Brave New World #2

Sex and games are used as a method of control by keeping people from thinking and questioning the society. If they begin to question and think about things, they might want to rebel and bring down the society. By controlling the people, the society is stable, which is crucial to its survival. Sex is very impersonal and it's used as a way to keep people occupied. There isn't any real connection between people and people switch partners to avoid connection. Both sex and games are used to keep people happy. Also, things like hypnopaedic sayings brainwash people so that they can't think independently. Individuality is a threat to their society. The saying "ending is better than mending" means that it's better to just die or get rid of something than to try to fix it. People aren't scared of death in this society. World State doesn't want people to find truth because it poses a threat to society, so they keep people occupied, happy, and distracted to avoid potential rebellion. 

Brave New World #1

I think that some of Huxley's predictions are partially true, but are taken to the extremes. 

There are class differences, but in today's society, people are allowed to move up or down. Although they're born into a certain class, or caste in Huxley's book, they aren't brainwashed into thinking that's the only place they can be in society, even though some people in today's world may feel stuck. 

One of the most relevant aspects of Brave New World is the science that's used to create babies, but the way that they are used is less reasonable. People today have test tube babies, but the science isn't used like a factory. It isn't used as a way to produce people for a controlled society with no individuality. Also, people have mothers and fathers unlike in the book. Also, people are genetically modified to create desirable results, and a lot of work is being done in genetics to do similar things. 

The most far-fetched part of the book to me is the general idea of a utopian society, especially one run in that way. I don't think it's possible to take away all individuality and strip people of all knowledge with the end result being happiness for all. The U.S. is known for freedom and the society in Brave New World is the exact opposite of freedom. 

Poetry Response - Unveiling

"In the cemetery 

a mile away

from where we used to live

my aunts and mother,

my father and uncles lie

in two long rows almost the way

they used to sit around 

the long planked table

at family dinners."

Pastan is comparing her family member's graves lined up in the cemetery to them sitting at the table for family dinners. She doesn't feel sad because it's like they're sitting around the table like when they were alive. 

"I don't feel sad

for them, just left out a bit

as if they kept

from me the kind

of grown-up secret

they used to share

back then, something

I'm not quite ready yet

to learn."

Grown-up secrets being kept from the author makes it seem like a kid wrote the poem even though that may not be the case. Pastan is looking back and remembering what it was like to feel like there were secrets being kept from her. The end "I'm not quite ready yet to learn" could either mean that she still views herself as a child and is still not ready to learn the adult secrets or that she's not ready to die. My impression, considering her parents and family are dead, is that this person is older but still considers herself a child. 

Poetry Response - For the Sleepwalkers

The first half of the poem is talking about people who are actually sleepwalking. They have no fear and are never harmed. They walk to the stairs and not the window. They walk through the doorway instead of the mirror. The path on the carpet is worn and there is an invisible arrow leading them. They have done this before and haven't ever been harmed and "always they return home safely, like blind men who know it is morning by feeling shadows." 

When they wake up, they're the same person they were before. Then Hirsch starts to talk about how our hearts should leave our bodies and be fearless like sleepwalkers. He says that we have to trust our hearts and not fear experiences. "We have to learn the desperate faith of sleepwalkers who rise out of their calm beds and walk through the skin of another life". We have to put away our fears, or "drink the stupefying cup of darkness", and when you wake up, you'll be refreshed. 

The Awakening (Ch. 35-39)

Edna hopes that Robert will come to visit her, but he never does. Edna sees Robert at a garden cafe and he walks home with her. Robert admits that he was thinking of Edna all the time in Mexico. But he knew that she was Mr.Pontellier's wife and that he was "demented, dreaming of wild, impossible things, recalling men who had set their wives free..." She responds that she isn't one of Mr.Pontellier's possessions. Edna leaves to go to Madame Ratignolle's. Robert says he'll walk with her, but she asks him to stay and wait for her. Doctor Mandelet walks Edna home and tells her, "you seem to be in trouble. I am not going to ask for your confidence, I will only say that if ever you feel moved to give it to me, perhaps I might help you. I know I would understand, and I tell you there are not many who would - not many, my dear." When Edna gets home, Robert isn't there.
He left a note saying, "I love you. Good-by -- because I love you." He knows that she can never be his wife and doesn't want to do any more damage.
Edna is back on Grand Isle and decides to go for a swim. She thinks about her husband and children and Robert's note. She swims out too far and becomes tired. Edna sees a bird with a broken wing that is falling and this symbolizes Edna.
I can see why she felt trapped and hopeless in her situation and felt killing herself was her best or only option. However, that doesn't take away the damage her decision caused.

The Awakening (Ch. 30-34)

Edna hosts some people for dinner before she moves into the pigeon house. She invites Mrs.Highcamp, Arobin, Victor, Mademoiselle Reisz, and Monsieur Ratignolle, who attends for Madame Ratignolle because she is pregnant. A lot of money is spent on food and decorations for her dinner party. She had also received diamonds from her husband in New York. Victor starts to sing a song, but Edna becomes upset because it reminds her of Robert. Arobin stays with Edna after the other guests have left and she becomes "supple to his gentle, seductive entreaties".
Mr.Pontellier is upset about his wife moving out because of the way it will make him look. He thinks that it will make it look like he's having finanical difficulties, so he decides to have a well-known architect remodel his home. He also arranged for one of the newspapers to have an article about how he and his wife were going to take a vacation. Edna likes living in the pigeon house and there was "a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual." She also visits her children and is very happy to see them.
Robert comes home and Edna is disappointed that he had not come to find her right away. Also, she realizes that he has not come home for her, but for business reasons instead. The interaction between Robert and Edna are not like before he left. Her hopes of what would happen when he returned home are much different than what actually occurs.
I haven't been as annoyed with Edna as it seems many other people are, but I'm starting to become irritated by her actions. Spending a lot of her husband's money for a party because she's moving out is inconsiderate and immature to me. Also, having affairs with now two other men lowers my respect for her more.

The Awakening (Ch. 25-29)

Edna goes to the races with Mrs.Highcamp and Arobin. Edna spends some time alone with Arobin and becomes involved with him. He kisses her hand and she "felt somewhat like a woman who in a moment of passion is betrayed into an act of infidelity". She's more concerned about what Robert would think than her husband because she's still in love with him.
Edna decides to move out of her house into the pigeon house because she wants to be free. Another example of bird imagery is when Mademoiselle Reisz puts her arms around Edna to see if her shoulder blades, or wings, are strong. She also admits to Madamoiselle Reisz that she's in love with Robert.
Edna begins to cry after Arobin leaves. She feels guilty about all the material possessions that her husband has provided and realizes she has been irresponsible. However, "There was Robert's reproach making itself felt by a quicker, fiercer, more overpowering love, which had awakened within her toward him." She's been awakened and "she felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality." The only regret she feels is that her involvment with Arobin was not because of love.