Brave New World Chapter 9 Summary

  • When they return to their hotel room, Lenina takes three grams of soma and peaces out for about eighteen hours.
  • Bernard, on the other hand, stays up to hatch a plot to get John and Linda back to London. The next morning, he leaves Lenina (still on her "soma holiday") and flies back to Malpais.
  • Once there, he gets on the phone and goes through secretary after secretary before getting hold of Mustapha Mond, World Controller. Bernard convinces him that this is a matter of "scientific interest," so Mustapha agrees to let him bring John and Linda back to London.
  • Next, Bernard talks to the Warden and makes a big deal out of pretending he's a pal of Mustapha, that they talk all the time because he (Bernard) is so important.
  • Meanwhile, while Bernard is running around, John is standing outside the rest house and wondering why no one is there. He thinks he's been let down by Bernard.
  • So John breaks in. He rummages through Lenina's luggage, gets all crazy at the smell of her perfume, is endlessly fascinated by the zippers on her clothing, and finally sees the woman herself, asleep on the bed in a pink onesey. (Yes, a pink onesey. See our "Tools of Characterization.")
  • John kneels beside her and murmurs over her beauty. He quotes first from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida and then from Romeo and Juliet.
  • He briefly contemplates unzipping her onesey but then chides himself for such an immodest thought. Then, before he knows it, he hears the sound (BUZZ—important) of a helicopter outside, which means Bernard is back. John hightails it out of there.