Brave New World Aldous Huxley

1. Brave New WorldAldous Huxley Chapter 4

2. Vocabulary • Soma: A narcotic used to create pleasant sensations without any after-effects. • parathyroid any of usually four small, oval glands on or near the thyroid gland; they secret a hormone important in the control of the calcium-phosphorus balance of the body. • Charing-T Tower Huxley's re-creation of a London train station, Charing Cross Station. • simian of or like an ape or monkey. Here, used to describe the Epsilon elevator operator.

3. Characters • LeninaCrowne: A vaccination worker at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. She is an object of desire for Bernard but is seeing Henry Foster. • Bernard Marx: An Alpha male who fails to fit in because of his inferior physical stature. • Henry Foster: One of Lenina’s many lovers, he is a perfectly conventional Alpha male • Helmholtz Watson: An Alpha lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering, Helmholtz is a prime example of his caste, but feels that his work is empty and meaningless and would like to use his writing abilities for something more meaningful. He and Bernard are friends. • Benito Hoover: a conventional Alpha male

4. Setting • The beginning of Chapter 4 is set in an elevator with various other Alpha men and Lenina. • Lenina and Henry are in Henry’s helicopter when they go on their date to play Obstacle Golf • In the last part of the chapter Bernard is in Helmholtz’s office at the College of Emotional Engineering.

5. Chapter Summary • Lenina enters an elevator and realizes she has been with all of the men except Bernard. • She tells Bernard that she would love to go to the Savage Reservation with him. • Bernard gets very uncomfortable that she is bringing up personal matters in front of so many people and acting like a “normal” girl. • Other Alpha’s are suspicious of Bernard and say that the reason he is so strange is that alcohol was put into Bernard’s blood-surrogate.

6. Summary cont. • Bernard is very insecure because he does not have the body structure of an Alpha. • He has a hard time giving the lower caste orders because does not have the superior feeling towards them that the other Alpha males do. • Bernard goes to visit his friend Helmholtz Watson, a lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering. • Helmholtz is a brilliant man who like Bernard, does not feel he is exactly like the rest of the Alphas. He thinks he has the intellectual power to do more than what he is actually doing. • Both view themselves as individuals

7. Summary • Helmholtz is somewhat of a “ladies man” and boasts he has had 640 girls in under four years. • Bernard tries to impress Helmholtz by telling him Lenina accepted his date. Bernard is surprised because Helmholtz has little to no interest in Bernard’s plans. • Helmholtz continues to tell Bernard how he could use his mind to better use instead of writing phrases from hypnopaedia. • Bernard thinks he hears a knock on the door and jumps. He admits to Helmholtz that he has been suspicious with people as of lately.

8. Thoughts on Chapter 4 • It’s assuring to know that Huxley’s futuristic world still contained individuals who were able to see past the system. • Quote: “Did you ever feel as though you had something inside you that was only waiting for you to give it a chance to come out? Some sort of extra power that you aren’t using..”

9. Bibliography • Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Print.