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As I’ve written in other places, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a trenchant critique of a media-saturated, conformist society. Frequently paired with George Orwell’s 1984, Brave New World posits a New World State in which citizens are sorted according to biological caste, promiscuous sex is encouraged, and everyone is “happy.” Into this mix arrives John – the “Savage” – whose Shakspeare-inflected English and antique values cause nothing but trouble for everyone around him. This article will introduce the characters of Brave New World and provide a brief analysis of their actions and motivations.

All my quotes are from Project Gutenberg’s searchable . 

Related Resources

• Check out our chapter-by-chapter summary of Brave New World.
• You may also wish to read our explanation of the most famous quotes in Brave New World.
• Brave New World Themes are also explored.

Bernard Marx

An expert on hypnopaedia (sleep-learning), Bernard Marx works in the Psychology Department of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center. Though ostensibly at the top of the biological caste system (he’s an Alpha-Plus), Bernard doesn’t fit in. He dislikes everything about the New World State – he disdains sport, soma, and promiscuity (he’s short to boot). Worst of all, he spends most of his time alone. In the eyes of his colleagues, Bernard is a vaguely disreputable figure to be mocked and/or avoided. 

At the start of the novel, Bernard is the primary vehicle for the narration. His dislike for the ideologies of the World State and his belief in (relatively) liberal individualism position him as the reader surrogate. Through him we learn about the dulling effects of soma, the misogyny of the New World State’s sexual mores, and the banality of Obstacle Golf. As an Alpha-plus expert on psychology, Bernard gets permission to go to the “Savage Reservation.” It’s on the reservation that he meets John, the “Savage,” who will upend his life. 

Brave New World Characters (Continued)

Bernard gets permission to bring John and his mother Linda back to London. (Linda ended up on the reservation by accident and gave birth to John there.) Having brought John to London, Bernard is suddenly popular. Men come to his parties and women want to have sex with him. It turns out that popularity assuages most of Bernard’s critiques about the New World State. We read that success, “completely reconciled him…to a world which, up till then, he had found very unsatisfactory.” Bernard’s popularity wanes when John refuses to be his party puppet. When John starts a riot, Bernard is implicated and taken (with John and Helmholtz) to the office of Mustapha Mond. Long story short, Bernard is exiled to an island for his heretical views on individuality and society.  

John (aka the “Savage”) 

Born on the reservation, John is Linda’s son. His mother had been touring the reservation two decades previously with Thomas, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, when a storm hit. She was separated from Thomas and never found. (I am suspicious about the circumstances of Linda´s “disappearance.” In fact, I can’t help but think that Linda’s disappearance might have been arranged by Thomas because she was pregnant. I say this because when she comes to London, she tells Thomas that “You made me have a baby.” Definitely .) Due to his mother´s promiscuity (in the New World State, “every one belongs to every one else”), John is an outcast on the reservation. 

John speaks both English as well as the native language of the reservation. When he was growing up, the only book he had was the Complete Works of Shakespeare (a work which is banned in the New World State). Consequently, John’s speech – both the vocabulary and syntax – is well-nigh Shakespearean. This has two effects: 1) it signals John’s otherness in the New World State, and 2) it positions him as the representative of our current “high” culture against the debasing homogeneity of the New World State.

Brave New World Characters (Continued)

Unsurprisingly, John has a hard time in London. Given that he grew up hearing his mother’s stories about the wonders of London, the realities of the New World State are difficult to accept. John is particularly revolted by the groups of Bokanofsky twins that constitute the vast majority of the populace. As John tires of Bernard showing him off at parties, he becomes increasingly isolated. When his mother dies, he goes off the rails and nearly starts a riot by throwing some Delta workers’ soma ration out the window.  

Arrested (with Bernard and Heimholzt) and taken to Mustapha Mond, John argues for the nobility of unhappiness (and suffering in general). While Bernard and Heimholtz are exiled, John goes to live in an old lighthouse a few hours away, where he lives off the land, engages in various purification rituals, and tries to “escape further contamination by the filth of civilized life.” His idyll doesn’t last long – he’s seen during one of his bouts of (literal) self-flagellation and his lighthouse is mobbed by gawkers. When Lenina descends from one of the helicopters, John goes berserk and begins to whip her. The assembled gawkers love it and it devolves into a soma-fueled orgy. When John awakens, he is horrified by the memory of the previous night and hangs himself. 

Lenina Crowne 

A Beta who works in the decanting room at the Hatchery and Conditioning Center (HCC), Lenina is vaguely dissatisfied by the mandatory promiscuity of the New World State. Before she decides to accompany Bernard to the reservation, she was seeing Henry Foster (exclusively!) for four months. As an employee at the HCC, Lenina’s lack of promiscuity is vaguely scandalous. 

When she and Bernard arrive at the reservation, Lenina is horrified by the conditions and the violence of the harvest festival. Upon their return to London, Lenina takes an immediate liking to John and is puzzled why he doesn’t seem to reciprocate. One night, when Bernard is otherwise engaged, Lenina and John go to a “feelie” (multi-sensory porn film). Lenina fully expects to have sex with John after the film, but he leaves before anything happens. 

Brave New World Characters (Continued)

Lenina, frustrated at John’s reticence, finally confronts him. He confesses that he loves her, but that he feels that he needs to do something to be worthy of her. This makes no sense to Lenina. Thinking that John has consented, she takes off her clothes. John flies into a rage, calls her a strumpet, and then hits her. Lenina runs to the bathroom and hides.

We don’t see Lenina again until the end of the book. John’s self-flagellation has drawn a crowd and Lenina is stepping out of a helicopter at John’s lighthouse. John flies into a rage and whips her, an act of violence that starts a soma-fueled orgy. When John awakens the next day, he remembers what happened and hangs himself. 

Helmholtz Watson

Helmholtz Watson is Bernard’s best (only) friend. A fellow Alpha-plus, Helmholtz has recently become disillusioned with sport, sex, and soma. However, while Bernard’s bitterness comes from exclusion, Helmholtz’s realization comes from overabundance. An “Escalator-Squash champion…indefatigable lover…[and] admirable committee man,” Helmholtz has realized that “he was interested in something else.” At the beginning of the novel, Helmholtz is starting to spend more time alone. As a consequence, he is starting to think a bit too much about alternate ways of existing in the world. 

As a writer and teacher of writing, Helmholtz is particularly disillusioned. Writing puff pieces about Community Sings and promotional copy about scent organs no longer satisfies him. At the heart of his disillusionment lies the vacuity of the New World State. It’s not that his words aren’t good – it’s just that given the passive “happiness” of the New World State, there is no possibility for intensity or violence. In Helmholtz’s words, “Can you say something about nothing?” In a moment of enthusiasm, Helmholtz shares one of his own poems (about solitude) with his students, who promptly report him. 

Brave New World Characters (Continued)

Helmholtz’s spirit comes alive when he meets John. Or rather, Helmholtz’s spirit comes alive when he encounters Shakespeare via John. The two immediately bond over Shakespeare’s language (to Bernard’s chagrin). While Helmholtz can’t understand the contextual drama that motivated Shakespeare’s writing, he understands that “you’ve got to be hurt and upset” in order to write “the really good, penetrating, X-rayish phrase.”This newfound passion is Helmholtz’s downfall. As if by magic, Helmholtz’s search for meaning coincides with John’s crisis after the death of his mother. (Recall that after John’s mother dies, he begins throwing out boxes of soma and lecturing a crowd of Deltas about freedom.) Called to the scene to control John, Helmholtz instead joins the riot, punching Deltas and throwing out boxes of soma. 

All three are arrested and taken to Mustapha Mond’s office. Mustapha informs Bernard and Helmholtz that both of them will be exiled to an island. Bernard freaks out and is removed from the office. Helmholtz keeps his presence of mind and, when asked by Mustapha what kind of island he would prefer, requests one with “a thoroughly bad climate,” in the belief that “[he] would write better if the climate were bad.”

Mustapha Mond (his Fordship, Resident Controller of Western Europe)

We meet in the first chapter of the book when the Director of Hatchery and Conditioning is giving a tour to young, future hatchery workers. It is through Mustapha Mond that the reader learns about the world before the establishment of the New World State. Mond tells of the poverty, the wars, the claustrophobic family home – everything in contrast to the “happiness” of the New World State. We also learn about hypnopaedia, the caste system, and the campaign against the past. In short, Mustapha Mond explains how the ideology of the New World State operates and how it developed. 

Mond acts as a sort of all-knowing presence until the end of the book, when Bernard, John, and Helmholtz are arrested and brought to him. Mond and John talk about culture, society, and the existence of God. AdditioMond explains to John that the current structure of society means that people have no need of God, or passion, or any disruption of the status quo. We also find out that Mond was a physicist until his heretical pursuit of knowledge almost got him exiled. 

Linda

Linda is John’s mother. A few months before John was born, she traveled to the Savage Reservation with Thomas, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning. As Thomas tells it, there was a horrible storm and Linda got lost and couldn’t be found. Linda had John and spent the next two decades or so on the reservation. Her time in London did nothing to prepare her for reservation life. Promiscuous, she is shunned by the women of the tribe. Dependent as she was on soma, she became addicted to alcohol. When Bernard visits the reservation, he takes Linda and John back to London. Linda confronts Thomas, who resigns in shame. With no meaningful work, Linda takes a permanent soma holiday and dies soon after. 

Thomas (Director of Hatchery and Conditioning)

As the Director of Hatchery and Conditioning, Thomas is Bernard’s boss. He is also John’s father and Linda’s erstwhile lover. When Bernard goes to get Thomas’s signature for permission to go to the reservation, Thomas reminisces about his trip to the reservation and the fate of Linda. Linda’s return to London humiliates Thomas, who resigns and takes a permanent soma holiday. 

Fanny

One of Lenina’s best friends, Franny is the conservative voice of the ideological status quo. She chides Lenina for her lack of promiscuity and mocks Bernard. Later, she encourages Lenina to take charge and have sex with John. 

Brave New World Characters (Continued)

Henry Foster

When the novel begins, Lenina has been seeing Henry (exclusively!) for four months. He reappears at the end of the novel when Lenina goes to visit John at his lighthouse. 

�ʴDZ�é

�ʴDZ�é is one of Linda’s lovers on the reservation. Once, while �ʴDZ�é is visiting Linda, John tries to kill him. When Linda is near death in London, she mistakes John for �ʴDZ�é. 

Brave New World Characters – Wrapping Up

There’s a reason that Brave New World is ranked number five on ” It presents a world whose citizens have traded “happiness” for passion and stability for individuality. In our social-media-obsessed culture, it’s worth returning to Huxley’s text for its continuing relevance. If you’ve enjoyed this post, I’ve also written on The Great Gatsby, 1984, and Hamlet. And if you find yourself moved to pursue literature at university, check out this post on the best colleges for English majors.