‘I should like a thoroughly bad climate,’ he answered. “Helmholtz rose from his pneumatic chair. The name Helmholtz suits the character perfectly as he is significantly more intelligent than most alphas and cares deeply about his writing. The physicist was successful in his arena and has multiple equations named after him (Shmoop Editorial Team). In the novel, the lower castes are too brainwashed and conditioned by the government to be capable of overthrowing the upper castes and government.Īldous Huxley likely named the character Helmholtz Watson after a widely known German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz. Ironically, Bernard prefers his luxury upper caste lifestyle rather than handle societal issues. Marx believed that this tension would result in the lower classes rising and overthrowing the upper classes and socialism would replace the old system. Karl Marx founded the theory of Marxism, a class system of society that results in tension between the upper and lower classes. Bernard does criticize the society in which he lives, but he also has an endless dire yearning to fit into the World State society. Marx is known for his critique of the capitalist society through his writing. Huxley’s inspiration for Bernard’s last name may have originated from a socialist nineteenth-century German author, Karl Marx.
The socialist playwright frequently advocated for women’s rights, which parallels with Bernard’s repulsion toward the common conception of women as sexual objects throughout the novel (“Telling”). Huxley may have named the character after the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw that was popular around the same time the dystopia was written. (214)Īnother meaning for the name Bernard is ‘hardy’, ironic as the character is described as a physically inferior Alpha (Webb, 2012). “They’re done for,” said Bernard and, urged by a sudden impulse, ran forward to help them then thought better of it and halted then, ashamed, stepped forward again then again thinking better of it, and was standing in agony of humiliated indecision-thinking that they might be killed if he didn’t help them, and that he might be killed if he did. A perfect example of his cowardice is shown in his fail to assist his “friend” John in an instance of dire need. Initially, the character may be considered brave since he consciously makes an effort to not completely follow the social norms of the World State and act as an individual with his thoughts and opinions.(Webb) However, Bernard shows signs of being a coward as the novel continues. The name Bernard originated in the Germanic language as a combination of the words ‘bear’ and ‘hard’ formally meaning ‘Brave’. To begin, Huxley has named his anti-hero Bernard Marx. “Brave New World Names Just Might have a Deeper Meaning than what Meets the Page”
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