In the introduction to the second edition of Brave New World in 1946, Aldous Huxley revisited the fate of his tragic protagonist, John. This noble savage is faced with the dilemma of remaining in the world of soma and the feelies, or returning to the brutal world of the reservation to read Shakespeare in solitude. He chooses to take his own life. Huxley writes:
The Savage is offered only two alternatives, an insane life in Utopia, or the life of a primitive in an Indian village, a life more human in some respects, but in others hardly less queer and abnormal (p. viii).
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