NovelGuide: Brave New World: Novel Summary: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

This chapter marks the beginning of Bernard’s and Lenina’s experience in the Reservation. After seeing an old man slowly walking down a ladder, Lenina is drastically repulsed, asking Bernard what is wrong with him. He responds by saying nothing is wrong with him; he’s just old and decrepit. Bernard continues, explaining why they don’t see this is their world, "We keep their internal secretions artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium." Obviously the modern world has ended not only disease and suffering, but also old age.

Next, the tourists see a bizarre Christian/Indian religious ceremony and are captivated by the blood sacrifices and references to the cross instead of the T. Bernard is fascinated by this while Lenina is repulsed, taking more soma to dull her senses.

The rest of the chapter really composes the core of the passage. It makes the connection between the Director’s idle comments about the Reservation and the new characters Bernard and Lenina find there over twenty years later. They meet Linda, the woman left by accident by the Director, and John, her son. Linda describes the incident by saying she was walking in the mountains when she fell and hit her head. Finally some natives found her and brought her back to the village where she had and then raised her new son, John. Bernard realizes that bringing them back to civilization could bring humiliation to the Director (after all, he’d be called a father) and bring himself instant fame by showing the Savage (John) to people for personal favors.