Lenina In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

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To be conventional in one’s society is to truly know acceptance in every sense of the word. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World nosedives into a different, futuristic era where the conventionalities of our society are no longer. In this world, materialism and luxury are among some of the few values that are still considered relevant. Lenina Crowne is a prime example of the kind of people this society literally produces. Lenina is a vision of beauty, conforming to traditional beauty standards, unaware of any other way of thinking rather than the one the futuristic society has ingrained into their minds. Throughout the beginning of the novel, Lenina is shown as naive to all cultures and phenomena that she has never been exposed to, with one exception. She may not realize it, but Lenina does tend to rebel against the “everybody belongs to everybody else” ideal, as shown when she converses to Fanny Crowne about her longer than usual relationship with Henry Foster: “...But after all, it’s only been about four months now since I’ve been having Henry” (p 46). The aforementioned quote displays the first signs of character development within Lenina. From then on, it can be inferred that Lenina has begun to experience a rift from her familiarity with the society that she had known her whole life, whether she acknowledges it …show more content…

Lenina’s feelings come to light when she and Bernard go to the reservation in New Mexico. Not only is Lenina physically away from what she considers to be her home, but she also finds herself around rituals and customs she has never been exposed to herself, such as the concept of natural birth, parenting, and experiencing old age. Lenina’s feelings can be assumed by the quote, “...But it’s terrible, it’s awful. We ought not to have come here” (p 106, Lenina speaking of her discontent of the ways of life on the