If anyone, John should be the character to challenge and to bring down the Brave New World that is stifling humanity. In the end, John cannot change the society, because he is blocked within and without. Mustapha Mond makes clear the power of the World State to resist any unstablizing force. But John is also held back by his own destructive tendencies toward violence and self-loathing.
Although John despises conditioning, Huxley reveals that John has been conditioned, too. Because of the terrible conditions of his life in Malpais, John associates sex with humiliation and pain and character with suffering, and this destructive view gains further power in John's response to the poetry of Shakespeare.
John's conditioning limits his ability to act freely, making him a deeply flawed potential hero. His death is the result of his own imperfect understanding as well as the inhuman forces of the brave new world.
