This short, but eventful chapter highlights the change in John's perception of the dystopia that will bring about the action propelling the novel toward its conclusion.
Twice earlier, John has quoted the line from Shakespeare's play The Tempest, in which Miranda, in awe, contemplates people from the outside world she has never before seen: "O brave new world / That has such people in it!" The first quotation, in Chapter 5, following John's meeting with Bernard and Lenina in Malpais, is straightforward and joyous. The second quotation, in Chapter 8, occurs when John sees several identical Bokanovsky groups working in a factory. Here, John delivers the line ironically, as an expression of his physical disgust at inhuman sameness.
In this chapter, John sees Delta adults lining up for their soma ration, and their identical features again appall him. Once more he repeats the quotation, but now the words seems to command him to change the dystopian world into the beautiful ideal he once believed it to be.
