BNW Essay Draft 1

Pre-write

   Character: Bernard Marx

 >Alienation<

Physical Appearance   Thoughts and Beliefs

Physical: Small in stature, not considered attractive                                                                                                   Thoughts/Beliefs: Isn't promiscuous, doesn't like soma, wants to be individual   

Essay

      Aldous Huxley created an entirely new society with vastly different morals and values in his novel Brave New World. Writers in his position tend to use their characters to demonstrate what their society thinks and believes. Huxley manages to use this technique in the opposite way, providing characters alienated by the society, and how the society treats them. Bernard Marx is one of the best examples, for he is not only alienated on a physical level by his colleagues, but he isolates himself due to his own personal thoughts and beliefs.

      Bernard is introduced as small Alpha male, insecure about his size. Being an Alpha, he was placed into one of the higher parts of his caste. Yet people gossiped about his peculiar size, saying it was caused by alcohol in his blood when he was a baby(embryo?). The way people treat Bernard because of his appearance reveals how physicalities are important to the World State. Lower castes are programmed to associate higher castes to be bigger, as we can see how he has trouble telling the lower castes what to do. Bernard also betrays his jealousy of his friend Helmholtz, a man who shares his same views but is large and very handsome. Helmholtz attracts many females. Bernard's insecurity of his size shows how important they find looks.

      The other part of Bernard's alienation is his thoughts and beliefs. Now, Bernard doesn't share these outright with his colleagues, but the readers are able to see what is going on in his mind. Bernard is disgusted with the promiscuity that goes on in the world, and tries to control his urges as well as he can. He also can't stand the technology the government uses to keep the people happy, such as soma or the categorization into the different castes. It is obvious, for the first half of the book, that these things disgust him. He wants to have no part in it, and secretly tries to defy it. 

      All of these parts of Bernard's character come together to show one thing: Bernard is different, and different is not okay in the World State. Being individual is not encouraged at all.The condemnation and ridicule Bernard receives shows how society shuns the individual. Bernard tries as hard as he can to isolate himself, feel emotions, be different, but in the end becomes a hypocrite, striving to be what he despised.