Sometimes people feel that things are better left unsaid. Such is the case in Chris Avellone’s, smoke, which tells the story of two friends who have a good relationship until one speaks the truth that both had been hiding. The smoke in the essay can be looked at as a veil that is concealing the true feelings of the two characters. The setting, which is in a smoke filled bar, can be looked at as a secret hide away that the two friends go to. It is when Kyle starts to bring what is really going on that the conflict starts.
When the story starts, the two friends are at a bar playing darts and drinking beer. When Kyle start smoking a cigarette it is then that Dave starts to open up and let the audience know that the two friends have not seen each other in a while. He also starts to describe his friend physically paying special attention to his eyes. Throughout the story Kyle is very vague when answering Dave’s questions about his new relationship. Finally he asks his friend if his girl knows about what was going on between the two of them. Dave tries a first to shrug the conversation off but it is at this point that smoke the cigarette is giving off is starting to make sense. “Smoke curled from his nostrils out onto the table, like some kinda dragon” (Avellone, 3). Throughout the entire story the smoke seemed to make Dave feel more comfortable. It seemed as if the presence of the smoke made him telling the story and him even being around Kyle okay. With the smoke curling from his friends nose the reader is able to get a picture that the smoke is starting to clear. It is only when the smoke seems to be clearing in his eyes, revealing both his and Kyle’s true feelings that he started to get uneasy. At this point he attacks his friend and calls him all kinds of vulgar names. He says that he cannot see much because of the smoke and that at that point, “Kyle just faded out into the smoke in Shoop’s” (Avellone, 3). We can see here that he knows he has lost his friend to the smoke, which is a representation of his repressed feelings. From his descriptions of Kyle as well as his annoyance at the relationship he is in, the reader knows that Dave is in love with his friend, but the smoke made it all right because no one could really see what was really going on.
The Significance of John in Brave New World
The Significance of John in Brave New World
In Brave New World, there are three societies: the civilized society of Bernard and Mustapha Mond, the savage society of John and Linda, and the old society, which is not explicitly in the book but is described by the characters. These societies are vastly different. The old society is 20th century Western society; the civilized society creates people and conditions them for happiness and stability; and the savage society is very far behind the civilized society technologically, and is very religious. John is a very important character in the novel because he represents the link between all three of these societies.
John’s mother was created in the civilized society and lived there until John was accidentally conceived. She had to move to the savage society, and John was born and raised there. John had a connection to civilized society from an early age from hearing stories from his mother. He also came across a book of Shakespeare and by reading it, learned about old society. These however, are just preliminary connections for the bridges that will soon be built.
The adult John comes to civilized society as an experiment by Marx and Mond to see how a “savage” would adapt to civilization. Frankly, he does not adapt very well. He is appalled by the lifestyle and ideas of civilized people, and gets himself into a lot of trouble by denouncing civilization. He loves Lenina very much, but gets very upset at her when she wants to have sex with him. He physically attacks her, and from that point on does not want to have anything to do with her. When his mother dies, he interferes with the “death conditioning” of children by being sad. Finally, his frustrations with the civilized world become too much for him and he decides to take action. He tries to be a sort of a Messiah to a group of Deltas, trying to free them from the effect of soma. He tells them only the truth, but it is not the truth that the Deltas have been conditioned to believe, so to them it is a violent lie and they begin to cause a riot. When the riot is subdued, John is apprehended and taken to have a talk with Mustapha Mond.
This talk with Mustapha Mond is very enlightening for John, and it creates his connection with the old society.