Bernard Marx

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Bernard Marx is one of the main characters in the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Bernard is viewed as an outsider by his peers, and it is rumoured that the worker who was in charge of his bottle put some alcohol in it by mistake, owing to Bernard's abnormally short height and 'ugly' features.

Members of the higher castes are conditioned to dislike the shorter lower castes and this places Bernard in a grey area — he is an Alpha-Plus, but is not quite part of the Alpha-Plus set. This has probably led to some of his other peculiarities. He does not enjoy the drug soma or the "feelies", chooses to spend time alone, and is not promiscuous. In addition, Bernard harbours a kind of dissatisfaction with some aspects of the society and tends to be unsociable and aloof towards his more hedonistic peers. Despite his somewhat negative qualities, Bernard is profoundly intelligent and a bit philosophical.

It has been suggested that his name is a crude amalgamation of George Bernard Shaw and Karl Marx. To some extent he acts as the novel's false protagonist, being the major 'outcast' in the novel until this role is replaced largely by John the Savage. After John appears, Bernard becomes accepted as a hero, and he attempts to become promiscuous and take soma, thus becoming more fully integrated into his society.