Janessa's Blog

As science and research advances, is it  possible cheat death? Last week, I explored this big question by reading some articles. I found a custom character robot named Bina48 who simulates the real Bina Apsen, carries conversations, holds goals and aspirations, and passed a college class. Bina48 is like the soma-infused lab creations from Brave New World in the sense that both aren't genetically human and yet still have human like mannerisms. I'm going to focus my research on the logistics behind life after death.

Henry invited Lenina to a "feely"and she declines. He notices she upset and suggests help. Lenina later complains that she want to know what sleeping with a savage is like. Fanny warns her that is not normal to obsess over 1 person. Lenina admits that she only cares for John and basically devotes her aytention to him only. Strangely  enough, she takes soma to John to seduce him. They both claim their love for each other  but then John psychs her out with talk of growing old together and life long commitment. Yet, she continues to undress which made John uncomfortable. He was scared and furious so he slapped her and left the apartment after recieving a call.

John felt offended that Bernard didn't  ask him if he wanted to meet people. John felt like a sideshow, like Bernards shiny new toy. He literlly had Bernard in tears because  he locked himself in. Good for you John. I'm  glad he sees the problem with this. Bernard had to man up and tell the assembly  John wasn't  going to make an appearance.  They were mad they had to be nice to Bernard, considering  his "unsavoury reputation". So while Bernard is getting devoured by these very "prestige" people, Lenina sat in the corner and was ready to tell John she has feelings for him. Of course she was troubled by the news and thought it was her fault that he didn't  want to show up. Interestingly  enough, the crowd stayed and Bernard continued  to host it while they were ignoring him and trashing his name to eachother. Until the Arch Songster decided  it was time to leave. He even took Lenina woth him. Haha. Somewhere else, Mutapha Mond wrote ...

Tomakin resigned and never stepped foot in the Centre ever again. Nobody cared to see Linda as much as John. They hated the sight of her. Her rolls and face dissgusted their very beings. Linda saw her return to civilization as her return to soma. Her plan was to take a soma vacation after vacation. A never ending cycle of soma infused sleep-which should kill her in a month or two. John dislikes this process, but Linda wants it and the doctors want to see it. He has no power, he should know that by now just by living on the reservation. I'm not saying he shouldn't voice his own opinion, but he should consider the fact that if he was an outcast in his homeland, he shouldn't  expect much from another society. In this next moment we learn something about Bernard. For the first time, Bernard felt important-a feeling he never recieved from his society- having business with John and Linda. People offered him things, women offered themselves. Intersting how one moment an Alpha Plus...

Back at the Bloomsbury Caste, Huxley describes the process of the babies in the bottles. They have a Predestination room and a Decanting room that the bottles have to go through. The Director and Henry Foster stood in front of everyone, claimed Bernard had threatened their society, which was grounds to  dismiss Bernard of his Alpha Plus title. Bernard brought out Linda and John to prove to the Director he was worthy of his title.  Johns in turn, is really the Directors son. The Director felt humiliated  looking at his "family". This scene is honeslty so funny to me. So much for your perfect society huh Tomakin ?

By the time they got back from the reservation, Lenina felt tired. She took some soma and went to sleep. Bernard and John were restless so they got back in the helecopter. Bernard was told to bring John and Linda back to London because they held scientific interest. Mustapha Mond send a request/permit for their access in their society. John stood outside the rest house and couldn't  locate Bernard, so he broke through a window, found a suitcase-Leninas suitcase. He started rummaging through it, he wrapped a scarf around his neck and kissed her hankercheif. Interesting. He then looks into another room and found Lenina taking her soma vacation.  He got close to her and thought about unziping her onesie, but he fought off his urges.

1. Bernard wanted John to explain his way of living. 2. Linda came into the reservation thinking she could apply her "civilized" values to their way of living. In that, she allowed many men into her home, causing the women on the reservation to intervene.  The children also taunt her son John. 3. Pope brings Linda mescal, the reservations version of "soma"....maybe. The mescal makes Linda laugh. 4. John hates Pope, he tried to stab him in his sleep. Pope just woke up and told John to go away while laughing. 5. John found the complete works of Shakespeare and read a line from Hamlet that related to his mothers relationship with Pope. 6. John is alone because the community view on his mother is negative, so he tends to be left out a lot when it comes to other children. 7. John wanted to know what it felt like to be crucified  because he was at a low point, and he thought if Jesus can stand it, he could too. 8. Bernard wants John to go bcak to London with him. ...

I remember  my grandma  teaching me to organize my things the night before. She taught me to assemble my clothes in the order I plan to put them on-the night before. I picked up off the concept of her lesson. If I was planing on putting makeup on, I  started to organize my brushes and products in the order I was going to use them-the night before. This didn't  necessarily  make me more successful  but make my morning go by smoother. At work, my goal is to produce twice as much as the expected amount and I've  learned little things from coworkers. This has helped my well being.

Lenina and Bernard go to the reservation and just as I suspected, Lenina hates it and Bernard is bored. I will add, Lenina did react to the sacrifice appropriately-but these "lab-creations" are bland. Now that I think about it, why would Huxley present characters who aren't human. I mean these are lab rats we are witnessing interact with each other. How am I suppose to feel connected to these characters? Huxley is personifying these characters so basic, I'm questioning their value/importance. Bigger picture, do they really matter? They're all stuck on stupid because they need their soma. I learned from Linda that in their society, you are categorized and assigned a specific job with specific instructions that you are to perform. Linda is a character who use to belong to the "civilized" society but, unfortunately, stayed on the reservation after giving birth which was wrong in the "civilized" society. So they "entertain" each other, t...

So Lenina had to choose between going to the North Pole or the a reservation and she chose the reservation because it interested her more. I feel like I've been reading into this text too fast because there's so much happening in one moment. One moment Lenina is thinking about her choices, next she is conversing with Henry, someone she had shared a bed with, about her new lover. Every time she feels unease she thinks about her soma, but of course that is what drugs can do to a person. Both Bernard and Lenina devote themselves to "Ford" and kind of use expressively. Bernard presented an observation to Lenina he made about themselves-she didn't get it. He said "...that's why we went to bed together last night...like infants-instead of waiting like adults..." For a man in his place, that's quite a bold observation, in my opinion.

While on their way back from their date, Lenina and Henry discuss the phosphorus recovery system that was taking place where basically energy is used from human corpse to help plants. Lenina points out that that people who are categorized as Alphas and Betas wouldn't make more plants grow than the "nasty Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons". I think she's pointing out that people are seen as a high respected individual when living but in death, they will only produce as much energy as the next corpse. Lenina and Henry were conditioned to believe, to a loop recording of the words "Everyone is happy now." for twelve years. Lenina and Henry go to a dining hall to eat soma, that youthful drug, which is converted into tablets and served with coffee. As they walked across the street after eating, they both failed to realize the beautiful moonlight and starry night because of the electric signs that blocked it. They went to a music hall and started dancing.

So, if I'm not mistaken, erotic pleasure is all these humans crave. It's so important to them that they've surrounded themselves with machines to do it for them. Even in public bathrooms. In the fourth chapter, we are introduced to Lenina Crowe a woman who realizes she is losing interest in pleasure. Bernard is a character who is just living according to his era but that makes me uncomfortable and hard to want to pay any attention to him. Bernard basically has trouble with his size and size matters in that setting. Enough said. He goes to confide in a friend. A lecturer by the name Helmholtz Watson. They have a conversation that was a little hard to keep up with. They talk about Lenina but Watson is too preoccupied being unsatisfied with his work. He feels he can do more with his writing.

Chapter three starts out with the Director who takes a student to a garden where naked children are playing sexual games because they were taught that it was just child's play. Immediately, I am already uncomfortable with this work. I'm intrigued at Huxleys' thought process but I'm not open to the path he chose to explain it. I'm analytical and can grasp abstract ideas, I don't need to be shocked to comprehend something that requires more thinking. As the Director is explaining, he is interrupted by a little boy hiding nearby in the bushes. He was uncomfortable with the "games" the other children were partaking in. Then we are introduced to Mustapha Mond,  resident controller for Western Europe. He's a valuable character because he has experience. Mond tells the children how the world worked before they were even thought to be conceived.  Basically, everyone became unstable in their relationships and desires which lead to disease, war and death. Fa...

As I watched this video, https://youtu.be/3TQZ-2iMUR0 , and listened to Aldous Huxley discuss the different enemies of freedom, it was easy for me to connect his ideas with politics. He presented ideas like overpopulation, communism, over-organization, and gov't (government) intervention. He believes the world will fall under the power of a dictator. He focused on the problems that questioned our survival and freedom-something I'm very interested in. From what I can remember, Huxley claims the problem originated with overpopulation. According to Huxley, from before Christ to the Mayflower, the population has doubled. Since there's a large amount of people, they'll require resources. Resources that can wither or run out. When these resources run out, there will be social unrest which will require gov't intervention. The gov't intervention is what will come before everyone is under totalitarian rule. He even went so far as to claim that communists were going to ...

In Act 2 Scene 1, around the time the guards start feeling awfully tired for some odd reason, Macbeth has a conversation with Banquo. Banquo in a way praises Macbeth for his adequate hosting. In this conversation, Macbeth says something that caught my eye. "Being unprepared, our will became the servant to defect, which else should free have wrought." He basically points the fact out that he was unprepared for the Kings visit because the King invited himself over. And it dawned on me: the King walked into his own death. Yes, the King was impressed with Macbeth and that's why he invited himself over, but he still invited himself. Banquo is onto Macbeth, and even had a dream about the witches predictions and the ones that became true. Then Macbeth goes full Hamlet and imagines a bloody dagger in his hand and brushes it off. In the second scene, Lady Macbeth basically lives up to her malicious and twisted stereotype. She said the fact that the guards are getting tired makes a...

The thunder and active weather that was happening told me this play was dark and exciting. During their meeting, the witches don't offer Macbeth anything. A spell, a potion, imortality, they didn't tempt him at all, which told me they had an agenda and Macbeth might just be a pawn in their play. There's no question that these beings are witches. When the witches proceed with "Fair is foul....", they mean what is considered in society as "fair" is really the foul. So in the play, the way the government is being ran is foul but the government will always be seen as a fair system. This tells me Shakespeare will include royals in the play. Cats are significant when it come to witches, that's why there's Graymalkin. Toads are ugly like witches, so there's Paddock. This suggests witchcraft and the supernatural will add some elements to the play. In the second scene, the bloody soldier reports how Macbeth was brave during the battle. Macdonwald is ...

I'm not sure I read the same scene. Preston is praising Macbeth for his knightly duties. And I understand that Macbeth was setting a prime example of a knight, by only defending his land. But people are tired on the battlegrounds. Macbeth basically makes his own trail of dead knights. It was said that his sword was steaming of warm fresh blood. He literally cuts someone in half and then be heads them, and sticks the head on a pike and my fellow desensitized classmates didn't even budge. My only impression of Macbeth is that he's obviously not afraid to pick up a sword. What a psycho.

Macbeth was a real person. He was a Scottish general. He actually did kill his cousin-the King, and took his throne. He was power hungry and receiving support from his wife. He, apparently, goes insane from the guilt. It's interesting to me that we're reading from the killers perspective. Only because I can already tell Macbeth is going to make mistakes, because power hungry people can get sloppy just as fast as they can take action. I know that his wife also plays a big role in the leading events. I wonder if Shakespeare had a thing against women. I keep seeing a reoccurring theme here with malicious women in his plays.

I love reading by myself. I never thought to read with a friend, because I haven't been in a book club since 3rd grade. In my experience, reading is a personal activity. I think a person just attains information better when there's no other distractions or some one to change their view on things. What I saw in the Paul Simon video was why Paul Simon's album "Graceland" was successful. They had a passion for music. Someone said it looked open minded. I, personally, can see how there would be room for celebration to thrive. My own personal experience and the video have taught me passionate words can influence feelings.

It's a story about a group of people. They're warned that a storm is headed their way. I also know that there are witches in Macbeth.