If the dystopia is the horrifying spectacle of a life with nothing but self-serving comfort, John's lighthouse retreat emerges as the equally horrifying vision of a life with nothing but self-induced pain.

The intensity of his self-punishment, the lack of a positive focus for his spiritual feelings, make clear that John's life is not influenced by the hermits of Christianity but by the demons of his own guilt. Tortured by the memory of his mother's death, he will not let himself enjoy even the simplest pleasures of his austere life - making a bow, for instance. Left on his own, John reveals the true form of his religious feeling - self-destructive rituals of purification by vomiting and whipping himself. The sudden violence, shocking as it is, has been prepared for ever since the visit to Malpais and, in some ways, echoes the flagellation ritual Lenina and Bernard witness on the Savage Reservation. The concluding chapter of the novel brings John the Savage into direct physical conflict with the brave new world he has decided to leave. Filled with despair and self-loathing, he kills himself.

John awakens the next day, groggy from soma, and realizes what has happened. A riot breaks out and turns into a sexual orgy.

When Lenina herself approaches him, lovesick and heartbroken, John attacks her with a whip. Reporters, film crews, and then crowds intrude on his privacy. In a lighthouse outside London, John undergoes purification for 'eating civilization.' Fasting, whipping himself, and vomiting, John strives to exorcise the guilt he feels for Linda's death and his horror of sexual contact with Lenina. As Bernard, now calm and resigned, prepares to leave with Helmholtz for the Falklands, John makes plans to retreat to a place of his own, far from the society he has rejected.

Sparknotes brave new world chapter 8