Thursday, 4 April 2013

Journal Entry #2: John the Savage.


These people that I have met are insane! They are manufactured in factories, into a ranking order. And, on top of that, the bottom levels; Epsilon's and Delta's, don't even care. They are "conditioned" as children to obey, and it goes all the way from the 10 World Controllers to the thousands of Epsilons. They are afraid to live life, so they hide behind a wall, which although giving them security, essentially ensures they have no actual life. If you can only do a few things, with no creativity or courage, what difference are they from the dumbest animals? I believe that offering up the story of my life may present to you the opportunity to make a difference, change the way you think.

I was born a step down from everyone. My father disowned me, and my mother was stuck here after we got separated from the group. I was brought up as an outsider, treated differently because I was an outcast from the same organization that basically enslaves these savages. My entire life, I only had two books, one manual from my mother, a Beta who worked in the decanting factories. It was a beastly book, full of long words and complicated procedures. However, I recently discovered a book of Shakespeare, which I could relate to. Shakespeare had been banned in the New World, but a copy remained on the reservations. Shakespeare was so full of creative ideas and expression. What a life it would be to live in a time where you could be whoever you wanted, do almost anything, and not be afraid to keep on exploring. The things in the world now are ghastly- any game that does not increase consumption is disallowed, and if there is something with the smallest fault in it, instead of getting repaired, it is thrown away. I believe the saying is “the more stiches, the less riches”, repeated in their sleep, which is ironic because the more things they consume, the less they have left. Of course the world is limited (at least in the New State) to 2 million million people, whenever a large amount of people die, they make more clones to take their place. There is no such thing as family, and everyone is brought up with “death conditioning”, a procedure I saw when my mother died in a hospital. These bags of meat, pretending to be humans, irredeemably stupid, just stood there as people died. And then they were given éclairs! Goddamned éclairs! And I don’t care about all the Ford stuff. The Ford is another wicked product of the New State, to be used as a comforting device these clones rely on.




The response from was from John, or as he is later known, John the Savage. Although he does not come in until near the middle, he is a main protagonist, even more than Bernard. I think these journal entries show John’s true character, one with a pathological hatred for the abominations of the World State. He believes in the true path of God, and is very religious, saying that he, one of the best characters in the book (in a standard our-world point of view) deserves nothing more than a dirty hole in the ground. He whips himself to repent, which attracts attention of a very bad kind.

The attention comes in the form of thousands of people who want to see him whip himself- they have never seen something like this before. Someone actually wanting to cause physical pain to himself? The crowd is worked into frenzy, shouting and calling out, until it turns into a mass of soma and sex. John realizes how insane these people really are, and in the morning, hangs himself. I think he fits into the novel as a main character, and also because the ending scene, that carries the message, shows his feet slowly moving back and forth, dead. 


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