Brave+New+World

by: Aldous Huxley
 * Brave New World:**


 * Background:**

Aldous Huxley was known to believe in:
 * 1) Humanism- an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns, attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters.
 * 2) Pacifism- the opposition to war and violence
 * 3) Satire- strong use of irony or sarcasm
 * 4) Interested in parapsychology- one who studies a number of ostensible paranormal phenomena, including telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation and apparitional experiences
 * 5) Philosophical mysticism- personal experiences with above human beings

Huxley claims that his inspiration for the book came from other utopian novels. He started the book as a parody with the intention to show the frightful side of the future. He referred to the book as a "negative utopia."

-- Wikipedia- Aldous Huxley/Brave New World

Chapter 1 summary: The story starts off in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center where the director is giving students a tour of the factory which is where human beings are produced. He explains that humans no longer create life but use what we know as the test tube method. Each fetus is sent to a different cast: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon go through the Bokanovsky Process which is where they shock an egg so that it divides to form up to ninety-six identical human beings. The Director explains that this process helps to create social stability because the clones will be able to perform identical actions. The Director then describes Podsnap’s Technique which speeds up the ripening process of eggs. With this method, hundreds of related human beings can be created from the same man and woman. After fertilization, the embryos travel on a conveyor belt in their bottles for 267 days. On the last day, they are decanted, or born. Seventy percent of the female fetuses are sterilized; they are known as freemartins. The fetuses undergo different treatments depending on their castes. 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 and though childhood. The Director and Henry Foster then introduce Lenina Crowne to the students. She explains that her job is to immunize the fetuses destined for the tropics with vaccinations for typhoid and sleeping sickness. Henry goes on to explain that future rocket-plane engineers are conditioned to live in constant motion, and future chemical workers are conditioned to tolerate toxic chemicals.

Chapter 2 Summary: The director takes the students into the nurseries. The students then observe the babies being conditioned. The babies were shown books and flowers and they started to crawl towards them, as they were getting happier there were alarms that started to go off. The babies then experienced an electric shock. When they were presented with the items again they cried and were full of fear. The director said that this instills a hatred of books and flowers into the babies. They want them to hate books so that it doesn’t waste the community's time that might "decondition" them. The director then told a story about how they discovered hypnopaedia and found it cannot be used for intellectual training but it can be used for moral training. The director then took them into a room where children were sleeping and there was a recorded voice talking to the children. The lesson is repeated 120 times, three times a week for thirty months.

Chapter 3 Summary: The director leads the students to the garden. There were several hundred naked children playing together. The director said that the games were kept simple and that such simple games did nothing to increase consumption. They then heard cries from a little boy who was sitting in bushes. He was uncomfortable with the play that they were encouraged to do. The boy was then taken to see a psychologist. The director then explained to the students that sexual play during childhood and adolescence used to be considered as abnormal and immoral. Then the story goes to Mond and his speech about how the history of the world state. It also goes to conversations in the changing rooms, they were Henry’s and Lenina’s.

Chapter 4 Summary: When Lenina tells Bernard that she wants to go see the Savage, Bernard becomes embarrassed. Lenina is confused by his reaction, and so she goes off to be with Henry and they fly off in the helicopter on their date. Bernard is bothered by how low he is in the caste system. He becomes irritated when he feels like an outsider. Bernard goes to see his friend Helmholtz Watson, and though Bernard is trying to tell Helmholtz of how Lenina accepted his invitation, Helmholtz is too busy thinking of how his writing abilities could be used other places than where they are used now.

Chapter 5 Summary: After Lenina and Henry's date, they fly over a crematorium. They take doses of soma repeatedly until they are unaware of what is going on in the world around them. Bernard helps in the Solidarity Service at the Fordson Community Singery. There are twelve people to a table and they alternate the men and the women. They also take large doses of soma and work themselves up into a frenzy that leaves Bernard feeling more alone than ever before. Chapter 6: Lenina and Bernard attend a wrestling match. Bernard acts gloomy the whole time. Eventually Lenina convinces him to take a dose of soma. They end up having sex. The next day he tells her that he never wanted that to happen and he heads to the Director to get permission to go to the reservation. The Director threatens to exile Bernard to Iceland if his behavior persists. Lenina and Bernard travel to the reservation. Bernard then remembers that he forgot to turn off his scent tap in his apartment and calls Helmholtz to ask him to turn it off. Helmholtz tells himt that the Director is planning to carry out his threat. Bernard is frightened and Lenina, once again, convinces him to take soma.

Chapter 7-8 summary: In the beginning Lenina is at this community celebration. A youth walks into the center of the pile of snakes. While in there, the youth is being whipped by a man. The boy is whipped so much that he collapses. A perfect english speaking indian tells Lenina that he wanted to be the sacrifice but the town wouldn't let him. John introuces Lenina and Bernard to his mother. His mother is a horrid, terrible looking women who frightens them at first sight. She was a great drinker and slept with many men. Linda told many great stories about the Other Place. Bernard wants to embarrass the Director by telling all that he is John's father. Meeting bernard and John is a turning spot in our story.

Chapter 9: Lenina takes enough soma to incapacitate herself for eighteen hours. Bernard is instructed by Mond to visit the Warden of the Reservation to pick up orders releasing John and Linda into his care. Afraid that Lenina and Bernard had left without him, John breaks into the cabin where Lenina is still passed out from the soma. He sees her, and just wants to touch her but is afraid that it would defile her so he leaves before Bernard returns.

Chapter 12 summary: Bernard hosts a large party with many important people on the invite list because he promises them a change to meet the Savage. However, John doesn't leave his room when the guests arrive and no one knows why he's behaving so strangely. Into the party, the guests leave and Bernard is extremely embarrassed by this. Bernard falls back into depression because his success seems to be vanishing. He is also happy and excited because Helmholtz and he have become friends and he can relate to him. Lastly, John meets with Helmholtz and they become friends. Bernard then becomes jealous of this and takes soma to avoid it. John reads Helmholtz passages from Shakespeare, but is offended when Helmholtz laughs at one from Romeo and Juliet.

Chapter 13 summary: In this chapter Henry invites Lenina to a feely but she seems upset about something and declines. Lenina has a conversation with Fanny where they discuss the topic of men. Fanny tells her that she shouldn’t become obsessed over one many and that maybe she should find someone else in order to clear up her mind. However Lenina only wants John. Leninia then goes to see John but notices that he seems unhappy to see her. John then falls to his knees and professes his love for her and speaks of lifelong commitments and such, which scare Lenina. Soon after, John becomes furious with Lenina and slaps her while calling her foul names. She locks herself in the bathroom until John receives a phone call and she hears him leave.

Chapter 16 summary: John, Bernard, and Helmhotlz are taken to Mond's office. When Mond arrives he says that John doesn't really like civilzation that much. John agrees, but he says that he likes some things like the constant sound of music. Mond responds to this by quoting Shakespeare's The Tempest. John is impressed that Mond knows Shakespeare. Mond then points out that Shakespeare is forbidden for a couple reasons. One, beautiful things like great literature tend to last a long time and The World State that is based on consumerism needs citizens that want new things. Second, because the citizens of The World State would not understand Shakespeare because it is based on things that don't exist in The World State. Mond then talks about keeping everything in social stability or happiness and how everything is controlled to ensure the happiness. Powerful emotions and grand struggles are sacrificed for the social stability that Mond enjoys keeping together. Mond tells Bernard and Helmholtz that they have been exiled and Bernard begs to not be. He is sedated and taken out. Mond tells Helmholtz that exile is actually a reward and Helmholtz asks why. Mond says that he believes that he islands are good for dissidents because they would have likely been killed if they hadn't been exiled. Helmholtz asks to be sent to a place with a bad climate so he can write better.

Chapter 17 summary: John asks Mond if it is natural to feel the existence of God. Mond responds that people believe what they have been conditioned to believe. “Providence takes its cue from men,” he says. John protests that if the people of the World State believed in God, they would not be degraded by their pleasant vices. They would have a reason for self-denial and chastity. God, John claims, is the reason for “everything noble and fine and heroic.”

Chater 18 summary: Bernard and Helmholtz say good-bye to John. John plants his own garden in a lighthouse and performs rituals of self-punishment to purge himself of the contamination of civilization. Delta-Minus workers see John whipping himself. The next day, reporters come to interview him. He kicks one reporter and angrily demands they respect his solitude. The newspapers publish the incident and more reporters flock to John’s home. He reacts to them with increasing violence. When he awakes the next day, he remembers everything with horror. Having read about the “orgy of atonement” in the papers, a swarm of visitors descends on John’s lighthouse, discovering that he has hanged himself.