Because the World State wishes to minimize discomfort while maximizing happiness and security, people are taught to view death casually. The society has no funerals, no grieving, and no cemeteries. The dead are cremated and used to fertilize plants. Children are strongly conditioned from an early age to associate death with pleasurable emotions rather than fear or sadness.

The structure of the society aids this process. Although "everyone belongs to everyone else," people are strongly discouraged from forming anything but superficial attachments with others. In fact, being "with" a sexual partner for more than a few months is frowned upon. Any especially strong attachment is considered socially deviant. Further, nobody has a mother, father, or siblings, so those bonds do not exist. With nobody experiencing special feelings for any other person, it is easy to forget those who have died.

This attitude to death baffles and appalls John, who is deeply pained and suffers when his mother, Linda, dies.

People in the New World of Aldous Huxley's dystopia have been desensitized toward death by the childhood sleep conditioning, or hypnopoedia. In Chapter 5, Part 1, for instance, as Lenina accompanies Henry Foster to the Golf Club, they fly past some smoke stacks and she asks Henry why they have smoke stacks built around them.  Jovially, Henry explains, "Phosphorus recovery," and he informs her of the contributions the dead make to helping plants grow.

Further, in Chapter 14, as John attends his dying mother, Delta children congregate around her, casually eating snacks as they gawk at the aged face of Linda.  Enraged by their lack of respect, John scolds them. Angrily, then, the nurse in charge chides John, asking him if he wants to undo all their "wholesome death-conditioning" with his "disgusting outcry."  Then, she turns to the children and casually asks them who wants a chocolate eclair.  While eating one of these eclairs, one child asks if Linda is dead out of mere curiosity.  It is then that John pushes the child in disgust of his lack of humanity.