Brave New World

John and Lenina are similar in the fact that they both have been conditioned and brought up to believe certain things. Their conditioning methods and circumstances are very different however.

Lenina's thought-processes are a result of hypnopaedia and the various ideals of this Fordian society have been embedded into her subconscious. She doesn't have to discern between right and wrong and make split second decisions, because she already knows the answer. She has lived in a society that shares this conditioning, so she never needs to stray from it. This conditioning is very strong as it stays with Linda when she lives on the reservation. Although that is partially because the conditioning is all she has to hold onto from her former way of life.

Although John is the son of a woman who lived in Lenina's society and was introduced to the same ideals, he retains very little and understands even less. His environment is not conducive to Linda's conditioning. The introduction to that way of life by reading Linda's embryo book was only a stepping stone to being able to read Shakespeare. His conditioning comes from the conscience processing of Shakespeare's works, which are very religious and emotionally based. He is able to apply the things he has learned and felt in this conditioning to the events in his everyday and make an emotional connection. Unlike Lenina who has no emotional attachment to anything that happens, except the confusion and discontentment that comes when John rejects her sexual advances and that isn't the deep attachment John is seeking.