"Our task in this project was to recreate a scene from the book Brave New World in a graphic novel form. Most students were paired into teams of authors and artists, though several worked alone and handled both aspects of the task. The authors wrote a paper analyzing one of the main characters in the novel and used noun-phrase apposites and concessive theses to make their arguments. Artists focused on key choices of moment, frame, image, word,and flow in creating a graphic novel about the chosen scene. Our exhibition featured both an art show of our graphic novels, and a seminar discussion about Brave New World."
Artist Statement
In Brave New World, John a savage who is always alone and sees that pain should be felt. In the first scene John is reading a book that he isn't suppose to know about but it catches his interest and takes him away from reality. Mustapha Mond a powerful person in the Brave New World society can do whatever he wants when he feels like it, he can also break rules and not get into any trouble. Linda is a girl that John always thought about, he knew that he has feelings for her but he didn't want anything to do with her. Linda is a 'normal' girl from Brave New World and gets sent away to the Reservation where John is and gets to know him, and starts to develop feelings for him.
We chose the scene where John gets into an argument with Mustapha Mond and the Director because he believed in God and he would ask questions about 'natural' things that caused them to get upset. We picked that, because out of the book and into the real world, not everyone is going to accept you or agree with the things you believe. Another one we also picked was when John decided he couldn't take it anymore and committed suicide. We also thought outside of the book a little bit, people can say negative things to you, put down your ideas or opinions and you can still be standing up for yourself. But sometimes it gets to the point where you are getting too much and can't handle it anymore to where you start thinking about depressing things and changing into a whole new person so people could be satisfied with you.
We learned that we both choose a random scene and then we start to think about it deeply. As in author I learned more about writing, refining and when to add a semicolon in my paragraphs. Tori learned more about drawing, like how facial expressions are important and how the scene is drawn to show the audience what's happening.
Brave New World-Character Analysis
Although John experienced two different societies. He isn't accepted in either one of them, therefore I argue that this was one cause he ended his life. John was seen as strange to the society he lived in, because he would whip himself for the things that he did wrong. In the Brave New World society, Mustapha Mond could do anything he wants without getting in trouble but that’s because he is one of the more powerful people. John and Mustapha Mond do have a similarity, they can both read books about times before Brave New World. Mustapha Mond has these books and can read the,m but to society they have no use because they are old and he decides to hide them from everyone else because of this. John can’t be himself in Brave New World because of the conversation he had with Mustapha Mond, how anything he says means nothing, and how the society works, therefore he kills himself.
John goes to Mustapha Mond to talk to him but ends up getting into a argument with him and the Director. He starts by asking Mustapha some questions about ‘natural’ things making the Director and Mustapha upset. “‘It is natural to believe in God when you’re alone-quite alone, in the night, thinking about death…’ ‘We make them hate solitude; and we arrange their lives so it’s almost impossible for them to have it.’” [Huxley, 235]. Since a scientist creates all of the people they don’t get to choose their condition and choose the place they live. John doesn't like that because he thinks that people should be able to believe in what they want and be themselves instead of having someone else choosing it for you.
When John leaves the Reservation to live in Brave New World, he realizes that he is still as lonely as he was before.”Did you eat something that didn't agree with you?” Bernard asked. “I ate civilization.” [Huxley, 241] John didn't like the Brave New World society because everything is ‘perfect’ and no one doesn't see that the society is actually messed up. He was also like an entertainment for the people in Brave New World because of his condition and what he does to himself. Mustapha Mond ,being the powerful person he is, has many books about the history of the old human world and about life before Brave New World ; what he doesn't know is that John knows about these books and has read them. That is one similarity that they have; both of them like to read books from the olden times.
After the argument with Mustapha and the Director, John decides to leave Brave New World and live in a new society. John finds a lighthouse and starts to get settled in, he was happy that he was away from the Brave New World society, no one can tell him what to do anymore since he is somewhere else. After a while John begins to think about Linda, and he starts to get mad at himself for thinking about terrible things. That’s when he decides that he needs a punishment and then he starts to whip himself outside as people pass by the lighthouse. Those people thought John was crazy and asked if he wanted soma instead of hurting himself. John got even more upset and then the next few days a crowd of people were surrounded around the lighthouse. They wanted to see John whip himself, so they begged non stop making John go out of control. He took a lot of soma and fell asleep, when he woke up the next morning he remembered what happened. He got upset again and he couldn't take it anymore, he wasn't accepted anywhere, people seen him as an entertainment, and he was always so lonely. When the crowd of people came back later, John was gone, he committed suicide.
Character Analysis Self-Assessment
I think the evidence and the NPA are the two things that are the strongest element in my paper. I chose the evidence because it makes the reader want to know more about the Brave New World Book and the quotes kind of shows how the character is like. I also chose the NPA because that one sentence gets to the point and that it makes you wonder what happens in the book, it brings the reader in.
I wrote about how John was still lonely in the Brave New World society. I picked that sentence because it shows that John wasn't accepted in either society and that no one agrees with him. The people of Brave New World see John as a strange person because he believes in things and they don’t like how he is different than others. I also liked how John is trying to stand up for himself but the powerful people just make him depressed, that would also fit in with him being so lonely.
The grammar lesson helped me a lot during this write up by having a NPA to make the paper interesting and to avoid the comma splices. The NPA I didn't see how it was important to have in your paragraphs until I compared it to a paragraph that did have it in and to another that didn't have it. I realized that the NPA kind of sums up what the book is about in a few sentences and that it deepens the paragraph. Comma splices I understood and I used it in my paper when I needed it.
I think that my character analysis should be a B, because it was kind of late and I had to refine it a lot. I’m not good at writing but I think my work came out pretty well, and having a friend help me with the grammar made my paper better each time. Reading over what I wrote, I felt pretty proud of myself for getting it done and having some good quotes in there.