![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastJohn, in chapters nine and ten, gives us a demonstration of someone who's expectations do not conform to any realistic appreciation of reality. I'm not going to say that he's mentally ill because I don't believe that any of his behavior requires that. I am going to say that, in terms of his expectations and his model of human relations, he's not well.
That's understandable. It's important to remember, in chapter nine, that there are three major models he has for how humans are supposed to relate to each other.
1. Linda as his mother. The only thing he really knows about his relationship with his mother (or any of the men who she has sex with who could have attempted to take on something like a paternal relationship) is that this isn't how it's supposed to go. He doesn't know how it is supposed to go, but he knows this isn't it.
Linda, for all that we should have some compassion for her and all that she does love John, is abusive and likely neglectful simply out of a lack of knowledge as to how to be a mother. So, in understanding John, we do have to understand that Linda has been both abusive and neglectful.
2. The general culture of the Pueblo. Not only is his image of them one from some distance, it's also not the healthiest on its own. People get married at the age of sixteen and seem to have very strict gender roles. They don't seem to have made much-to-any attempt at instructing her in the weaving expected of her. And, they quite readily abuse both Linda and John.
3. Shakespeare. This, quite possibly, comes the closest John ever comes, in his youth, to modeling healthy human interactions. And that is sad.
I don't mean to insult Shakespeare. As I stated in the previous deconstruction post, I do think that our culture comes too close to worshiping Shakespeare than is good for appreciating Shakespeare. That said, he was a good writer. I enjoy A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night or As You Like It.
Shakespeare assorted plays shouldn't comprise anybody's idea of a healthy human interaction. Nobody who watches Romeo and Juliet should think that that is an accurate understanding of how romantic love works. John, to all appearances, does.
I guess, what I'm saying is that the following is both disturbing and expected.
For context, Bernard is taking a quick trip to set up a few things and Lenina, after having gone through such an ordeal, has taken several tablets of Soma. For that reason, John wakes up in the rest-house to find neither of them present. Thinking himself abandoned by his brief hope, he cries.
That's not even half-way through the paragraph worth of violations of privacy.
There's no note on timing. The way it's written, it seems like the move from tears to the joyous breaking and entering into Lenina's room didn't take any time at all. Even within his head, her suitcase was there and his breaking in through the window was the very same thought.
It's only after he's been there a while and thoroughly explored her private possessions without her permission that he notices that she's actually there, in the bedroom. Luckiliy for him, she's stoned out of her mind and isn't awake to notice what he's doing. Unluckily for her, the only reason he doesn't remove her clothes when the thought occurs is that he thinks of her as pure with vestal modesty.
And, when he first sees her, he quotes Romeo and Juliet about her.
One of the issues of Fordly society is that it works hard to make sure that people don't have to experience strong emotions. John seems to have taken, from Shakespeare's work, that the only emotions that really count are overpowering. Between the two, John makes a very good case for Fordly society being the better option.
I'm going to touch on chapter ten quickly to keep the focus on John. I'll get more into chapter ten next time. For now, I'm focusing on John's expectations regarding meeting his father.
I get the sense that John did this from instruction. But, I don't know that it's at all likely that he expected his declaration to be the cause of such laughter and embarassment. I think that some part of John expected that he would return to "civilization", meet his father, and have a family.
Yes, there is a failure of the logic there. Linda's fondest moments seem to be a longing for Fordly life and recounting, for John, what Fordly life is like. She'd probably be clear that there's no such thing as mothers or fathers there. But, emotions aren't always subject to logic.
John has grown up to look at the world around him and see things that other people have that he does not. They have fathers. They have mothers who know how to weave and cook and... parent. The fantasy of leaving this world for a world where you have that which everybody else has and you lack? That's a fantasy that's hard to give up, even for all the good reasons in the world.
As understandable as all this is, it's still quite unhealthy. John has all the warning he needs to do so, but won't adjust his expectations to better match the society he's joining. To a more modern audience, this foreshadows what eventually happens to John.
When I first read Brave New World I was in High School and I must have missed the B&E. I read John as a representation of one of those better, "simpler" times. I can't read him that way, now. Now, I have to read him as the unhealthy longing for an unrealistic idea of a time that never really was.
That means that the innocence of John is no longer innocence. It's ignorance, chosen ignorance. And, this makes me think of John as much more dangerous than I think Huxley intended.
That's understandable. It's important to remember, in chapter nine, that there are three major models he has for how humans are supposed to relate to each other.
1. Linda as his mother. The only thing he really knows about his relationship with his mother (or any of the men who she has sex with who could have attempted to take on something like a paternal relationship) is that this isn't how it's supposed to go. He doesn't know how it is supposed to go, but he knows this isn't it.
Linda, for all that we should have some compassion for her and all that she does love John, is abusive and likely neglectful simply out of a lack of knowledge as to how to be a mother. So, in understanding John, we do have to understand that Linda has been both abusive and neglectful.
2. The general culture of the Pueblo. Not only is his image of them one from some distance, it's also not the healthiest on its own. People get married at the age of sixteen and seem to have very strict gender roles. They don't seem to have made much-to-any attempt at instructing her in the weaving expected of her. And, they quite readily abuse both Linda and John.
3. Shakespeare. This, quite possibly, comes the closest John ever comes, in his youth, to modeling healthy human interactions. And that is sad.
I don't mean to insult Shakespeare. As I stated in the previous deconstruction post, I do think that our culture comes too close to worshiping Shakespeare than is good for appreciating Shakespeare. That said, he was a good writer. I enjoy A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night or As You Like It.
Shakespeare assorted plays shouldn't comprise anybody's idea of a healthy human interaction. Nobody who watches Romeo and Juliet should think that that is an accurate understanding of how romantic love works. John, to all appearances, does.
I guess, what I'm saying is that the following is both disturbing and expected.
For context, Bernard is taking a quick trip to set up a few things and Lenina, after having gone through such an ordeal, has taken several tablets of Soma. For that reason, John wakes up in the rest-house to find neither of them present. Thinking himself abandoned by his brief hope, he cries.
Half an hour later it occurred to him to look through the window. The first thing he saw was a green suit-case, with the initials L.C. painted on the lid. Joy flared up like fire within him. He picked upa stone. The smashed glass tinkled on the floor. A moment later he was inside the room. He opened the green suit-case; and all at once he was breathing Lenina's perfume, filling his lungs with her essential being. His heart beat wildly; for a moment he was almost faint.
That's not even half-way through the paragraph worth of violations of privacy.
There's no note on timing. The way it's written, it seems like the move from tears to the joyous breaking and entering into Lenina's room didn't take any time at all. Even within his head, her suitcase was there and his breaking in through the window was the very same thought.
It's only after he's been there a while and thoroughly explored her private possessions without her permission that he notices that she's actually there, in the bedroom. Luckiliy for him, she's stoned out of her mind and isn't awake to notice what he's doing. Unluckily for her, the only reason he doesn't remove her clothes when the thought occurs is that he thinks of her as pure with vestal modesty.
And, when he first sees her, he quotes Romeo and Juliet about her.
One of the issues of Fordly society is that it works hard to make sure that people don't have to experience strong emotions. John seems to have taken, from Shakespeare's work, that the only emotions that really count are overpowering. Between the two, John makes a very good case for Fordly society being the better option.
I'm going to touch on chapter ten quickly to keep the focus on John. I'll get more into chapter ten next time. For now, I'm focusing on John's expectations regarding meeting his father.
He came in at once, paused just for a moment inside the door, looked around, then soft on his moccasined feet strode quickly across the room, fell on his knees in front of the Director, and said in a clear voice: "My father!"
The word (for "father" was not so much obscene as-with its connotations of something at one remove from the loathsomeness and moral obliquity of child-bearing-merely gross, a scatological rather than a pornographic impropriety); the comically smutty word relieved what had become a quite intolerable tension. Laughter broke out, enormous, almost hysterical, peal after peal, as though it would never stop. My father-and it was the Director! My father! Oh Ford, oh Ford! That was really too good. The whooping and roaring renewed themselves, faces seemed on the point of disintegration, tears were streaming. Six more test-tubes of spermatozoa were upset. My father!
I get the sense that John did this from instruction. But, I don't know that it's at all likely that he expected his declaration to be the cause of such laughter and embarassment. I think that some part of John expected that he would return to "civilization", meet his father, and have a family.
Yes, there is a failure of the logic there. Linda's fondest moments seem to be a longing for Fordly life and recounting, for John, what Fordly life is like. She'd probably be clear that there's no such thing as mothers or fathers there. But, emotions aren't always subject to logic.
John has grown up to look at the world around him and see things that other people have that he does not. They have fathers. They have mothers who know how to weave and cook and... parent. The fantasy of leaving this world for a world where you have that which everybody else has and you lack? That's a fantasy that's hard to give up, even for all the good reasons in the world.
As understandable as all this is, it's still quite unhealthy. John has all the warning he needs to do so, but won't adjust his expectations to better match the society he's joining. To a more modern audience, this foreshadows what eventually happens to John.
When I first read Brave New World I was in High School and I must have missed the B&E. I read John as a representation of one of those better, "simpler" times. I can't read him that way, now. Now, I have to read him as the unhealthy longing for an unrealistic idea of a time that never really was.
That means that the innocence of John is no longer innocence. It's ignorance, chosen ignorance. And, this makes me think of John as much more dangerous than I think Huxley intended.
