Brave New World by Aldous Huxley starts of with a group of kids that were witnessing how babies were being produced in a lab. Since mothers no longer gave birth to babies with technology they can now produce up to 96 babies in what would’ve been one.The group was told of the caste system in which the babies were organized in beginning with Alpha , Betas ,Gammas, Delta and Epsilons being at the bottom. The babies future were determined before they could decide,those from the higher level of the caste system like the Alphas and Betas would have better jobs working in the labs compared to the babies lower in the caste like the Delta and Epsilons who would have to work in the factories.

Through the first few chapters of the text we were introduced to many different characters one of which that had a big impact was Bernard who worked as a physiologist. Bernard was apart of the highest group in the system Alphas, even thought most of the Alphas were happy Bernard wasn’t he felt like an out cast regarding to his size compared to the other Alpha males. Bernard felt there was way more to explore in life, he went to director of the hatching center to ask for permission to visit the savage reservation in new mexico, the director turned down Bernard request telling him about his own experience going to the savage camp (Huxley, A pg87), “I had the same idea as you,” the Director was saying. “Wanted to have a look at the savages. Got a permit for New Mexico and went there for my summer holiday. With the girl I was having at the moment. She was a Beta-Minus, and I think” (he shut his eyes), “I think she had yellow hair. Anyhow she was pneumatic, particularly pneumatic; I remember that. Well, we went there, and we looked at the savages, and we rode about on horses and all that. And then–it was almost the last day of my leave–then … well, she got lost. We’d gone riding up one of those revolting mountains, and it was horribly hot and oppressive, and after lunch we went to sleep. Or at least I did. She must have gone for a walk, alone. At any rate, when I woke up, she wasn’t there. And the most frightful thunderstorm I’ve ever seen was just bursting on us. And it poured and roared and flashed; and the horses broke loose and ran away; and I fell down, trying to catch them, and hurt my knee, so that I could hardly walk. Still, I searched and I shouted and I searched. But there was no sign of her. Then I thought she must have gone back to the rest-house by herself. So I crawled down into the valley by the way we had come. My knee was agonizingly painful, and I’d lost my soma. It took me hours. I didn’t get back to the rest-house till after midnight. And she wasn’t there; she wasn’t there,” the Director repeated. There was a silence. “Well,” he resumed at last, “the next day there was a search. But we couldn’t find her. She must have fallen into a gully somewhere; or been eaten by a mountain lion. Ford knows. Anyhow it was horrible. It upset me very much at the time. More than it ought to have done, I dare say. Because, after all, it’s the sort of accident that might have happened to any one; and, of course, the social body persists although the component cells may change.” But this sleep-taught consolation did not seem to be very effective. Shaking his head, “I actually dream about it sometimes,” the Director went on in a low voice. “Dream of being woken up by that peal of thunder and finding her gone; dream of searching and searching for her under the trees.” He lapsed into the silence of reminiscence.” He then warned Bernard that if he heard anything any lapse from a proper standard of infantile decorum he would have to transfer him to Iceland. Bernard wasn’t going to let the director stop his quest so he left for mexico with Lenina. Shortly after arrival they witnessed a ritual in which a young man was being whipped , they were approached by a savage who’s name was john. John was white and spoke English unlike the others there, john then tells Bernard about his mother Linda she wasn’t from the reservation camp (Huxley, A pg122), ” Linda had come from the Other Place long ago, before he was born, with a man who was his father. She had gone walking alone in those mountains over there to the North, had fallen down a steep place and hurt her head. Some hunters from Malpais had found her and brought her to the pueblo. As for the man who was his father, Linda had never seen him again. His name was Tomakin He must have flown away.” Bernard found john story similar to the story Thomas (The Director) told him. Bernard asked john and Linda  to go back with him, when they arrived back to the city Linda pointed out Thomas as the father to her son. john became very popular , his mother ingested a large dose of soma which she later died from. John breaks out in rage telling everyone that they were slaves and soma was bad for them, a brawl broke out between john and the workers Helmholtz then jumped in to help john while Bernard stood shook not knowing what to do.They were all held accountable Bernard and Helmholtz were shipped to different islands but john choose to stay in a deserted house in the country side he whipped himself as a form of punishment , a crowd then showed up demanding john to do the stunt for them (Huxley, A pg241), “Just a few words from you, Mr. Savage with a series of ritual gestures.” The following morning when they returned to interview john they found him hanging.

Brave New World had so much twist to it from them trying to create a perfect community where everyone would be happy, with babies  being produced in a lab in a caste system .throughout the text we seen that even with the technology and aspiration they still couldn’t achieve their overall goal. The curiosity of Bernard led to series of events in which ended the story with chaos and tragedies.

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.

The story resumes in chapter 10 as the director has a plan that he wants to dismiss Henry infront of the workers as a public example because he believes that his type of behavior is a threat to the stability in the nation. Throughout these chapters, John and some other characters would quote from Shakespeare. It is interesting that Shakespeare would be quoted from these characters mouths because it is a type of literature and usually literature like that is considered to be something different that the nation does not use and can affect what they call “happiness”.

Also John is a character that is called by the name Savage now and he does not like or admire the civilization he is apart of. According to the book it says: “It isn’t only art that is incompatible with happiness; it’s also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled.”(Huxley, page 202). This saying is interesting because in the story happiness is often compared to what the stability of the nation is and how the people are born to fulfill certain jobs or duties that they are assigned to based on the status and conditions they are born with and into. They say that they want to keep the things like arts and sciences more distant and controlled from the society because that can cause a disturbance in what they call happiness within their society, even though they use science which is when they create the clones. Also since arts or literature is banned, they did that because they want the people to be more accustomed to newer things rather than old works that can last long because to the powers in charge of that society, having stability is more important.

“Call it the fault of civilization. God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness.”(Huxley, Page 210). Mustapha Mond is saying that the choice was made that civilization rather would choose science and technological advances rather than dealing with God because that would make a civilization more better according to him, which is why religion and religious beliefs are not a part of what the World Nation and it’s standards.

John believes that the time and the conditions are actually a form of degradation for the citizens rather than it actually being a good thing. Since he believes this and has different ideologies it eventually leads him into getting punished by Mond and than he then leads his own life in the form of solitude away from civilization. Also Bernard and Helmotz are banished and forced to live in separate islands away from civilization because they are believed to also be able to cause harm to the ideals also. When John secludes himself away by being at the lighthouse he did so in order to be able to keep his beliefs and ideals within himself but than soon afterwards he had killed himself because of the arrival of Lenina and feeling as though he has gave in to what he despises the most which was the World State.

Overall this was an interesting science fiction story because it showed various elements that you would usually find in works of science fiction like the use of technology and creation of clones and also the different ideologies we would consider to be wrong or weird in a certain way. Also I find it interesting that even though they try to restrict science arts and aspects of religion, they still use some sort of ideas that stem from those factors.