Lenina Crowne

 

 

Lenina Crowne is one of the main-characters in Aldous Huxley’s „Brave New World“.

She’s an attractive, popular Alpha who lives up to the expectations of society: She’s well conditioned, promiscuous and content with who she is and what she does. To suppress unwelcome emotions she takes soma, like it is common practise in Brave New World. She works at the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre and when Bernard Marx, a colleague, asks her to go to a reservation with her she accepts his invitation. She’s disgusted by the hygienic living conditions, the social system (families, religion, …) and that people get old, ugly and fat. She spends the rest of the days there in a “soma – holiday” because she can’t stand it any more.

She somehow gets attracted to John the Savage because he’s a handsome guy. She tries to seduce him, but he just doesn’t even dare to touch her, because he feels unworthy and pre-marital sex doesn’t correspond to his values. Lenina isn’t able to understand that and she is used to getting every man she wants to have, so she’s completely confused when he refuses her.

In the end Lenina visits John in his exile: he’s slowly losing his mind and so he attacks her – probably he can’t stand being still sexually attracted to her.

She escapes as fast as she can. She’s completely confused because this kind of behaviour doesn’t fit her ideas of sexual conduct.

Lenina is exactly the kind of woman I despise.