ALDOUS+HUXLEY+BRAVE+NEW+WORLD

The novel is set in A.F. 632, approximately seven centuries after the twentieth century. A.F. stands for the year of Ford, named for the great industrialist Henry Ford who refined mass production techniques for automobiles. The world is ruled by World Controllers who ensure the stability of society. To ensure social stability, a five-tiered caste system ruled by Alphas and Betas has been created. The labor force comes from the lower three castes, known as Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. A drug called soma ensures that no one ever feels pain or remains unhappy, and it is rationed out to and used by members of every caste. Social stability is further ensured through the use of pre- and postnatal conditioning. [|Brave New World] op ens with the Director of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre giving a group of young students a tour of the facilities. They view the various techniques for producing more babies and watch as the babies are segregated into various castes. After the babies are decanted from their bottles they are conditioned. This is done through Neo-Pavlovian conditioning and hypnopaedia. For the Neo-Pavlovian conditioning, babies are placed in a room filled with books and roses. Alarms and sirens sound, as well as a small electric shock, which so frightens the babies that when they are confronted by the same items a second time they recoil in fear. Hypnopaedia is used to teach the children ethics. While the babies and children are asleep, ethical phrases are played numerous times so that the phrases will become a subconscious part of the each person. The World Controller of Western Europe, His Fordship Mustapha Mond appears and gives the students a lecture about the way things used to be. Before the Utopian world order was established, he indicates that people used to be parents and have children through live birth. This led to dirty homes with families in them where emotions got in the way of happiness and stability. The first world reformers tried to change things but were ignored by the old governments. War finally ensued, culminating in the use of anthrax bombs. After the so-called Nine Years' War the world went through an economic crisis. Exhausted by the disastrous living conditions, people finally allowed the world reformers to seize control. They soon eradicated religion, monogamy, and most other individualistic traits. The society became stabilized with the introduction of the caste system and the use of soma. Bernard Marx is introduced as a short, dark haired Alpha who is believed to have accidently received a dose of alcohol as a fetus. He is not well liked by his coworkers, who talk about him in derogatory tones. Bernard has a crush on Lenina Crowne and she informs the reader that he asked her to go with him to the Savage Reservations several weeks earlier. Lenina has been dating Henry Foster for the past several months, but since long term relationships are discouraged, she agrees to go with Bernard Marx to the Reservations. Bernard goes to the Director (named Tomakin) and gets his signature to enter the Reservations. The Director tells a story about how he went there twenty-five years earlier with a woman. During a storm she got lost and he was forced to leave her there. The Director then realizes he should not have told Bernard this story and turns defensive by yelling at him. Bernard leaves unruffled and goes to talk to his good friend Helmholtz Watson about his meeting with the Director. Helmholtz Watson is an intellectually superior Alpha who has become disillusioned with the society. He is tired of his work which consists of writing slogans and statements to inspire people. Helmholtz indicates that he is searching for a way of expressing something, but he still does not know what. He pities Bernard because he realizes that neither of them can completely fit into the society. Bernard flies with Lenina to the Savage Reservations. While there he realizes he left a tap of perfume running in his room, and so he calls Helmholtz Watson to ask him to turn it off. Helmholtz tells him that the Director is about to transfer Bernard to Iceland on account of the fact that Bernard has been acting so antisocial lately. Bernard and Lenina enter the compound and watch the Indians perform a ritualistic dance to ensure a good harvest. A young man named John approaches them and tells them about himself. He was born to a woman named Linda who had been left on the Reservation nearly twenty-five years earlier. John is anxious to learn all about the Utopian world. Linda turns out to be the woman that the Director took to the Reservation and left there. She was unable to leave because she became pregnant with John, and since the Utopian society is disgusted by the notion of live birth, mothers and children are considered taboo topics. Bernard realizes that John and Linda could save him from getting transferred to Iceland. He calls Mustapha Mond and receives approval to bring them back to London. When Bernard finally returns, he is forced to meet with the Director in public. The Director publicly shames him and informs Bernard that he is being sent to Iceland. Bernard laughs at this and introduces Linda and John. At the disclosure of his past, the Director is so humiliated that he resigns. Bernard becomes an overnight celebrity due to his affiliation with John Savage, whose good looks and mysterious past make him famous. Reveling in his sudden popularity, Bernard starts to date numerous women and becomes extremely arrogant. Bernard eventually hosts a party with several prominent guests attending. John refuses to come and meet them, at which point Bernard is embarrassed in front of his guests. The guests leave in a rage while Bernard struggles to make amends. John is happier afterwards because Bernard is forced to be his friend again. Helmholtz and John become very good friends. Helmholtz has managed to get into trouble for writing a piece of poetry about being alone and then reading it to his students. John pulls out his ancient copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare and starts to read. Helmholtz is overwhelmed by the fiery passion of the language and realizes this is what he has been trying to write. Lenina has gotten a crush on John the Savage and finally decides to go see him. After a few minutes he tells her that he loves her. Lenina is very happy to hear this and strips naked in front of him in order to sleep with him. John is taken aback before getting extremely mad at her. Crying, "Strumpet!" he proceeds to hit her and chases her into the bathroom. Luckily for Lenina a phone call interrupts John and he rushes off. John goes to the hospital where Linda has finally succumbed to taking too much soma. While he tries to visit her a large group of identical twins arrives for their death conditioning. They notice Linda and comment on how ugly she is. John furiously throws them away from her. He then talks to Linda who starts asking for Pope, an Indian she lived with back on the Reservation. John wants her to recognize him and so he starts to shake her. She opens her eyes and sees him but at that moment chokes and passes away. John blames himself for her death. He is once more interrupted by the young twins and silently leaves the room. When he arrives downstairs John is confronted by several hundred identical twins waiting in line for their daily ration of soma. He passionately thinks that he can change the society and tells them to give up on the soma which is poisoning their minds. He grabs the soma rations and starts to throw the soma away. The Deltas get furious at this and start to attack him. Bernard and Helmholtz receive a phone call telling them to go to the hospital. When they arrive and find John in the middle of a mob, Helmholtz laughs and goes to join him. Bernard stays behind because he is scared of the consequences. All three men are taken to meet Mustapha Mond who turns out to be in intellectual. He tells Bernard and Helmholtz that they will be sent to an island where other social outcasts are sent. The island is for people who have become more individualistic in their views and can no longer fit in with the larger society. John and Mustapha engage in a long debate over why the society is structured the way it is. John is upset about the fact that history, religion and science are all regulated and banned. Mustapha tells him that the society is designed to maximize each person's happiness. History, religion and science only serve to create emotions which destabilize society and thus lead to unhappiness. In order to ensure perfect stability each person must be conditioned and forced to ignore things which would lead to instability. John continues protesting. The climax of the book comes when Mustapha tells John that, "You are claiming the right to be unhappy." Mustapha then mentions a long list of mankind's ills and evils. John replies, "I claim them all." Mustapha sends Bernard and Helmholtz away to an island, but refuses to allow John to leave. He tells John that he wants to continue the experiment a little longer. John runs away from London to an abandoned lighthouse on the outskirts of the city. There he sets up a small garden and builds bows and arrows. To alleviate his guilty conscience over the way that Linda died, John makes a whip and hits himself with it. Some Deltas passing by happen to see him in self-flagellation and within three days reporters show up to interview him. He manages to scare most of them away. However, one man catches John beating himself and films the entire event. Within a day hundreds of helicopters arrive carrying people who want to see him beat himself. John cannot escape them all. Lenina and Henry Foster also arrive and when John sees Lenina he starts to beat her with the whip. The crowd soon begins to chant Orgy-porgy, a sensual hymn used to generate a feeling of oneness. John gets caught up with the crowd and is wakes up the next day having taken soma and engaged in the sensual dance of the hymn. He is overwhelmed with guilt and self-hatred. That evening he is found dead in the lighthouse, hanging from an archway. ** Arch-Community-Songster of Canterbury: Introduced in Chapter 11 ** The Songster is a powerful man who first meets with Lenina. At her request Bernard invites him to a party to meet John. When John refuses to come, the Songster gets upset and leaves. He drags Lenina with him, although she appears to be unhappy and slightly unwilling. ** Benito Hoover: Introduced in Chapter 4 ** Hoover is a former lover of Lenina, described by her as being too hairy. He is stereotypical of the Alpha caste in obeying all the social norms and quoting his hypnopaedic learning. ** Bernard Marx: Introduced in Chapter 3 ** Bernard Marx is in love with Lenina Crowne, contrary to all of the social conditioning. He is short and physically inadequate for the status of Alpha-Plus, and therefore has an inferiority complex. Other characters believe that he may have accidentally received a dose of alcohol while in the fetal stages. He is more independent thinking as a result of feeling separate. Bernard Marx is close friends with Helmholtz Watson. ** Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning: Introduced in Chapter 1 ** The Director of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, also called Tomakin, leads a group of students on a tour. He introduces them to the techniques of fertilization and segregation into classes. Tomakin is later humiliated by the arrival of Linda and John the Savage and resigns in disgrace. ** Dr. Shaw: Introduced in Chapter 11 ** Shaw is the doctor who looks after Linda and gives her soma so she can be happy. ** Helmholtz Watson: Introduced in Chapter 4 ** Watson is an Alpha-Plus with slightly too much intelligence. He is friends with Bernard Marx because both he and Marx have become outsiders within the society. Watson eventually writes a poem which gets him in trouble. He quickly becomes enamoured by John's Shakespearean verse before being sentenced to live in the Faukland Islands. ** Henry Foster: Introduced in Chapter 1 ** Foster is an expert on statistics within the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. He joins the student tour at the Director's behest and quotes facts about the processes of the hatchery. He is also in charge of maximizing the number of embryos each ovary can produce. Foster is one of LeninaÕs most frequent dates. ** His Fordship Mustapha Mond: Introduced in Chapter 3 ** Mustapha Mond is the Resident Controller for Western Europe and one of the Ten World Controllers. He alone makes the rules for society and decides what may be published. Mustapha has read Shakespeare and other forbidden books, making him one of the most independent thinkers within the society. He is the man who gives Bernard permission to bring the Savage and his mother back to London. ** Lenina Crowne: Introduced in Chapter 1 ** Lenina is a beautiful woman who is introduced to the group of students while inoculating the infants against yellow fever. She is dating Henry Foster in the beginning, but agrees to go out with Bernard Marx to the Savage Reservations. After the Reservations Lenina becomes popular by her association with the Savage. She continually tries to sleep with the Savage, but becomes frustrated by his unwillingness. After she strips in front of John, he tries to beat her. Lenina visits John at his lighthouse at the end of the novel and he starts to whip her. It is unclear whether she is killed or not. **Linda: Introduced in Chapter 7** Linda is the mother of the Savage and the woman whom the Director brought to the reservation. She is an alcoholic and rather obese. After her return to the Utopian society she consumes too much soma and dies soon thereafter. ** Mitsima: Introduced in Chapter 8 ** One of the older Indians who takes John (the Savage) and teaches him to make clay pots. ** Morgana Rothschild: Introduced in Chapter 5 ** The member of Bernard's Solidarity groups whose unified eyebrows distract him so much. ** Pope: Introduced in Chapter 7 ** Pope is the alcoholic lover of Linda, and is the man that John tries to kill after he discovers Pope sleeping with his mother one night. ** John Savage: Introduced in Chapter 7 ** The Savage, also known as John, is the son of the Director and Linda. He was born on the reservation in a city called Malpais (translated to mean "bad city"). He grew up as a hybrid of the Indian and Utopian cultures, with a volume of Shakespeare serving as his guide to life. As a result, he was often excluded from Indian rituals. He and his mother Linda accompany Bernard Marx back to London where he soon becomes a celebrity. John falls in love with Lenina and imagines his love for her is similar to that of Romeo and Juliet. He soon has trouble conforming to the ideals of the Utopian world and strikes out in an effort to assert his individuality. John Savage finally runs away from the society but is hunted down by a mob of sightseers. In the end he is forced to commit suicide.
 * BRAVE NEW WORLD ** – **BY ALDOUS HUXLEY**
 * CHARACTERS **