given character enough to be a part of any story.
So, I come back to that colonialism and, from both a Watsonian and a Doylist perspective, that's the only way this can happen. That and Huxley mistaking his cultural conditioning for the natural human state.
But, all of it is necessary in order for John to happen the way he happens.
There was the sound of feet in the inner room. Lenina did not move, but sat with her face in her hands, unseeing, apart. Only Bernard turned round.
The dress of the young man who now stepped out on to the terrace was Indian; but his plaited hair was straw-coloured, his eyes a pale blue, his skin was a white skin, bronzed.
"Hullo. Good-morrow," said the stranger in faultless but peculiar English. "You're civilized, aren't you? You come from the Other Place, outside the Reservation?"
Without a hefty amount of colonialism, neither European bloodline nor the ability to speak English would be all that important, here. It might be a consideration, but given the religious diversity that indicates influences from the Americas, Europe, and China, the savage reservation would likely have been ethnically diverse at least at the beginning.
And, while English... isn't a simple language. It has rules, but it has exceptions and those exceptions don't make sense unless you know the history of the language. (Plural of ox is oxen, now plural of box... now make sense of pluralization of words that end in "ox".) But, it's not impossible to learn and speak well.
In fact, I'd say that the Savage Reservation has an active interest in learning the language. When you're kept weak and there's a unified "civilized" culture out there that could easily destroy you if you're a little too annoying (as evidenced by that electrified fence all around), there's a good reason to have a few people who know the language and know the culture as best as possible.
Bernard's initial astonishment to both facts just doesn't make sense without this colonialism.
Of course, there's also a couple parts about John that only make sense in light of Huxley's colonialism.
For instance...
He [John] gave a gasp and was silent, gaping. He had seen, for the first time in his life, the face of a girl whose cheeks were not the color of chocolate or dogskin, whose hair was auburn and permanently waved, and whose expression (amazing novelty!) was one of benevolent interest.
Now, I get that there's some novelty here. And, after all, the only woman of John's race that John has seen was his own mother. But, and there's an important but here, that doesn't mean that women of his race are automatically more attractive to him.
Fun fact about human appreciation of beauty, it's heavily influenced by repetition of exposure. Now, humans also have a tendency to find appeal in the exotic (which Lenina would be to John as John would be to the culture around him). So, there's no reason for John not to find Lenina attractive. But, neither is there a reason for the narrator's relation of what causes John's reaction to be so down on women of color.
Common Huxley, you don't need to put other women down in order to complement Lenina.
And, that's a bit odd to me. It's not like John is wholly separate from the culture of the reservation. He might be an outcast, but part of his introduction was his complaining about not having been the sacrifice, not proving that he was a man by walking more circuits around the snake-pile while being whipped. In fact, that's a part of the issue with John. He's taken on the influence of the culture in which he was raised.
At least, that's the explanation I work with. I get the sense that Huxley, much like Orwell with Julia's nigh-inexplicable kink, thinks that some elements of his culture are just basic nature.
And that is my transition to Linda.
Linda is primarily present as John's mother. She'll also serve another purpose in the story, in being the controversy that takes down the Director of the Hatchery and Conditioning. Beyond that, Huxley seems to give little thought to her. She's gone John's entire life plus nine months in this culture, living this life and, aside from being a little uncouth and significantly out of shape for Fordly expectations, hasn't adapted at all.
She hasn't learned to mend things. She hasn't learned any of the locally necessary skills. She hasn't learned that, maybe, sleeping with other women's husband's might not be the best idea. She doesn't even adapt to the knowledge that this is a different set of conditions to her own.
And look at these clothes. This beastly wool isn't like acetate. It lasts and lasts. And, you're supposed to mend it if it gets torn. But, I'm a Beta; I worked in the Fertilizing Room; nobody ever taught me to do anything like that. It wasn't my business. Besides, it never used to be right to mend clothes. Throw them away when they've got holes in them and buy new. 'The more stitches, the less riches.' Isn't that right? Mending's anti-social. But it's all different here. It's like living with lunatics. Everything they do is mad.
I fully understand why Fordly society would have such hypnopaedic wisdom. In a society where the supply of stuff (such as clothes) isn't a concern but the maintained economy via the consistent flow of capitol via purchasing and wages is a concern, yeah, you want people buying new stuff rather than fixing old stuff. I assume that Fordly society, as a part of their desire for stability, makes sure that people have the wages necessary to be able to afford to spend what they need to spend in order to maintain the economy (something they have over America).
But, to go all those years, nearly two decades, having never figured out that this is a situation where supply is more of a concern than demand? Okay, she wasn't taught about economics and was only conditioned for her particular place in the economics. So, she wouldn't have that language, but still. I find myself mystified that she'd go all this time and never, once think "okay, maybe I'm the one who needs to adapt"?
I kind of have to wonder how she survived all this time... how she gained all the weight she did. She doesn't have and has refused to learn any valuable skills. She isn't explicitly a prostitute, though she does have men over frequently. Did she learn and it either wasn't mentioned or I just forgot?
Of course, one element of her highlights something about Huxley's creation that I highlighted before and I want to highlight again. She has sex with several of the men around, including the husbands of some of the women. When said women take issue, she explains the civilized way. And, this is a reminder that Huxley hasn't created a sex-positive world here, hasn't imagined that as a possibility of the changes and expanding options going on in his day. Linda isn't a sex-positive woman finding herself in a purity culture for all this time. She just moved from one purity culture to another.
And, for some reason, John really took issue with it.
I can guess that John's issue, his eventual violent response to one of her lovers, has something to do with the judgment cast from the culture of the savage reservation. But, that's not made clear and, aside from a few names of a few of Linda's lovers, the people of the reservation aren't given character enough to be a part of any story.
So, I come back to that colonialism and, from both a Watsonian and a Doylist perspective, that's the only way this can happen. That and Huxley mistaking his cultural conditioning for the natural human state.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-30 10:16 pm (UTC)The Linda-John relationship is confusing. She resembles real-life parents with addictions, but he doesn't quite fit the personality of someone who grew up in a dysfunctional household. And John's experience is not that of a second-generation immigrant influenced by two worlds - the Fordian world and its ideology are merely a faraway dream for him. Instead, he functions to a large extent as a doppelganger for Bernard, as if Huxley could describe the contrasting World State and Reservation cultures only from the perspectives of characters who don't fit in.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-30 11:03 pm (UTC)It's entirely likely that Lenina and Bernard wouldn't have paid too much attention to the weight of the locals. And were just more sensitive to differences in people who, otherwise, looked like themselves.
And... I don't know how much I expect Huxley to know about addiction or being the child of an addict. And, there's the element that this is more about commentary on society. John's character will almost be entirely independent of just about everything of his past.