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. 

March Lit Analysis

I've chosen the Joy Luck Club as my lit analysis book. I've heard of it before, and I wanted to choose one from the list that wasn't in too many AP tests, just to try something different. So far I'm being drawn into the story of these four Chinese women. My mom saw me reading it and started reminiscing on when she read the book, but I told her not to spoil anything! I shall continue my reading. :)

Brave New World (II & III)

Chapter 2

• Foster is left behind in Decanting Room (no scene)
• Director leads boys to Nursery. ( INFANT NURSERIES. NEO-PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING ROOMS)
• Experiment conducted
• Books with colorful pictures of flowers and other things showed to eight month old babies (Delta, khaki)
• Babies crawled to pictures, delighted by them
• Alarm sounds, babies terrified
• Babies are SHOCKED?!?!, filled with fear of the pictures
• Boy asks why they're taught to hate flowers, has to do with consumption of goods and use of transportation
• At first, taught to love flowers to use transportation, didn't work
• Then taught to hate flowers and country, but love country sports
• Director tells story of Reuben Rabinovitch
• Had regular parents (considered sexual and boys uncomfortable using terms such as mother and father)
• Heard English speech on radio while sleeping (He's Polish), was able to repeat it word for word when woken up
• Called hypnopaedia, sleep teaching, A.F. 214
• Early experimenters tried using it for educational purposes
• Child listened to information about the Nile, could recite information word for word but could not ingest the information
• Now they use the information correctly
• Eighty babies sleeping, have voice talking to them in their sleep, talking about how Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons are below them, Alphas are smarter and better, and how they love being Betas
• Corrected the use of hynopaedia to ingraine their category into their minds, every day
• Whenever Ford is mentioned, they talk about him as if he was a god. "Oh, Ford! I've woken the children!"

Chapter 3

• Director and students watch hundreds of young boys and girls play
• Watched a game of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy, the tossing of a ball on top of a tower, which spins it around and shoots it out randomly to be caught
• Director comments on how things were so simple back then, but now no game can be approved unless it contains complicated machinery to improve consumption
• They go on to watch a boy and girl fooling around (ew) when they hear a boy crying
• The boy is uncomfortable with the "erotic play" going on around them, and the nurse says she will take him to the Assistant Superindent of Psychology to see if there is any abnormality
• The Director explains how in the past it was considered immoral and inappropriate for children and teens to act sexually with each other (they laugh at this)
• The Controller Mustapha Mond (fordship) appears (the leader of this futuristic government?)
• Narrative switches to Foster and Lenina
• Foster stands in a lift (elevator) with Assistant Director of Predestination and Bernard Marx from Psychology
• Also switches to Lenina
• Back to Mond, revealed he is one of 10 controllers of world, controller of western Europe
• "History is bunk"
• Director asks Foster if he's going to see a feely (erotic film?)
• Rumors that Mond has forbidden books in his study "Ford knows what"
• Bernard Marx offended by Foster and Director's talk
• Students don't know what a "home" is
• Lenina goes to Dressing Room
• Mond describes how terrible "homes were"
• Lenina washes herself in the weird bathrooms, talks to Fanny, Fanny mentions Pregnancy Substitute?
• Basically, Mond is describing the world before the World State, how people were unstable from emotions, disease, and more. When the caste system, hypnopaedia, and artificial birthing introduced, it was fought against, but then won. They decided to make the new era around the birth of the Model T
• Everyone in this world hooks up, all the time, with all different kinds of people
• Foster and Lenina have been at it for four months, but Lenina has only been with him
• Lenina starts to try to be more promiscuous, decides to try being with Bernard
• Soma = drug

Internet Problems!

So my internet has been kinda difficult these past few days. That's why I'm having some lag when it comes to posting things and doing assignments. But hopefully it's getting back on track, and I'll be back to regularly updating soon! :)

Brave New World I

Now this book is pretty interesting. And by interesting I mean KINDA WEIRD. I wasn't expecting this to be a science fiction kind of book! It makes me much more eager to read more. A quick summary of the first chapter seems to begin with a tour of a factory that is in charge of making human beings starting with the embryos and continuing on to make thousands of boys and girls to be separated into different castes. This tour is being given to a group of boys, and since they don't seem to react in an astonished or frightened way, I assume this has been going on for a long time. The style of this writing is so descriptive, and even used some words that I had to look up to remind myself of what it meant. One of the first sentences in the chapter was really descriptive and drew me in. "Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic gooseflesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory." I mean, come on! That's a work of art there. Looking forward to reading more!

First Quarter Review

I think this first quarter has had it's ups and downs. The ups have been how well I've been doing on vocab quizzes, I'm totally ready for the vocab final next week. The downs have been my writing and some of my blog posts. My internet has been really bad, and I don't want to use it as an excuse, but it's hard to post things from my phone with the app. I prefer to do it on a computer. ANYWAYS, I'm hoping the next quarter will go by a little better. I've been working on my senior project, and I think I have a definite idea, and I hope to start actually starting to work on it ASAP (no hints!). My goal is to work on my writing and keep working diligently!

BOB I

I really don't like rating people's blogs. I find it to be more disheartening than to be taken as constructive criticism, no matter how positive or helpful you sound. But I shall do it. It goes from best to still good. No worst here. 

Socorro: I actually like the look of Socorro's best. It's really unique-looking, I like it probably the most!

Josh: I like Josh's because he puts in so much more extra effort into updating it, with quotes and everything.

Sarah G.: One of the best blogs, it's so simple yet different looking. Something about it is just more interesting than the rest.

Ubi: Another good one. Always has interesting posts, plus it plays good music!

Kathryn: Kathryn's blog is one of my go-to blogs if I ever feel like I'm behind. She has a music player, and helpful posts!

Beka: I like Beka's blog because you can obviously see her personality come through her posts.

Ryan: I like the song it plays, first of all. Then I like the extra tabs for his story and the lit terms.

Michelle: Updates blog pretty regularly, and looks pretty neat. Also, very pretty background! I like Hello Kitty.

Hayden: Kind of a trippy background, makes me dizzy. Other than that, pretty nice.

Kasie: Interesting background, and detailed posts. Very nice.

Katelyn: I like the background, purple's my favorite. I like the layout!

Kayla: Cute blog! I like this design, it's so cute. Updated regularly.

Jackie: I'm actually surprised that this is the only background with the person's face! She also plays Home by Phillip Phillips on her blog!! 

Rocio: Really cute-looking blog. Simple, and updated.

Justice: Pretty good, nice simple layout, seems to put up posts pretty regularly.

Kelli: Simple design, but I do like the tab she has for the AP Lit Terms!

E'Ana: Very simple. Needs to update a little, but she did do all the vocab words so props to her. Check it out!

Ruth: Very interesting layout, I haven't seen this kind before. It's very modern-feeling.

Jenna: Pretty pink background! 

Madi: Updates pretty frequently. I like the orange color. 

Laura: Okay blog. Pretty simple, but updated.

Ryland: Pretty simple. Gets his work done. Nice blog.

Landon: Cool background, I like the colors. Updates pretty frequently.

Paul: Pretty background, but needs to be updated.

Will: Nice looking, but needs more stuff.

Owen: Post more, mister! Needs more stuff.

Dylan: Needs to be updated.