BNW 4-6

Active Reading Notes

Brave New World

Ch.4

·         Indirect Characterization: “She was a popular girl, and, at one time or another, had spent a night with almost all of them.” The author is indirectly saying doesn’t have any moral obligation to stick with one man for sex.

·         Pun: “There’s the Read Rocket,”… You know those jokes that you get a week later? This will be a fun one to get…

·         Simile: “Like aphides and ants, the leaf-green Gamma girls, the black Semi-Morons swarmed round the entrances,..” Bernard and Lenina think themselves above lower members of the cast system.

·         Irony: “Wretched, in a word, because she had behaved as any healthy and virtuous English girl ought to have and not in some other, abnormal, extraordinary way.” Even though he is saying the situation is “wretched” it’s not because he is in an an actually bad situation but instead because he is in a normal situation.

·         Direct Characterization: “He was a powerfully built man, deep-chested, massive, and yet quick in his movements, springy and agile.” Author is giving us a visual of Helmholtz Watson

·         Zeitgeist: “(it was said that he had had six hundred and forty different girls in under four years)” It’s all about numbers and statistics in this time period…Why does that sound so familiar? k

·         Foil: Bernard is small, insecure, and unpopular. He owns understanding that other in his society do not. Helmholtz is the opposite in the first three areas and he has this “mental excess”. Helmholtz has all the benefits of Bernard but no clear flaws unlike the many in Bernard’s life.

·         Hyperbole: “…he said almost tearfully-and the uprush of his self-pity was like a fountain suddenly released. “If you only knew!” “The author is making fun of Bernard for his immense self-pity and being so pathetic by over dramatizing the similie.

Ch.5

·         Simile: “…stretched like a great pool of darkness towards the bright shore of the western sky.” This use of a simile creates a visual for the audience.

·         Zeitgeist: “Lenina remembered her first shock of fear and surprise; her speculations through half a wakeful hour; and then, under the influence of these endless repletion’s m the gradual soothing of her mind, the soothing, the smoothing, the stealthy creeping of sleep.” Even though society knows how messed up it is. They still want to live this way.

·         Simile: “The saxophones wailed like melodies cats under the moon,…” …Cats make strange and loud sounds when they are…having sex apparently… the author is trying to show us an image of how dirty sex is at this time period.

·         Metaphor: “they might have been twin embryos gently rocking together on the waves of bottled ocean of blood-surrogate.” This creates a very dark and awful thought about this event and how brainwashed these people are. It’s an effective tool at this point because of how happy the image created was before this sudden depressing visual.

·         Allusion: “Morgana” A witch believed to use optical allusions and mirages for her sorcery. Maybe not intentional but the idea that she is fake and not real (thousands like her and personality was made in a factory) seems to fit with the book’s setting.

·         Foreshadowing: “… pulsing rhythm, it was the midriff; the wail and clang of those recurring harmonies haunted, no the mind, but the yearning bowels of compassion” What does this sound like to you? “12 becoming one...” sounds like an orgy.

Ch.6

·         Indirect Characterization: “… had it been with Jean-Jaxques Habibillah or Bokanocsky Jones?” She doesn’t think too much of her relationships with men. They are a dime a dozen.

·         Zeitgeist: “For what was there that one could do in private. Yes, what was there? Precious little.” Privacy is not characteristic of this society. Everyone is shared in this era and there’s no pleasure you can have on your own.

·         Aphorism: “I’d rather be myself,” he said. “Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.” He says this quickly and it easy to miss this radical idea for this society but Bernard just made an unheard of distinction between being “jolly” and being truly happy.

·         Irony: “But it’s lovely. And I don’t want to look.” What?! She knows it’s beautiful but instead of admiring it she is disturbed by it.

·         Aphorism: “He hated these things-just because he liked Bernard” A true friend doesn’t act like you have bad character qualities. He picks them out so he can that friend improve them.

·         Metaphor: “The little black needle was scurrying, an insect, nibbling through time, eating into his money.” Bernard is very frustrated at this moment the thought that he is consistently losing money every second they stay here is torture. An insect is small, annoying, and they eat through mostly anything which creates a nice visual of how Bernard feels about the tap he left on at the hotel.