The people of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
are preserved from diseases and aging. Their internal secretions are
artificially balanced so that they maintain what is called "youthful equilibrium." They
receive blood transfusions, their metabolism is permanently stimulated and they maintain
mineral levels of youth. In this way, they remain looking young. Besides this, people
are only allowed to live until they are sixty and then they are recycled into productive
gases.
Because in her world one never sees anyone who truly
looks old, Lenina is repulsed as she watches an old man on the savage reservation in
Chapter Seven. His bent back, his wrinkled face, and his hobbled walk are horrifying to
Lenina. In fact, she is so horrified by the experience of the ceremony that the old man
directs that she wishes she had her soma with
her.
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