Representations of death permeate Aldous Huxley’s final novel Island (1962), especially during the concluding chapters of the text. Death, perhaps more than another other social construct on the utopian island of Pala, acts as the ultimate representation of the different approaches to humanity and sociology between the Western world and the Pala of Southeast Asia. As Will Farnaby, the text’s protagonist, learns about the social structures of Pala, he confronts his experiences in the West in light of his new experiences in the East. He must cope with the guilt, grief, and confusion he feels in response to the illness-related deaths of his wife, Molly, his Aunt Mary, and his dog, Tiger. He also encounters death in Pala, which includes the serene natural death of Lakshmi and the assassinations of Palanese officials sanctioned by outside imperialists. Huxley uses the lens of Will Farnaby’s flashbacks and dialogue to explain all but one of the deaths in Island. Farnaby occupies a psychological space between the cultures of his Western home and the Eastern, Buddhism-inspired traditions of Pala. Huxley emphasizes Farnaby’s personal growth throughout Island, which makes studying his responses to and perceptions of death a valuable endeavor. Farnaby’s initial beliefs rely upon the Western construct of individualism, while the Palanese have embraced a universals-based worldview derived from Mahayana Buddhism. Therefore, the differences between Farnaby and the Palanese in their approaches to death represent and exaggerate the larger social differences between Western culture and Palanese society. By drawing upon the work of psychologists, anthropologists, and philosophers to explore social responses to death and historical trends in utopian thought, as well as examining Huxley’s intellectual development towards a utopic vision, one can understand Farnaby’s transformation from cynicism to enlightenment.
