John's Character continues to bewilder me till the end. He wishes to live the life a man of ethics and morals as we would in our own society. Thus he doesn't not fit into the society of
BNW. This is a comparison purposefully made by Alduous Huxley to show us how we would react, in a sense, if we were in John's shoes. That is assuming that we too have proper ethics of our own. We can see how Shakespeare really shapes John's way of thought and his morals. Shakespeare's words brought a sense of love, of being a child, of mother and father, of truth and tragedy, etc... to John. They made him what we would consider a man, and what the society of
BNW would conisder, a Savage.
In the end that is all that he was to them, simply an uncivilized queer savage. We see the beginnings of this "man" or "savage" when he calls Lenina out as whore in his anger. Then again at Linda's (his mother's) deathbed.
It's not surprising that John could not take the ignorance of the society. It was expected of him to go crazy sooner or later while trying to convince others to see the world the way he sees it.
In the end it is a failure. How can one see what one has been deprived of and cannot fathom?
For example, if one attempts to imagine the universe as small as a particle and within a billionth of a billionth of a second to imagine it expand to infinite reaches billions maybe trillions miles across, the idea would seem so immense it becomes improbable in the state of mind. It just isn't within our power to imagine greatness of the universe. That same way the people of BNW that have been so manipulated by hypnopaedia and so restricted cannot attempt to fathom what John is talking on and on about.
It is intriguing watching the conversation between John and Mustapha Mond. It could b considered the one conversation that explains the most about why and how society is the way it is. John asks why it has to b certain ways and gets all his questions answered. There is no end to the immoral and un-ethicalness of the ways of Mustapha Mond and the society. Atleast to John there isn't.
Religion wasn't a topic John was to familiar with. Of course he knew of God and Jesus and the rituals done in Malpais, but he still didn't understand who God really was. That is, until Mustapha Mond introduced him to the Holy Bible.
The two argue about God and religion vs. Civilization. The Controller, Mustapha Mond, does not cease to contradict all that John says in the most deliberate and thoughtful manner.
I beleive the controller does have some good points though. There aren't any wars or any hatred. Everyone gets along in a sense of saying it, "Everyone belongs to everyone." On the other hand John argues that if one has God one has courage, honor, one does good, and most of all one is a true man. This is how I think John strived to live his life.
In the end John and Bernard and Helmholtz are to be sent to the islands to be experimented. with. To me it seems like it all just a game for the controllers. Liek how way play RPG games and we control characters. They play God. They decide who does what and all the details. They decide the rules and whats acceptable or denied. They run the town like a giant factory saying it's for the sake of the laborers, but it isn't really.
John the Savage runs away to live in a light house. He chose that place because of the scenery even though he always doubts whether he deserves it or not. So he constantly asks for forgiveness and prays to God only to be assaulted over and over again by the hordes of people constantly at his door who simply want entertainment. Such society has fallen. Drugged and pleasured they are happy. Even if one of them are hurt or even killed. Such as John did to Lenina as Henry Foster ran away like a wuss. Then John's religious aspect jumps in. His beleif in being a man. He realizes his mistake and to my utter surprise he commits suicide by hanging himself.
All I can say is that John was a hard core man. He lived his life true, unable to change society for the better, but shows how cruel society really is and for all their own selfish reasons. Alduous Huxley shows the faults of man, as well as his upbringings. The rise of a stable society, but also the underlying corruption of it. a "Gilded Age" sort of society to quote Mark Twain. This is what I thought of Alduous Huxley's Brave New World.
