Prose Close Reading Chart 2 (236-238)

	Examples from Text	Analysis
Linguistic	“The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much.” (Huxley 237) “In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears.” (Huxley 238)	Irony—care is taken to restrict love. Contrasts the past and the now to emphasize how much better things are in the now, but the difference in diction creates a much more positive tone in the past way of life than in the present.
Semantic	“Where there are wars, where there are divided allegiances, where there are temptations to be resisted…” (Huxley 237) “But chastity means passion, chastity means neurasthenia. And passion and neurasthenia mean instability. And instability means the end of civilization.” (Huxley 237) “There’s always soma…and there’s always soma…” (Huxley 237) “can’t help doing what you ought to do. And what you ought to do is on the whole so pleasant…” (Huxley 237)	Anaphora, polyptoton, anadiplosis—all devices of repetition, used to link ideas and show the chain of events as Mond sees reasonable; this chain, however, follows multiple logical fallacies. Mond draws causation from correlation, and the amount of repetition makes it appear that the great World Controller has been conditioned, too.
Structural	“But God’s the reason for everything fine and noble and heroic. If you had a God…” (Huxley 237) “…nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic… civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism…there, obviously, nobility and heroism have some sense.” (Huxley 237) “Soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering.” (Huxley 238)	With the same idea as truth and beauty, nobility and heroism begin to lose their meaning as they’re mentioned over and over again in increasingly more practical measures. First mentioned by the idealist John, Mond continues to note that nobility and heroism are superfluous in the face of society’s stability, and indeed their very presence may be indicative of otherwise.
Cultural	“Christianity without tears—that’s what soma is.” (Huxley 238) “Self-indulgence up to the very limits imposed by hygiene and economics.”(Huxley 237) “Is on the whole so pleasant, so many of the natural impulses are allowed free play, that there really aren’t any temptations to resist.” (Huxley 237)	Soma is society’s replacement for religion; no struggle for repentance. Huxley discusses how our need for convenience and comfort is not bad, but that science and technology have fulfilled it to such an extent that we no longer know what hardships are.