Ankush Sharma

Dr. Nilak Datta

HSS F336: Modern Fiction

14-04-2019

Short Paper 2

The conversation between John and Mustapha Mond as an explicit manifestation of the

themes in Brave New World

The conversation between John, Helmholtz Watson, and Mustapha Mond is the

intellectual heart of Brave New World. It is where the outcasts finally get to confront the

status quo, before they all meet their inevitably tragic end. Mustapha Mond does his best to

explain the rationale behind the World State’s decisions and in a book where characters have

mostly behaved like children, we see them have a deep and intellectual conversation. All the

implied criticisms of the World State are explicitly discussed here.

Bernard, John, and Helmholtz Watson are three very different people with very

different backgrounds but they are all social outcasts who share a dislike for the World State.

Bernard dislikes the State because he is too weak to fit the social position he has been

assigned; Helmholtz because he is too strong. The book remarks “a mental excess had

produced in Helmholtz Watson effects very similar to those which, in Bernard Marx, were

the result of a physical defect.”. Helmholtz can see and feel how the shallow culture in which

he lives is stifling him.

John was born in the Savage Reservation and grew up there. He is a unique

amalgamation of the culture of savages who he grew up amongst and the outside world (or

the World State) where his mother is from, yet he feels like he doesn’t belong anywhere. His
disgruntlement with the World State was exacerbated by the death of his mother and the

complete indifference the people showed towards it. His discontent manifests into anger

towards soma and he picks a fight with Delta twins. He is sent to Mustapha Mond as a result

of this fight.

Mond says to John, “So you don’t much like civilization, Mr. Savage.” John

concedes, but admits that he does like some things, such as the constant sound of music.

Mond responds with a quote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “Sometimes a thousand

twangling instruments will hum about my ears and sometimes voices.” John is pleasantly

surprised to find that Mond has read Shakespeare. Mond then goes on to explain that

literature is banned by the World State because it leaves a lasting impression on people. In a

consumerist society, citizens need to keep buying new things for the society to sustain itself.

Things which provide instant gratification and need people to buy more of it is what the

World State wants its citizens to buy. While this argument may not be as nuanced as other

arguments made by Mustapha Mond, we can see how consumerism is a pillar on which the

society in Brave New World is built on. (Huxley 192)

Mond also explains that the people of the World State would not be able to

understand Shakespeare, because the stories he writes are based on experiences that do not

exist in the World State. He says that the society has sacrificed individuality of thought and

feelings for social stability. John grew up in a Savage Reservation where people are

individuals with their own feelings, ideals, motives, and choices, he feels that taking away

individuality creates humans who are monstrous and repulsive. His encounters with Lenina

offers a clear insight to this rationale of his. He wanted Lenina to be a virtuous woman who

he could fall in love with, just like what he had read in Shakespeare’s works. But Lenina

doesn’t have the same morals as him, she was never trained to. She was trained by the World

State to go out and seek instant gratification. Her lack of individuality and fear of monogamy
due to hypnopaedic conditioning is what made him feel that taking away people’s

individuality creates monstrous and repulsive humans. (193)

John then asks the why the citizens couldn’t at least all be created as Alphas. He feels

that if the people were to be bred selectively, at least they should be made to be the best

possible human. Mond argues by saying that the World State has to have citizens who will be

happy performing the functions that they have been assigned. He points to an experiment in

which an entire island was populated with Alphas, and wholesale civil war quickly ensued,

because none of the citizens were ever happy with the distribution of tasks. According to

Mond, “The optimum population is modelled on the iceberg – eight-ninths below the water

line, one-ninth above”. This, he claims makes people happier (197).

Mustapha Mond then goes on to explain how science and technology, which forms

the backbone of their society, needs to be supressed too in order to create a society that is

happy and stable. He explains that they have the capability to increase production and to

create better technologies, but this would cause instability in the current order of society and

would not keep all people properly occupied. This could create unrest, which they want to

avoid. Hence, he says, “Even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy”. (198)

Disturbed by all this, John then asked, “Art, science – you seem to have paid a fairly

high price for your happiness, anything else?” to which Mond replied that their society has

done away with religion as well (203). He proceeds to show John a collection of banned

religious books. John asks him whether it is natural to believe in God. Mond replies by saying

that people believe what they are conditioned to believe in. “Providence takes its cue from

men,” he says. John argues that people think about God when they are “alone - quite alone, in

the night, thinking about death” (207). Mond says that they have made sure that people are

never alone anymore. The have been made to hate solitude. John feels that presence of
religion in the lives of people will not lead them to be morally degraded, like he feels all

people in the World State are. Mond counters this by saying that the people are not morally

degraded, they just follow a different moral code to the one he does (208).

Eventually, we can see that no party was able to convince the other of their point of

view. The debate went back and forth between John and Mustapha Mond, with both sides

holding a strong moral position. John finally says that he still wants there to be a God in his

life. Mustafa Mond tries to dissuade him by saying that “you’re claiming the right to be

unhappy” he also goes on to mention all the other diseases, unpleasant thought and feelings

that John would have to deal with. To this John replied, “I claim them all”. He claimed

individuality; he claimed his freedom (212).

 Works Cited

1. Huxley, Aldous “Brave New World”, Vintage, 2007.