Brave New World Study: A Critical Look

Posted on Feb 23, 2025 in English

Chapter 17: Questions and Answers

Questions

1. Where are God and Ford located in the New World?
2. To whom does Mond compare Cardinal Newman?
3. According to Newman, whose property is man?
4. When does de Biran say man finds God?
5. According to Mond, when can man be independent from God?
6. What societal attitude, according to Mond, keeps the wheels turning?
7. What has society done with the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” as the Savage calls them?
8. What does the Savage remember when he thinks of unpleasant things?
9. What replaces living dangerously?
10. What does the Savage choose?

Answers

1. God is in the safe, and Ford is on the shelves.
2. Mond compares Cardinal Newman to the Arch-Community-Songster.
3. Newman says man is God’s property.
4. De Biran says man finds God as he ages and youthful passions cool.
5. Mond says man can do without God when he has youth and prosperity for his whole life.
6. Self-indulgence, not self-denial, keeps the wheels turning.
7. Society has removed all bad and unpleasant things, making life too easy.
8. The Savage remembers Linda’s dying and the mocking laughter at her appearance.
9. The Violent Passion Surrogate provides an instant adrenaline rush, replacing the desire for danger.
10. The Savage chooses the right to be unhappy.

Chapter 18: Questions and Answers

Questions

1. What is the Savage doing when Bernard and Helmholtz come to say goodbye?
2. When do the two men leave for exile?
3. What does the Savage plan to do, and why?
4. Where does the Savage go for his self-exile?
5. How does the Savage spend his first night at the lighthouse?
6. What do the seven floodlit skyscrapers remind the Savage of?
7. How is the Savage’s place found?
8. What does the reporter from The Hourly Radio try to do, and what happens to him?
9. What does Darwin Bonaparte do with his film of the Savage?
10. How does the Savage pay for what he sees as his final sin?

Answers

1. The Savage is purging himself with a mustard emetic to rid himself of civilization.
2. Bernard and Helmholtz leave for exile the next morning.
3. The Savage plans to find an uninhabited place in England and exile himself because Mond won’t send him to an island.
4. The Savage finds a deserted piece of seacoast near Portsmouth on the south coast of England.
5. The Savage spends his first night praying and mimicking a crucifixion in a vigil.
6. The seven lit skyscrapers remind him of cathedral spires or pinnacles of the Southwest, reaching toward heaven and God.
7. Three Delta-Minus land workers stumble upon the Savage while he is whipping himself.
8. The reporter tries to interview the Savage, who kicks him in the backside.
9. Bonaparte turns his film into a hit feely, The Savage of Surrey, which attracts more visitors to the lighthouse.
10. The Savage hangs himself from the highest point of the lighthouse.

Characters: John

John, the son of the Director and Linda, is the only major character raised outside the World State. A consummate outsider, he is alienated from his village on the New Mexico Savage Reservation and cannot fit into World State society. His worldview is based on Shakespeare’s plays, which he quotes easily.