Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World, summary

Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World, summary

Brave New World is a dystopian novel by Huxley. Published in 1932, it propounds that economic chaos and unemployment will causa a radical reaction in the form of an international scientific empire that manufactures its citizens in the laboratory on a eugenic basis, withouth the need for human intercourse.
The novel is set in London in 632 A.F. (after Ford). In this society human beings are born artificially; they are predestined and conditioned to a certain level of intelligence, to a certain caste, according to the role they are assignes in this new community.

Like I said, the Hatchery destines each fetus for a particular caste in the World State. The five castes are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon undergo the Bokanovsky Process, which involves shocking an egg so that it divides to form up to ninety-six identical embryos, which then develop into ninety-six identical human beings. Oxygen deprivation and alcohol treatment ensure the lower intelligence and smaller size of members of the three lower castes. Fetuses destined for work in the tropical climate are heat conditioned as embryos; during childhood, they undergo further conditioning to produce adults that are emotionally and physically suited to hot climates. A recorded voice whispers to each sleeping child. It states that Alpha children have to work harder than the other classes and it disparages the lower intelligence and inferiority of the lower castes. The voice teaches pride and happiness in the Beta caste: Betas do not have to work as hard as the cleverer Alphas, it explains, but they are still smarter than the Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. The Director explains that the lesson will be repeated one hundred and twenty times, three times a week, for thirty months. A drug, soma, is used as a substitute for all human passions. There's a peace and enough resources because the population is kept under 2 bilion people. Everyone is happy, but only because everyone takes artificial drugs.

Bernard, a member of the high caste, is not completely adjusted, because of a fault in his conditioning. He is critical of the world around him, so, with his girlfriend he visits a Savage reservation in New Mexico, where people still live in the old ways. In which the two observe natural-born people, disease, the aging progress for the first time. There they meet the Savage John and his mother Linda, exiled from the New World for commiting the unforgivable crime of becoming pregnant. Linda has tought John to read, although from the only two books in her possesion: a scientific manual and the complete works of Shakespeare. Bernard brings John and his mother back with him. The Savage creates a sensation amoung the people of the New World and he starts preaching against the conditioning of human beings. At the end Bernard is exiled and the Savage commits suicide.