Brave New World is about a futuristic society that has tried to create a
perfect community where everyone is happy, they use science to mass-produce
people and condition them to do and want only the things they’re supposed to
but in doing that, they take away freedoms like the freedom to think for
oneself the few characters, we see who do think for themselves aren’t happy, so
the novel poses a question is it better to be happy or free.
The book starts with the director of the central London hatching and
conditioning center explaining to a group of students how they create people,
since women don’t actually get pregnant anymore ex are fertilised and then
undergo a process that causes the fertilized eggs to divide, they can get up to
96 identical twins from a single fertilized egg, this way the director brings
the group into one of the conditioning rooms, nurses lay out flowers and books
and then bring in a group of babies, then they shock the babies through an
electrified strip in the floor, over time the babies will learn to
instinctively dislike books, and nature these babies are deltas one of the
societies lower castes, and the lower castes perform non intellectual jobs like
factory work by conditioning the Delta babies to hate books.
The Society ensures that they won’t ever have any desire for them, and
by conditioning them to hate flowers in nature, they’ll want to stay near their
work in the cities, they condition all the castes this way, according to what
their role will be in the community the group continues into an outdoor garden
where several hundred naked children are engaged in erotic play, this play
conditions the children to grow up feeling comfortable being sexually
promiscuous, the group runs into Mustapha Mond, a very powerful man in one of
the ten world controllers, he told them what it was like in the past, when
mothers gave birth to children and people grew up in families, an adult still
paired off into monogamous couples, everyone is really grossed out by the idea
of mothers and families.
The story cuts to Lenina and Bernard, Bernard is a psychologist, even
though he’s a member of the highest caste, he feels like an outsider because
he’s smaller and looks different than most men in his caste, he likes Lenina
but it bothers him that she acts like everyone else, he and Lenin are planning
a trip to a savage Reservation in New Mexico, but tonight she has a date with
Henry Foster, Lenina leaves for her date and a man named Benito Hoover walks Oh
were and talks about how attractive Lenina is , Barnard gets annoyed, so bonito
offers him soma which is a drug that everyone takes to feel happy and kind of
stoned Barnard just turns and walks away, Barnard picks up his friend Helmholtz
Watson, Helmholtz feels he has something important inside him that he wants to
let out through his writing, but he doesn’t know what it is or how to write it,
Barnard in Helmholtz both feel like they’re different, this shared sense of
being different creates a bond between them.
That night Barnard attends solidarity service which is kind of like
church all the people sing hymns together and praise their prophet, and await
the coming of a greater being the Prophet they’re praising is Henry Ford who
introduced the assembly line, and revolutionized mass production and they all
take soma to feel like they’re dissolving into one unified whole, finally they
break out into dance then dim the lights and have an orgy while a voice has a
refrain that begins with the phrase orgy porgy, Lenina remembers the first time
she and bernard went out together, he stopped their helicopter over the English
Channel to watch the waves below , he said the sea made him feel like he was an
individual ,Lenina felt shocked and angry with him ,so Bernard gave up and took
her back to his apartment where they took soma and had sex, bernard goes to the
director of the hatching and conditioning center to get permission to visit the
savage reservation in new mexico.
The director gets upset and he tells Bernard about his own trip to the
reservation, many years earlier he went with a woman and on the last day of
their trip, they rode horses up a mountain after lunch he took a nap and when
he woke up, she was gone a terrible thunderstorm broke out and the Lightning
scared the horses ,he hurt his knee trying to catch them ,but they ran off the
next day they searched for the woman but she was never found he ends the
meeting by telling Bernard he’s very unhappy with Bernards behavior and
threatens to relocate him to Iceland , Bernard and Lenina go to the savage reservation
and witness a ritual where a young man must remain silent while he’s whipped
the square empties out and a young savage approaches, Bernard and Lenina unlike
the others ,che’s white and he speaks English.
This savage whose name is John wanted to be whipped to prove he’s a man
and to sacrifice his body for the village, he explains that his mother, Linda
wasn’t from the reservation , she had been visiting with a man, and while on a
walk in the mountains she fell down a ravine and hit her head ,some hunters
from the village found her and carried her back, she was already pregnant with
John who was born and raised in the village, Barnard remembers the director
story John takes them to see his mother, she’s thrilled to see civilized people
and tells them how awful it is on the reservation with the women having babies
all the time, and the people pair off into couples and only have sex with
that person outside, John tells Bernard about his childhood in the village, his
mother often got drunk and slept with a man named Pope a John hated him, and he
remembers the time when some of the village women held his mother down, and
whipped her because she kept sleeping with their husbands, but Lynda taught
John to read and one day Papa brought him a copy of the complete works of
Shakespeare.
John read the book all the time because he loved the language, and to
deal with his loneliness, Bernard invites John to come back to London with
them, and he says Linda can come too he knows he can use her as leverage
against the director, Lenina feels so stressed from everything that she takes a
bunch of Soma and spends a day asleep, john comes looking for Bernard and finds
her there he’s been in love with her since he first saw her, he wants to touch
her but he won’t allow himself to they all arrived back in London and Bernard
is called to come see the director at work, the director announces that to keep
Bernard from infecting others with his unorthodoxy he’s sending him to Iceland
,but Bernard calls Linda in and she immediately recognizes the director and
says that she had a baby because of him John comes in and falls to his knees in
front of the director calling him my father over and over .
The director is horrified it’s obscene to talk about pregnancy and
shameful to be called the father ,and all the workers laugh hysterically like
it’s all a dirty joke until the director runs out of the room , Bernard starts
to show John what life in London is like and John becomes instantly famous, his
celebrity makes Bernard popular to Linda, meanwhile does nothing but lie in bed
and takes OMA one evening, Lenina takes John to the Feelies which are like
movies that engage all the senses, so you can actually feel and smell what’s
happening, the feeling involves a lot of casual sex and afterward they go back
to Lynne eanes apartment, but John is unhappy he leaves and Lenina still can’t
understand why he won’t sleep with her on the night of Bern are biggest party
which several important officials have agreed to attend, John refuses to come
out of his room, Barnard has to tell all his guests that the Savage won’t be
appearing.
The guests are furious during his brief popularity, Bernard had stopped
speaking with Helmholtz Watson but he goes to see Helmholtz after his public
embarrassment and the two become friends again, when Helmholtz and John meet
they’re instantly close Helmholtz who’s been trying to express his emotions
through Rimes hears Shakespeare for the first time John’s refusal to sleep with
Lenina has Lenina thinking of him constantly, finally she decides to act and
goes to his apartment, she marches in and when John mentions marriage, she’s
horrified ,she decides to take her clothes off and get him into bed , he
becomes enraged and calls her a__Lenina runs into the bathroom to hide, John gets
a phone call about his mother , and leaves Linda is at the hospital and as John
tries to speak to her she keeps dozing off because she’s on a high dose of
Soma, making the situation worse, several young boys were in the room for death
conditioning keep gawking at her ,then Linda dies and as john rushes out of the
room, he shoves one of the boys over in a rage in the hospital’s vestibule.
John runs into a group of workers getting their soma rations ,he freaks
out and starts shouting that soma is poison he says they’re all slaves, and
he’s going to make them free then he starts throwing the somme out the window
Bernard and Helmholtz get a call and go to find John at the hospital when they
get there a brawl is going on Helmholtz jumps in to help John, while Bernard
basically can’t decide what to do John Bernard and Helmholtz are brought to
Mustapha Mond who explains to them why old things like Shakespeare are
prohibited first society needs people to want new things not old ones people
have to keep buying consuming for the sake of the economy ,you also can’t write
or understand tragedies without social instability and social instability no
longer exists, they’ve made everyone happy and engineered a perfect society
where everyone plays a role exactly suited to their desires, and abilities Mon
says sometimes people don’t fit in their roles, he was one of those people he
had the choice of being a sent away to an island or joining a program to become
a world controller.
Bernard and Helmholtz are going to be sent to Islands other people who
don’t fit in Barnard freaks out and is escorted from the room, Helmholtz goes
to check on him and monde and John keep talking Mon says they’ve also gotten
rid of God, God and religion are only compatible with the society where people
get old, and suffer losses God and religion also lead to self-denial, but
modern industrial civilization only works when people indulge every desire, it
keeps people buying things and it keeps them from ever feeling any real passion
or frustration which can lead to instability when they do feel something, they
have soma to keep them happy, John says he doesn’t like it he would rather be
free to suffer losses get sick and grow old.
So Bernard and Helmholtz are sent to different islands, and John goes to
live in a deserted lighthouse in the countryside, he enjoys living alone but he
thinks, he enjoys it too much, so he whips himself as punishment crowds and
reporters start turning up the lighthouse demanding that the savage do his
whipping stunt , eventually a huge crowd appears and they end up beating one
another in front of John’s house while chanting orgy Porgy when John wakes up
the next day, he remembers everything and feels horrified when the crowd comes
back that night they find him.