The Attributes of John the Savage in Brave New World Essay Example

Brave New World is a dystopian novel written by Aldous Huxley where people have no family relations and intoxicate themselves for pleasure. John is from an area outside of the World State and is known as the “Savage”. John is born in the savage reservation and is brought to the World state to humiliate the Director of the Hatcheries and act as an experiment. He comes in hopes of finding the perfect place but soon realizes this place is hell for him. John is quite religious which is considered very odd in the World State, and his rebellious character leads him to be an outcast, which ultimately leads him to take his own life.

John’s most prominent trait of his religious character is easily analyzed, this trait of his makes him realize how people in the World State do not have an important belief system that they follow, and this sets him uneasy. John’s birth and childhood in the savage reservation give him very strong moral codes in the form of a religion which he strictly follows. The first time John takes his religion seriously is when he says, “I ought to have been there, why wouldn’t they let me be the sacrifice?” (Huxley, 116). In this instant, John wonders why he could not be the human sacrifice for the ongoing ritual, the reason he was not allowed was that their reservation considers John as an outcast because of his mother. Nevertheless, he ignores this and still wants to be the human sacrifice to God. When John decides to go live at the lighthouse, he whips himself for constantly thinking of  Lenina and during the whipping he yells, “ Oh, Linda, forgive me. Forgive me, God. I’m bad. I’m wicked” (Huxley, 252). Through his expressions here, the thought of Lenina lingers in his mind when he thinks of his mother, Linda, haunts him and considers it a sin. That is why he whips himself and asks God for forgiveness, another strong emphasis on his religious beliefs. Things are going downhill for John, Helmholtz, and Bernard as Mustapha Mond, one of 10 world controllers, asks to meet them and converses with John. The topic of religion arises, and John tells Mond, “But if you know about God, why don’t you tell them? Why don’t you give them these books about God?” (Huxley, 231).  These questions he asks the controller, help to interpret how important religion is to John as he wants other people to follow it and become good righteous people. John finds many things about the World State odd and incorrect but one thing he can always go back to, no matter what others think of it, is his religion.

Another trait that John has which can be easily recognized is how rebellious he is, his rebelliousness causes him to speak out against the World State and gets him in trouble several times. John comes to the World State in hopes of finding the perfect place after hearing his mother talk so highly of it, but when he comes he sees many things that do not sit well with his moral ethics, and this makes him rebellious in trying to fix these things. John sees how his mother, Linda, dies from a Soma overdose, so now he has a hatred for it and goes to a soma distribution and announces, “Never! But look here, old man. Throw it all away, that horrible poison” (Huxley, 211). This public announcement he makes against the soma, which the community is deeply in love with, shows just how much he hates it and wants to rid it for the benefit of society. Throughout the story, we can see that John does find Lenina attractive but stays in his moral values and does not act on her, but what ends up happening is Lenina starts making a move towards John where john yells, “Whore! Damned Whore! Go, get out of my sight or I’ll kill you” (Huxley, 194).  These intense words help prove how rebellious John is against anything he does not like, if it breaks his values he will do all to oppose it. When John is brought into the World State he quickly becomes a celebrity, Bernard uses this opportunity to increase his fame, he invites lots of well-known people to his house to meet John. On the day of the party, Bernard goes to get John from his room where John says, “Let them wait. You ought to have asked me whether I wanted to meet them” (Huxley, 172). The conversation continues and ends when John yells “Go to Hell!” (Huxley, 173). Through this very important conversation, it can be implemented that John only listens to himself, and only does what he wants, he will not change his ideas for anyone else. John comes to the World State as he believes it is great, he figures this is not true and is disappointed, the only thing he learns is to rebel against what does not fit his personal motives.

This analysis discovers that John has many religious ideologies which he believes are extremely important for him to live a pure life. The odd abnormalities in the World State society shape his rebelliousness, which breaks his personal ethics. His rebelliousness has almost no effect as the people enjoy the conditions of their society, and his religiousness makes the people see him as odd and all of these factors combine to cause him to commit suicide. John is a person who is very strict about his personal values and lives life as pure as possible, stepping into the World State destroys this for him and makes him realize how different the world really is.