In Brave New World, John is well
education and eloquent, but moody and violent with his mood swings. As such, he is a
Noble Savage, as he is raised on the Savage Reservation.
He's got Mommy and daddy issues: he's ashamed of his mother, and on an
Christian/existential quest to know who he is and how is like his real
father.
In Freudian terms, John is all superego
(conscience) or id (desire): there's no middle ground. He ends up dating someone just
like his mother (Linda), Lenina. In this way, he suffers from a kind of Oedipal
complex. His repression and guilt over his physical relations with Lenina drives him to
mania and suicide.
His name comes from the verse
drama The Conquest of Granada by John Dryden. Huxley bases him on
a combination of Caliban and Alonso from Shakespeare's The Tempest.
He is part slave/savage like Caliban and part civilized Utopian like Alonso. After
all, the title is taken from a The Tempest, Act
V:
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world!
That has such people
in't!
Christ-like
martyr: John is a son who is split between two worlds, the natural and
the supernatural. He has two fathers, an earthly one and a mysterious other. In the
end, he dies for the sins of others: for us, the readers, and for his father, the
Director. He is meant to show us and the Director the extreme effects of both the
utopia and the dystopia. In the lighthouse, his body is in the shape similar to that of
Christ on the cross.
Byronic
Hero: John is an extremist, like Lord Byron the Romantic poet. He is
either madly in love or morbidly depressed. There's no moderation or middle course with
him. In this way, he is "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." He is wounded by love,
exiled for his beliefs, and rebellious against authority. As a tragic hero, he makes
mistakes that lead to his death, namely participating in orgy-porgy and taking
soma.
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