Chapter 7

• setting: the Reservation
• Lenina observes a community celebration and she is reminded of Solidarity Services by the music
• however, she bears witness to a cruel ritual in which a boy of 18 years proceeds to walk around a pile of snakes and in which that boy is whipped by people wearing masks around them until he collapses
• Lenina is horrified by that
• after the ritual, Lenina and Bernard are greeted in perfect English by a handsome blond teenager dressed in Indian clothes
• his name is John and he claims that he wanted to be the sacrifice but that the town wouldn‘t let him due to his complexion which ashames him
• also, he explains that the ritual serves to please the gods Pookong (an eagle) and Jesus and to make it rain in order for the corn to grow
• Bernard and Lenina find out that John‘s mother Linda (from outside the Reservation) was found by some inhabitants of the Reservation‘s village after she was injured due to a fall
• Linda never left the reservation to get back to John‘s father who was named Tomakin - a variation of the name Thomas
• Bernard realizes that Linda must have been the Director Thomas‘ affair and hence, the Director is John‘s father
• Bernard and Lenina meet Linda who presents herself as an old, overweight woman
• Lenina is disgusted by that as she is not used to seeing someone aged normally
• Linda explains that she got pregnant because something went wrong with the contraceptives
• as Linda was too embarrassed to return pregnant to the World State, she started a new life in the Indian village
• because she did not know any better, she kept up with her lifestyle of sleeping with any man she wanted to, earning her some beatings by the women of the village for having sex with their men

Chapter 8

• when John tells Bernard how he grew up with stories about the World State, he also mentions that he felt isolated and rejected due to the fact that his mother behaved as if she were in the World State (sleeping with many men) and due to the fact that he was so different from the village people that they never really accepted him
• Popé, Linda‘s lover, introduced her to mescal, an alcoholic beverage and she started to drink a lot
• although not being integrated in the Indian culture, John absorbed it
• also, he was taught to read by Linda‘s drawings on the walls and by a guide for Beta Embryo-Store Workers that she brought with her back then
• John was equally interested in the culture of the World State, but Linda was not able to tell him a lot about the system
• Popé introduced The Complete Works of Shakespeare to John and he began to read them until he knew some phrases and passages by heart
• John felt that the plays lent him a voice for all the suppressed emotions that he had within him
• John grew angry at Linda for seeing Popé and for sleeping with him and one day, he tried to kill Popé with a knife
• Bernard sees a chance in embarrassing the Director by bringing John with him to London and by presenting him to his father
• insisting on bringing Linda with him, John accepts Bernard‘s offer and Bernard tells him that he will ask for permission
• quoting The Tempest, John expresses his joy over being able to see the Other World: "O brave new world that has such people in it."
• not being familiar with the customs of the World State, John awkwardly asks whether Bernard is married to Lenina
• Bernard laughs and tells him that he is not married to Lenina
• additionally, Bernard warns John not to be overjoyed regarding the World State before he first sees it

Function Chapters 7-8

• crucial plot development: John and Bernard meet
  
  • John as an outcast outside of the World State who always wanted to live there
  • Bernard as an outcast inside the World State who feels the need to escape and to fit in
• flashback about John‘s history
  
  • scenes of John‘s childhood are presented to the reader that otherwise would not fit into the structure of the story
  • the flashback provides greater impact in the middle of the novel
  • also, it makes more sense with regard to Linda‘s failure to fit into the Reservation‘s culture and her failure in bringing him up within the boundaries of one specific culture as the context with the enormous differences between the World State and the Reservation has already been provided
• John as culturally hybrid as well as adrift
  
  • he absorbs his mother‘s culture as well as the Indian culture that is conducted at the Reservation
  • however, he feels excluded from the Reservation‘s culture as he is not allowed to participate in the rituals and additionally, the World State is far too distant to him because he only hears about it in stories
  • because he does not feel connected to either culture, he turns to Shakespearean values in order to deal with his feelings of isolation
• members of the World State are portrayed as totally dependent on that system through Linda‘s example
  
  • without the safe boundaries, civilization and structuredness of the World State, Linda is helpless in the Reservation
  • she does not know how to do simple tasks of everyday life (cooking, cleaning), not to mention bringing up a baby
  • because she is overchallenged, she turns to alcohol in form of mescal as a substitute for soma
• Shakespeare‘s play The Tempest as parallel to Brave New World
  
  • Prospero and his daughter Miranda are exiled to an island where they encounter a savage called Caliban and who is characterized as less than human which is why Prospero intends to raise him as a slave
  • when coming in contact with alcohol, Caliban considers liquor a God
  • Caliban is neither civilized nor a savage due to his interaction with Prospero, just as John is at the Reservation
  • both stories are allegories of colonization