Chapters 7-12

Chapter 7

• Location: The New Mexico Native Reservation
• Time: 632 AF (after Ford)
• Main characters: Lenina Crowne, Bernard Marx, Native guide, John, Linda

The young savage

An Native guide brings Lenina and Bernard into the reservation. For the first time in her life, Lenina sees poverty, garbage, and aging people. She finds everything very frightening. She is helpless as she realizes that she has forgotten to take her soma portion. She cannot escape reality. They also observe a mother breastfeeding her child. While Lenina finds this scene disgusting, Bernard is fascinated by it. The guide brings the two to the village of the savages, where they can watch a sacrifice ceremony in which a young man dies in the end. Lenina is once again disgusted by the sight of this ceremony.

Suddenly they are approached by a light-skinned, blond young man dressed in Native clothes. His name is John. He blushes at the sight of Lenina, and she also finds him very attractive. He tells the two that his mother originally came from civilization and that she was never really accepted by the savages. Bernard wants to know more about his mother. John explains how his mother, Linda, and his father visited the reservation together. But during a climbing tour his mother was injured and was found by hunters. His father's name is Tomakin and he has returned to the civilized world. Bernard recognizes the parallels between the story of the young man and that of the Director.

John takes Lenina and Bernard to his mother's house. Linda greets them very friendly. Lenina is disgusted by the sight of Linda, as she is fat and old. It’s completely new to Lenina that people can look fat and old. Linda explains how everything is different here in the reservation than in the civilized world. She complains that there is no soma, just an alcoholic drink called mescal. This is brought to her by Popé, a savage. Each man on the reservation has only one wife, which was also new to her. Men are coming to her to have sex nevertheless, causing anger among their wives.

Linda is also ashamed that she got pregnant and had a child. She misses the luxury of civilization and can hardly bear the dirt and misery in the reservation. She finds the way of life of the savages completely insane. She explains how she was marginalized and abused by them, just like her son, John. But John was always a great c...