Bernard Brave New World Analysis

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I submit to power when it’s easier than resisting. If I don’t feel inconvenienced by the power that is being pushed on me, I find it easier to not fight back because the effort of resisting would not be worth the outcome. I adopted this mindset during the time when rules were being enforced by my parents. Throughout my life my parents have enacted many rules for my brother and I, from eat your vegetables, bedtime at 9:00, get good grades. Having been repeated for years, these mantras have been ingrained into my mind. But this influence has not come easily, because rules have always been accompanied by punishments. Spankings, revoking of privileges, or forcing more vegetables have all been popular sources of my childhood misery for doing …show more content…

Similar to him, I despise it when something is unfair to me, but if I am not the one being inconvenienced, I find it not worth it to resist power. The first time I read through this part of the book, I admired Bernard for rising above the dystopian world; he was the first character that was aware of the flaws in the conditioned society. Unfortunately, this realization didn’t last long. We see by the end that Bernard exploits John for the fame and attention, meaning that he has not learned to resist power, but played it to his advantage. I don’t believe that I outwardly resist very often, rather I play by the option that most benefits me in the present …show more content…

Parents with an authoritarian style have very high expectations of their children, yet provide very little in the way of feedback and nurturance” (Cherry). Essentially, it’s a ‘do what I say because I said so’ mindset. Throughout my childhood, there was never any negotiation; it was just if I did something slightly out of line, I would be punished. I had to eat my vegetables until I gagged; I wasn’t allowed to talk back or else my dad would hit me on the back of my hands with a ruler; They would take my phone and read through all of my texts and apps to make sure I wasn’t hiding anything from them even though I did nothing initially to warrant it. In Discipline and Punish, it explains how the panoptic schema can be used in any situation of power, and I believe this has been the way my parents’ have inflicted “a particular form of behaviour” on me (Foucault). Through their policing, I have become less likely to resist regardless of whether or not I had something to hide in the first place.
I believe that’s why I have the reservations about resisting power that I do; so many times in my life by my parents I’ve been scolded and told no. Just like Bernard when he couldn’t convince John to come out to the dinner, “slink back, diminished, to his room and inform the impatient assembly that the Savage would not be appearing that evening” (173). Bernard

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