In Brave New World, a person from outside of civilization, John, is introduced to the civilized world of London.  From the beginning, his views of this civilized world is painted by his mother.  His mother at times would tell him about the “Other Place” where “everybody is happy and no one ever sad or angry, and every one belonging to every one else”(Hitchens, page 120).  Already, from this section of the quote from the book, Linda has painted a fanatical point of view of how the civilized world for her son to imagine which raises his expectations to be very high.  When he goes to bed, John would “think of  Heaven and London and Our Lady of Acoma and the rows and rows if babies in clean bottles and Jesus flying up and Linda flying up and the great Director of World hatcheries and Awonawilona”(Hitchens, page 120).  John daydreams of a paradise, a Utopia, by thinking of London, where his mother was from, together with Heaven, a happy place people go once they die.  Also, from this quote, John also imagining Linda flying up with being happy as she’s flying up with Jesus, similar to angels.  Finally, the rows of babies in bottles John imagines along with religious figures shows that he’s mixing both his idea of civilization, a paradise, and his culture’s religious figures together while imagining a happier place.  He imagines London to be more of an amazing place than it actually is.

However, as John was able to get to London, later on he encountered conflictions from what he understands which for him is horrifying.  Lenina, a girl that John had a crush on and viewed as very beautiful, approached him, but not understanding his shyness towards her, tried to push herself onto him, for in page 171 in the book, Lenina had also fallen for him to the point she was obsessed with him.  Unfortunately, her forwardness turn, in John’s eyes, herself from something like an angel to something wicked like a succubus.

Reading Brave New World, the first few chapters introduces a world that is strange compared to our reality.   This book seems to show a world where society mass produces humans, separates them into castes, and condition said humans to their predestined roles.

In the beginning chapters, it shows that humans, rather being born the traditional way, are ‘decanted’.  In their reality, humans are created in bottles using eggs from donated ovaries and sperm on a conveyor belt, conditioning the fertilized egg to its predestined fate until it can be ‘decanted’.  The babies then are conditionalized even more depending on its caste and predestined roles they have.  In addition, fertilized eggs of lower caste are treated so that each egg can produce as many as 96 identical humans.   This shows a desire to have as many humans as possible, especially as many of the lower caste as possible.  This is likely because, like a pyramid, there is always more space on the lowest of the triangle compared to the top.  The book they goes on to show how society in the book is structured based on how the fertilized eggs are treated.

The fertilized eggs are examined and separated into a caste system of Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilons; where Alphas are the highest caste and the lower caste, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons are mass produced.  This shows that the higher officials decides who is born to be of a higher caste and predestine those they decide more inferior before the fertilized egg even develop into a baby.  It also shows that, in the book, people are not all born, and thus are placed in predetermined roles.  Also, they create the lower castes to be dumb animals, to even a point of trying to develop Epsilons to physically and mentally mature as fast as possible to perform the lowest of manual  labor.  This can be especially be seen in the first chapter where they deprive oxygen and treat the bottles containing the lower of the 3 caste systems, with the lowest cast getting the least oxygen, so that they’ll be smaller in size and intelligence.  This is also seen in chapter 2, where nurses condition Delta babies to hate books and flowers, so that it is driven into their brain beyond adulthood to hate books and flowers, and thus are discouraged to read.  This especially shows that society is interested in created stupid workers that stay to their job instead of trying to attempt a job or challenge higher caste systems.

After the first chapter, the book shows how humans are conditioned, from decantation, to accept their roles in society.  The book shows babies of the Delta caste introduced to flowers and books, and then being both subjected to loud alarms and electric shocks.  Though inhumane to us, in the book, it was explain as normal as it is done 200 times to that the Delta babies will grow up hating flowers and books, discouraging them to read or enjoy nature.  The treatment to condition babies to their caste and roles is even seen in the higher class Beltas as they sleep with repeating  messages, known as hypnopaedia,  reinforcing the caste so that they don’t interact with the lower caste while being happy and not challenging the higher caste.  Hypnopaedia was also used to make the babies happy with future roles they will receive.  This book shows that humans from birth are shaped and molded from birth to their roles like gears shaped for machines.