How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Part.Paragraph)
Quote #19
Bernard's other victim-friend was Helmholtz. When, discomfited, he came and asked once more for the friendship which, in his prosperity, he had not thought it worth his while to preserve. Helmholtz gave it; and gave it without a reproach, without a comment, as though he had forgotten that there had ever been a quarrel. Touched, Bernard felt himself at the same time humiliated by this magnanimity—a magnanimity the more extraordinary and therefore the more humiliating in that it owed nothing to soma and everything to Helmholtz's character. It was the Helmholtz of daily life who forgot and forgave, not the Helmholtz of a half-gramme holiday. Bernard was duly grateful (it was an enormous comfort to have his friend again) and also duly resentful (it would be pleasure to take some revenge on Helmholtz for his generosity). (12.49)
Bernard's identity has certainly changed since he met John—which also has some relation to his new soma habit. What little individuality he had before John arrived is destroyed by the drug. What Bernard envies in Helmholtz isn't necessarily any one aspect of his identity, but the fact that he has an identity at all.
Quote #20
"Oh, you so perfect" (she was leaning towards him with parted lips), "so perfect and so peerless are created" (nearer and nearer) "of every creature's best." Still nearer. The Savage suddenly scrambled to his feet. "That's why," he said speaking with averted face, "I wanted to do something first… I mean, to show I was worthy of you. Not that I could ever really be that. But at any rate to show I wasn't absolutely un-worthy. I wanted to do something." (13.41)
Like Bernard and Helmholtz, John also struggles with an identity crisis. He needs to prove both to Lenina and to himself that he a man of principle, strength, and honor.
Quote #21
Her lips moved. "Popé!" she whispered again, and it was as though he had had a pailful of ordure thrown in his face.
Anger suddenly boiled up in him. Balked for the second time, the passion of his grief had found another outlet, was transformed into a passion of agonized rage.
"But I'm John!" he shouted. "I'm John!" And in his furious misery he actually caught her by the shoulder and shook her. (14.38-40)
This is a particularly painful problem of identity for John; in the throes of his Oedipus Complex, the thought of his identity meshing with that of Linda's lover is both repulsive and appealing. (This is a lot like his feelings for Lenina, come to think of it.)