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Introductory
Note to the Reader I often wonder what the backstory is
behind the essays I choose to write. Though I am now a man in my late 50s, I
had never read anything by Aldous Huxley—until recently. I suppose it was
finally time to do it. As a young boy in the 1970s, I remember
my mother watching a film adaptation titled Un Mundo Feliz, the Spanish
rendering of Brave New World. The title, ironically translated as A Happy
World, stuck with me—not because of its optimism, but because happiness, as I
now understand, is precisely what eludes the book’s central character, John
the Savage. At the time, I didn’t grasp the film’s
plot, but one image remained vivid in my memory: the Epsilons. They were
portrayed as a caste of obedient workers—performing household chores,
laboring in offices or industries—who, at the mere word of an Alpha, would
retrace their steps without question. Their submission was automatic, their
agency stripped away. Decades later, after finally reading the
novel and reflecting on its intricate themes and characters, I found myself
compelled to write this essay. It is, in a way, a belated response to that
childhood image—a meditation on conformity, freedom, and the soul’s
resistance to dehumanization. |
John’s Psyche in Brave New World through the Lens of Erich Fromm
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Abstract This
paper explores the psychological and philosophical decline of John “the
Savage” in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, using Erich Fromm’s The
Art of Loving and The Fear of Freedom as central analytical tools.
It argues that John’s breakdown is not an anomaly but the inevitable outcome
of his refusal to conform to a dystopian society that stifles love, freedom,
and creativity. The essay integrates insights from additional thinkers such
as Rollo May, Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow, Clifford Geertz, Marcel Mauss,
and René Girard. Through these lenses, the paper examines John as a moral
figure caught between incompatible value systems, culminating in his tragic
demise. The analysis concludes that his death represents a final act of
protest against a culture that reduces the human spirit to a mechanism of
control and distraction. |
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Resumen Este
ensayo analiza el colapso psicológico y filosófico de John “el Salvaje” en Un
mundo feliz de Aldous Huxley, utilizando las ideas centrales de Erich
Fromm en El arte de amar y El miedo a la libertad. Se plantea
que la ruptura de John no es locura, sino una consecuencia inevitable de su
negativa a adaptarse a una sociedad distópica que sofoca el amor, la libertad
y la creatividad. El análisis se enriquece con aportes de Rollo May, Viktor
Frankl, Abraham Maslow, Clifford Geertz, Marcel Mauss y René Girard. A través
de estas perspectivas, se examina a John como una figura moral atrapada entre
sistemas de valores incompatibles. Su muerte, concluye el ensayo, es un acto
final de protesta contra una cultura que convierte al espíritu humano en
instrumento de control y distracción. |
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Resumo Este
artigo investiga o colapso psicológico e filosófico de John “o Selvagem” no
romance Admirável Mundo Novo de Aldous Huxley, com base nas ideias de
Erich Fromm em A Arte de Amar e O Medo à Liberdade.
Argumenta-se que a destruição interna de John não é loucura, mas o resultado
inevitável de sua recusa em se conformar a uma sociedade distópica que sufoca
o amor, a liberdade e a criatividade. O ensaio integra contribuições de Rollo
May, Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow, Clifford Geertz, Marcel Mauss e René
Girard. Por meio dessas lentes, John é retratado como uma figura moral em
conflito com valores inconciliáveis. Sua morte representa um último gesto de
protesto contra uma civilização que reduz o espírito humano a uma engrenagem
de controle e distração. |
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In Brave
New World, Aldous Huxley presents a dystopian society that suppresses
individualism, intimacy, and the inner life of the soul in favor of stability,
promiscuous pleasure, the illusion of eternal youth through the maintenance of
a trim physique, and total control over each individual's role through
relentless social conditioning. In this world, moral instincts do not just
appear out of thin air—they are designed, overwritten, and suppressed to
maintain superficial harmony. John “the Savage” enters this sterile civilization
as a moral and emotional outsider, unaccustomed to a system that would stifle
one’s morality in the name of comfort. His reactions to death, love, sexuality,
and literature offer deep insight into the psychological violence that this
society inflicts through its fear of freedom and denial of human authenticity.
When analyzed through Erich Fromm’s ideas in The Art of Loving (1956)
and The Fear of Freedom (1941), John’s psychological collapse becomes a
tragic yet coherent outcome of the incompatibility between authentic human
needs and the synthetic constructs of a society built to avoid them.
Freedom:
Craving Authenticity in a Controlled World
Fromm
(1941) asserts that modern humans, once freed from traditional authority, often
experience isolation and meaninglessness unless they develop what he calls positive
freedom, the freedom to be oneself and express life productively. He
writes, “Freedom is not something one ‘has,’ like property, but something one
achieves” (Fromm, 1941, p. 172). John, raised in the Savage Reservation with
access to suffering, loss, and literature, embodies a human being capable of
positive freedom. Upon entering the World State, he is horrified by how
citizens willingly surrender their individuality in exchange for comfort,
superficial happiness, and emotional anesthesia through soma and feelies. In
this world, morality doesn’t just appear out of thin air; it is replaced by
slogans, engineered instincts, and shallow pleasures that stifle one's morality
before it has a chance to take root.
The
sterile management of death and the chemical suppression of grief conflict with
what John carries in his noggin: a belief that suffering gives life its
meaning. His inability to accept a world without authentic choice and
self-determination aligns with Fromm’s warning that freedom without the
capacity for self-realization leads to “escape mechanisms”, such as conformity
or destructiveness (Fromm, 1941, pp. 134–136).
Fromm
emphasizes that authentic freedom is an achievement, not a birthright. As
Popova (n.d.) paraphrases Fromm’s thesis: “Freedom is a diamagnetic force—by
one pole, it compels us to escape to it… by the other, it drives us to escape
from it.” John clings to the former, seeking a freedom that’s meaningful, not
managed. Raised amid both hardship and moral complexity, he strives for
positive freedom.
Yet,
Rollo May (1953) reminds us that this kind of freedom demands sustained
courage: “Freedom does not come automatically; it is achieved… must be achieved
each day” (May, 1953, p. 119). John demonstrates this courage by rejecting
soma, engineered promiscuity, and a society obsessed with maintaining a trim
physique over developing moral substance. But he is alone in his resistance,
lacking the community needed to support his stance, and so his efforts are
eventually whittled down by misunderstanding and alienation.
Viktor
Frankl (1946) further argues that humans search for meaning through struggle:
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but…the striving for a
worthwhile goal.” For John, this goal is the pursuit of truth and love through
literature and sincere suffering, goals the World State dismisses with great
ease. He is mocked for his emotions, expected to humor himself with synthetic
pleasures instead of confronting life authentically. But John's inner drive
cannot be pacified by conditioned distractions, no matter how “efficient” they
seem.
Love:
Mature Emotion vs. Conditioned Pleasure
Fromm
(1956) defines love not as a fleeting emotion or passive state, but as “an act
of will” that includes care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge (The Art
of Loving, p. 24). In Brave New World, this concept has been
thoroughly erased in favor of immediate sexual gratification and utilitarian
relationships. Citizens are conditioned to steer clear of exclusivity and
intimacy, as attachments pose a threat to societal stability. Lenina, for instance,
though biologically attractive and maintaining a trim physique by societal
standards, has no conceptual framework for emotional depth or long-term
connection. Her infatuation with John is marked by frustration, as she cannot
grasp his yearning for something more sacred.
John,
however, aspires to the kind of deep bond modeled in Shakespearean love, where,
in Fromm’s words, “two beings become one and yet remain two” (The Art of
Loving, p. 19). To him, this mature form of love is the best way to
traverse and resolve difficulties in life, not a hindrance. His despair grows
when he discovers that no one in the World State is capable of experiencing or
even imagining love in this “old-fashioned, uncivilized” way.
Morally
anchored, John refuses to be complicit in a system that reduces love to a
recreational act. His rejection of Lenina’s conditioned advances is not
prudishness, but a defense of something he holds sacred. Fromm's notion of love
as a conscious act provides him with compelling reasons to resist. In this
regard, John stands as a towering figure of resistance, his values unwavering
in the face of social pressure.
Abraham
Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs supports this view: once physiological and
safety needs are met, a person seeks self-actualization, the pursuit of beauty,
truth, and meaningful love. John’s desire to experience authentic connection is
not only natural but necessary for his psychological growth. However, the World
State blocks such pursuits with hollow pleasures, soma, feelies, and
superficial liaisons. A society that fails to revere depth of character and
genuine love can never reap the harvest of a truly human existence.
Orgiastic
Escapes and the Fear of Inner Emptiness
Fromm
(1941) explains that when people are disconnected from authentic freedom or
love, they often resort to orgiastic states, temporary, intense
experiences such as sex, drugs, or collective rituals, to escape separateness
and the pain of inner emptiness (p. 152). In Huxley’s society, soma and the
“feelies” serve precisely this function. These artificial pleasures operate
like spells cast by a modern-day necromancer, offering the illusion of life while
hollowing out the soul. Citizens suppress their anxiety and individuality by
immersing themselves in synthetic ecstasy.
John,
however, finds this superficiality unbearable. He comes to shun soma and all
forms of indulgence because he perceives them not as remedies but as enemies of
the soul. These pleasures, to him, are not paths to freedom but bellfries
ringing hollow notes, reminders of a society that worships distraction over
depth. In The Fear of Freedom, Fromm (1941) warns that “the more man
gives up the hope of finding freedom in spontaneity and love, the more he tries
to escape from freedom by submission or conformity” (p. 164). Henceforth, John
refuses to submit to either, choosing psychological collapse over moral
surrender. His destruction is not madness but a conscious sacrifice of self, a
protest against a dead society that makes no attempt to understand emotion or
meet psychological needs.
Fromm
(1941) reminds us that people in fearful societies either conform or resist
destructively (The Fear of Freedom, p. 164). Rollo May (1953) also
explores how fear and anxiety corrode authentic selfhood. Weaving together
their insights, we can see that John ultimately chooses the path of inner ruin,
not from weakness, but from his refusal to be complicit in a world of hollow
conformity. He preserves his dignity at the cost of self, a tragic yet coherent
response to the conditions around him. One might almost hear him beseech of the
world: “restore meaning, restore soul, or let me go.”
Reading,
Suffering, and the Desire for Meaning
John’s
love of Shakespeare connects him to a language of human passion, creativity,
and ethical struggle that has forthwith vanished from the World State. Fromm
argues that the capacity for spontaneous creativity, including art and thought,
is vital to positive freedom (The Fear of Freedom, 1941, p. 233). The
World State’s ban on classical literature is no accident; it is an instrument
of domination designed to prevent denizens from thinking freely and questioning
the status quo. In a society where moral imagination has no favorite lurking
place, literature becomes a threat. Without it, there is no inner dialogue, no
dissent, only emotional illiteracy and manufactured contentment.
John’s
readings of tragedy shape his worldview: love and pain are not aberrations but
the essence of human life. Yet this understanding finds no echo in a world
where pleasure has fixed its throne in every human transaction and all signs of
suffering are chemically suppressed. The emotional sterility of the World State
renders John not just a foreigner, but a ghost walking among shadows. He
becomes a stranger to both society and himself, incapable of fathoming how
these people react, or fail to react, to life’s inevitable sorrows. From prime
to compline, every hour is choreographed, every emotion flattened.
His
final act of self-destruction is not simply a dramatic gesture but a tragic
culmination of disconnection. In Fromm’s words, “to be fully born means to be
fully alone” (The Fear of Freedom, 1941, p. 36), a condition John is not
fated to endure without hope of authentic connection. Isolation, not pain,
becomes his undoing.
Looking
further into the society John encounters, Clifford Geertz’s (1973) concept of
culture as “webs of significance” underscores what is absent in the “civilized”
world. The Reservation’s rituals and emotional depth, rich with meaning and
rooted in lived experiences, stand in stark contrast to the sterile, mechanical
entertainments of the World State (The Interpretation of Cultures, p.
5). There, culture is not lived but programmed. Marcel Mauss’s (1954) Gift
theory further emphasizes the communal reciprocity that defined John’s
upbringing. In the Reservation, even suffering had context and shared meaning;
in Huxley’s dystopia, everything is commodified and disposable.
Both
anthropologists reveal the full extent of John’s loss. He is forcibly relocated
from a meaningful life to a system of social debauchery, stripped of ritual,
family, and solidarity. Paraded as an object of curiosity, a hybrid of the
"civilized" and "uncivilized", he is left with nothing but
disillusionment. And when a person is kept alive only as a spectacle, and
denied the bonds of culture and love, he may come to beseech of the world to
either grant him meaning or let him fall into silence.
Mimetic
Desire and Sacrificial Scapegoating
René
Girard’s (1972) theory of mimetic desire explains that individuals
mirror one another’s wants and, in like manner, displace their tensions onto a
scapegoat when communal harmony is threatened (Violence and the Sacred).
John becomes just such a target, an object of fascination, resentment, and
eventual sacrifice. His suffering is amplified by emotional contagion, as the
crowd's curiosity mutates into collective hostility. What begins as voyeurism
quickly escalates into a ritual purge. Yet this act offers no redemption; it is
tantamount to society sweeping its discomfort under the rug rather than facing
it with any form of introspection or ethical reckoning. In eliminating John,
the World State doesn't resolve a conflict; it performs a symbolic expulsion to
reaffirm its sterile norms.
Conclusion
John’s
psychological crisis in Brave New World is not madness but the
inevitable implosion of a soul that cannot survive without meaning in a world
that footstalls moral thought beneath a spectacle of engineered pleasure. His
tragedy stems from being placed in a culture that deems authenticity subversive
and replaces inner life with surface-level advertorials of happiness. As Fromm
reminds us, love, freedom, and creativity are not optional refinements of the
human spirit; they are its core constituents. When these are stifled, as they
are in the World State, the human personality must either conform, become
destructive, or shatter.
John
chooses the tragic dignity of shattering. His death is a final protest, a site
of memoir where everything the World State suppresses, emotion, suffering,
longing, is momentarily unveiled. It marks a refusal to be complicit in a
civilization that trades freedom for comfort and replaces the art of loving
with a science of control. In like manner to a fallen martyr, he leaves behind
not a legacy of change, but a warning of what becomes of humanity when it
ceases to feel.
📚 References
Frankl, V. (1946). Man's Search for Meaning.
Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Beacon Press.
Fromm, E. (1941). The Fear of Freedom. Abingdon,
Oxfordshire, GB: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Fromm, E. (1956). The art of loving. New York City:
Harper & Row.
Geertz, R. (1972). The Interpretation of
Cultures. New York City: Basic Books.
Girard, R. (1972). Violence and the Sacred.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. New
York City: HarperCollins.
Mauss, M. (1954). The Gift. London:
Cohen & West Ltd.
May, R. (1953). Man's Search for Himself. Ann Arbor,
Michigan, USA: University of Michigan Press.
Popova, M. (n.d.). The Paradox of Freedom: The Great Humanistic Philosopher and Psychologist Erich Fromm on Moral Aloneness and Our Mightiest Antidote to Terror. Retrieved from The Marginalian: https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/04/17/erich-fromm-escape-from-freedom/
Character Analysis Table With Literary Character Types
Character Analysis Table With Literary Character Types by Jonathan Acuña
Character Analysis
Table with Frommian Frameworks
Nine
Discussion Questions for Literary Criticism Students
1.
How does Erich Fromm’s concept of
"positive freedom" help explain John’s resistance to the World State?
2.
In what ways does the elimination of literature
in the World State contribute to the suppression of moral imagination and
identity?
3.
How can René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire
and scapegoating be applied to John’s role in society and ultimate fate?
4.
What does John’s rejection of soma and
"feelies" suggest about his understanding of emotional depth and
spiritual autonomy?
5.
How does John’s relationship with Lenina
reflect Fromm’s theory of mature love versus conditioned pleasure?
6.
To what extent can John be considered a
symbolic martyr in Huxley’s narrative, and how does his death function as a
form of protest?
7.
How do anthropological theories from Geertz and
Mauss enhance our understanding of the cultural emptiness John perceives in the
World State?
8.
What does the contrast between the Reservation
and the World State reveal about the role of suffering in constructing human
meaning?
9.
If the World State symbolizes a perfected
society of control and pleasure, what does it suggest about the future of human
agency and authenticity?
John’s Psyche in Brave New World Through the Lens of Erich Fromm by Jonathan Acuña
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