"Now can anyone tell me what foreshadowing is? Yes, Miss Granger?"

"The remedy was to make the holiday continuous. Greedily she clamoured for ever larger, ever more frequent doses" (Brave New World, 154).

In chapters eleven and twelve, I found two examples of what I think could be foreshadowing. This first quote refers to Linda overdosing on soma, which I feel is probably going to end her. Being super greedy usually does not end well. Huxley probably wants to convey that instant gratification is dangerous. That's why I'm reading this book instead of playing Tetris!

"'No,' he concluded, with a sigh, 'it won't do. We need some other kind of madness and violence. But what? What? Where can we find it?'" (185).

If I had to guess, Helmholtz, we can probably find it within the next few chapters. Helmholtz and John are compatible because they both believe in the power of words, which I'll talk about more in my next post. To form beautiful words, though, something out of the ordinary has to happen. I think Huxley is trying to get me excited for the climax, and it's sort of working, but in all honesty, I'm more excited for this whole thing to be over.

I made it to my favorite integeeer!

"But the Director's face, as he entered the Fertilizing Room with Henry Foster, was grave, wooden with severity" (Brave New World, 147).

Obviously, at this point, the Director was not happy with Bernard. I'm wondering right now if there's a word for the opposite of personification, because that's basically what this is. Huxley took a non-human characteristic ("wooden") and endowed it upon a human. Antianthropomorphism, probably. Or maybe it's one of those implied metaphors. The Director is being implicitly compared to . . . a log. Whatever we want to call it, the Director was effectively portrayed as motionless and stern.

Also in chapter ten, there were multiple times when Bernard spoke either "absurdly too loud" or "ridiculously soft" (148). I can sympathize with this completely. Speaking volume is extremely complicated for some people. Anyway, this was consistent with Bernard's character -- awkward.

Synaesthesia and Anagrams

"He wiped them on his chest, on his shoulders, on his bare arms. Delicious perfume!" (Brave New World, 143).

As John dug through Lenina's suitcase and later creepily watched her sleep, I found lots of imagery! In chapter nine, these images primarily illustrated the attraction John felt toward Lenina. On page 143, I found . . . "touch of smooth skin against his face," "scent in his nostrils of musky dust," and "curls, so touchingly childish." And you know what? I would be fine if they ended up together because, as I've pointed out many times, Bernard is obviously not her soul mate. Not that soul mates exist in the "civilized" world of this book.

The synaesthesia I quoted in the beginning of this post accentuated John's feeling of Lenina's presence as he stalked her and her belongings. I have a vague memory of reading The Tempest sophomore year, and there was something about smelling music, which is the same idea. I'm probably only thinking about that because John quoted Miranda for about half a page in the previous chapter.

On another note, at the beginning of chapter nine, John was standing among the "agaves." I had to look up what those are, and I learned that they're a group of American plants. Interestingly to me, "agaves" anagrams to "savage," and John was also standing among a lot of those in Malpais. I don't know if that was intentional, but I thought that was worth noting.

Speaking of anagrams . . . it starts at 1:25.

Past the Halfway Point

"'As far back as I can remember.' John frowned. There was a long silence" (Brave New World, 123).

What would have been nice right after that sentence is an extra line break. It took me a page to understand that at that moment, I had entered a flashback. The flashback gave an excellent characterization of John and mostly dealt with his tragic background. There are two primary observations that I made.

First, as I was reading, I noticed a lot of stress on how much of an outcast John was during his childhood, and it reminded me of how Bernard is also an outsider in "the Other Place" (127). I was going to make a really impressive connection between the two characters in this blog, but then it got less impressive when Bernard commented about how similar they are -- "terribly alone" (137). So that's disappointing, but I suppose it's good that I caught on to their connection before that moment.

Also, I mentioned in my last post that I thought the theme would concern individualism, and I'm sticking with that, but I have another idea. This quote is back from chapter four:

"'Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly -- they'll go through anything'" (70).

I held on to that quote because I liked it, and now I think it resonates well with John's past. Whenever John read something, he was in total awe by the "magic" (132) of words. I think the fashioning of words could also be an integral theme; additionally, words are a powerful way to express individualism, so that's pretty great.

I need . . . a picture . . . hmm . . . words are like X-rays.

Almost Halfway Assessment

"Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun,
Kiss the girls and make them One.
Boys at one with girls at peace;
Orgy-porgy gives release" (Brave New World, 84).

No rhetorical analysis in this post -- I'm just going to reflect upon what's happened so far, and if I decide to be bold, maybe make some predictions. I think this will be good for me after two weeks of being gone (to be clear, not on SFS).

And I'm not going backward in the book; I just chose a quote from the first almost-half that sums up one of the main issues I have with this book. It's really weird and confusing. The way that the words and sentences are arranged (there's a word for that -- syntax) just doesn't make for an easy read.

That being said, I think there are a lot of interesting ideas in the book even if I don't really enjoy the weird manner in which they are presented. Predestination, utopias, and social cohesion are things upon which I can gladly reflect. The plot always leaves me with a lot of questions. Which I guess is good. But, like, a lot of questions. I've expressed some of those questions in my recent posts. I like Max's answer as to why Bernard is dating Lenina (to preserve his reputation), but still -- he's being sent to Iceland, anyway, and she's a total dope. So even now, I don't really understand that.

Predictions? I think that individualism is going to be an important theme. Bernard said something about being "not just a cell in the social body" (90), and this world doesn't really allow for individual expression, which is not so great.

But now I'm at the part where they're all stuck in New Mexico (I think). The collision of two completely different societies might be fun. And funny because Lenina is an extreme misfit. See, I understand why Huxley has Lenina as a character, but . . . why with Bernard? Bah, it's probably not important.