Saturday, June 18, 2011

Rhinoceros Analogy

"You can't teach a rhinoceros tricks," he had explained in his brief and vigorous style. "Some men are almost rhinoceroses; they don't respond properly to conditioning." (page 89)

I think Henry is secretly jealous of Bernard. Either that or he is very very conceited. Why else would he feel the need to defend himself constantly and compare Bernard to a nearly-prehistoric animal? Each encounter with Bernard leads me to believe that he someone was not as brainwashed as his fellow World State citizens. Henry was right, he didn't respond well to conditioning. He may feel like an outsider now, but I think in the long run his individuality will be his crowning glory. I wonder what went wrong in Bernard's conditioning that made him so unlike the rest of the citizens. Was is really the alcohol that got into his blood or something more extreme? Bernard continually speaks of how he wishes he were free from the mundane society and the verses he constantly hears repeated. He's anything but ordinary when it comes to the citizens in his community. 

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