After reading Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, I feel like the ending did not completely satisfy me. Granted, this topic is one of the prompts of the essays we can choose, but I wanted to know what everyone else thought of it. For me, the ending just disrupted John's goal. I know how the ending held a meaning of how John would rather die (live in another 'different' world) than trying to fit into a society that he knew he could not be accepted in like his old community, but I wished to see John put up more of a fight especially after losing Bernard and Helmholtz as both were exiled to different islands. It's similar to the ending of Thing Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, where the protagonist, Okonkwo, killed himself as he no longer wanted to live in his community that would not stand up to the invading white settlers. Is it acceptable for protagonists to commit suicide at the end of their stories? It appears like they've won in the end, whereas the issue that they've been trying to escape from actually gained the victory. Did Huxley's ending disappoint anyone else, or did it fulfill your expectations?
- Danielle Mecano
Quite honestly, while the ending was unexpected and abrupt, I wasn't disappointed at all. This book tries to be somewhat realistic and in reality, many stories don't have a "they lived happily ever after" ending. Sure it would've been cool if he went all one man army on the distopian society and made everything perfect or for him to go out in a blaze of glory fighting for what he thought was right but that would've been ludicrous for Huxley to write.-Dominic Diaz
ReplyDelete