The Spirit of Novels
To teach ideas… tell a story.
In this article, we will be looking at Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It is a dystopian novel set in the distant future, based on the culture of the American state he was living in at the time: California. We will focus on two characters, Lenina Crowne and John the Savage, their ‘animating’ spirits, and the uniting, ideological spirit of the World State and the Indian reservation.
The animating spirit
In the context of this article, the animating spirit can be defined as ‘an ideology that guides one through life’. The ideas we hold go on to form our worldview, and this worldview will dictate your animating spirit — that is, the ideology or religion you believe is true. There is a spirit of Christianity, Islam, Communism, etc., and each of these spirits compels people to act in different ways. Conversely, characters in novels have an animating spirit that governs all emotions and impressions of reality, and this spirit dictates their fate in the book.
To avoid confusion, characters and ideologies have different spirits, meaning character spirits (or emotions) are drawn to ideological spirits. It should come as no surprise that people who are bitter about their place in life — the character's spirit —find themselves drawn (as if pulled by some force) towards the spirit of a corresponding ideology. In this case, communism.
We all have an animating spirit — ancient mythical stories are the ‘spirits’ that embody our consciousness. The spirit of Hercules: a man who believes brute force can solve all problems. Or his opposite, the Athenian hero Theseus, who used his wit to navigate the Cretan labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur. These two mythical heroes have a particular spirit: Theseus is the spirit of the intellect, and Hercules is the spirit of brute strength.
Ideological spirit, its connection with the animating spirit
It's not that novels don't teach, but that they teach through storytelling. Conversely, academic books' overall style and composition are purely intellectual — talking about the idea and its providence. Novels, in comparison, give ideas a body and, thus, a spirit. Good characters embody complex ideological spirits — depending on their role — and over time, one becomes accustomed to associating an ideology with a character in a novel — Theseus and Hercules. This also applies to founders of certain ideologies: Carl Marx is a good example. In the case of intellectuals, one could say that their animating spirit (that which motivated them) is the original spirit that its believers embody.
Brave New World
Let’s start with the ideological spirits and work our way down to the characters. The Brave New World spirit can be summed up as the spirit of California. Sexual promiscuity, idolising the self, extreme, atomistic individualism, and general undermining of Biblical values are all separate ‘schools of thought’ coming together to form the Brave New World spirit.
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Lenina Crowne, the main female character, embraces the Brave New World spirit as a citizen of the World State. The ideological spirit of the World State must, out of necessity, consume the individual spirit wholesale in the name of peace and unity. This ideological spirit consumes the individual in pleasure, where one becomes lost. In Lenina’s case, her only salvation from pain and suffering are pleasures of the flesh and a drug called soma. This is by no means the spirit of freedom… of God.
The animating spirit of John the Savage is an ethical one. That is to say, unlike Lenina’s moral relativism, John the Savage’s spirit is grounded on purity and sin, right and wrong. This idea of objective morality is why someone like John the Savage alienates Lenina and the World State. An impression of bewilderment and fascination comes over the citizens of the World State. Huxley, the author, makes this clear at the end with the lighthouse scene (last ten pages, I believe).
Compared to the World State, John the Savage and his home symbolise one of two things: (i) John the Savage, from the individual level, symbolises a religious, somewhat Christian man who finds Lenina’s promiscuity utterly repulsive. (ii) John the Savages reserve is the complete opposite of the World State. Where the World State embodies the spirit of California, the Native American reserve embodies the spirit of Texas. John the Savage plays the role of a Texan visiting California.
Nothing can be understood in isolation — ideas, like a story, are all connected to another.
The Grand Narrative. The theory of everything. The Logos.
These three titles all imply a universe of cause and effect. All ideas are connected (like a spider's web), where one idea only explains a small part of the web. If we want to understand more, we need to learn about other ideas on the web. This logos (spider’s web) of ideas explains all phenomena in the cosmos… no man can understand it all. I doubt we have the time.
Like in most meaningful lessons, there is a paradox here: to comprehend an idea, one ought to step back and look at the bigger picture — how does this idea fit into my worldview? If it is true, the impression should fit in with no problem. If not, one of three possibilities is true: (i) your worldview is wrong, (ii) the impression is wrong, or (iii) both are wrong.
To end, novels and their characters help us to understand ideas and how these ideologies can affect us. I am sure some of us know a woman who embodies the spirit of Lenina Crowne. That is the point. Now, we can associate a name and personality to the ideology of the World State; it becomes easier to see, so much so that one sees Lenina’s spirit in many women.
