Chapter 17

• Helmholtz leaves and John and Mond continue their philosophical argument
• they discuss religion and religious experience and Mond reads some banned religious writings to John
• they are about the effect that religious sentiments are mainly an answer to the threat of loss, old age and death
• as there are no losses or old age in the World State, religion is no longer necessary
• John wonders whether it is natural to feel the existence of God and Mond explains that people believe what they have been conditioned to believe
• John also thinks that if the people believed in the World State, they would have a reason for self-denial and chastity since God is the reason for everything noble, fine and heroic
• however, Mond argues that no one in the World State is degraded because the people there just live by a different set of values
• the people do not need to deal with unpleasant things and if they ever experience something negative, soma takes the pain away
• thus, Mond considers soma as christianity without tears
• John instead feels the need for God, poetry, danger, freedom, goodness and sin
• Mond then states that John‘s wish for all those things will lead to his unhappiness
• John agrees but holds on to his wishes

Chapter 18

• Bernard and Helmholtz say good-bye to John and Bernard apologizes for the scene in Mond‘s office
• when John asks Mond if he can join them on the islands, he refuses and tells him that he wants to continue the experiment
• John decides to seclude himself in an abandoned lighthouse in the wilderness
• he plants his own garden and conducts rituals of self-punishment in order to rid himself of the contamination of civilization
• Delta-Minus workers see how John whips himself and the day afterwards, reporters appear at his house in order to interview him
• John gets angry and gets physical, demanding them to respect his solitude
• once the incident is made public, more and more people head to John‘s home and he gets more and more violent
• when thinking about Lenina, he whips himself - this scene is filmed by a man and is integrated into a feely
• fans of the feely visit John and Lenina descends from a helicopter and walks to John with her arms open
• again, John calls her a strumpet and starts whipping her
• the crowd is fascinated by that spectacle and mimicks him, singing "orgy-porgy"
• at some point in time, the helicopters leave and John collapses because of soma and the excess of sensuality
• the next day, he remembers his actions
• bystanders read about the orgy of atonement and visit him, only to discover him having hanged himself

Function Chapters 17-18

• Helmholtz and Bernard have lost their fight against the system by accepting to being exiled
  
  • by no longer being physically present, they can‘t cause that much harm to the World State any longer
• discussion about religion
  
  • leads to the message of Huxley‘s dystopia: people do no longer have a purpose in their life, they only satisfy their basic needs
  • people need religion when they are no longer in control of their life (by growing old, by experiencing loss)
  • by no longer having control over one‘s own life, one is automatically part of something larger as in God‘s plan (according to Newman)
  • in the World State, no one ever experiences something negative, which is why they feel no need for religion
• Huxley‘s message conveyed through Brave New World:
  
  • criticism of modernity in which a technocratic government plays an important role, of social sciences that are used to control the society, and of unrestrained consumerism
  • modernity develops to the extent that it changes human nature: aspects of humanity such as love, art, passion or culture only exist as a consequence of the experience of loss and unsatisfied desire
  • desires in the World State are easily satisfied through consumerism and inconvenience as the most fundamental fact of human existence is eradicated
  • however, even the World State is full of contradictions that show that this alteration in human nature cannot take place
    
    • although everyone belongs to everyone, Bernard Marx seldomly has contact with women at the beginning
    • although free love is explicitly requested, Lenina dates Henry Foster exclusively and there are feelys that propagate monogamy practiced in a helicopter
    • although humans and their feelings are alterated, they still long to be pregnant or to be violent and thus need to take supplements in order to feel a relief of those emotions
• John‘s self-flagellation as an attempt to hold onto his values (truth over happiness)
  
  • self-flagellation as a means to deal with the pressure of the world around him
  • Lenina symbolizes this pressure because John is sexually attracted to her and to the vices that he actually finds disgusting and prevalent in the World State society
  • when she arrives at his lighthouse within the crowd, he gives into his desire and participates in an orgy
  • realizing that he has given in to the thing that he loathes the most, he decides to kill himself