Bernard's Quest for Individuality Have you ever felt like an outcast? Have you ever been publicly humiliated and constantly reminded of your differences? This is what life is like for Bernard Marx, an intelligent expert in sleep teaching and a misfit in his society. He is aware of the hypnopaedia used on people to control him and he claims to want to free himself from this society of mindless clones. However, throughout the novel, Bernard undergoes a remarkable change and assumes the role of an anti-hero as his ideas of freedom and individuality are trampled by his sudden popularity. Thesis: Bernard Marx's quest for individuality is doomed to failure because his criticism of the ideals of the World State stems from its flaws, selfishness, and hypocritical nature. Bernard is a misfit who is constantly mocked by his peers for his physical flaws, which are the main cause of his dislike of World State society. He is an Alpha male, and yet his physical flaws and insecurities cause him to feel alone and self-conscious. In a world of tall, handsome, broad-shouldered Alphas, Bernard is short, thin, and ugly, and prejudice toward height is universal. “The teasing made him feel like a foreigner; and feeling like a foreigner, he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects (Huxley 56). From this quote it becomes evident that Bernard is angry at the world for not accepting him and pretending to be an individual. But in reality, he accepts this prejudice and he supports it because he knows that if he had a better physique, he would not be a subject of mockery in society. He himself is prejudiced against people because of their vices. Bernard is like a defective piece in a large puzzle: he wants to fit in but cannot do so without disrupting the order of things. As a result, he cannot be considered a real individual. Works Cited Firchow, Peter Edgerly. The End of Utopia: A Study of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1984. 21. Print.Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2007. Print. Myron, Coleman Carroll. "The mavericks pause and say, 'There must be something more.'" Huxley's Brave New World: Essays. Ed. David Garrett Izzo and Kim Kirkpatrick. Np: McFarland, 2008. 14. Web. May 20, 2014. Pollerd, Jake. “The State versus the Individual: Civil Disobedience in the Brave New World.” In Bloom, Harold, ed. Civil disobedience, literary themes of Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 2009. Bloom's Literature. Facts about File, Inc. Web. May 19 2014.