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Schule > Englisch > Aldous Huxley - Brave New World > Character Profiles : Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Characterization : Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

D.H.C.:

The director of the hatchery has in Huxleys novel the task to explain the way of reproduction in the BNW (Brave New World) and the structure of the system. As a personality hes pompous and thinks hes almighty, although he hasnt got enough intelligence and power. Hes ignored by World-Controller Mond and makes a hardly understandable mistake by telling Bernard about his trip to the reservations. The story makes him kind of human, because he left his girlfriend, Linda, there. In addition to that Linda was pregnant by him and got a son, John. Bernard exploited this weak point of his biography while he presents Linda and their common son to the publicity. The director is made ridiculous and forced to a backflow. Bernards banishment is for the first time forgotten. The director is a proof that accepting all rules of BNW is merely impossible, even for the higher representatives of the system. The pregnancy of a woman is absolutely undesirable and confuses the planning numbers of the central and could additionally lead to a discussion about artificial reproduction of human beings.

Mustapha Mond:

Mond is one of the ten persons, controlling the whole world in A.F. 632 and the most powerful character of the novel. He has special privileges like all dictators and their satraps, he can do what he wants to do, and hes allowed to read everything, even texts, which stand under censorship. He belongs to the few people of the BNW, who dont have to follow a standardisation or control. Nevertheless even he was forced to stop his biological work, because scientifically liberty is abolished. Hes super intelligent, loves his work and also understands people, who are different and think different, maybe because he was different too (but he gives up his individualism for the power he longed to have). He knows history and philosophy very well and is next to John the second self-contained character of the novel.
When Mond was young, he was a successful scientist, who could have made a great career. But his researches have been a danger for the stability of the system, for that he was forced to give up his academic abilities. Because he didnt want to be banished, he decided to go the system compliant career of management and politics and so he became the resident controller of Western Europe.

Bernard Marx:

Bernard is one of the main characters of the novel; hes an Alpha-Plus and a specialist on hypnopaedia at the psychology bureau of the Central London Hatchery. Thus Bernard is not exactly heroic, hes still interesting because hes human, in contrast to the other people. He has got feelings for Lenina, but his love isnt reflected the way he wants to. Hes very shy, so he waited a long time to ask Lenina for a date. Lenina accepted his invitation to go to one of the Savage Reservations, but nevertheless he has got an inferiority complex, because of his bad reputation, a shortcoming of his stature. Moreover he isnt interested in public organizations or sportive activities. Through his feelings for Lenina, he reacts very jealous of Henry Foster, who has got a close relationship to Lenina. Additionally you can say that Lenina uses Bernard for her own purpose. She knows that her lasting relationship to Henry is abolished and as a consequence she goes out with Bernard. Once Bernard listened to a talk of Foster, where he talks about Lenina like an object, like meat. Bernard gets angry and even says that he hates him.

Lenina:

Lenina is young and very beautiful. She already had sex with many men and is coveted by lots of them. She works in the hatchery as an assistant, belongs to the group of Betas, the second highest rank of the social deposit of BNW. Her marked feminine forms and her beauty fascinate not only Henry Foster, the co-worker of the directors central, but also Bernard Marx and John, who fell in love with her intensively. Lenina searches for love with impassionate sex in the foreground. She doesnt develop any feelings. She wants to have fun and consumption and shes satisfied with her life. Shes not able to flights of fancy; if she doesnt like something, she makes use of the official drug soma. She repeats the mission statements, which manipulate her and all the children in BNW, whenever the possibility is given. Her behaviour fit to all points of the ruling norms, except one aspect. She uses to fall in love with her partner too intensively and too long that means, she contravenes against the dictum Everybody belongs to everybody the demand to be permanent promiscuity.
This one has the aim to accept no closer relationships. Emotional relationships are not desired, because they lead to conflicts and therefore the stability of the superficial and consumption organized system could be in danger.
All in all you can say that Lenina follows all the rules and targets of BNW, but has got a curious tendency: She feels attracted to the two big outsiders, Bernard Marx and John. For this reason, she rebels against the dominating point of view of the women in BNW, who definitely dont like find these two characters attractive. Another anomaly consists of her skin disease.
Lenina becomes at the end a crystallizer for Johns free death. She went together with the sensation seeking crowd to his beacon, which makes his feelings get out of control. When he lashes her, she calls Henry Foster for help, an absolutely loyal representative of the system. She shows that she stays in the channels of the conventionalists. She never understood the intentions of Bernard and John and shes not able for a critical reflection of the structures of BNW.

Fanny Crowne:

Fanny is Leninas best friend. She plays the role of the bad conscious for Lenina and advises her more often not to get away from the prescribed behaviour. Their talks are mostly about the relationship between the genders. Her character represents the fully adapted woman of all norms of the system; her role for the developing of acting is more peripherally.

Henry Foster:

Henry works as a scientists assistant in the hatchery. He represents the total adaption to the World-State and follows all rules without resistance. His interests stand in unison with the conventional way of acting; he works for the given reproduction-systematic and in his leisure he enjoys sports and sometimes sex, women (like Lenina for example) are sexobjects for him. Hes intelligent, but he represents the great mass of the optimal functionizing elite in the system.
As a character of the novel he builds a clear contrast to the less critical or inconvenient acting main-characters like Bernard and Helmholtz, who are also children of BNW, but have beliefs in other values or think about other alternatives.

John:

The son of Linda and the director of the hatchery is one of the main characters of the novel, the aggressive antipole to BNW, although he put the biggest hopes in it before he gets to know it and made his own experiences. He even falls between two stools when he lived on the reservation. His mother taught him the knowledge and ideas of BNW, but he lives under Indians and would like to integrate into their world. But they mostly declined him and made his life difficult. He flees himself into an inner emigration, into the fictive world of Shakespeare, in which the own values and ideas the classic catholic dominate. He knows already three worlds before he relocates to BNW; from this one the experiences miss.
When he arrived, a big distance is shown by the later form of culture and community. He wants to live his own imaginations. He feels very uncomfortable, when hes presented to the publicity like an object and when hes used by Bernard to revaluate his prestige. Therefore he likes Helmholtz more than Marx, he feels closer to Jesus than to the utopian transformed Ford-culture. He wants to suffer, wants to make negative and exhausting experiences and after that he wants to enjoy something. From his point of view its pervy and flagitious to have immediately sex with a woman, even if shes absolutely beautiful and no matter how much he loves her. He stays on his right to live an individual life against all majority morals and in contrast to all the others; he also wants to influence Bernard and Helmholtz, but this succeeds only inadequate und when theyre expatriate by Mond, hes stand on his own. The utopian civilization let him perceive a social closing in like his mother, who was ashamed of him and beats him, during his habitation in the reservation. This social closing repeats itself when Mond divides him from Helmholtz and Bernard. That hes not banished, is a sign of pseudo liberalism of which also today many serious interests of the media community through a changing in a spectacle are blackballed. Because of that, the last chapter has very current meaning: How many dreams and biographies have been destroyed by the boulevard press and commercial TV through their sensation lecherousness?
John is a character with the most room for experiences and manoeuvre. He alone is able to make a revolt against the system of BNW, he dares to stop the spreading of soma and becomes active, while Marx and Watson stay private with their own ideas. Therefore he stands in his character strength and his charisma on the same level as the World-Control-Member Mond, who also knows different cultures and traditions and who is a real cosmopolitan, but on the other hand hes a representative of the social cynicism, which the not democratic systems need for the stability of their regency. That Mond stays the winner, is not based on the strength of his arguments, but is a result of the given spreading of power, which means, its a communication structure, which is distorted from the beginning on. The repressive tolerance allows Mond to appear merciful and not to banish John, but this he could only do, because the majority makes John a clown, an object of public amusement.
Johns failure and death shows, that BNW is not as beautiful and new. If someone takes his own life serious and lives a self-determined from of life, he has no chance and has to disappear or has to be eliminated. The conflict between community and individual grows more and more, always in aid of the system, like every historic or contemporary dictatorship. John could only cancel himself of this dilemma, if he had more confederates and if it would success him to build something like solidarity. This way he doesnt know as less as the typical intellectual and lone fighter Huxley, who didnt have any connection to political organizations or movements. John chooses two times, in the Indio world and in BNW, the way into hermit ness and refuses himself to community and social communication. Therefore he issued himself the chance of an alternative.

Helmholtz-Watson:

Watson is in opposite to Marx very successful and is admired by many women. Hes psychologist like Marx and super intelligent. His activities are manifold. Hes good at sports, works in many commissions and has many friends and acquaintances. His personality seems to be without any mistakes and nearly super human. Through his attractiveness he had sexual contact with an unbelievable high number of women.
But hes like his friend Bernard not satisfied, because his job does not challenge him. He searches for an own truth away from the official propaganda of BNW. Therefore he writes poems and tries to teach his students a critical idea about the system. His nonconformity is contradictory. On the one hand hes everywhere thereby and on the other hand he wants to be free and independent. For example he helps John when he tries to stop the spreading of soma, but he didnt revolt against his own banning. He understands Johns attitude, but is not able to follow the Shakespeare reception. Perhaps he awaits a personal development, when he lives together with more dissenters on the distant isle.
Watson plays in front of Mond a similar role like Fanny in relation to Lenina. He complies with the ideal of men and behaves adapted in many points, but also has his own motives of disliking few aspects of the system. This distance is missing Fanny.

Linda:

Linda, Johns mother, comes from BNW originally. She flew twenty years ago with the director of the hatchery to the reservations. There she had an accident and was saved by Indians. So she stays after Johns birth, the son of the director, in the reservations and lived there until Bernard and Lenina take her and John with them back to London. She is debauched through the bad accommodation and the missing of high living-standard, got fat and ugly. In the reservation she keeps her life principles of a Beta-Minus. Because of that she changes her partner regularly and gets a target for their wives.
Linda is very happy that shes able to return to BNW through Bernard and Leninas visit. But shes mental destroyed and takes more and more doses of soma and ruins her affected healthy completely. She isnt able, like John, to live in both of these two worlds. But her consequence is not like Johns; he turns against the system. She reacts her problem situation with the aboriginal taught way: soma as an all-purpose medium. Therefore she stays completely in border of BNW. But she also pays with her life. Evidently her doom serves to underline that everybody, who cant integrate in this world, has to be on the losing side, equal if he resists or not.

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