Chapter 16
Summary
His Fordship, the great Mustapha Mond, summons John, Bernard and Helmholtz
for a hearing.
John makes plain his distaste of Utopia, and Mond accepts his point of
view.
Mond has heard John’s quotations from Shakespeare, and illustrates that he
is acquainted with the works of Shakespeare, much to John’s surprise.
John asks why he doesn’t allow the people to read Shakespeare, but Mond
responds that they would not understand it. He further explains that the people have happiness and stability, but the sacrifice they have all had to make is the loss of great art.
Mond goes on to concede that instability and unhappiness can be more
exciting, but that those at the bottom of the pyramid, the Gammas, Deltas etc., do not have the ability to understand high art.
For the whole system to work, it must have a stable base. An experiment was carried out where the island of Cyprus was decolorized with Alphas only, and the result was chaos.
Mond describes Utopia like a cookery book – they have found the recipes that
work and they cannot afford to interfere with the ingredients.
John will be retained for experiment, but as for Bernard and Helmholtz, they
will be exiled. Bernard grovels before Mond, pleading to be kept, to no avail.
Mond turns to Helmholtz indicating that if he does not give up his ideals,
then he has to accept exile. Helmholtz is philosophical about being exiled.
Interpretation
Huxley uses Mustapha Mond as the narrator of his views, and he puts forward
the argument justifying the Utopian system.
In the end, everyone has to make sacrifices, and in order to live with these
sacrifices drugs are used to dull the senses. Even the man at the top, Mond, has to make sacrifices, the loss of his own freedom and individuality, and for him, the sacrifice is more painful because he does
have some understanding of what has been lost, but he is alone with his sacrifice because he has to portray orthodoxy to those below him. He is able to confide in those present, for they will be exiled.
Helmholtz realizes this – Bernard does not.
Because Mond has opened his soul to those present, they have to be exiled.
In a real Utopian world, everyone would be educated to the highest level,
but in practice this cannot happen due to overpopulation and want.
There is also apathy present in humankind as well. In order to overcome these problems, the Brave New World controls population, removes human indifference by genetic engineering, and war is abolished.
Huxley gives us a warning that we must control these elements in order to
avoid this Brave New World happening.
So far as the plot of the book is concerned, Bernard is exiled and leaves
the story together with Helmholtz.
There is probably still one question in the reader’s mind.
What is Mond’s motivation?
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