Chapter 7

Summary

Bernard and Lenina watch a bloodthirsty fertility ritual in the Savage Reservation. Although Bernard warned Lenina about the crude and disgusting ways of the reservation, she insisted on accompanying Bernard rather than staying in the hotel. 

They meet John, whose white skin has made him an outcast amongst the Indians of the reservation.  There is a strange animal magnetism between Lenina and John. He tells Lenina and Bernard that he wished the Indians would let him take part in the flagellation part of the ritual, as he would enjoy undergoing the pain. John tells them that his mother, Linda, once lived in the outside world, but was lost in a storm when she visited with her boyfriend. Bernard realizes that this is the D.H.C.’s wife, and that John is his son. Lenina is shocked at Linda’s appearance. She is the first old white person she has ever seen. 

Linda explains how she found it difficult to adapt from the cozy Utopian ways to the harsh world of the reservation.  She explains how alarmed she was to find that she was pregnant despite the precautions she took.  Since then, she has tried without success to convert the natives to a more civilized way of life. 

Interpretation

Life in the reservation comes as a shock to the reader after the description in the previous chapters of the sterilized world of Utopia. 

Huxley is deliberate in doing this.  The Utopian society and the reservation are the two extreme ends of the spectrum, and it is left to the reader to decide which is the best one to live in. It has come as a shock to Lenina to witness the happenings in the reservation, which even in her wildest dreams she could not have visualized.  She is really terrorized by the scene she witnesses and it does not help her situation that she has forgotten her supply of soma. 

Huxley intends John to be a representative of noble savagery, and Linda a benchmark of Utopia as she is the only character to have lived in both worlds.  It will transpire that Linda is the only character with any depth, and what Huxley has to say through her words is very important, and the reader should concentrate on her part in the novel, even though it is short.
However, at this stage in the book, it is perhaps Bernard who is the focal point, as his opportune meeting with John and Linda is going to influence the rest of the plot.