How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Part.Paragraph)
Quote #19
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 #20
"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 #21
Linda looked on, vaguely and uncomprehendingly smiling. Her pale, bloated face wore an expression of imbecile happiness. Every now and then her eyelids closed, and for a few seconds she seemed to be dozing. Then with a little start she would wake up again—wake up to the aquarium antics of the Tennis Champions, to the Super-Vox-Wurlitzeriana rendering of "Hug me till you drug me, honey," to the warm draught of verbena that came blowing through the ventilator above her head—would wake to these things, or rather to a dream of which these things, transformed and embellished by the soma in her blood, were the marvelous constituents, and smile once more her broken and discoloured smile of infantile contentment. (14.12)
It's no coincidence that Huxley uses the word "infantile" here to describe Linda. We've seen before that giving in to sexual impulses renders adults little more than babies, but now we see that soma indulgences are effectively the same thing.