On pages 134 and 135, we learn that the Director wants to send Bernard to Iceland because he did not fulfil his duties as an Alpha. But more precisely, he was going to be sent because he is different from the other, he is an individual. The Director was going to send Bernard away because he was afraid that he was going to throw off the government. This reminded me of Anthem by Ayn Rand when Equality was sent to the job of a street sweeper. There too individualism is feared. Equality is a very independent person, and if he becomes too much independent, well he could destroy the government. He almost did too. But the Council of Vocations wanted to avoid this, so Equality was sent to the Home of the Street Sweepers instead of the Home of the Scholars, where he should be.
I guess that's what it is in communist societies; individualism is feared. Anything that is different or unique in its own way can kill the government, so it has to be destroyed. Both Bernard and Equality had different ideas than the rest of their society. Both were remarkably different. Both were almost destroyed. In Anthem, Equality was assigned to the job of a street sweeper, and then when the government found out that he was hiding in tunnels, working on electricity, he was damned out of the town. He was too much of a danger, he could not stay. He was too determined into helping his society that it made him different, and different is bad. In Brave New World, Bernard was different too, he did not believe that "everyone owned everyone" and that everybody is happy all the time. He wanted to be alone all the time, he was far too independent for a communist place. So he was threatened to be sent to Iceland, where he would no longer represent a danger to the population. Later on in the book, however, we learn that the islands, like Iceland, are not some place terrible after all. On page 207 we learn that they are places filled with Individuals, filled with people who have different ideas. (Bernard was obviously unaware of that because he begged not to be sent.) This is just like the Uncharted Forest in Anthem. it may seem terrible at first, but it actually a place where people can be free, individuals. They both symbolize freedom because the people who go there are able to do whatever they like, to have thoughts of individualism, and to disobey rules if they like. Equality has been able to truly find himself in that forest. He discovered the individual in him and he discovered the word I. We do not know what happens to Bernard, but I am sure that if he ever gets sent to an island, he will be able to live freely and openly.
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