John The Savage Rebellion

To achieve and maintain their idealised society, policy makers seek all viable methods to weaken independent thought that compromises the ‘needs of others’. In BNW, Huxley expresses his concern for people’s undue respect for science and technology as Shakespeare is metonymic of knowledge of fine arts and undervalued humanities that enrich people’s lives. Through expunging catalysts of passion for the human spirit, powerful individuals increase the efficaciousness of their policies to subdue the masses and acquire stability for economic prosperity. The capacity for the shared human experience captured through literature to spark rebellion is portrayed through John the Savage’s affinity with Shakespearean works as major source of inspiration

Central motifs of Macbeth are also adopted as they embody intense emotions and allude to the inevitable downfall of tyrannical ambition. John first employs it to depict physical pain, calling the bloodstains from the whipping during the primitive religious service as that ‘damned spot’ & explaining if he were ritually sacrificed it would result in so much blood that it could not be cleansed by ‘the multitudinous seas incarnadine’. This insidiously foreshadows his suicide and echoes the consequences of taking extreme actions to strip humanity to its bare minimum in the progression of society. Huxley’s vast knowledge of Shakespeare enable his intextual references to enrich the novel as Shakespeare’s plays are exemplar in illustrating the powerful passions innate to humanity that the World State is dedicated to eradicating. The price of stability by diminishing one’s cognitive freedom for the ‘personal interests and ideas’ of the elite has been condemned by both Huxley and

Consciousness and metacognition are arguable ‘needs’ to experience life to its full extent, hence the sacrifice of this autonomy by political leaders violates the core of human rights to fully comprehend one’s surroundings. The human condition is subsequently limited as Helmholtz desires to write something as beautiful as Shakespeare but with a story the modern, conditioned humans could relate to which Mond responds ‘And it’s what you will never write … Because if it were really like Othello nobody could understand it .. you can’t make tragedies without social instability. The world’s stable now’. Mond admits Othello is subversive to the consumer-based and passionless society that unable to appreciate the beauty and literary value of the play. The Savage desires freedom of thought and opposes the instant gratification of superficial desires as he boldly claims ‘I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin’, the employment of anaphora emphasises defining aspects of the human experience we should fight for. The repetition of the first person pronoun ‘I want’ reaffirms the innate desire for the shared human experience, the inclination for intangible and subjective but defining aspects of humanity. John’s assertion of ‘I