Climax in Force

"The policemen pushed him out of the way and got on with their work. Three men with spraying machines buckled to their shoulders pumped thick clouds of soma vapour into the air. Two more were busy round the portable Synthetic Music Box. Carrying water pistols charged with a powerful anaesthetic, four others had pushed their way into the crowd and were methodically laying out, squirt by squirt, the most ferocious of the fighters." -pg 214

For a novel based mostly on philosophical turmoil, the climax is surprisingly physical. The ability demonstrated in the riot provoked by John displays several new interesting traits previously unknown about the modern society of Brave New World. Firstly, it proves that the conditioned, trained members of identical brokanovsky groups are capable of still acting in the more base ways of human kind. When they are challenged and frightened by John the Savage, they begin to riot ferociously. This action, much like that of the unconditioned, untrained humans of the past, defies the pleasant, overly happy attitude that most characters have in the novel. Science may have trained humans to behave like robots, but they are still human under all their treatments. In fact, this is sort of what happened:



Secondly, when the riot broke out, a police force swiftly and deftly moved in to take control. The capability and preparedness of policemen suggest that this was not the first riot. Apparently, there is not only a protocol for controlling uprisings, but tools such as anaesthetic squirt guns, and soma vapour to handle these types of situations. This fact implicates that if ever an individual or group of individuals were capable of breaking free of their conditioning, there would be an authoritative force waiting for them. While the only punishment previously made known to the audience was banishment to an isolated island, the actions of the policemen open up new possibilities if ever a group of people organized to collectively defy the modern way of life. However, only the audience is able to realize this since the rioters are immediately quelled by the synthetic music box and its convincing peace speeches.

Overall, the climax of the novel reveals frightening, and interesting possibilities to the characters of the new world.