Helmholtz Watson

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Helmholtz Watson is a character of Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. He is a member of the Alpha-Plus caste employed as a lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering (Department of Writing) and an Emotional Engineer.

He is described as being "a powerfully built man, deep-chested, broad-shouldered, massive, and yet quick in his movements, springly and agile". He is further described as "handsome and looked... every centimetre an Alpha-Plus." A successful lover (said to have slept with 640 women in less than 4 years), and sportsman (Escalator Squash Champion), his physical and mental excess (he is described by his superiors as being "Perhaps,... a little too able.") have left him feeling isolated from society, believing himself to be capable of more complex work. He feels he would like to write something that evokes emotion, something that really matters.

This isolation has led Watson to befriend Bernard Marx who shares Watson's isolation from society, inwardly yearning for something more than instant gratification activities. He also become quick friends with John the Savage, they meet often to discuss writing, especially that of Shakespeare, although Watson finds most of the sentiments and themes of Romeo and Juliet to be laughable. At the end of the novel he is exiled to the Falkland Islands, a destination he chooses because he believed it was the proper climate for better writing.

His first name may be a reference to the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz. John Broadus Watson, the American psychologist, seems a likely inspiration for the surname. John Watson's behaviorist psychology, especially as it pertains to the teaching of children, bears a strong resemblance to the pedagogical ideas prevalent in the World State. In fact, Huxley specifically mentioned John B. Watson in his follow-up non-fiction book Brave New World Revisited, which was published in 1958.

[edit] External links

• John B. Watson and behaviorism. The article begins with a quote from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World Revisited.

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