Bernard Marx - Brave New World - Charactor Study

Jamison Greenway

Bernard Marx is a key character in the novel Brave New World, he is a alpha and has some pretty big issues with self- confidence. He has this confidence problem from the way the other alphas treat him. He gets put in a social class of people that are considered flawless, and all of these people are the same, they are the same height same intelligence level accept for Bernard. Bernard is shorter than them and considered to be a outsider. He acts like he is like six to ten inches shorter but is really only 8 centimeters. The other alphas consider him to be lower than him because of his height and the reason he ended up shorter than them is because when he was being born in the Hatchery and Conditioning Center there was alcohol in his syringe. Bernard is pushed out of his group so he often alone during the book and while being alone he can think for himself which is not good because the world state doesn't want them to do that. The world state doesn't have to worry about him though because he's too scared to say anything about it. He begins to go off the edge by refusing to take soma because he wants to be himself and not like everyone else and be fake and happy. At this point in the story i began to think that he is more of a main character then we might have thought and maybe will finally stand up for himself and everyone else at some point. But in the end he never decides to actually stand up for himself all he ever did was walk it of the room when the Director called him out.

John is kinda a beast, he's the main character and in the beginning is sort of introduced by Bernard. He is the complete opposite from everyone else in the society because of what he does. He never conformed to what everyone else does and kinda is a fuel to everyone else and really a danger to the World State leaders. John also really likes to read he most often reads Shakespeare, which sounds terrible, but other then that he reads the Bible and other stories. At one point in the novel begins to question everything about the world stat, he starts to become mad that they don't fall in love and are always drugging themselves to take away their feelings. We the see him try to teach a valuable lesson that morality is based inside people. Near to end of the novel John kinda falls off and doesn't seem to really care, every time someone talks to him he starts to respond with literature such as Shakespeare. All the others just conform when asked about it and never try to think for themselves. The most impressive thing about John is that he comes of from one of the lower and dumber groups. The weird thing is that he has learned to think for himself and is more true to his natural character even more than the groups that are above him. John eventually messes up by falling in love with someone that can't feel love to obviously things aren't