When Lenina and Bernard Max visit the reservation as a
lark in Chapter 7 of Brave New World, they arrive just at the time
that a ritual takes place in which an old man whips a young man, who happens to be
John. Later, this young man speaks to Linda and Bernard, telling them that he regrets
that he could not be the sacrifice in order to bring rain to make the corn grown. Now,
at the end of the novel after he has been exploited as a curiosity and an object of
ridicule, John again wishes to make himself a sacrificial victim to atone for the
inhuman morally corrupted New World.
Unable to express
himself other than in Shakespearean terms, John finds himself in an ironic "brave new
world" faced with the dehumanization of the individual. In a heroic effort worthy of
Hamlet who fights the forces of the corrupt Danish court, John, like Hamlet, sacrifices
himself so that he will at least be authentic in death, rather than the object of
ridicule for the Delta workers and others who view him as a curiosity and make him "an
animal at bay."
When John awakens from his succumbing to
taking soma and engaging in an orgy, he is ashamed that he has committed such sins of
the flesh. Knowing that he has already sacrificed his individuality, John sacrifices
his flesh by committing suicide. John's death is the death of
the individual, the man who could express emotion, who
could engage in introspection, who could feel and be
truly human.
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