Brave New World, you either loved it or you hated it. When I read through it I always found myself getting wrapped up in the environment and descriptions (Which is hat I felt Huxley was great at) while I fell asleep to mundane character banter. Let's start with the negatives; the characters. Ultimately they felt contrived and bland. Their sleep conditioning was more interesting then the effect it had on them because it made them (quintessentially) spout cliches at you, which mind you were about 1.5/4 of the dialog. Let's talk about the two main protagonists, shall we? Bernard somehow became less dynamic as a character even though that him becoming a flat character is a dynamic change. You could literally slap any personality trait on Bernard and still not care about him. He sounded interesting to start but then John came along and a switch instantly flipped (I mean there was no subtle lead up to this or anything) and he was immediately only prideful and envious. Instead of how he was; Envious, troubled, self deprecating, introspective, etc. He was just downgraded so much. Then John takes over and he's literally made zero changes in character throughout his half of the book. His character ark is that he was confused and now he isn't. Wow what an amazing feat! The way John's hanging corpse was described in the last two paragraphs of the book were more interesting than John. Again the lead up to him even hinting at committing suicide was non-existent.
Well then let's talk about some positives then; the world building. I found it fascinating that there was a caste system. That somma was a happy pill. Where the people didn't care about their burred dead. That they were birthed with no sense of individuality. A place where monogamy and marriage wasn't valued. Where the most intelligent inhabitants were placed on islands with people like them. That people's main mode of transportation was a helicopter. The list just goes on, and the way Huxley describes some scenes just make me awe in wonder. What did you think? Did you agree or disagree with some of the things I've said?
~Mason Cross
I think that Bernard was a dynamic character. The reader learns much about him; how he's very insecure and how he constantly feels out of place. The reader always, in my opinion, felt some sympathy for Bernard. He was born different, and characters in the novel saw him as an odd person. Towards the beginning of the book, Bernard was caring and got mad at one point when two characters were talking about Lenina in a disrespectful way. Towards the end of the novel, he became a selfish person. Money and power created a sense of confidence in him. I believe that bringing John back into the dystopian society was for himself. Bernard wanted to feel as if he had accomplished something and created purpose in his life. Bringing John back would make him almost famous. Bernard knew this. He knew that John would be the center of gossip and drama, and Bernard wanted to be the hero that brought John and his father together.
ReplyDeleteWell the issue with Bernard is that the build up to his change is almost non-existent. It was just "BAM! He's different now!" Which it wasn't even terribly different. The only thing he lost was his respect for women and the occasional refusal of soma. I just thought he brought John back because it was a good deed. Then he was just prideful and then back to being envious. Is it really dynamic if you;re practically back to where this character started? Except now he's more sad than anything. I liked Bernard the most out of every character but I still don't think he was a very good character. When it came to Lenina I felt more sorry for the embryo she forgot to vaccinate. I just couldn't picture anyone (except maybe the controller) as being real people. They all just felt so contrived. Benard is just your cliche minority character; insecure, grumbles about society and refuses to do anything real about it, out of place, and of course sad. Those are the most expected things for him to be. The biggest suprise (as I've said before) is that his personality change just felt so out of character for him to go through. It also happened instantly, he didn't struggle with any thoughts about it, he didn't have to take a moment to think what he was doing was right, etc. There was nothing. His characters ark was only a thing for three pages. It's just awful.
DeleteI agree with Mason that Bernard is a "cliche minority character" because I think Bernard's role in BNW showcases being those "rebels" in every dystopian/ utopian society. It is pretty evident that there is always at least one character that fails to obey their government's control because he/she do not approve of the power over the people. However, I just assumed Huxley would want his readers to see two different characters with two different perspectives of his civilization (Bernard and John). No matter how bad the character can be, their roles are what gives the novel life and meaning to what the book is trying to convey. Bernard's character arc is not that "he was confused and now he isn't." It's more like he first felt like an outsider towards his fellow Alphas then tried to fit in with them but doesn't succeed, so he learns that it's best to not live in a society like Huxley's. If anyone else agrees that Bernard really was a bad charachter then what changes would you give to him to make him a better character?
ReplyDeleteWell I wouldn't mind if he started out like an archetypal character as he did, but his transition into what he became was just so out of nowhere. Huxley needs to work on subtlety. For another character I'd change would be John, His arc was him going from curious to a hardened religious state that did the opposite of bring people further to the truth. Which is also sad because he was very intelligent and he couldn't understand that. When he hung himself it felt completely unnecessarily and I just rolled my eyes.
DeleteI do believe that Bernard had no vivid development throughout the story. I thought the savage reservation would have slowly changed him, and that he would want to learn more about Malpais, but the plot just moved too quickly. However, Bernard just seemed to hand the story over to John, while Bernard started to become a minor character. I thought maybe Huxley wanted the story to end focusing more on John to symbolize how we will fail if we don't keep up with the modern society. I do think that John did have a change in character throughout the novel, and that it was shown very well through his relationship with Lenina. Shakespeare was a big factor in changing John, and his mother dying affected him so much into doing what he does in all of the last chapter.
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