“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin” (Huxley 240). Brave New World is a novel about a dystopian society that uses power, drugs, and conditioning to control its population. Embryos are genetically modified so that they fit into a certain social caste, and the lower caste embryos are put through the Bokanovsky’s Process to make thousands of identical twins. Citizens of the society are deprived of basic human feelings, such as, love, passion, and freedom. Within the novel, unorthodox characters are introduced seeking a purpose in life. One of those characters is John the Savage. Throughout Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World, John the Savage proves that he is physically, …show more content…
The inhabitants of the Savage Reservation are Native Americans with “bright blankets, and feathers in black hair, and the glint of turquoise, and dark skins shining with heat” (Huxley 112). John the Savage does not fit into the reservation because he has a lighter complexion: “’They disliked me for my complexion’” (Huxley 117). The Native Americans dislike John’s physical unorthodoxy, and they do not let him participate in many of their festivals and rights of passage. Furthermore, John the Savage does not fit in with the citizens living in the World State. Everyone, but the alphas, has gone through the Bokanovsky’s Process and has multiple twins. John is born at the Savage Reservation instead of decanted in the World State, so he is neither twined nor an alpha: “’And I was born in Malpais,” he concluded. “In Malpais.” And he shook his head” (Huxley 118). John the Savage is not decanted, twinned, or conditioned in the World State, and this leads to his unorthodoxy among those members of society. Not only is John the Savage’s physique unconventional, but also so are his emotions.
John the Savage’s emotions validate his unorthodoxy behavior. In the World State emotions like love, passion, and freedom are forbidden, yet John feels all of these emotions. John falls desperately in love with Lenina from the moment he laid eyes on …show more content…
Throughout the novel, John’s thoughts are highly eccentric in the World State:
He would have liked to say something about solitude, about night, about the mesa lying pale under the moon, about the precipice, the plunge into shadowy darkness, about death. He would have liked to speak; but there were no words. Not even in Shakespeare. (Huxley 230)
All of the thoughts swarming his brain are forbidden in the World State. Solitude, death, and darkness are supposed to come with no emotion or thought. Thinking about these topics is allowing unorthodox intellect to flood John’s brain. Furthermore, John cannot comprehend simple World State norms: “’he tried to kill poor Waihusiwa-or was it Popé?- just because I used to have them sometimes. Because I never could make him understand that that was what civilized people ought to do’” (Huxley 122). One of the norms in the World State is that everyone belongs to everyone, and people sleep around with no feelings attached. John’s mother tries to teach him about this World State norm, but he gets upset with her when she has relations with multiple guys. John does not understand this custom because he reads Shakespeare, which is strictly about chivalrous, romantic relationships. Therefore, he believes in monogamy, which is a highly heretical thought. Huxley shows that John the Savage is unorthodox through his