Brave New World John Savage Character Analysis

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The novel Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley is truly one that evokes Edward Said’s quote that, “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.” In this novel, the character John Savage seeks to find peak experiences and to truly experience life, in a world in which the view of life is strongly regimented according to what the society decides. John Savage is an exile in a land that should rightfully be his own, and this disorientation and unfamiliarity helps to show the contrast between John Savage and others. The notion of exile, in this novel, helps to show just how dysfunctional the eponymous Brave New World really is. In the society where this story takes place, John Savage is an exile in his own home. In fact, he is established as something of a foil …show more content…
John Savage has been unhappy the entire time he has been in the society, but his monologue lays bare the problems inherent in the society and the situation involved. He is there as a foil to show the conflicts between the native self and the unnatural society. John Savage shows the people that the way in which they are living is cruel and stifling, diminishing the very meaning of life to nothing. He wants to be miserable because it is important for people to feel the full range of human emotions in order to be fully actualized.
Connecting back to Edward Said, John Savage is authentic. He knows the meaning of the true self. He knows about the true sadness, and he wants to know more about being truly sad than society gives him room to be. An exile in his own world, John Savage understands the full range of human emotions, and exemplifies the complex boundaries and dynamics between humanity and the artificial way of living that dominates in Brave New