Attacks on Romantic love, Desire and Individuality in Three Twentieth Century Dystopian Fictions
Chamilla C. Rodrigues 1544934
MA Literary Studies: English Literature and Culture Leiden University
20 June 2019
Supervisor: Dr. M. Newton Second Reader: Dr. L. van Kessel
Abstract
This thesis aims to analyse the relation between romantic love discourse and twentieth-century dystopian novels. It examines Zamyatin’s We, Huxley’s Brave New World and Hartley’s Facial Justice. These novels all display a totalitarian society repressing any form of individuality and therefore love. However, besides creating an environment which cannot accommodate love, these authors still included romantic love in their dystopias. This raises the question on what kind of role love plays in these novels. The method used to explore the connection between these two topics was close reading of the texts and using research and theories by several psychoanalysts. These
explorations and the information on particular psychological behaviour concerning love illuminates the narrative structures and themes of the three novels. The thesis argues that in these texts
individuality plays an important part in the expression of love and is a needed component to make and maintain romantic love connections. These novels seem to highlight the loss of individuality in the twentieth century. They display an anxiety regarding the loss of originality, agency and
spontaneity, but also convey the fear of love disappearing with the erasure of the individual. Love may seem a marginal presence in these books, but in fact forms part of a larger set of meanings, emphasising the importance of individuality. The three authors employ discourses of romantic love as a tool to make their novels more anti-totalitarian.
Table of Contents
Introduction 5
Chapter One: The Fear of Public Life in Zamyatin’s We 15
Chapter Two: The Utopian Definition of Happiness in Huxley’s Brave New World 26
Chapter Three: The Choice Between Identity and Equality in Hartley’s Facial Justice 40
Conclusion 55
INTRODUCTION
This thesis will analyse the romantic love connections made in three classic dystopian texts: Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924); Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932); and L.P. Hartley’s Facial Justice (1960). These novels are key to our sense of what constitutes a dystopian view of the world: that is, an “imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic” (“Dystopia”). These dystopian novels explore a version of the world that has been altered for the worse. In the novels that will be discussed, a totalitarian society holds power and attacks the concept of individualism and the practice of free will. Various political and historical events inform these texts. They were written in the period from the Russian Revolution to the Khrushchev thaw. This period also saw “the rise of capitalist liberalism in
Western Europe” which made a technological and scientific revolution possible (Sicher 226). These were likewise the years that saw the inception of ‘the American century’ and the arrival of America as the dominant global power. The authors of these novels responded to these technological and scientific advancements by creating a personal vision of dystopia based on their observations of the changing environment (Barton 6). Looking at these novels, they predict that in the future humanity will be understood within a collective as opposed to in relation to a concept of the sovereign individual. These major changes consequently also effect the conduct and function of love within such a society. In the novels that will be discussed, certain characters are shown to fall in love, or at least show attraction or interest in another character. However, this personal desire and private emotion contradicts the communal aims of their society. The societies in these dystopian novels do not allow humans to have an emotional connection or form a strong emotional attachment with another human, which makes love and the sustaining of a romantic connection difficult or impossible. Nevertheless, the characters in these novels still fall in love and make romantic
connections. They take this risk to regain their individuality, expressing their own will and personal desires through the emotion of love and relation to another. This thesis therefore argues that in these
novels, love stands for a connection counter to the aims of totalitarian or consumerist societies. In allying love with this individual stand against collective power, these novels function as anti-totalitarian texts and seem to support individuality and therefore love. It is likely that for all three writers the very form of the novel, with its dialogic interplay of different stances and viewpoints, and with its deep attention to the plight of particular individuals, itself acts as a counterweight against totalitarian force.
Dystopian novels are not simply fictional stories. They also are felt to have a predictive quality, based on social mores and developments already present. They represent non-fictional aspects of society that could cause a possible dystopia as depicted in the novels. Dystopia as a literary genre first appeared in the late nineteenth century “coinciding with industrialisation and
automatisation” (Uhlenbruch 126). As Riven Barton mentions: “Dystopian fantasies, as well as
apocalyptic projections, often accompany large cultural and technological shifts. They give a fictional voice to that which is too terrifying or disorienting for the collective to express
outwardly” (6). The nineteenth and twentieth centuries included many technological advancements and inventions that changed each individual life. The social world was seen to be increasingly bound up with technological developments – developments that radically restructured the form and practices of a particular culture. This explains why more dystopian novels were being written during this time, because people expected the future world to be different as a result. These innovations were supposed to better people’s living conditions, but instead the developments concerned the authors enough to write their dystopian fiction. As Brett Cooke asserts regarding this branch of fiction: “No other narrative mode so effectively points behavioural universals, if only by so directly confronting them” (3). Showing insight into a possible grim future caused by present behavioural patterns serves as an immediate warning for the reader. As Franke Uhlenbruch mentions; “They want to alert [us] to issues such as the possibility of utopia turning into
focus on a critique of the present in both utopia and dystopia can lead to neglecting the
transformative potential of utopias” (128). Dystopian literature is fictional but essentially reflects on and responds to authors’ environment as well as voicing their anxieties. This is a literature which intends to act as a warning and is supposed to have an effect on its readers.
The use of dystopia in literature simultaneously allows observations of modern-day society and reveals the predicted disappearance of individuality in the dystopian societies. The imagined future is a disguised and extreme version of tendencies already present at the time of writing. These novels are a means for the authors to voice any critique or fears: “However far it seems from social issues in the beginning, the reader will be led to those issues in the end” (Kaznina and Nikolyukin 412). As suggested already, one of the authors’ main concerns was the shift away from individual life towards a public and collective life. There were two historical influences at work here: on the one hand, there was the unprecedented impact of totalitarian government in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union; and on the other there was the fear of a social homogeneity in the highly
commercialized world of modern America. Both forms of society could be seen as diversely threatening to the idiosyncrasies of the individual life. As Riven Barton describes the dystopian environment: “The dystopian landscape is one where the virtues of the individual and the family are trampled upon and destroyed in the name of development and control” (5). Social relations between individuals are traded in for more efficient way of living. Consequently, having a communal aim allows more governmental control and omits the need for individuality because citizens expect their government to take care of them. The authors of dystopian fictions predicted an opposite movement towards a fully public life dependent on the security the government can provide. Private
connections become unnecessary in this context. The authors predict that intimate relationships, such as between family members, lovers, and friends, will no longer exist or will be prohibited due to the lack of function it has for an entire community. Individuality or possessing unique
eradication of private relationships in the totalitarian regimes of the mid-century provoked and strengthened this anxiety around the loss of the individual.
There’s a logical explanation as to why these dystopian societies turn specifically into totalitarian regimes and turn against emotions such as love. Besides the purpose of creating a dramatized and shocking image of the future, most of these societies genuinely have the intent to make the members of their societies stay in a constant state of happiness by establishing continuous stability in their lives. Therefore, in most dystopian societies, such as in Brave New World, love and monogamy is frowned upon, not only because it is an expression of individual desire, but also because the experience of love might lead to disappointment and unhappiness, and therefore to disruption. As shown in We as well as in Brave New World, loving one individual could lead to instability and irrational behaviour which is why in both novels “everyone belongs to everyone else” to make sure two individuals do not get attached to each other and therefore avoid any heartbreak or lovesickness (Huxley 34). As Richard Sennett argues concerning this concept of detaching from one's individual desires: “people might free themselves from these horrors and be liberated to participate more fully and rationally in a life outside the boundaries of their own desires” (5). These states aim to have a highly efficient society with their citizens feeling continuously happy and this is more achievable without them falling in love. For instance, the government in George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) repeatedly lies to the citizens of their state, Oceania, in order to keep them motivated and bonded together, whether by collective hate or love, within their community: “Bonds of association and mutual commitment which exist between people who are not joined together by ties of family or intimate association; it is the bond of a crowd, of a “people” of a polity, rather than the bonds of family or friends” (Sennett 3). In order to achieve these strong bonds solely in public life and to free people from their own burdensome desires that could lead to unhappiness and inefficiency, these societies have put the importance of communal needs before private needs and assume that this would ultimately make a society happier.
Happiness is an important theme in dystopian fiction, and these novels therefore explore the question of what makes us happy and of what happiness is. Dystopias seem to suggest that the idea of happiness changes in the future due to the changes in the surrounding environment. For instance, true happiness can be defined as the feeling resulting from falling in love, but in a society based on consumerism and materialism, this definition changes. In this thesis, happiness is defined as an emotion and a state of being. Wanting to feel happy is natural for human beings. Although unhappy love affairs are all too common, nonetheless happiness is closely linked to or results from the emotion of love and the feeling of being in love with someone. However, in these novels, the societies strive for a feeling of happiness within a collective. They assume that leading an efficient life within a collective while receiving continuous governmental security will ultimately make people happy. Love is an emotion that can naturally cause happiness, but can also result in sorrow, mainly because the feeling is not always everlasting. The very changefulness of the emotions is itself a threat to an imposed stability. According to their standards, one should be in a constant state of happiness when being a part of the state and achieving societal aims. Love is a personal
connection resulting in individual happiness. Also, when two individuals fall in love, they do so clearly because they see in each other characteristics that set them apart from the rest of society and make them different. Love finds value in one individual over all others. The perception of these differences or unique characteristics could lead to individual thoughts, and that is precisely what is outlawed within these societies. In order to be highly efficient, everyone needs to think the same way about everything, and all citizens should work towards the same goal. Forming a romantic love connection is an individual source of happiness and makes one unique in the eyes of another, which is a part of the happiness one feels when in love. Dystopian societies are certainly not against happiness as such, but they imagine a happiness of the mass, where the only love permissible is that of the people for the leader. They cannot allow the unreliable kind of personal happiness that
The dystopian novels reflect the issues present during the time they were published and consequently show that one of the expectations as well as one of the fears of this time is the possible complete replacement of the private life by the public life. When talking about the private sphere, this thesis will refer to the space where an individual is his or her own authority outside of any public life. The expectation that the private life would be lost in the twentieth century is central to the analysis of love in dystopian literature. The authors feel that this social development could result in the disappearance of individuality and of private experience. Omitting these aspects of society would mean that personal desires, such as love, would be forbidden and repressed, because it does not fulfil any function for the entire society. Dystopias are utopias that have soured. In the novels, the totalitarian societies are created by government to ensure a person’s happiness, but this apparently benign aim only results in an efficient community without any individual achievements or individual happiness. These authors created “a world not made perfect but rather rendered unfit for human habitation” (Cooke 3). The characters in these novels display how living without free will would cause man’s personal state to deteriorate. They also show their desperate need for the presence of a private sphere. These characters feel as though they can attain this more private and personal life through romantic love. Perhaps parallel to the making of art, falling in love is not a collective experience nor can it be controlled by other authorities. Love in these novels represents the remaining individuality of these characters as well as the need for the private life besides the public life. The failure of these romantic connections and the successful repression of love ultimately serves as an extra tool for the author to warn their reader about the possible
disappearance of individuality and a personal kind of happiness and the consequences thereof. The novels that will be discussed have all, of course, been extensively analysed, especially the earlier-written novels, and all are taken to be absolutely central to the field of dystopian
literature. The author of We, Zamyatin is well-known as a Russian modernist who observed the rise of the technocratic society (Layton 1). As Susan Layton further describes Zamyatin’s observations: “In contemplating art, science, society and the psychic life of the individual, he identified a dialectic
through which new syntheses constantly arise out of the clash between the old and the new, the traditional” (1). These analytical skills are conveyed in his text, We, which is technically not the first dystopian text, but is often considered to be the most influential as “its influence is visible in works from Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and Orwell’s 1984 (1949), to Vonnegut’s Player Piano (1952) and Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962)” (Scholes and Rabkin 28). Huxley’s novel Brave New World, which was written after the publication of We, introduced the same type of
unindividualized society. However, in Brad Congdon’s view, Huxley creates an entire religion to
base his society on: “Brave New World identifies in Fordism a possible, even a likely, mythology
used to organize a planned scientific society” (102). Furthermore, the novel stands out duet to Huxley’s unique use of style and his coining of imaginary words in order to convey his imaginary utopia (Sorenson 68). The invented vocabulary carries meanings related to the contemporary world.
For instance, according to Rafeeq McGiveron, the characters’ names are imbued “with ironic
incompatibilities, double meanings, and allusions emphasizing frustrated potential, Huxley’s use of names reiterates his warning against the destruction of the individual in the modern world” (27).
L.P. Hartley has received less critical attention, though there is a consensus view among influential critics as diverse as Anthony Burgess (1967) and Bernard Bergonzi (1972) that his novel stands as one of the most successful dystopian fictions in literary terms of the mid-twentieth
century. As Harvey Webster asserts: “Hartley’s quiet unpretentious fiction deserves more serious consideration than it has received” (40). As a repeated theme in several of his novels, Hartley often explores the struggle of the individual in having to decide whether they should obey god’s orders or those of society. Harvey Webster sees this idea at work again in Facial Justice (Webster 40). His topic and underlying moral message relate to the previously mentioned novels as it likewise places its focus on the importance of the individual. This thesis aims to display the common perspective of these authors on the devaluation of the individual, which is a belief they all seem to share and variously express in their writing.
These particular novels were chosen because of the similarities they share as well as the unique characteristics they add to the dystopian worldview of the twentieth century. Each book reflects on the others, and sometimes directly inspired the others, establishing a genealogy of texts, offering a unique and individual take on the nature of dystopia. Zamyatin’s We is originally written in Russian, so this thesis will discuss the translated version of this text. I believe that it is
appropriate to include Zamyatin’s work in this discussion as this novel strongly influenced later dystopian novels and should therefore be discussed in relation to them. Moreover, as it first appeared in English before it was published in Russian, it may be seen almost to count as an English-language text. Although he had not read Zamyatin, Huxley’s Brave New World shares certain features of the previous dystopian novel, but, as he is thinking of American society, rather than Russian, it adds the element of intoxication, because this society needs soma to function and be ‘content’ with their lifestyle. This additional aspect of a totalitarian society based on drugs affects the authenticity of the emotions and feelings of the characters, and therefore their romantic
connections. Lastly, Hartley’s Facial Justice, published in 1960, takes the dystopian novel in a new direction, which is a focus on the outwards appearance of humans, while also deriving features from the previous dystopian novels. Hartley’s novel will show what role appearance plays in the
attraction felt between the characters and how it affects their connections. Together, these novels give a clear view of the elements that could affect and influence the romantic love connections. The novels will also each display to what extent love or making a romantic connection leads them to continue following their own individual desires. The novels share a similar perspective on a possible dystopian world while adding their own individual take on the concept of dystopia. They all discuss love and the disappearance of individuality, but do not necessarily end up with the same conclusions on these subjects.
With regard to its methodology, this thesis approaches the literary texts through the practice of close reading and a formalist analysis of the narrative. It also explores these novels through an eclectic reading of various influential accounts of love as set out in popular psychological texts from
the 1920s onwards, such as those by Erich Fromm and Sigmund Freud. I also draw on more recent ideas about society and love as set out by Richard Sennett and Zygmunt Bauman. The analysis of these novels will situate them strongly in the context of the anxiety about the political world present during the middle decades of the twentieth century. These authors were strongly affected by the developing scientific world as “they were appalled by the application of the technological achievements of the science and evil uses. The new scientific advancement brought about utter disorder and disharmony in its wake” (Besharati 78). The thesis will also draw on perspectives of love and romance from contemporaneous texts from the 1920s to the 1950s, using these to
contextualise the analyses of the novels themselves. The first chapter will discuss We. Although it is not the first dystopian novel, Zamyatin’s novel helped to launch the dystopian genre in this period and every subsequent dystopian novel carried elements from this forerunner. So it is that Brave New World, which will be discussed after in relation to tropes and themes established in We. Lastly, this thesis concludes by examining Hartley’s Facial Justice. This novel discusses a topic which the previous novels have hinted at, that is, the equalization of facial features, to take away outward individuality and the freedom to outwardly express oneself. This chapter will therefore discuss this additional repressive aspect of the dystopian society in Facial Justice and also how it changes the statement and concept of love made by the analysis of the previously discussed novels. This thesis will not adopt one overarching theory for the analysis of these novels and will instead consist of formalist explorations of the novels themselves in the context of criticism of these novelists and contemporary theory of the twentieth century.
In my opinion, the topic of love plays a central role in most of these texts, and can be seen as a vital part to the plot and especially the character development. The novels reflect the technological advances of their time, but also the lack of satisfaction and happiness that this new emphasis on techne and utility gave people. The individual life is neglected by the need to immerse oneself in the collective, whether out of fear or from necessity. Looking at this environment, there does not seem
to be a place for emotions such as love, but these novels still show these characters fighting to gain back the freedom for their personal desire and emotion despite its non-functional reputation within their society. This response makes love and the personal space needed to be in love seem like a necessary component to a functional yet individualized society.
CHAPTER ONE
The Fear of Public Life in Zamyatin’s We
Zamyatin’s We is one of the first dystopian novels of the twentieth century and strongly influenced the dystopian novels that came after it (Basile 19). We marks the end of the idealistic image of utopia by revealing the flaws in this image (Sicher 225). Therefore, the society in the novel, ‘One State’, is depicted as the image of utopia, yet Zamyatin shows that this supposedly perfect environment is anything but ideal. Every citizen is focused on society’s progression as a whole and moves in a machine-like manner. To further depersonalize the citizens, they are referred to as numbers instead of personal names. One State is completely stagnant or, as described in the novel, “at peace” (Zamyatin 8). The citizens as well as the government assume that it is necessary to eliminate privacy, as it can disrupt that order which will bring them the utopian ideal of ‘constant happiness’ and ultimate social and economic efficiency. Zamyatin displays that this banal
contentment cannot be the future or utopia people long for by showing the unconscious unhappiness in the members of this society as well as their desperate desire to have a personal life. Each number follows a strict schedule and lives in glass living spaces. The private space that is needed for
romantic love connections is therefore very limited in One State, yet it is still possible for the main character D-503 to fall in love with I-330 as well as have a personal connection with O-90.
However, this novel shows how this supposed “utopia could be maintained only by force” and cannot allow the uncontrollable kind of happiness (Sicher 235). One State cannot allow their
citizens to have a private space for love, because that will affect the state’s efficiency and the public transparent life. A private life would also give citizens an opportunity to rebel against their
government. However, D-503 is humanised by love and therefore he realizes that he needs I-330 to continue being an individual, separate from the state. In the end, it is by falling in love that D-503
finds out how he can be an individual and decides to join the rebellion against One State. One State needs to reassert their power over his mind by lobotomising him so he could serve his society.
The events in the novel are written in records by one of the members of society, the protagonist, D-503. D-503 writes these records in secret, because he explains that he is not
supposed to have individual thoughts that are not related to One State and all its citizens, let alone express those thoughts on paper. Therefore, he initially introduces himself as a flat character who just functions as a mouthpiece for One State: “I am only one of the mathematicians of the One State” (Zamyatin 4). He presents himself as a character who is only supposed to serve and introduce the great community of which he forms a part. However, by writing his records, he is already
showing his desire for individuality by breaking the community’s rules. He cannot write this down, but does describe the natural response of his body to doing something he is not supposed to be being: “As I write this I feel my cheeks burn” (Zamyatin 4). Besides following events involving his love interest, D-503 is already trying to gain more of a private space on paper. Due to this method of narration, the reader only receives his perspective on his meetings and experiences with the female he meets, I-330, These records of events are entirely subjective and raise the question
whether they are reality or a part of D-503’s imagination. However, the records give a personal look into D-503 falling in love and how he resists and struggles with new-found human emotions. In these records, D-503 also clearly shows that he is repressing them out of loyalty to the state not necessarily because he does not want to feel them. From the beginning, D-503 gives his personal insight using these records on how he attempted to have and maintain a personal life and a love connection in the society that he lives in.
In One State, each citizen follows a strict schedule, which is supposed to omit the need for a private life and personal connections and makes the society function like a machine. Furthermore, this endorses the rule of transparency of each person’s life in this community, because the state decides what they should do every moment of the day. This makes it easy for the government to
eliminate the private space needed for love, because it cannot be placed within this schedule. In One State, the numbers reflect parts of a machine and therefore find logic in joining the rest of their community in following a schedule. Not following this state order would mean disregarding the communal purpose and affecting the state’s efficiency. As D-503 writes about the government in previous societies: “how could there have been any logic to their government if all their people lived in that state of freedom” (Zamyatin 14). Ignoring the daily schedule would mean breaking this effective structure, affecting the primary aim of this society, but also acting irrational in the eyes of the state and every other number. The fact that D-503 proves to be disloyal towards the state by ignoring his orders actually indicates that he choose to lead a private life next to his public life. The feelings of guilt that D-503 displays when he behaves disloyally towards the state shows how well-integrated this communal purpose is and that it makes the numbers feel secure in their position within the community. D-503 shows that merely being a number provided with the state’s security does not omit the option of having a private life outside of the schedule. However, breaking the rules and disrupting the order proves to be necessary for D-503 to get private time and space to build a connection with I-330.
The only moment numbers have that could be considered private is when they are scheduled to have sexual relations with another number. This moment is part of the schedule and approved by the government of One State. It is also something each number is permitted to do at a certain scheduled time, which makes it less of an individual act and more of a communal task. This timed moment is made to be as unromantic as possible, because sex is not supposed to be shared with one specific person. The State enforces the rule that: “Each cipher has the right to any other cipher as sexual product” (Zamyatin 21). Sex is not an intimate activity in One State and is therefore not treated as such. Ciphers are allowed to share their “personal hours” with anyone because the society in We does not allow individual social connections to conflict with sex. All this indicates that it technically does not matter with whom one spends this time. By going through this much effort to
depersonalize sex and avoid any personal or social aspects that could be attached, One State shows that while they see the necessity for sexual relations, they also comprehend their threatening aspects for their utopia. The government acknowledges human nature and sexual desire but also forces ciphers to only view this as a purely physical act. Sex can function as an individual act in the personal space happening with another individual. Even in this society privacy is given for sex in the form of having blinds covering the glass spaces during these scheduled appointments. These moments could be private and include social factors despite the State’s attempt to rationalise and depersonalise the sexual encounters of numbers.
In the beginning of the novel, D-503’s only personal connection in We, that is approved by One State, is the relationship between him and O-90. They share a sexual relationship, but also spend other scheduled time together. D-503 does not have a romantic love connection with her, but he does end up making a personal connection with her. There’s a clear distinction between the relationship D-503 has with O-90 and the connection he has with I-330, which shows that his desire for I-330 is purely personal and not directed at any other female. Initially, D-503 is very rational about his desire to meet with O-90: “This evening O is coming over— at 21:00— so my desire to see her here was completely natural” (Zamyatin 16). He also does not mind O-90 meeting with R-13, which means that she does not evoke human feelings such as jealousy and envy within D-503 (Cooke 5). Comparing this connection to the relationship he has with I-330, the feelings she evokes cannot be rationalised and this bothers him. This already becomes apparent during their first meeting: “there was a kind of strange and irritating X to her, and I couldn’t pin it down, couldn’t give it any numerical expression” (Zamyatin 8). D-503 makes distinctions between things that he can tabulate and enumerate and things which he cannot. In the latter category stands I-330 herself. Although, D-503 never ends up feeling the same way for her, in the end of the novel D-503 helps O-90 escape the city and leads her and her child to freedom. This action shows D-503’s new-found human morality and empathy towards someone he has spent much time with. Their connection also
emphasises the aspect of romantic love in the relationship he has with I-330 by creating a contrast between these two numbers.
O-90 is one of the more humane characters in the novel. She is humane in so far as she exercises her ability to make decisions for herself and shows her personal feelings. She experiences familiar and natural emotions such as envy, jealousy, and love, and in the course of the novel starts giving in to these emotions. She professes her feelings for D-503 as well as her personal desire to bear a child. O-90 and D-503 might not be in love, but O-90 plays an important part in gaining back personal space in the novel. The novel eventually reveals that O-90’s personal desires are not
necessarily about finding romantic love, because in the end she is more interested in expressing motherly love. At the end of the novel, she also proves her devotion to her unborn child and prioritizes their safety by fleeing and leaving D-503 behind despite her feelings for him. O-90’s desire to have a child with D-503 also overpowers her loyalty for One State, which shows the strength of personal desire as well as motherly love. Having a child and being mother seems to represent individuality in the novel even for D-503 as he compares his diary, his personal form of expression, to a mother having a child:
As I write this: I feel my cheeks burn. I suppose this resembles what a woman
experiences when she first hears a new pulse within her—the pulse of a tiny, unseeing, mini-being. This text is me; and simultaneously not me. And it will feed for many months on my sap, my blood, and then, in anguish, it will be ripped from my self and placed at the foot of the One State (Zamyatin 4).
D-503 describes the creation of life as well as an individual being before it is placed or forced into society. While the records are eventually intended to become a public text, at the time of writing they are an individual expression untainted by One State and need to be accounted as private and
protected to remain a part of him, which makes his personal records unique compared to public literature. For O-90, having a child is not necessarily only responding to the human instinct to procreate. It means that she can be selfish in the eyes of One State and have something for herself. She cannot have D-503, but, as a woman, she can have her own child and go against the rules of her society.
The character I-330 signifies chaos within the order enforced by One State. She also seems to represent the irrational aspect of romantic love. In the relationship with D-503, she is clearly dominant and impulsive. As far as the reader can tell, she is the one influencing and exercising power over D-503. I-330 is a revolutionary character in the novel. As D-503 describes: “She was already not a cipher—she was only a person” (Zamyatin 111). The reader only reads D-503’s interpretation of her and her actions, which is significant because D-503 wants her to be his and she literally does not have a voice in the matter: “But I need her and I don’t care about her
“needs”” (Zamyatin 98). He expresses jealousy and despair when she does something he does not understand or condone. “I want there to be no one except me” (Zamyatin 51). He still continues to follow her and obeys her commands. Besides D-503’s attempts to claim her out of his own need, she still manages to use him for her own ends and does not express the same need as she leaves D-503 after her attempt to hijack the integral fails. Although he fully realises that I-330 is an individual going after her needs, she still represents his personal desire for unpredictability and causes his intense need to be with her.
D-503’s records start changing as he starts developing an individual personality as a result of his feelings for I-330. However, besides his growing feelings, these records also show that he is mentally deteriorating and depicts I-330 as the culprit for all his new-found anxieties. After encountering I-330, he no longer introduces the reader to the highly functional society he is supposed to admire, because his thoughts are all on this female: “I want only one thing: I-330 … what I just wrote now about the One vote is all irrelevant, not what I meant” (Zamyatin 122). As
Brett Cooke analyses Zamyatin's utopia, he explains these developments in D-503’s records: he “starts to realize that he is subject to dreams, irrational associations, and fixations, in effect that he possesses an unconscious” (109). Eventually, D-503 fully falls into this irrational and emotional unconsciousness. He abandons the accuracy and clarity provided by One State and follows his obsession, which is I-330 who embodies his individual desires. The obsessional aspects of his relationship with I-330 make him question the logic of One State’s rules for happiness. Reading D-503’s records makes it appear like he is losing his mind and that I-330 is the cause of all this. She uses him as a pawn and he has no choice but to accept it. “She is stronger than me, and it looks as though I will do exactly what she wants” (Zamyatin 97). Even though I-330 has an humanising effect on D-503, their relationship is not displayed as mutual or healthy for D-503. However, this unhealthy aspect can be seen as the resistance towards the development of his human irrationality and unconsciousness.
In the first stages of getting to know and falling in love with I-330, D-503 already mentions his initial annoyance and hatred towards her. It appears as if I-330 is only making him feel
miserable. D-503 is feeling the uncertainty love naturally brings, which is something he never had to experience before he fell in love with I-330, and is making him feel unstable and insecure about himself and I-330. This explains his behaviour and thoughts further because “once insecurity creeps in, navigation is never confident, thoughtful and steady” (Bauman 18). These natural stages of love are a more uncomfortable process for D-503, because he feels disloyal towards One State, but cannot stop this process of humanisation. He is programmed to think that love does not result in happiness nor can it help to establish an efficient environment. He mentions that the ultimate paradise would not include love; “In paradise … they don’t know love” (Zamyatin 187). He
displays his unfamiliarity with desire and having loving feelings towards an individual, but also his repulsion towards the attraction and the feelings she evokes: “That I-330 annoys me, repels me— almost spooks me. And that’s exactly why I said: “Yes.”” (Zamyatin 24). Besides being drawn to
I-330 as a person, he is also feeling an attraction towards the instability and uncontrollable aspects she brings about, which opposes the ideals of his society. D-503 unconsciously reveals that One State’s sum for happiness might be flawed as he expresses his personal desire: “But I actually want this pain … a component that decreases the sum that we call happiness” (Zamyatin 120). After meeting I-330, D-503 deals with the natural insecurity and irrationality of love, which help him see that these ‘painful’ aspects are also aspects that he wants and eventually needs in life.
When D-503 is feeling disorder and chaos in his life, the community around him is feeling the exact same way. D-503 and his society seem to be connected in this way. When D-503 is considering going along with I-330 and her ideas of revolution and eventually agrees to help, the world around him starts revolting as well, which explains the title of the novel. D-503 and One State share the same life in We. Society is divided between revolutionaries and conformists, and D-503 feels torn between these two parties as well:
So here I am, in step with everyone now, and yet I'm still separate from everyone. I am still trembling all over from the agitation I endured, like a bridge after an ancient train has rumbled over it. I am aware of myself. And, of course, the only things that are aware of themselves and conscious of their individuality are irritated eyes, cut fingers, sore teeth. A healthy eye, finger, tooth might as well not even be there. Isn't it clear that individual consciousness is just sickness? (Zamyatin 113)
This continuous conflict within D-503 foreshadows his unhappy ending due to his inability to choose between the two personalities he has developed. He has realised that he cannot repress his individual side anymore but he also needs to remain in step with the rest of the numbers, with whom he does not identify with. In the end, the choice is made for him when he is forced to disconnect from any emotional attachments or personal connections. D-503 was momentarily
developing an emotional side by having human personal connection with O-90 and I-330, but was not allowed to keep this individual human side.
In the novel, D-503 finds a new version of himself where he is not a number but a human being, but he fails fully to choose to be this version of himself. He fails to maintain a private life, because his natural yet irrational behaviour does not fit within the society of which he is a part. As mentioned, D-503 momentarily tries to hold on to both a private and a public life by maintaining his love connection with I-330 and remaining in society and working on the integral. He discovers his need for individual experience, a love connection with I-330, opposes the needs of the community, which is control and transparency. Love does not adhere to these terms: “Love and hunger are the masters of the world. Ergo to take control of the world, man must take control of the masters of the world” (Zamyatin 20). D-503 finds that love and personal desire, embodied by I-330, are
uncontrollable and will have the power over him, but also that he needs and wants it to be that way. This thought appeals to him yet scares him, because One State gives the safety and security that his love connection does not provide. The trouble D-503 has between choosing between these two lives displays a desperate need for stability and fear of the uncontrollable and unpredictable aspects of life.
The novel ends on a grim note, the execution of I-330 and lobotomisation of D-503, but leaves room for a hopeful ending. D-503 leaves the reader with his feelings of contentment on his
faith and that of I-330's. As Sicher explains the ending: “The end--perfect happiness--may in fact be
attainable” which is something he might prefer over the previous situation: “a state of permanent entropy, psychological entropy” caused by the revolutionaries, and especially his love connection with I-330 (Sicher 231). The final lobotomisation of D-503 stripped him of his personal desires and erased the process of humanisation he had gone through, and officially make him into a number. The novel also shows the end of D-503 as an individual by showing the execution of I-330 who functioned as the awakening and representation of his personal desires. She does not have the same
effect on him as she does not evoke any desire or feelings anymore. This not only means the end of love in his story, but also the want and need he developed for a private individual life. His feelings for I-330 made him a separate entity apart from One State. Therefore, losing these feelings also means the loss of himself as a ‘he’ as well as the elimination of the choice he had to become a 'we' with I-330. At several moments in the novel, D-503 makes it clear that he would rather solely be in relationship to I-330 and a part of her life of rebellion, but is still forced to be part of the mass and their communal life.
Zamyatin’s We represents “many important human universals” (Cooke 4). The
representation of the environment in this dystopian novel was influenced by the anxiety present in the Soviet Union during the twentieth century (Basile 19). Zamyatin’s fictional future dystopia is based on a fairly realistic expectation, because “Plans then were afoot in the nascent Soviet Union to put social construction into action so as to create of its citizens “the New Soviet Man” and to establish a “social utopia” (Cooke 4). Therefore, Zamyatin’s We takes this idea and shows the reader what society would be like if this plan was ever fully executed and integrated. According to
Zamyatin; “We are living in an epoch of suppression of the individual in the name of the
masses” (“Tomorrow” 51). The ending of this novel is not automatically pessimistic or optimistic. Sicher finds a positive feature in the ending by mentioning that: “The fact that 1-330 and her co- conspirators carry out their revolt and rupture the walls of utopia is encouraging” (234). However, it does not predict a good ending for love and privacy in this future image of utopia. These features clearly conflict with the communal aims of One State and are successfully wiped out in the end. The novel poses the question of “happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness” (Zamyatin 55). However, Zamyatin points out that this is more complex and too limited in options;
“Zamyatin’s We warns us that we must preserve our freedom and our individuality if we are to remain truly human” (Dennis and Mcgiveron 213). We warns against the loss of true human
emotions in the imagined utopia in the twentieth century. Zamyatin created a dystopia where everyone’s lives are rendered transparent and fully
public. Within this environment, where each scrap of text is published, the narrative method in the novel creates a possibly unreliable text, because it is unlikely that the records are not altered by One State. The novel shows that society rejects a way of life which includes irrationality and disorder. The author points out that society wants to move towards a life without the unconscious, the irrational, and chaotic aspects he endures in his environment. This way the society provides their numbers with a certain stability and security, which they find comfortable and merely satisfying. In the beginning of the novel, D-503 is happy to feel secure and lets One State lead his life. However, his records show the reader that this imagined ‘utopia’ of living in constant ‘happiness’ will sooner result in a dystopia where man is fighting and repressing his own emotions. In order to be human, D-503 needs to be and act irrational while feeling emotions such as love. Love humanises D-503, because it represents the aspects of the self this utopia rejects: irrational behaviour, uncontrollable emotions, and individual desire. D-503 experiences a more human kind of happiness when he starts feeling real emotions with I-330. He realises that falling in love and having a personal life can also bring more excitement in happiness by not always being a constant. At a certain point, D-503’s love connection replaces the security he got from obeying his society, because he just wants to be in his private space and alone with I-330. Therefore, he easily chooses to help I-330’s group of rebels, because he no longer needs One State’s security and also because a personal life allows him to join a rebellion. He becomes obsessed with her and the feelings she evokes within him. To D-503, living without this uncontrollable aspect of life means not being an individual human being and not
feeling the kind of happiness of a natural fluctuating life. D-503 holds on to his personal connection despite the rules of his society because it gives him the experience of a human life.
CHAPTER TWO
The Utopian Definition of Happiness in Huxley’s Brave New World
As Zamyatin had done, Huxley’s Brave New World takes the image of utopia and shows its flaws, but puts more emphasis on the need for promiscuity and intoxication (Horan 314). Huxley adds another feature to the formula for utopia: that is, soma. This drug allows citizens to avoid any gloom or unhappiness. The society, World State, makes it impossible for the citizens to feel any intense emotion or passion, because as in We, this ruins their ideal of constant ‘happiness’. There are three characters in the novel who deviate from the rules or display individual thought: Bernard, Helmholtz, and John. Lenina tends to show her disagreement with the State on topics such as monogamy and romance but still adheres to these rules due to her conditioning and dependence on soma. Yet Lenina also mirrors Linda, John’s mother living in a ‘savage’ reservation and who later overdoses on soma after experiencing an alternative reality in the reservation. John and his mother play a vital part in the novel, because they introduce the complexities of twentieth-century society into the dystopian society, Huxley’s representation of the utopian World State is also heavily influenced by the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Freud’s pleasure principle and his theory of the Oedipius complex both inform the novel. In particular the Oedipus complex relates both to the nature of the relationship between John and Linda as well as that formed by John and Lenina. The novel also shows Huxley’s critique of Freudian theories. The novel explores different ideas of desire. John represents the traditionalist view of love and sex, both romantic and puritan, and informed by his reading of Shakespeare as well as permeated with dark Oedipal tensions, while World State favors the immediate fulfilment of desire, which consequently leaves out love. Brave New World analyses the source of true happiness and how this feeling can be achieved permanently. The novel shows the possible complexities of desire and love in the twentieth century, but also that the immediate satisfaction of desire and intoxication do not fulfil the need for love and partnership.
Huxley presents World State as a society that is based on the drug soma. The habitual use of this drug does not have any deleterious physical effects on a human body but does bolster human conditioning and governmental control. The drug makes the citizens even more dependent on the safety and security the government provides for them. The government provides this drug which takes away all possible feelings of unhappiness. Soma represents the total elimination of individual thought by stopping any negative thought from entering the human mind. In We, the government enforces constant transparency to preempt the challenge of individuality, but in Huxley’s society soma is enough for the government to control everyone and make them dependent on them. Freud predicted this possibly highly influential role of drugs: “The crudest, but also the most effective among these methods of influence is the chemical one—intoxication” (Freud 730). For instance, when John attempts to throw away a significant dose of soma, in his mind throwing away this drug and therefore stopping the use of it would reinstate individual freedom. People would have to see reality and face it instead of taking soma to avoid any pain or suffering. Soma is also used to avoid and deter love and monogamy, which could cause them sadness or discomfort. The phrase “Love’s as good as soma” is included in the human conditioning (Huxley 145). People might miss or feel the need for certain emotions, but they are made to believe that soma is the ultimate solution to it all. One of the main characters, Bernard Marx, does not take the same amount of drugs as the other citizens, and he seems the most able to develop individual thoughts and voice personal desire, such as his passion or need for love. The state markets Soma as the key to freedom from burdensome emotions and thoughts. In actuality, it also works as the perfect tool for the government to keep World State in a state of constant happiness and away from true emotions.
In Zamyatin’s We and Orwell’s 1984, as well as in Brave New World, sexual desire acts as an important presence in dystopian fiction. As with soma, the government uses sex as a tool to ensure stability and constant happiness. However, the regulations concerning sex cause many difficulties for the characters in the novel. Sex in Brave New World ultimately means the immediate
fulfilment of desire to avoid frustration or repression. In order not to threaten the system, sex cannot develop into emotional involvement or attachment. According to Freud, sexual desire starts at a very young age, but is repressed by conventions (Freud 742). Huxley mocks this theory in his novel by making children in World State participate in “ordinary erotic play” and eliminating the
constricting conventions that prevent or withhold satisfaction (Huxley 26). According to the government: “everyone belongs to everyone” which would leave nobody alone or unsatisfied (Huxley 34). It also avoids attachment to one individual because monogamy or long-term sexual relations are discouraged. The government also provides simulated sex by letting citizens go to “the feelies.” Simulation of sex dehumanises the act and takes away more of the emotions that could be attached to it. The State makes sure that sex is simply a mechanical act to satisfy human instinct. The first problems with this plan already arise in the beginning of the novel. When Lenina discusses her sexual life and how she has had the same sexual partner for a while and has no desire to have another: “Lenina shook her head. "Somehow," she mused, "I hadn't been feeling very keen on promiscuity lately. There are times when one doesn’t”" (Huxley 34). Lenina desires monogamy and may find satisfaction but no long-term joy in promiscuity. Bernard hardly participates in the sexual activities and seems to be left unsatisfied by promiscuity as well. The novel shows that citizens might long for monogamous relationships or partnerships instead of immediate satisfaction and multiple partners despite conditioning and governmental rules.
In the novel there is a continuous distinction made between what it is like to be a child as opposed to an adult as well as immaturity versus maturity. The concept of desire and promiscuity is also related to these two roles. The novel suggest that the citizens of World State are infants or children when it comes to love and sex and that developing actual feelings and experiencing real passion is solely meant for adults. The citizens might be adults in age but emotionally they remain immature due to promiscuity and avoidance of any real emotions by using soma. Bernard mentions this in regard to his feelings and experience with Lenina:
"Adults intellectually and during working hours," he went on. "Infants where feeling and desire are concerned."
…
"It suddenly struck me the other day," continued Bernard, "that it might be possible to be an adult all the time."
"I don't understand." Lenina's tone was firm.
"I know you don't. And that's why we went to bed together yesterday—like infants— instead of being adults and waiting." (Huxley 81)
Bernard is hinting at the fact that they slept together without waiting, which makes their behavior infantile. According to Bernard, they should have waited to act on their sexual desire like adults. He hints that having sex without waiting a certain amount of time does not result in real or intense passion. This indicates that fulfilling one’s desire immediately instead of waiting is not satisfying for someone like Bernard. In the novel, the immediate fulfilment of desire is important to avoid any despair or frustration, but it does not give people such as Bernard any true satisfaction. Huxley suggests that we in fact require frustration if we are to experience happiness. Bernard hints that humans might be intelligent adults, but emotionally they are acting like children by sleeping with everyone and not allowing themselves to experience more forceful emotions.
This emotional immaturity and child-like behavior of World State's citizens serve as a foundation for Huxley’s society in Brave New World. Huxley founded his society based on Freudian principles, such as the pleasure principle where Freud assumes that: “the human organism is
naturally predisposed to gain positive experience of pleasure and to hold on to this pleasure … The other is that the organism is predisposed to escape or avoid pain” (Barnhart 113). However, he also seems to eliminate or mock some of the Freudian principles. For instance, Freud’s analysis of the
“Oedipus Complex” where he states that children can develop sexual desires for one of their parents while seeing the other parent as a rival (“Oedipus Complex”). He avoids any possible occurrence of Freudian complexes involving family life in World State by completely erasing the institution of the family. Everyone is bred in a lab and then ‘decanted’ into a certain category. Not having a separate family takes away more individual life but also frees the citizens of any potential desire within families. In World State everyone has been born under the same circumstances. Citizens mock the instability that families brought: “No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable … What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey” (Huxley 35). This formula of using soma, immediately fulfilling sexual desires, and having no familial connections so Freudian complexes will not develop is supposed to enforce this concept of constant happiness and stability. Yet as a side effect it also endorses more ‘infantile’ or less emotionally mature behaviour from the citizens of World State.
Within the novel, Huxley introduces another society that bears a closer resemblance to his own. However, he creates a reservation that also feeds upon his personal association with New Mexico, as formed through his relation to his friend, the novelist and poet, D.H. Lawrence. As Peter Firchow mentions: “behind the Savage and the New Mexican Pueblo stands D.H. Lawrence” (272). This influence follows naturally, because Lawrence was deeply inspired by living in New Mexico as well as interacting with its inhabitants which resulted in several of his works about New Mexico (Firchow 273). Bernard and Lenina, like Lawrence, face a different kind of reality while visiting the savage reservation and meeting John and his mother Linda. They show how conditioned persons from World State could not function within such a society and understand the reservation as a barbaric and underdeveloped place, which is why its inhabitants are referred to as savages. Huxley based the Pueblo on a foundation laid out by his friend and source of inspiration (Boone 133). The landscape of the Mexican Pueblo as Lawrence describes it in Mornings in Mexico (1927) resembles the environment Huxley sets for the reservation. Compared to World State, this society more closely
resembles the twentieth century society, but also includes practices and standards that are understood to be ‘tribal’ and therefore a ‘savage’ persisting into modernity. This strengthens the connection between Lawrence and the reservation, because Lawrence describes New Mexico as a holding-place for “the old human race experience” a primitivist vision which explains the old-fashioned features included in the Pueblo (Lawrence 144). Huxley uses a setting that is even more backwards in time than his own environment and creates a heavy contrast between the Pueblo and citizens of World State.
John functions as a vital symbol of another way to live, outmoded and challenging, someone who introduces the other characters to topics such as love and art in the novel. These creative aspects of human life remain present in the society of his birth. Significantly, he also lives in a profound relation to his mother and his absent father. By showing his disgust for many practices in World State, John disrupts the stagnant and stable conditions of these citizens and shows how unnatural their way of living can be felt to be (Parrinder 155). John is a character that is closer to the reader than Lenina or Bernard can be, because he understands what it means to have a family and to immerse oneself in literature such as the plays of Shakespeare. The fact that humans in World State are born in tubes and are decanted to act and potentially look identical scares him deeply, because such techniques of mass-production mean human beings can no longer be individuals (Huxley 139). John also shocks many characters by openly expressing a passionate love for his mother as well as for Lenina. The reader witnesses how the relationship between John and his mother takes on an erotic aspect, while the relationship he shares with Lenina gains a maternal aspect. In these ways, the Freudian notion of the Oedipal complex reveals itself in the novel. By taking John, the Savage, from this reservation, Bernard introduces this old-fashioned way of living with its negative as well as positive features into his society and causes disruption for him, Lenina, and their stable society.
The relationship between John and Lenina molds the development of their characters. John’s feelings and emotions for Lenina do not cause any change in her way of living. She is determined to obey her conditioning and immediately act on her sexual desire. For John, their relationship changes him and makes him act differently. Lenina awakens a sexual desire within John which he is trying to fight. He puts himself under severe strain because he wilfully refuses to acknowledge the possibility that Lenina might feel the same sexual desire for him, even as he represses his own erotic yearnings. During their first meeting, John immediately finds a connection with Lenina because she shares certain features with him: “He had seen, for the first time in his life, the face of a girl whose cheeks were not the colour of chocolate or dogskin, whose hair was auburn and
permanently waved, and whose expression was one of benevolent interest” (Huxley 101). Lenina sees in John a potential sexual partner due to his physical appearance, while John sees an
opportunity for companionship as well as fulfilment of his desires. After their first meeting, John takes his time with approaching and courting Lenina, which is something she is not used to. Lenina is starting to feel low because John is making her wait and her desire remains unfulfilled:
“the first thing they all want to know is what it's like to make love to a Savage. And I have to say I don't know." She shook her head. "Most of the men don't believe me, of course. But it's true. I wish it weren't," she added sadly and sighed. "He's terribly good-looking; don't you think so?” (Huxley 144).
Lenina feels a new kind of desire for John, but it is unclear whether this is love, or frustration because she cannot have John immediately. There are signs that Lenina is developing certain emotions towards John, because, as she describes it, she feels: “cut off from those who surrounded her by an emotion which they did not share” (Huxley 151). She also comes to see that her feelings and attraction for him are permanent: “But in the intervals I still like him. I shall always like
him” (Huxley 165). However, in the end, Lenina still resorts to her conditioning and desires immediate fulfilment of sexual desire. She also uses excessive doses of soma to avoid intense feelings, but also discovers that this is not a remedy for love or lovesickness.
The relationship John has with his mother relates, in Freudian style, to the relationship he has with Lenina. Firstly, Linda and Lenina are similar characters. They both grew up in the same kind of society and experience many troubles adjusting to the life in the reservation. Within their society, Lenina and Linda are both defined by their sexuality. They are also both two characters whom John claims to deeply love and care for. Freudian theory on “the Oedipus complex” can be applied to these relations as John seems to fall for a woman who mirrors his mother while he also continues to carry strong feelings for his mother. This is supposedly inevitable according to Freud: “all boys see their mothers as love-objects” (Buchanan 76). The feelings John has for Linda are not explicitly of a sexual nature, but there are mentions within the text that show John associating Lenina with his mother in a sexual context. John projects his disturbance and disgust regarding his mother's sexual life onto Lenina, and therefore views the young woman’s desire, and his own, as something repulsive. For instance, when John is trying to resist Lenina’s sexual advances, he tries to replace the thought of Lenina with his mother: “He tried to think of poor Linda, breathless and dumb, with her clutching hands and the unutterable terror in her eyes. Poor Linda whom he had sworn to remember. But it was still the presence of Lenina that haunted him” (Huxley 222). This connection to his mother would also explain John’s revulsion concerning his own desires and intense repression of sexual desire for Lenina. John serves as an instantiation of the Oedipus complex. Huxley purposely includes this complex and shows that the decanting of humans as well as the abolishment of the concept of a mother through conditioning would dissolve the potential oedipal desire and could therefore be seen as a positive feature of this future society.
John’s display of Oedipal desire enacts its own extreme opposition to familial life and emotional attachment and involvement. As a representation of Oedipus, his mother's sexual life
distresses him. She brings the promiscuity rendered obligatory due to her conditioning in World State's society into a society based on rigid codes of purity and taboo. John's frenzied antagonism towards sexual desire in the mother (and in the young woman, Ophelia) closely resembles that exhibited by Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In reading Shakespeare, John has acquired the ability to curse, and found the vocabulary necessary to voice his disgust at women’s desire. Beside the fact that, like John, Hamlet is depicted as an impulsive character who is determined yet set in his ways, he also shares a similar relation to his mother, who committed adultery with his uncle. Hamlet struggles with his mother’s adulterous and incestuous acts, but perhaps also with his own natural instincts and desires. In a highly influential reading of the play, Ernest Jones comments on Hamlet’s thoughts of self-harming and punishments: “he thinks of suicide as a welcome means of escape from this fair world of God's, made abominable to his diseased and weak imagination by his mother’s lust, and the dishonour done by her” (91). This creates a stronger connection between John and Hamlet as John punishes himself for his own sexual desire which so unnervingly mirrors the desire expressed by his more promiscuous mother. Furthermore, John is also an avid reader of Shakespeare and quotes various plays throughout the novel which suggests that there was a conscious connection, made by Huxley, between him and Hamlet. John develops a conflicted relationship with sex due to his witnessing close-to the sexual acts performed by his mother. John exhibits behaviour, such as self-harming, that reveals the costs of waiting to fulfil desires by repressing them, as well as the downsides of involving emotions into one’s sexual relations. The novel shows the two extreme sides of emotions and sex; both where sex does not involve any emotions and also John who experiences all emotions in relation to the sexual life and ends up associating his conflicting familial bonds with his sexual desire.
The presence of Shakespeare continues as John introduces Helmholtz to his favourite author. John’s presence acts as a catalyst for Helmholtz’s individual character development. Helmholtz relates to Bernard, because he opposes the idea of constant happiness, because it only results in
dulled emotions. According to him “Happiness is never grand” in World State (Huxley 195). John and his readings of Shakespeare help him discover the intensity of emotions as well as the passion his society lacks. Helmholtz had only been introduced to literature that was suitable for his
conditioning, which did not excite him. Reading John’s books helps him realise that these texts could be made because of intense emotions such as love. “I know quite well that one needs ridiculous, mad situations like that; one can’t write really well about anything else” (Huxley 161). He also realises that expressions of passion, such as his own true passions, can be made through literature. Reading old-fashioned literature with John awakens Helmholtz’s individual thinking and takes away the stability and emotional immaturity society endorsed. He understands that “high art” was replaced by permanent yet empty sensations of happiness in his environment (Huxley 194). Literature becomes a tool for Helmholtz to express himself as well as come into contact with true humanity. He conveys this when he and John start discussing his poetry: “As though I were beginning to be able to use that power I feel I’ve got inside me” (Huxley 158). In the end of the novel, Helmholtz is exiled to a remote island because of his non-conformist behaviour. However, Helmholtz is satisfied to be taken away because he has been awakened by literature. He understands that art cannot be made under continuous social stability.
The novel’s ending presents the reader with very little hope for another type of future besides the one depicted in World State, because the government seems to disable any chance of a revolution. Particularly John’s death signifies a powerful governmental system competent enough to beat the opposition of their system. In the end, John concludes that he wants the freedom to be unhappy and suffer, as well as the freedom to go against his sexual desire and separates himself from society. Although this is not beneficial for his own mental and physical condition this is still what he ends up representing. John ends up harming himself to cleanse and punish himself for what he has seen in this new society, but mostly endures these punishments as fitting penance for his sexual desire for Lenina. Against his will, John ends up in an orgy including Lenina and therefore
does fulfil his sexual desire. However, he does not derive any emotional satisfaction from this act and feels defeated by the system of society because this is initially what they represent and how they oppose his ideals. He cannot live with himself after betraying his own principles and ends up hanging himself. The utopia that Huxley created, World State, is more successful in deleting all signs of individuality and drives opposing views out of their society. John’s death shows how fool-proof this system can be by incorporating tools such as soma and encouragement of immediate sexual satisfaction and promiscuity, which eventually overpowers John and his ideal of living.
Huxley seems to remain neutral in his approach towards Freud’s theories and successfully strikes a balance between the positives and negatives of a pre-modern world as opposed to a post-modern world. Huxley was influenced by Freudian theories and overtly incorporated these in his text, but as mentioned, Huxley also found a source of inspiration by his close friend, D.H.
Lawrence. He not only found his inspiration for the New Mexican setting in his friend’s writings, but research suggests that he may have also based John’s character on the novelist and poet. As Buchanan explains:
Lawrence has been influential during the writing of Brave New World as well as Lawrence’s view of Freudian analysis. There have been claims that John, the Savage was based on Lawrence, because he displayed similar loving feelings towards his mother and resented his father (76).
While fascinated by them, and an early reader of Freud, Lawrence generally opposed and critiqued Freudian principles. As explored in his novel, Sons and Lovers (1913), there are indications that he desired his mother and felt jealousy towards his father. He therefore serves as an example of someone himself caught up within the Oedipus complex (Buchanan 88). Lawrence’s life as well as his relationship with his mother in some ways resemble what Huxley portrays in his novel regarding
