Character Analysis

Smiley 1

Imagine a world where every single person is a genetically modified clone, with
thousands of siblings, who is raised from birth to perfectly fit into their assigned role in society.
A global community where everyone thinks and acts the same, and perfectly fits. Everyone
excluding one: you. That is the world John the Savage inhabits, a world where he is the only one
who is different and “If one's different, one's bound to be lonely.” (Huxley, 67) It is precisely
because of this loneliness that Huxley uses John as the primary vessel through which he depicts
how utopian societies can easily destroy our humanity.
The purpose of John’s character is clear to the reader: he is the exact opposite of
everything that the World State represents. While the World State values community over all
else, John is a perpetual loner. While the citizens of the World State are sheltered from any kind
of suffering, John decides instead to "...claim them all…". He rejects Lenina’s sexual advances,
just as he rejects the World State’s entire culture. While every other character accepts the World
State, even those unsatisfied with it like Bernard and Helmholtz, John goes so far as to attempt to
destroy it. John is everything that Huxley prizes: individualism, honor, passion. Having grown
up on the writings of Shakespeare and the Malpais’ mixture of Native American and Christian
religion, John possesses a moral code somewhat outdated by our standards, and utterly alien to
the promiscuous, ‘impudent strumpet!’ Lenina. He represents everything that was lost when the
World State took over: “Heaven” opposed by “alcohol,” “the soul and…immortality” coupled
with “morphia and cocaine,” and every other good and bad aspect of our world that was to be
replaced by the World State’s placid monotony of "All the advantages…none of their defects."
(Huxley, 54)
In the end, John is no match for the World State, no matter how hard he tried. When he
attempts to ‘liberate’ the working class Deltas via destroying their Soma, they reject his efforts
and attempt to kill him. The police show up to halt the ensuing riot, and despite John’s
impassioned rhetoric and fighting spirit, easily arrest him in minutes. When John is brought to
Mustapha Mond, even without being brainwashed the World Controller easily deflates him,
quickly and effortlessly dismissing all of his hopes of dismantling the World State. In the end,
even John’s attempts to leave the brave new world fail miserably, as his penitent existence
becomes a spectacle for the society he tried to escape, as the jeering crowds cries "We want the
whip!" (Huxley, 257) In the climactic scene of the novel John finally succumbs to the power of
the World State, and involves himself in a massive whip-filled orgy. Disgusted with what he has
done, John finally achieves escape through the only means possible, and hangs himself. Given
that John is a representation of the old world and its values, the fact that the World State slowly
erodes his morals and his sanity merely via existing reveals that Huxley considers utopia itself
corrosive to the best aspects of humanity. The World State destroys John, body and mind, but it
made no conscious effort to do so. Instead, the society it fosters alone was enough to destroy the
once proud and heroic John with ease. Even without mind control and chemical weapons, utopia
destroys our humanity. In a utopia, where sadness is nonexistent and our every desire can be
fulfilled with a touch of a button, what place is there for passion, emotion, creation, destruction,
or any other human endeavor other than passively drifting through life on a permanent Soma
holiday? John is a reflection of the human soul, and as such utopia is anathema to his existence.
 Smiley 2

In the end, perhaps his suicide was the best course of action, for is it not better to a die human
than live a puppet?