BNW Journal #2

The motif of pneumatic continues throughout the second part of the book; it becomes clearer what the author perceives the definition to be. Lenina comments on herself when she is talking to Bernard saying that “’everyone says [she’s] awfully pneumatic’…reflectively patting her own legs” (93). She pats her own legs which shows that pneumatic means thick. She then clarifies by asking if she’s “too plump” (93) confirming the author’s definition of pneumatic is plump, not literally gas filled like the dictionary definition. The second part of the second section of reading has fewer references to ‘pneumatic’. When it is mention again when Lenina and the Savage go to a feely and “sunk in there pneumatic stalls” (167). Huxley’s choice to use pneumatic to describe the stall is interesting because the imagery of the motif has been used strictly to refer to women in an appealing or sexual way. This could be different than the other references because John, the savage, was present and he does not come on to women like civilized men normally would.

The setting of the novel in the second part of Brave New World takes place, partly, outside of London. Bernard and Lenina go to “the Reservation” (102) which is an uncivilized society where “children still are born” (102).  Unlike the civilized community of London, the  people of the Reservation “still preserve their repulsive habits and customs... [of] marriage,…no conditioning,…Christianity,...extinct languages,… ferocious animals…and infectious diseases” (103). The ideas from New Mexico, which is where the Reservation resides, is vastly different than the pristine and exact life of London.  The Reservation contained so much “dirt” (120) that is repulsed Lenina; in a civilized community, “’Civilization is Sterilization’” (121) so no “filth” (121) is present. Linda understand Lenina’s repulsion because she was once civilized and the dirt “used to upset [her]” (120) too and makes her feel “like [she’s] living with lunatics” (121). The juxtaposition between the Reservation and the civilized community is dramatic and crucial to understand the vast differences of the living situations and culture.

The language Huxley uses continues to be descriptive during the second part. Upon finding his mom, Linda, sleeping with Pope, John describes his feelings in a way that no civilized person knows how to, with passion. He claims “his heart seemed to have disappeared and left a hole. He was empty. Empty, and cold, and rather sick, and giddy” (132). No civilized person could have felt the hatred he felt; this hatred fueled his urge to stab Pope. It is clear that Pope is also uncivilized because he acts in a peculiar way by making John “look again into Pope’s eyes” (133) after he is stabbed. John is able to feel things and say things that no civilized person can; he gets this ability from his lack of conditioning, but also from reading Shakespeare.

Shakespeare is a cultural connection to the world today and is not used in the civilized world because the library “contains only books of reference” (163) because allowing them to read other books would “encourage them to indulge in solitary amusement” (163). Really, I feel they do not allow other books because they want everyone to be clones, and books give people ideas about emotions and cultural which the civilization is trying to eliminate. John enjoys Shakespeare because the language is abstract and teaches him words to express his emotions of “hate” (132). Before Shakespeare, John felt like he “never really hated [Pope] because he had never been able to say how much he hated him. But now he had these words, these words like drums and singing and magic” (132) to help him to express a deep emotion that is banned from civilization.