"She shuddered. It was worse than the old man. So fat. And all the lines in her face, the flabbiness, the wrinkles. And the sagging cheeks, with those purplish blotches. And the red veins on her nose, with bloodshot eyes. And that neck- that neck; and the blanket she wore over her head- ragged and filthy. And under the brown sack-shaped tunic those enormous breasts, the bulge of the stomach, the hips" (pg 119).
Well if chapter seven was not a direct attack on the ethics of this twisted world, then I do not know what is going on in this book anymore. This direct characterization of Linda- a Beta who is now a savage- shows what happens to a person who is so highly trained in a specific area, who is then told to do something else. She even says at the conclusion of the chapter, "I mean, when a child asks you how a helicopter works or who made the world- well, what are you to answer if you're a Beta and have always worked in the Fertilization Room? What are you to answer?" Linda seems to have the conflicting values of living in a perfect society sprinkled with the logistics of living among the savages. This wisdom Linda received as a result of her dramatic experiences could allow her to play a key roll in the destruction of this world- so maybe they will not destroy the world, but what a twist that would be! In the end, this chapter really reflects the disastrous results of some of the values instilled into the minds of the workers at the hatchery. Good thing she was not trained to hate nature. She would probably have gone mad by now, unless she had gotten past the fear and figured out the training like Bernard seems to have.
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