The grade 10 students each shared five objects which best represented their chosen character from Aldous Huxley’s utopian novel Brave New World. Soma pills appeared to be a common symbol, a motif, in our presentations. The World State’s strategies to avoid conflict included numbing away negative emotions; anger, jealousy and frustration dissolved with the tablet. Students pointed out how a character’s level of trust in the nationally distributed drug reflected their ability to fit in and accept the ways of their futuristic culture.
James’ rocker crazy-hair-day wig is most ironic as his character, John the savage, is horrified by soma.
