Brave New World Aldous Huxley Brave New World Aldous Huxley Introduction Aldous Huxley was born on July 26, 1894 in Surrey, England. He majored in literature at Oxford College. After Oxford he did journalism work. Huxley wrote four volumes of poems before his first novel Chrome Yellow (1921).
Huxley wrote 45 novels but it was Brave New World that established his fame. Brave New World is a science fiction book dealing with the way things might be in the future. Huxley describes the futures to be so organized that you lose your sense of self. Another book that deals with this aspect of the future is 1985 by George Orwell.
Summary The book starts off with the director of hatcheries describing a hatchery to a bunch of Alpha students. He explains the fertilizing, decanting, and conditioning process of people which is, when you come down to it, pure brainwashing. The book then introduces a man named Bernard. Bernard is an alpha, but hes queer.
Hes shorter and less handsome than the other alphas. Bernard likes a girls named Lenina. Lenina, however, is having a guy named Henry, and has been having him for several months. Fanny one of Leninas friends tries to encourage Lenina to move on and to try other men. Lenina goes out with Bernard and that date ends with soma and sex even though Bernard said that they shouldnt have sex on the first night.
This society is organized for the pleasure of the people. Their God is Ford. They have sex often with different people, and their taught in infancy certain prejudices. For example, the babies are taught to be satisfied with their own caste of which there are five: alphas at the top, then betas, gammas, deltas, and epsilons at the bottom.
Theyre taught to hate the country but like country sports. Every teaching has a specific purpose. Bernard gets together with eleven other people and they worship Ford. They sing hymns (for example “Orgy Porgy”) to Ford and they experience Ford. They howl and shout to his name.
Bernard, however, feels nothing. He shouts because the others are shouting and he leaves with an emptiness deeper than the one he came with. Bernard suggests to Lenina that they go for a vacation to the savage reservation. Lenina agrees to go.
Before they go, Bernard needs to get permission from the Director of Hatcheries named Thomas. Thomas tells him that he once went to the savage reservation and lost a girl he liked named Linda. Then he tells Bernard that if he continues with his behavior, Thomas will send him to Iceland. Bernard and Lenina go to the savage reservation and they witness and “human sacrifice” where one Indian is whipped in reminder of Christ.
Then they meet a woman that is fat and ugly but used to belong to the civilized world. Bernard figures out that she was the Linda that Thomas lost long ago. Linda had a son named John on the reservation of whom Thomas was the father. Having a child in this society was about as much a sin as being an adulteress in the Puritan society of The Scarlet Letter.
John fell in love with Lenina. Bernard had an idea. He decided that it would be good to have an experiment to see what would happen if a savage came to the civilized world. He wanted to bring John and Linda back into civilization. He pulled a few strings and was allowed to go on with his experiment. Linda was immediately rejected by society and by Thomas for being fat, and for being a mother.
Thomas, quit his job as the director of hatcheries because he was humiliated at being a father. John, on the other hand, was an instant hit. The people loved him and brought Bernard instant fame. Bernard was able to get any girl he wanted, something he was not able to before. Bernard would host parties where John would be the guest of honor.
One night, though, John didnt want to show up. He rejected society and society rejected Bernard. Society went back to its old thoughts about Bernard. They thought he was a queer again. Bernard and John had a friend named Helmholtz who taught emotional engineering by the use of rhymes. John happened to have a copy of Shakespeare which he found at the reservation which he read to Helmholtz.
Helmholtz was amazed at how well Shakespeare was at emotional engineering. Lenina fell in love with John and John loved Lenina, but he was afraid of his feeling and felt unworthy for Lenina. One night, Lenina tried to seduce him but John ran from her, then attacked her calling her a whore. All this while, Linda had taking one long soma holiday, and it was killing her. John got a call that Linda was at the hospital and dying so he rushed there to see her. Linda didnt recognize him.
She was having a soma induced dream about Pope, a guy she had at the reservation. Linda died and John wept for her while a bunch of little kids was led to the death hospital for their death conditioning. John was devastated. After leaving the hospital he saw soma being handed out to a group of workers. John runs there and throws the soma out the windows with the help of Helmholtz. This caused a riot among the workers and Bernard went to get help from the police.
The police stopped the riot and supplied the workers with their share of soma. Bernard, Helmholtz and John are taken to Mustapha Mond, the ruler of this section of the world. He explains to them the necessity of stability and the reason he keeps them from Shakespeare, the Bible, and other old works of art. Bernard and Helmholtz are sent to separate island but John is allowed to continue living as he did to continue with Bernards experiment. John doesnt want to stay so he seeks out a place where he can cleanse himself and live in solitude and finds a lighthouse. As part of his cleansing, he makes a whip and whips himself repeatedly with it.
A few workers happened to see him doing so and the next day, John is swarmed with reporters. The next day more reporters come but this time Lenina is among them. She tried to seduce him but John whips her. That night, John commits suicide by hanging himself in the lighthouse and is discovered by a reporter the next morning.
Plot The plot did grow out of the nature and situation of the characters, but it wasnt the greatest thing in th …
