Brave_New_World

Arthuro Alcorte Brave New World Essay #3 The clash of values between John and Lenina is not too far to the comparison of many relationship of today. John is an individual who strongly believes in the relationship between a man and a woman to go in a specific order; love, marriage, and then sex. Lenina, on the other hand, believes in the mere opposite. Actually it is even worse in that the only relationship between a man and woman is strictly sexual and nothing else in between. John shows many times throughout the book his beliefs on marriage, and love. He was strongly influenced by the people he was raised around at the reservation. Old Metsima taught him many ways of celebrating ourselves merely on the basis of existence and values for one another. Marriage being one of them that John has learned to value a great deal. So much that he is not interested in any passionate activity between himself and Lenina until a marriage ceremony has been celebrated. Even the thought of them together sexually bothers him because of this strong belief that sexual relations should only be practiced after the special ceremony. One of his greatest influences for love are his reading of William Shakespeare, who we all know him for his work to be deeply influenced by every aspect of the word love. Leninas has a very different, yet simple, point of view on the subject matter at hand. Once again pointing out how love and marriage not even a part of her view. There comes a part of the book, I believe in chapter 13, she shows signs and symptoms of what you can define as love. Not knowing why she feels the way she feels, Henry thinking she is sick, only being interested in one man (John being that man of course), and of course her determination and willingness to go to any lengths to get him. Unfortunately, she ends up failing because of this clashing of values. Her one way, only interested in sex attitude ends up making John very angry to the point where he ends up assaulting her out of rage and because of his strong beliefs on love and marriage, ends up calling Lenina a “Whore” and an “Impudent strumpet”. So enraged he even threatened to kill her. This reaction from John is a typical one of someone who is very much in love with someone just to find out that that very person is only interested in having sex with you. John is broken hearted by this and therefore resents Lenina very much. The reason I mention the word “unfortunate” in reference to Lenina is that she is really a victim , along with every other woman of her society, in this clashing of the two. She was “conditioned”, therefore not really having a genuine and fair chance at succeeding in the quest towards fulfilling her desires toward him. The way she approaches John is the only way she knows how. So in a way, her actions (solely the one about being interested in John and only John) are very genuine when you consider her conditioning. What I mean is that I believe the feelings between them are mutual, the only difference is that they have different ways of expressing it. Of course Lenina doesn’t even know about love and marriage, however that is something I feel can be reconditioned. “Unfortunately” John doesn’t recognize this and which is why he reacted the way he did. Now this is a point of view of mine, that Lenina and John are on in some strange way, the same page, may be discredited by some. I assume this because I strongly believe that love can overcome any obstacle, reconditioning being a pretty simple one. I wish that love would have conquered all and that Lenina could have been touched so strongly by the force of love that her conditioning was reversed and that they would have lived happily ever after. Trying to imagine what kind of cultures that the children of these two would have grown up in is hard to imagine. The reason I say that is because I, for some reason, believe that John would have dominated and forced his beliefs upon the children. However, imagining how the children would grow up if they were raised separately by each individual and by their own beliefs is a little more realistic. For example, if they had children and somehow John was killed or somehow was eliminated from the picture, then you can already assume that the children would grow up in a similar conditioned culture that Lenina was raised in. The children would believe that individualism was a taboo and that is was something to never even consider researching any further than its horrifying pronunciation. Now of course if John had the opportunity to raise the children, whether Lenina was in the picture or not, he would raise them to have values and definitely to believe in God. If Lenina was in the picture, she would have a hard time adjusting, which is why I mentioned that it would be very hard to imagine John and Lenina raising a child or children together being that she is so conditioned to believe what she believes. Conflict would be inevitable. So much that I don’t even think that it would be compatible enough to work out at all. John would end up leaving her or he would force her to leave, which, as I have read, she probably would not have any problem at all in leaving the role of a mother and/or being part of a family. Unfortunately, our society today is full of couples that are in this same situation. Many are jumping into marriage or into a relationship in which they have children together before they even discover the root beliefs of their partners. And as I have mentioned, many excuses such as “irreconcilable differences”, or “it just didn’t work out” are breaking very important values that are made to strengthen families. Or they end up staying together, which is something I didn’t mention between John and Lenina, and the raising of the children is done through constant fighting between the parents because of them disagreeing on everything. This negative phenomenon between our modern day couples has led our children to be resentful, full of hatred, rebellious, and just overall lacking in structure. I have done my best to do my part in eliminating this possibility in my own home. My wife and I have been fortunate to be able to meet halfway on our beliefs which, for the most part, are on the same page. We still clash sometimes when it comes to teaching the importance of a healthy diet, and that cooked food will always be better than processed food. Like Lenina, my wife was conditioned also but in the sense of what she is used to eating on a daily basis. She is not very accustomed to cooking and using fresh fruit and vegetables as part of a daily intake of food. Other than that, we have been on the same page as far as values which include; love for one another (especially when it comes to immediate family), that hard work pays off in the end, and, the most important one of all, that God is the creator of all things.