Brave New World

Hypnopaedia is teaching children in their sleep. As children in the World State have no parents, they all live in dormitories. Every night they hear repetitions of the ideas that the state wants...

Huxley takes the title Brave New World from Shakespeare's The Tempest. The title is apt because John the Savage knows Shakespeare by heart and quotes him often. When John says "oh brave new world...

Aldous Huxley's Solidarity Service in Chapter Five is a parody of the "feel-good" emotive services that some churches hold to promote religious "experiences": During this service, the congregation...

Bokanovsky's Process involves splitting a single embryo into anywhere from eight to 96 identical embryos, each of which will grow into an identical human being. When one of the students asks what...

Children engage in erotic play because it teaches them to equate sex with meaningless fun. Sex plays a very different role in the modern society than it does in ours. To them, motherhood and birth...

Huxley utilizes symbolism in his novel by depicting Henry Ford as a symbolic religious figure and deity who resembles Christ. In the World State, technology and manufacturing are supreme, and Henry...

In Brave New World, the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre is the site of all reproduction of human life. There ova are kept at "blood-heat" and sperm frozen. Once the ova are...

These quotes are repeated over and over at night until they are conditioned into people, especially betas like Lenina. The World State relies on high levels of consumption to support its industry,...

The culture in Huxley's Brave New World demands that no one participates in monogamous relationships. Everyone is supposed to date and sleep around, but at the beginning of the book, Lenina has...

The Director of the Hatcheries gave the students a tour of the institution and explained the activities that took place in the different departments. The centre was basically a human reproduction...

John the Savage is a rare person indeed when it comes to the dystopian society depicted in Brave New World: he is someone who actually has principles and lives by them irrespective of the...

Each caste in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is distinguished by the color of its work clothes. In order of caste from lowest to highest, Epsilons dress in black, Deltas wear khaki, Gammas wear...

For the most part, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a dark satire about the misuse of science in a society, and at times a parody of evangelical revivals and virtual reality films; however, there...

Central to the continued functioning and social order of the World State, all of society operates through a very strict hierarchy quite akin to a caste system. Identified by corresponding letters...

A Neo-Pavlovian is a conditioning room where the babies in their different categories are conditions to fit into their life roles in the new world. Each set of babies belong to a specific group and...

In Chapter 17 of "Brave New World," the Savage defiantly tells Mustapha Mond, 'But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want...

Let's start by stating some simple, surface level similarities. Both characters are male, and both are bred Alpha males. That means both men have been designed and conditioned to be top tier...

The opening chapter of Huxley’s Brave New World is set in a human hatchery. “A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND...

The classes in Brave New World are named after the first five letters of the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Within these five categories, we hear pluses and minuses...

John feels emotions deeply, as he has been influenced to do so both by his "savage" culture and his immersion in Shakespeare. He loves both his mother and Lenina in a conflicted, suffering way....

One might assume John the Savage and Bernard Marx would get along well. Both hate the shallow hedonism of the World State, particularly in regards to art and love. When his co-workers talk about...

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....

When Bernard and Lenina visit the Savage reservation, they watch a religious ceremony. The people first bring out painted images of an eagle and of Jesus nailed to the cross. In the ceremony, a...

In Huxley's celebrated novel Brave New World, Bernard Marx is an Alpha-Plus who is treated as an outcast in the World State because of his appearance and personality. Bernard Marx is significantly...

Bernard and Helmholtz are expelled from society and sent to live on an island for two, twin reasons. Primarily, they joined the Savage in fomenting a rebellion and disturbing the peace....

One significant difference is that the two highest castes - Beta and Alpha - are not mass-produced, and thus have a degree of individuality. That individuality extends, logically, to physical...

John the savage is ridiculed by the larger new world population for his beliefs with regards to issues such as monogamy. On the other hand, Bernard is ridiculed about his beliefs with regards to...

It is ironic that only a handful of the people in the brave new world would understand the title of the book, or be familiar with the source of the quotation which provides it. When John the Savage...

Soma is a kind of opiate in Brave New World that causes people to feel happy so that they don't concentrate on the reality that they live in a dictatorship. Soma is described as having “all the...

The final section of Chapter 18 in Brave New World describes how the helicopter pilots uncover John the Savage's body in the lighthouse: Just under the crown of the arch dangled a pair of feet....

The Bokanovsky process is important for social stability as envisioned in the novel Brave New World. The purpose of this process was to enable the government to control the population and the...

Bernard, an Alpha plus, is running late and has to rush to the Solidarity Service in chapter five. When he arrives, he is relieved not to be the last one there, which underlines how important...

A story that centers on a dystopian environment is one that is opposite to a utopian environment, or a perfect or ideal society. The dystopian environment is a society that lacks harmony, is...

Obstacle Golf, like Escalator Squash, is an example of a complex sport created primarily for the purpose of keeping factories busy producing parts for it. As the Director explains, all sports are...

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a novel that is about a scientific utopia, an ideal state in which everything is done for the good of the society, where evils such as war and poverty cannot...

Freemartins are the 70 percent of females in the World State in Brave New World who are neutered as embryos by being given male hormones. Freemartins don't produce eggs and so can't give birth. Of...

The traditional family unit is non-existent in the technologically advanced, futuristic World State, and each citizen is dedicated to their specific role in advancing their society. In the World...

Throughout the novel, there are many different aspects of the dystopian World State that resemble elements of modern society. Aldous Huxley uses these similarities in a satirical manner to provide...

When John refuses to come to the party, or even to open the door to Bernard, at the beginning of chapter 12, the only reason he gives for not wanting to attend is that he has always done so before....

In Brave New World, the mass consumption of products is necessary to maintain social stability. In this case, the Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons were originally conditioned to like flowers so that...

Bernard Marx's life dramatically changes after he returns from the Savage Reservation with John "The Savage." Upon his return, Bernard becomes an instant celebrity and suddenly experiences what it...

Lenina is a beta. People in the novel are divided into five castes, based primarily on intelligence. The alphas are the most intelligent caste, and as the Greek letters indicate, each caste...

Both men are in some sense rebels, disbelievers in the ethic of the Society. Helmholtz, however, is more of a rebel by choice than Bernard, who seems at times to have had the character of a...

Helmholtz says that Shakespeare was an excellent propaganda technician, but his society was more interesting so he had more to write about. John, who grew up on a reservation and is referred to as...

In chapter 12, Helmholtz was in trouble for sharing a rhyme with his class; the rhyme was challenging the student’s conditioning. He narrated the rhyme to John who thought it better to share his...

In the eNotes summary of BNW (link given), you can read what's happening in that ritual with the boy. He's being whipped to draw blood that's then being put on snakes for a sacrifice to their...

Ironically, religion in "Brave New World" has not been eradicated: it has been changed. When Mustapha Mond speaks to John the Savage, he mentions John Henry Cardinal Newman, an Anglican clergyman...

The Director speaks "sententiously," which means in a very pompous and moralizing way. He is addressing a group of students from his superior position in society, telling them how it is, in a way...

In Brave New World sex has been decoupled from love and childbearing. It is engaged in purely for fun. Children are encouraged to start exploring sex at a young age, such as six or seven, and the...

There are at least two places in Brave New World where you can find this. In general, the answer is that the adults expose the children to death early and often. They also make sure that the...