BRAVE NEW WORLD |---[ Chapter 14 ]---|>

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Summary: John, after receiving a phone call from about his mother, rushes to the Park Lane Hospital for the Dying to see her. He runs in and asks the nurse to lead him to his mother. John's choice of words make the nurse confused and she begins to blush, nonetheless she takes him to the room where Linda is on the bed. John goes beside her and reminisces of his childhood and all the good things Linda told him about the New World. Sadly, he can't think of the good times for very long because his thoughts are interrupted by a flood of little children coming into the room for their death conditioning! They come in and mock Linda's horrible physicality. John takes this very bad, especially when the kids repeatedly berate him with "Why is she so fat", "Isn't she awful?", "Look at her teeth!".

          Anybody in today's society (hopefully) would be seriously offended by this, and John takes action by grabbing one of the little children by the collar, gives him a well-deserved smack on the ear, and flings him away crying. The nurse becomes aware of the child's pain and comes in and tells John that she will tolerate him striking the children! However, John is not sure why they are even here and takes their presence as a disgrace to his dying mother. She informs him that they are being death conditioned and that he is interfering and setting them back a couple of months. The nurse leads the kids off to go play some hunt-the-zipper and drink some caffeine-solution, leaving John at peace with the moribund Linda. He starts to regain his previous focus, but his mind is quickly plagued by images of his mother and Popé. To add insult to injury, Linda then wakes up, gazing into John's eyes and murmurs, "Popé!". John tries to get Linda to remember that he is her son, but he can't seem to break that barrier between reality and her soma-holiday. Linda gave a last gasp for air, clawing at her neck and trying to intake the air that she could not longer breathe.

         John rushes for a nurse to help (good luck) but no one can make it back to her bed in time to do anything. Linda had died. John couldn't help but cry and let out his sadness. This confuses the nurse who thinks that this shameless activity will confuse the children, and if she did anything to comfort him, it might upset him and lead to him doing more harm to the children. John is left alone with his sobs and his repeated "Oh God, God, God, God, God..." until the children return once more. These little kids are so annoying to John, so when all the stupid questions and the infant behaviour are thrown at him by the children yet again, he walks towards one and shoves him to the ground; the chapter ends.

Vocabulary:
Moribund! - (adj.) - in a close-to-death/deathish state.

Constituents - (n.) a person who authorizes another to act on one's behalf.

Literary Elements:
Irony: Pretty much whole chapter. Attitudes and hospital workers' views on death and John's behaviour.

Why Chapter is Important: This chapter marks the end of Linda's life which leaves John with a huge emotional wound that he will carry throughout the rest of the book. Her death has a worse impact on John due to the fact Linda struggles to remember him due to her heavy soma influence, imagining him to be Popé. The contrasting views on death between him, the children, and the nurses put him over the edge driving him more and more mad until he snaps in the next chapter.