Brave New World: Ch 2 & 3

1. Chapter II

 

1. symbolism - white → impartial and neutral; impersonal, clean → cold, isolating, empty (STERILE → works back to the world they live in, where chemistry trumps personal affairs)
1. “Half a dozen nurses, trousered and jacketed in the regulation white viscose-linen uniform, their hair aseptically hidden under whitecaps… (pg 19)”
2. “…also pale as death, pale with the posthumous whiteness of marble (pg 19)”
2. use of imagery → personification, attention to detail  
1. “The roses flamed up as though with a sudden passion from within; a new and profound significance seemed to suffuse the shining pages of the books (page 20)”  
3. rhetoric devices → persuasion: pathos to evoke certain emotions from the audience (particularly anger, disgust, and pity)
1. “The children started, screamed; their faces were distorted with terror (pg 21)”
2. “The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their bodies moved jerkily as if to the tug of the unseen wires (pg 21)”
4. we see over and over again the loss of humanity
1. the people are literally manufactured in masses; they aren’t created with “love,” or nature → it’s impersonal and scientific, people are created to do what is required of them to do → they aren’t given the choice
2. they program the children
1. refer to “C” → shocking children so as to condition them
5. motif - “Ford” → also an allusion to Henry Ford, the credited inventor of the assembly line, is referred to in the novel as the start (the beginning of their time, their “godlike” figure)

2. Chapter III
1. “fordship” → Mustapha Mond, Resident Controller for Western Europe (1/10)
1. “…straight from the horse’s mouth. Straight from the mouth of Ford himself (pg 34)”
2. they have no concept of the word connotation, everything to them is in terms of denotation → reiterates what the audience already know, loss of humanity → science trumps emotion   
1. “‘And do you know what a ‘home’ was?’ They shook their heads.”
3. Huxley’s time influenced the novel → plot and theme’s correlate to issues on socialism and totalitarian governments, which was the crisis at the time Huxley wrote the novel
1. Russian names → Marx (Karl Marx), Lenina (Lenin), etc.
4. “fragmentation” → breaking something apart into fragments
1. audience doesn’t get an option; there’s a lack of structure
5. FOIL → Lenina and Franny
1. audience more like Lenina → questioning
2. Franny: conditioned into compliance, doesn’t question