Brave new world chapter 7 summary

Chapter 7 Notes from Brave New World


Brave New World Chapter 7

Lenina sees the buildings of Malpais from a distance and condemns it as queer, along with the Indian guide who is taking them to the pueblo, or town. She complains about having to walk, and about how he smells. She is disgusted and incredulous when she sees the garbage and the flies where people are living. "Cleanliness is next to fordliness," Chapter 7, pg. 110 she says, and Bernard responds sarcastically with another piece of sleep-taught wisdom, "Yes, and civilization is sterilization." Chapter 7, pg. 110 She sees an old man for the first time and wonders what is wrong with him. Bernard explains that old age is prevented outside the reservation through inoculations and the artificially constructed chemical balance of youth which scientists create. Lenina searches her pockets and discovers with horror that she left her soma in the hotel. She is horrified to see women nursing, and more horrified when Bernard is touched by its intimacy. He even goes as far as to suggest that she has missed out on a wonderful experience, having not been a mother herself. She sees a ceremony and hears drums and mistakes it for an org



Chapter 7



Summary:


The Indian guide leads Bernard and Lenina into the reservation, where the smells and the sight of poverty, disease, and old age immediately assault them. Since there is no live birth in the outside society, Lenina finds the scene of a woman nursing a child to be disgusting. She then discovers that both she and Bernard forgot their soma, so she has to see the village consciously rather than through the veil of the narcotic. However, Bernard feels a strange fascination with the scene. Bernard and Lenina watch a ritual dance of sacrifice to the gods Pookong and Jesus, where a young man slowly proceeds around a pile of snakes in the center of the Pueblo square. While walking, the young man receives a whipping until he falls and dies. The other Indians worship a statue of a man on a cross and an eagle.

After the ritual, they meet a blond-haired man with blue eyes. The Savage, whose name is John, tells them that he is upset that the other Indians will not let him participate in the ritual because of his skin color. He explains that his mother was like Lenina, a woman from civilized society, who some hunters had saved. Bernard concludes that John's mother was


Chapter Seven

HE MESA was like a ship becalmed in a strait of lion-coloured dust. The channel wound between precipitous banks, and slanting from one wall to the other across the valley ran a streak of green-the river and its fields. On the prow of that stone ship in the centre of the strait, and seemingly a part of it, a shaped and geometrical outcrop of the naked rock, stood the pueblo of Malpais. Block above block, each story smaller than the one below, the tall houses rose like stepped and amputated pyramids into the blue sky. At their feet lay a straggle of low buildings, a criss-cross of walls; and on three sides the precipices fell sheer into the plain. A few columns of smoke mounted perpendicularly into the windless air and were lost.

"Queer," said Lenina. "Very queer." It was her ordinary word of condemnation. "I don't like it. And I don't like that man." She pointed to the Indian guide who had been appointed to take them up to the pueblo. Her feeling was evidently reciprocated; the very back of the man, as he walked along before them, was hostile, sullenly contemptuous.

"Besides," she lowered her voice, "he smells."

Bernard did not attempt to deny it. They walked

Brave New World Chapter 7 Summary



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Lenina and Bernard are left at Malpais. Lenina is being whiny— she doesn't like it here, and she doesn't like their Indian guide (mostly because he doesn't smell good).

The guide leads them, amid the sound of beating drums, to the bottom of a three-hundred-foot precipice.

Lenina doesn't like this, either, because it makes her feel small.

Following behind the guide, she and Bernard proceed to climb upwards, finally emerging on a flat deck of stone at the top. Two little Indians come running along, naked and painted, which totally freaks out Lenina. They're also carrying snakes, which doesn't help her comfort level.

When they get to the pueblo, the guide leaves to go in and ask for directions. She can't deal with the general dirtiness, since "cleanliness is next to fordliness."

Bernard reminds her that these people haven't heard of Our Ford, and that they are used to living this way.

The two of them observe an old man climbing down a ladder. Lenina is horrified: she's never seen such an old man before. Bernard explains that they (in the controlled world) have learned to keep people "young" until they're abou