Huxley draws on the tradition of the revival meeting here, and he also underscores the similarity between religious ecstasy and sexual excitement - a point completed when the service turns to orgy. Note especially the cries of the participants when they hear the "feet of the Greater Being" as he approaches. In the service, soma and sex represent union with a Greater Being and with each other. On their date, Lenina and Henry's soma serves as a kind of after-dinner brandy, while it becomes, in the Solidarity Service, a surrogate for the bread and wine of the Christian Eucharist. Music and soma play important parts in the evening, enhancing mood and eliminating any inhibitions. Huxley closes the chapter before describing Henry and Lenina's love-making, but leaves the reader to infer that it will be just as artificial and manipulated as the rest of the evening.īernard's "orgy-porgy" Solidarity Service - the biweekly pseudo-religious meeting - parallels in many ways Lenina's date with Henry. The evening ends, as conventionally it should, with recreational, non-productive sex. Emotions, music, scenery - all the elements of romance come already engineered by the state. Even the music is synthetic - a proudly advertised feature of the cabaret. Perception is also modified by the soma served at dinner so that everyone and everything seems delightful. Inside Westminster Abbey Cabaret - the new use for the historical, venerable site where English kings and queens were once crowned - the domed ceiling offers another sky altogether: a tropical sunset. In this point, Huxley's response to his own era - artificial light already dominating the city night - strongly influences his ideas about the futuristic world. The night is clear and starry, but they are unaware of the stars at all because of the overpowering electric sky-signs that light up London. Henry and Lenina's dinner and dancing evening emphasizes the artificiality of their world. In this chapter, Huxley introduces the dystopian combination of religion and sex, featuring a date in a cathedral/cabaret juxtaposed with a spiritual ritual that ends in an orgy. Under the influence of the sacramental soma, the ceremony dissolves into an "orgy-porgy" of sex.īut while the others find the "calm ecstasy of achieved consummation," Bernard feels only more isolated in his "separateness" - "much more alone, indeed, more hopelessly himself than he had ever been in his life before." There he participates - without really believing - in a kind of religious service that includes such rituals as the sign of the T, blessed soma, and solidarity hymns. The second half of the chapter follows Bernard as he flies past the chiming Big Henry - the Fordian version of Big Ben - to the Fordson Community Singery. Despite the soma they consume, Lenina remembers her contraception in preparation for a night of pneumatic sex. They fly to Westminster Abbey Cabaret, where they dance the evening away to the Malthusian Blues. As they discuss death and "phosphorus recovery" - "we can go on being socially useful even after we're dead" - Lenina reveals her class prejudices, especially against Epsilons.
They pass over Burnham Beeches - a satirical allusion to Shakespeare - and then the Slough Crematorium.
This chapter opens with Lenina and Henry taking off in their helicopter when the Obstacle Golf Course closes.
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