Aldous Huxley develops the character of John in Brave New World through exile from the World State in order to elucidate the theme of not being able to escape the corruption that is society.
After all the hardships John has been through, such as growing up on the Reservation with his mother, whose death also drove him to desperate actions such as starting a riot among some Deltas at the hospital, John was not able to properly cope with his “new life” in the World State. HIs positive view of what the “Other World” would be like was crushed when he realized how horrible and corrupt the people were there, all conditioned in uniformity to create stability. His disgust was only furthered by his exposure to the World State’s use of soma and sexual pleasure to keep people happily occupied. Everything that the people were conditioned and taught to do went against John’s beliefs, so he was understandably upset about it. However, he does find some insight in his experiences. John begins to learn what it is like, from other people, to not have grown up with a mother, being “decanted” and conditioned specifically to fit a role in society.
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Since he grew up reading a lot of Shakespeare and learning about love in a more dramatic way, he sees Lenina as someone who can’t understand what true romance is. When she takes him to a “feely”, trying to figure out if he is attracted to her like she is to him, it reinvigorates his love for her, although he suppresses his physical desire due to his own shame. This is an example of how different the two characters have been raised, with John focusing on true love and trying to see Lenina as a wholesome, pure virgin (similar to Juliet in the story Romeo and Juliet), and Lenina becoming infatuated with him because of his resistance to her sexual