The Savage's Last Days

Near the end of the book, after Jon is brought to London, he witnesses his mother’s death. He goes outside and sees a group of Gammas receiving their soma rations, which infuriates him. He attacks the man distributing the tablets and begins to destroy them, and the Gammas begin attacking him. Helmholtz Watson, another person who thinks freely and intellectually rebels against the State, walks into the crowd and begins to help Jon while Marx watches from afar. All three are arrested for their rebellion against the State. After a discussion with Mustapha Mond, the World Controller for Western Europe, Watson and Marx are sent to an island where the State isolates those intelligent people who manage to think freely, but Jon is barred from going. Mond grants him an abandoned watch tower in the countryside where he can live alone. Jon begins a life of self-deprivation, fasting and working strenuously on a daily basis. He also regularly whips himself, all to make up for the life of leisure he had while in London. He is repeatedly harassed by reporters, and one day Crowne is brought to him. Since the two met at the Savage Reservation, Jon had a crush on Crowne. In London, she develops a love for him, and visits him in his room in order to have sex, which is perfectly acceptable in the society of the World State; everyone is believed to be the property of everyone else. However, in Savage Society, they believe in strict morality regarding sex and marriage, and Jon calls her a whore and she flees his room. When he sees her at his house later, he attacks her with his whip, and she flees in a helicopter. Confused by the harassing of reporters and his conflicting feelings of love and hatred for Crowne, Jon hangs himself, ending the novel.

Huxley uses the rebellion of Jon, Watson and Marx to show that once a utopian society is formed, it becomes nearly impossible to dislodge it, as dissent is quickly put down. The only way for society to be free is to prevent the creation of utopias; dislodging one is not a viable option. Jon attempts specifically to incite rebellion among the Deltas, or the lower castes, and both of those who help him, Marx and Helmholtz, are both Alpha-pluses, showing that the lower classes are likely to remain content with utopia, and any and all change must come from the higher, more intelligent people. Huxley uses Jon's death to show how damaging and confusing a utopian society can be to those who are developed intellectually and emotionally, and to further show the futility of trying to dislodge a utopian society, once it is created. Huxley is correct, in that it would be extremely difficult to make people of lower intelligence realize the damaging nature of a society that seems to provide all of their wants needs. The Savage's death is an interesting end to Brave New World; it begins essentially the same way as it started, a utopian society with no end and sight, and the characters fail, despite their best efforts, to make the slightest difference in the world.