Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Why does the Director choose the Fertilizing Room to meet Bernard, and why are people more curious about John than Linda? Chapter 10 of The...

In Chapter 10 of Brave New World, a
reading of this chapter reveals other reasons for the Director's choosing the
Fertilizing Room are that he may wish to remind Bernard's of his birth "accidents" which
have caused him to be somewhat of an aberration from the other Alphas, who also will
witness this confrontation between the Director and Bernard, thus effecting even more
humiliation for Bernard.  He tells Henry Foster that he is
going to make Bernard


readability="7">

'A public example...In this room, because it
contains more high-caste workers than an other in the Centre.  I have told him [Bernard]
to me me here at half-past
two.'



When Bernard arrives,
the D.H.C. announces before everyone there
his intention to transfer Bernard
to a "Sub-Centre of the lowest order,"
explaining that Bernard has "grossly betrayed the trust imposed in him" and
that Bernard's unorthodox attitudes and
behavior threaten Society
as he tells an inquiring Henry
Foster,



'The
greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray.  It is better than one
should suffer than that many should be corrupted.  Consider the matter dispassionately,
Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of
behaviour....'



Of course,
the main motivation of the D.H.C.'s is his concern
about Bernard's revealing his past.  But, of course, his
efforts are too late. For Linda appears, running to the Director, who repels her. 
Desperately, she clings to him, calling him "Tomakin," saying, "You made me have a
baby."  With these words there is "an appalling hush."  Then, when John appears, he
hurries to the Director, falling on his knees before him, exclaiming, "My
father!"



The
word (for "father" was not so much obscene as--with its connotation of something at one
remove from the moral obliquity of child-bearing--merely gross, a scatological rather
than a pornographic impropriety); the comically smutty word relieved what had become a
quite intolerable tension.  Laughter broke out, enormous, almost hysterical,...as though
it would never stop.



Because
of their conditioning, to the people of the New World, John is something ridiculous,
something like a bathroom joke.  The people of the New World would certainly be curious
about this man born in the obscene process of human intercourse since they have never
before encountered such a creature.  Thus, they would prefer seeing John instead of
Linda, who has aged and grown fat with a "blotched and sagging face" that the Alphas
would find grotesque and repulsive, rather than obscenely interesting and
curious.


[please note that what John believes in has not
yet been revealed in this chapter.]

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