How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Part.Paragraph)
Quote #21
Linda looked on, vaguely and uncomprehendingly smiling. Her pale, bloated face wore an expression of imbecile happiness. Every now and then her eyelids closed, and for a few seconds she seemed to be dozing. Then with a little start she would wake up again—wake up to the aquarium antics of the Tennis Champions, to the Super-Vox-Wurlitzeriana rendering of "Hug me till you drug me, honey," to the warm draught of verbena that came blowing through the ventilator above her head—would wake to these things, or rather to a dream of which these things, transformed and embellished by the soma in her blood, were the marvelous constituents, and smile once more her broken and discoloured smile of infantile contentment. (14.12)
It's no coincidence that Huxley uses the word "infantile" here to describe Linda. We've seen before that giving in to sexual impulses renders adults little more than babies, but now we see that soma indulgences are effectively the same thing.
Quote #22
The Deltas muttered, jostled one another a little, and then were still. The threat had been effective. Deprivation of soma—appalling thought! (15.12)
The lower classes seem to have more dependence on soma than the upper classes; use is more of a scheduled regimen than a social activity.
Quote #23
"Free, free!" the Savage shouted, and with one hand continued to throw the soma into the area while, with the other, he punched the indistinguishable faces of his assailants. "Free!" And suddenly there was Helmholtz at his side—"Good old Helmholtz!"—also punching—"Men at last!"—and in the interval also throwing the poison out by handfuls through the open window. "Yes, men! men!" and there was no more poison left. He picked up the cash-box and showed them its black emptiness. "You're free!"
Howling, the Deltas charged with a redoubled fury. (15.41-2)
John is the only character to relate the notion of imprisonment to that of soma. Of course, as Mustapha will later point out, trying to explain this to any conditioned individual is impossible.
Quote #24
"And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears—that's what soma is." (17.47)
The need for soma in the new world is a testament to the Controllers' failure. People aren't really happy—they're medicated to be that way.
Quote #25
"Benighted fool!" shouted the man from The Fordian Science Monitor, "why don't you take soma?"
[…]
"Evil's an unreality if you take a couple of grammes."
[…]
"Pain's a delusion." (18.54-8)
This is exactly what John seeks to disprove by his self-mutilation. Not only is pain very, very real, but it's necessary for all men to be truly alive.