CHARACTERS
How are children in the Nursery conditioned to dislike books and flowers? Why?
Children are conditioned by sounding alarms and shocking the children when they approach books or flowers. This is to keep them from spending time reading and thinking or exploring nature when they are older. In the World State, consumerism is number one.
Why can’t John and Lenina have a relationship?
John grew up on the Savage Reservation, where traditional monogamy is enforced. In The Complete Works of William Shakespeare he has read stories in which young men do dangerous or difficult things to prove themselves worthy. John wants to “do something” for Lenina, but Lenina grew up in the World State. She believes that it is morally wrong to be monogamous. She wants to have sleep with John right away, but John thinks this is disgusting. They can’t find common ground about what a relationship ought to be.
Why are Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson friends? (Be specific. What do they have in common?How are they different from the others?)
Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson are friends because they both feel like outsiders. Bernard is unusually small for an Alpha, and people make fun of him. Helmholtz is unusually talented. In the society of the World State, everyone is supposed to be the same. Bernard and Helmholtz are unusual because they feel like individuals. The two men bond over their shared experience of not being like everybody else.
In the Alpha and Beta castes, embryos grow inside individual eggs, while the embryos in the other three castes grow by Bokanovsky’s Process. Thus, the people in the Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon castes grow in multiple identical units. The Director calls this process one of the “major instruments of social stability” and exclaims: “Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!”