Brave New World

When Miranda uses the phrase "brave new world" to describe the survivors of the shipwreck in The Tempest, the jaded Prospero responds, "'Tis new to thee." Huxley presents the reader with an...

The Solidarity Service is an orgy. Its purpose is sexual release. The sexual release occurs in a context that binds people more tightly to the society as a whole rather than in an exclusive sexual...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

In addition to expanding John's perception of eternity, this moment represents a unique connection for the displaced character in modern society. At the beginning of chapter 11, Linda takes comfort...

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 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....

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...

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...

The most common form of irony contained in chapter 10 of Brave New World is situational irony, in which outcome differs from expectation; this situational irony is cemented by the actions of the...

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...

The Solidarity Service functions as a religious ritual in the World State. Its purpose is to reinforce the social conditioning that everyone belongs to everyone else, as well as to provide...

John quotes from act 3, scene 3 of Romeo and Juliet, in which Romeo has been banished from Verona and is complaining to Friar Laurence that even animals—even flies—will be allowed to touch Juliet,...

When John arrives in London from the Savage Reservation, he learns that a savage reservation is a place which, owing to unfavourable climatic or geological conditions, or poverty of natural...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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 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...

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...

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....

Dead bodies are cremated in the World State, which allows them be reused as phosphorus for plant fertilizer. As Bernard Marx explains to Lenina: "More than a kilo and a half [of phosphorus] per...

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...

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...

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...

John is experiencing a good deal of grief about his mother dying and can't understand why children are being allowed to intrude on the experience. They pop up around Linda's bed as John sits with...

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...

As in many works of dystopian science fiction, the main conflict in Brave New World is that between technology and human needs. Although technology is supposed to satisfy everyone's needs and to...

According to the director, Ford determined that families were dangerous because they had fathers, who made people miserable, and mothers, who brought with them psychological "perversions" that...

In Brave New World, you could tell how Aldous Huxley uses zippers to symbolize how the dystopian World State is centered on hyper-efficiency and productivity. The zippers are something like a...

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...

The dystopian society depicted in Brave New World is a throwaway society, a place where consumer products are casually discarded when they are no longer any use. Instead of trying to fix broken or...

In Brave New World, John the Savage believes that people in the World State are being punished for their "sins" by being robbed of their humanity. They live stunted, superficial, seemingly happy...

Neither Bernard nor the narrator directly explain why he wants to travel to the Savage Reservation. However, the text does give us clues. Bernard is a highly intelligent Alpha-plus who is a...

This line is from Chapter Six of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In Part 3 of this chapter, against her misgivings about Bernard, Lenina has decided to go with him to the Reservation. But, when...