"The intoxication of success had evaporated; he was soberly his old slef; and by contrast with the temporary balloon of these last weeks, the old self seemed unprecedentedly heavier than the surrounding atmosphere."
(pg. 178)
Huxley, again metaphorically compares Marx with that of a balloon, constantly rising and falling. This time the balloon is described as "heavier than the surrounding atmosphere." One thing that frustrates me was that I previously thought that Bernard Marx had been the moral character in the story who wanted to change the conformity in the world. Now, it has been revealed that the only reason he wanted to change it was because he didn't fit in with the system. As soon as he became "well-liked", used would be a better term, he turned his back on his few, only true friends. However, no one actually liked him. He used John for popularity and others used him for John. Now that he abandoned his only friends and everyone else is back to hating him, what's supposed to happen next? I didn't see this coming and now I have no clue where Aldous Huxley plans to go from here since what seemed to be the protagonist who would change the horrors of the social system is no longer in any position to do so. Also, why is literally everyone in this book for the most part, for the lack of a better term, such jerks. There's really no one who has emerged as a strong moral character in this book. Huxley is a pretty wierd guy so I'm just wondering if anything in his personal life, like getting made fun of as a kid, might have caused him to make all people immoral jerks in his book.
Is John an immoral jerk?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. John as well as Helmholtz seemed like the only characters in the book that were actually normal.
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