How Does Lenina Crowne Create Happiness In Brave New World

While a happy-go-lucky, stress-free life may seem like paradise to the troubled individual, Aldous Huxley believes true happiness can’t exist without an equivalent amount of adversity. This idea is explored extensively in Huxley’s classic novel, Brave New World. Brave New World follows the story of John, a teenage boy who grows up in a small, Native American reservation established by a worldwide dystopian society. After outsiders Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne introduce him to the outside world, John has to mentally cope with the dystopia’s complete eradication of art, knowledge and genuine happiness. In the end, John’s emotional agony leads him to hang himself. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a perceptive, thought-provoking visualization

By refusing to take soma, Bernard provides the reader with a glint of hope that true courage may still exist in the dystopia. But, while Bernard may possess courage to seek the truth behind his emotions, the dystopia’s totalitarian government encourages its citizens to do just the opposite: to live in ignorance and be eternally happy. The theme of happiness vs. truth becomes evident in the novel when Lenina Crowne chooses to take soma to feel hallucinogenic happiness instead of pursuing the truth behind John’s rejection of her love: “Drying her eyes, Lenina walked across the roof to the lift. On her way down to the twenty-seventh floor she pulled out her soma bottle. One gramme, she decided, would not be enough; hers had been more than a one-gramme affliction” (114). The inclusion of this theme brings the reader beyond the book’s literal details by inviting the reader to draw their own philosophical conclusions: what is defined as true happiness? While this dystopia defines happiness as immediate gratification for sex and materialistic goods, it is evident the search for truth requires significant individual effort to obtain, and does not exist in a restrictive, communal society. This

Least of all,’ she continued in another tone ‘why you don’t take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You’d forget all about them’ ” (62). Through her own words, Lenina personifies herself as being deliberately avoidant of unpleasant thoughts, as do most of the dystopian citizens. With an entire society characterized by mindless conformity, the reader develops a greater sense of identification and empathy toward Bernard, Helmholtz Watson, and John, who feel isolated in their individuality. John, himself, is characterized largely by his unspoken thoughts and emotions. When Lenina wishes to have sex with him after only a single date, John’s own upbringing forces him to resist temptation: “He was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of” (169). Huxley skillfully characterizes John through his interactions with the dystopia, revealing the moral and ideological disconnect between John’s traditional beliefs from the Savage Reservation and the dystopia’s outrageous values. By sympathizing with John’s feelings of righteousness over temptation, the reader better understands John’s disgust with the dystopia’s artificial emotions and his yearning for peace and solitude. As the novel nears its conclusion, John