“The liftman was a
small simian creature, dressed in the black tunic of an Epsilon-Minus Semi
Moron.
“Roof!”
He flung open the
gates. The warm glory of afternoon sunlight made him start and blink his eyes.
“Oh, roof!” he repeated in a voice of rapture. He was as though suddenly and
joyfully awakened from a dark annihilating stupor.
“Roof!”
He smiled up with a
kind of doggily expectant adoration into the face of his passenger. Talking and
laughing together, they stepped out into the light. The liftman looked after
them.
“Roof?”
he said once more, questioningly.
Then
a bell rang, and from the ceiling of the lift a loud speaker began, very softly
and yet very imperiously, to issues its commands.
“Go down,” it said, “go down. Floor eighteen. Go
down, go down. Floor eighteen Go down, go…”
The
liftman slammed the gates, touched a button and instantly dropped back into the
droning twilight of the well, the twilight of his own habitual stupor.” (58) (Near
beginning of Ch. 4)
This passage takes
place as Bernard and Lenina, having finished their shifts for the day, are
preparing to leave work. As they head towards the lift to access the roof
Lenina engages Bernard in a conversation about a trip to New Mexico.
Unbeknownst to the passengers in higher sects the liftman, an Epsilon-Minus, experiences
a wide range of different emotions as he transports them to their destination.
The reason that I
selected this passage is because for me it’s one of the best examples of how
this society is truly dystopian and not utopian, not to mention that it tugs at
the heart strings a little. It begins with a physical description of the
liftman which immediately makes you feel sorry for him when you consider that
his condition was produced intentionally. As we read through the passage it
becomes painfully obvious that the liftman possess not only the capability to
understand where he stands within the classes of this society but also what he
is being deprived of. I believe this goes along with the theme of the incompatibility
between truth and happiness. The other classes are in denial when they assume
that the Epsilons are content with their position within this society, which we
see is not the case in this particular situation. By doing this they themselves
are washed of the responsibility and guilt that would come with mistreating
another human being and are able to remain obliviously happy.
Q: Much like in Brave
New World our current society uses mind-altering substances to provide a
temporary escape. Do you think that these are a necessity of society or that we
could do without?
-Jonathan Virdell
<-------Liftman.
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