Previous
Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Crevice of Time:
In Chapter 3, Huxley details the role that soma (a mind-altering drug) plays in regulating the masses. Free time, during which people can have new thoughts and question the validity of old ones, poses a threat to totalitarian societies like this one. Huxley makes this connection between soma, time, and societal control through metaphor:
If ever by some unlucky chance such a crevice of time should yawn in the solid substance of their distractions, there is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon; returning whence they find themselves on the other side of the crevice, safe on the solid ground of daily labour and distraction.
Huxley compares time to a crevice, or chasm—something that feels insurmountable to cross without the use of drugs. This view of time is deliberately distorted to suit the needs of the ruling class, which does not want to encourage the kind of independent thinking that arises when people simply sit and contemplate life. In order to prevent the oppressed, genetically engineered working class from staging an uprising, the ruling class ensures that all people are constantly stimulated—either by drugs, Feelies (multi-sensory films), or work. There is simply no time to stage a revolution if the entire population spends their non-working hours high on drugs.
Related Themes:
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Social Body:
In Chapter 6, the Director tells Bernard Marx about the time that he himself went with a woman named Linda to visit the "Savage Reservation" in New Mexico. Linda became lost in the course of their trip, and the Director never did find her or find out what happened to her. Using metaphor, the Director attempts to console himself in the face of this loss:
'It’s the sort of accident that might have happened to any one; and, of course, the social body persists although the component cells may change.’ But this sleep-taught consolation did not seem to be very effective.
The cells in our bodies frequently die and are replaced by other cells in a process known as the cell cycle. The Director compares individual human beings to cells, and society to a body, as a means of reassuring himself after losing Linda. This bit of figurative language truly demonstrates how, in an economy where a human being can be created almost instantaneously in a test tube, life is not actually valued. Furthermore, the Director's use of this metaphor speaks to his latent conditioning: he does not view Linda as an individual but as part of the "social body," easily replaced by another.
Related Themes:
Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Poetic Crystal:
In Chapter 12, Huxley describes a budding friendship between Helmholtz Watson and John, both of whom love literature and words and are ecstatic to finally be able to discuss these ideas with another person. Their interactions, curiously enough, illuminate certain unsavory aspects of Bernard's character. Huxley uses metaphor to communicate this:
In the course of their next two or three meetings he frequently repeated this little act of vengeance. It was simple and, since both Helmholtz and the Savage were dreadfully pained by the shattering and defilement of a favourite poetic crystal, extremely effective.
Metaphorically speaking, these "poetic crystals" are fragile, being novel and highly illegal. Out of jealousy, Bernard attempts to shatter these fragile crystals by interrupting the two men.
If Bernard were truly interested in freeing himself from the oppressive regime of the novel, he would likely be just as excited as Helmholtz and John are about Shakespeare's writing. Instead, he resents them for bonding over it, revealing that what he really cares about is not so much freedom, but feeling included in a society that looks down on him for being a subpar Alpha. Bernard does not despise the hierarchy and oppression on principle—he simply wants to be higher up in the food chain.
Related Themes:
Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Maggots:
John has an extremely disconcerting experience in the hospital while visiting his mother on her deathbed. Young Delta children are brought into the hospital during his visit as a part of their conditioning. They unsettle John with their uniformity and lack of personal boundaries, pestering him with questions about Linda. Huxley combines simile, extended metaphor, and imagery to describe this behavior in Chapter 14:
Their uniform was khaki. All their mouths hung open. Squealing and chattering they entered. In a moment, it seemed, the ward was maggoty with them. They swarmed between the beds, clambered over, crawled under, peeped into the television boxes, made faces at the patients.
While Linda is suffering on her deathbed, these children view her only as a curiosity — an oddity, perhaps, to be consumed and digested. The scene's visual imagery—"Their uniform was khaki. All their mouths hung open"—suggests a writing, grey mass of detritivores, operating with one mind and one goal. In their khaki pants, these children even have maggot-like coloring.
In Chapter 15, Huxley extends this figurative language to adult Deltas, the "twins," who similarly consume his "grief and repentance" following his mother's death:
Twins, twins… . Like maggots they had swarmed defilingly over the mystery of Linda’s death. Maggots again, but larger, full grown, they now crawled across his grief and his repentance. He halted and, with bewildered and horrified eyes, stared round him at the khaki mob.
This so-called civilization has erased any semblance of personal boundaries, to the point that its citizens are enabled to behave like thoughtless, animalistic opportunists, refusing to forgo their own pleasure or curiosity out of respect. The reporters in Chapter 18 behave similarly, swooping in like scavengers to sensationalize John's suffering and unusual behavior for their broadcast. The death of individuality in this society is also the death of solitude, and the imagery of death in these scenes affirms that.
Related Themes:
Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—Maggots:
John has an extremely disconcerting experience in the hospital while visiting his mother on her deathbed. Young Delta children are brought into the hospital during his visit as a part of their conditioning. They unsettle John with their uniformity and lack of personal boundaries, pestering him with questions about Linda. Huxley combines simile, extended metaphor, and imagery to describe this behavior in Chapter 14:
Their uniform was khaki. All their mouths hung open. Squealing and chattering they entered. In a moment, it seemed, the ward was maggoty with them. They swarmed between the beds, clambered over, crawled under, peeped into the television boxes, made faces at the patients.
While Linda is suffering on her deathbed, these children view her only as a curiosity — an oddity, perhaps, to be consumed and digested. The scene's visual imagery—"Their uniform was khaki. All their mouths hung open"—suggests a writing, grey mass of detritivores, operating with one mind and one goal. In their khaki pants, these children even have maggot-like coloring.
In Chapter 15, Huxley extends this figurative language to adult Deltas, the "twins," who similarly consume his "grief and repentance" following his mother's death:
Twins, twins… . Like maggots they had swarmed defilingly over the mystery of Linda’s death. Maggots again, but larger, full grown, they now crawled across his grief and his repentance. He halted and, with bewildered and horrified eyes, stared round him at the khaki mob.
This so-called civilization has erased any semblance of personal boundaries, to the point that its citizens are enabled to behave like thoughtless, animalistic opportunists, refusing to forgo their own pleasure or curiosity out of respect. The reporters in Chapter 18 behave similarly, swooping in like scavengers to sensationalize John's suffering and unusual behavior for their broadcast. The death of individuality in this society is also the death of solitude, and the imagery of death in these scenes affirms that.
Related Themes:
Chapter 16
Explanation and Analysis—Cooking:
In Chapter 16, Mustapha Mond reveals that he himself was once a physicist who questioned the state of scientific inquiry under the World State's regime. Mond makes an important distinction between the banal repetition of already-understood scientific processes and experimental science: the practice of pursuing knowledge for its own sake. He uses metaphor to describe the difference between the two:
"I was a pretty good physicist in my time. Too good—good enough to realize that all our science is just a cookery book, with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody’s allowed to question, and a list of recipes that mustn’t be added to except by special permission from the head cook. I’m the head cook now. But I was an inquisitive young scullion once. I started doing a bit of cooking on my own. Unorthodox cooking, illicit cooking. A bit of real science, in fact.’"
Mustapha Mond uses metaphor to liken science to a "cookery book," illuminating the current state of knowledge and experimentation under this totalitarian regime. Ironically, though many readers would likely equate science with progress, Mond does not. In the world of the novel, civilization is only cooking in the metaphorical kitchen, not experimenting or inventing new ingredients or recipes. Science is stagnant, no longer a creative process.
Related Themes:
