Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic Edward Stein describes exile as being a “terrible experience” whose “essential sadness can never be surmounted.” Paradoxically, he also states that it can be a “potent, even enriching experience.” Throughout Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, several characters are confronted with the positive and negative effects of alienation, but the protagonist, John the Savage, best represents Stein’s description of exile. From his childhood in the Malpais Reservation to his introduction into the Society of Brave New World, John feels both the pain and empowerment of isolation. These experiences shape his character and offer insight into the novel's message.
When John is first introduced in the
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He begins to refuse to be showcased to the people of the city, stating, “Let them wait” (pg. 172). When confronted by Bernard, he responds, “I’d rather be unhappy than have this sort of false lying happiness you are having here” (pg. 179). Soon, he is brought before Mustapha Mond, one of the most powerful men in the Society, to discuss the reasons for his rejection of their world. John argues for the importance of independence and free will. He often counters Mond’s argument for a artificially happy world with quotes from Shakespeare. When John defends his opinion that to have true happiness you must have hardship, he states, “But the tears are necessary. Don’t you remember what Othello said? ‘If after every tempest come such calms, may the winds blow till they have wakened death’” (pg. 258). At the end of their meeting, John resolves to live apart from the Society. “He had suffered (in Malpais) because they had shut him out....in civilized London he was suffering because he could....never be quietly alone” (pg. 235). Individuality had become essential to his existence and free will to claim his “right to be unhappy” (pg. 240) required his isolation from the