Quote 13
The golden T lay shining on Lenina's bosom. Sportively, the Arch-Community-Songster caught hold of it, sportively he pulled, pulled. "I think," said Lenina suddenly, breaking a long silence, "I'd better take a couple of grammes of soma."
Bernard, by this time, was fast asleep and smiling at the private paradise of his dreams. Smiling, smiling. But inexorably, every thirty seconds, the minute hand of the electric clock above his bed jumped forward with an almost imperceptible click. Click, click, click, click… And it was morning. Bernard was back among the miseries of space and time. It was in the lowest spirits that he taxied across to his work at the Conditioning Centre. The intoxication of success had evaporated; he was soberly his old self; and by contrast with the temporary balloon of these last weeks, the old self seemed unprecedentedly heavier than the surrounding atmosphere. (12.42-3)
Now we can compare Lenina's interaction with the Arch-Community-Songster to Bernard's interaction with Lenina back in Chapter 6; she had to take soma to bring herself to have sex with the Songster, just as Bernard earlier had to do the same to have sex with her. Seeing Bernard off in a soma dream in the next paragraph shows us how both characters have changed over the course of the novel.
Quote 14
"Sweet!" said Lenina and, laying her hands on his shoulders, pressed herself against him. "Put your arms round me," she commanded. "Hug me till you drug me, honey." She too had poetry at her command, knew words that sang and were spells and beat drums. "Kiss me"; she closed her eyes, she let her voice sink to a sleepy murmur, "Kiss me till I'm in a coma. Hug me, honey, snuggly…" (13.81)
Lenina's song compares love to soma; of course, "love" refers primarily to sex, but still—what do these two have in common in this novel? It seems that both distract the citizens from reality and prevent them from ever contemplating too seriously the nature of their very controlled lives. But that's just one interpretation… what do you think?
Quote 15
"I suppose Epsilons don't really mind being Epsilons," she said aloud.
"Of course they don't. How can they? They don't know what it's like being anything else. We'd mind, of course. But then we've been differently conditioned. Besides, we start with a different heredity."
"I'm glad I'm not an Epsilon," said Lenina, with conviction.
"And if you were an Epsilon," said Henry, "your conditioning would have made you no less thankful that you weren't a Beta or an Alpha." (5.1.9-12)
What's interesting about this conversation is that Henry is completely conscious of the manipulations used to craft identity in the World State—and yet he still isn't bothered by them.