Friday 17 July 2015

In Chapter 14 of Brave New World, what does Linda say in a loving way when she wakes up right before she dies?

When John, the Savage, sees his mother, Linda, in the hospital, she does not seem to know who he is. When he stands by her bed, she merely says, "Popé," the name of her lover who used to bring her mescal. The savage feels "as though he had had a pailful of ordure thrown in his face." He is angry that his own mother does not recognize him, and he shakes her violently. 


She then...

When John, the Savage, sees his mother, Linda, in the hospital, she does not seem to know who he is. When he stands by her bed, she merely says, "Popé," the name of her lover who used to bring her mescal. The savage feels "as though he had had a pailful of ordure thrown in his face." He is angry that his own mother does not recognize him, and he shakes her violently. 


She then wakes up and recognizes him. Huxley writes, "Linda’s eyes fluttered open; she saw him, knew him– 'John!'” She says her son's name but then imagines him in her drug-induced dream. She pictures him in a dream world that Huxley describes in the following way:



"an imaginary world–among the inward and private equivalents of patchouli and the Super-Wurlitzer, among the transfigured memories and the strangely transposed sensations that constituted the universe of her dream."



Drugged by soma, she has been imagining herself with Popé, and she pictures her son in that dream world. Then she says, “Everyone belongs to every ...” before she begins to choke and struggle for breath. She then dies with what John feels is a look of terror and reproach on her face. She is probably starting to say that "everyone belongs to everyone else" or a similarly loving statement when she dies. 


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