Dystopian Journal 2

Lenina Crowne changes throughout the book, as a character who struggles against society. Lenina is a member of the society who epitomizes the ideal woman for this society. She is considered beautiful and charming, and sees multiple men. She does not question the way society is run, but is happy with it. When Lenina begins to see Bernard Marx, she begins to learn about Bernard's radical ideas of freedom and his active interest in the outside world. The members of society consider Bernard abnormal because of his tendency to want to be private about things, his reluctance to see multiple girls, and his resistance to soma. Lenina likes Bernard and wants a relationship with him. However, Lenina wavers between accepting Bernard despite his unconventional ideas and remaining loyal to her society, whose way of life she is familiar. Lenina faces the conflict of discriminating between beliefs that society has inflicted upon her and forming her own beliefs. Lenina's attempts to resist the conventional society include going to a savage reservation with Bernard and trying to understand why he finds the outside world so fascinating. However, Lenina finds that Bernard's beliefs are difficult for her to accept after years of conditioning by the society to believe that everything in the outside world is wrong. After visiting the savage reservation with Bernard, Lenina has tried to understand the ways of the outside world, but is overwhelmed by the extreme differences. By the end of the trip, Lenina has found the strange ideas, the opposite of everything she has been taught to cherish as important, to be too much for her to accept. She finds Bernard's ideas to be so intimidating that she does not know how to deal with them. She reverts to the thing that her old society gives as the answer to all problems: Soma.
Word Count:305