Brave New World - Seven (I think?)

"In the end she persuaded him to swallow four tablets of soma.  Five minutes later roots and fruits were abolished; the flower of the present rosily blossomed" (pg 104).

Okay, so I realize soma is a symbol for something because of its reoccurrances (that might not be a word) and clear use of making the person who takes it forgetful of their life's recent troubles.  For Bernard Marx - who I will now bravely call not only a main character, but maybe even a dynamic character - he takes it because of his inability to see eye-to-eye (that is not just a short joke) with the rest of this alter-reality Huxley has concocted.  For this reason, I believe that soma is the equivilent to, dare I say, illegal drugs in our times.  It is taken by the gramme, which I noticed is found in this world's word "programme," though any plausible reasons for this would just result in coincidence.

Soma appears to be a miracle, over-the-counter drug which somehow changes the thought processes of its victim into believing what the other person declares to be, in fact, true.  I would go out on a limb has to say that soma is the safety precaution enacted by the world leaders.  It may appear to have good reasons of existence; however, I feel comfortable saying that its main use is as last resort should previous attempts to brainwash the minds of the followers backwire - as is the case with Bernard Marx.  Basically, I hypothecize that these magic pills create the illusion that "everybody's happy nowadays" and that "a gramme is better than a damn," which actually just started to make sense to me!  Okay, so now that my paranoid mind has assumed that this novel pleades for world dominance over easily manipulated minds, I will show a quick video that I see being a nice connection to what is happening with the soma - a symbol of just how easy it is to fake or force human emotions, which also plays into the satirical tone of the novel.

Let me just say, I feel like I actually understand something in a book for once and will be very sad on my birthday if I find out that I was actually wrong.

Skip to 11:30 through 12:30 for my connection to the current plot line.