In the totalitarian state of Brave New World, people are socially conditioned from conception; they are hatched from test tubes rather than being born. Something is wrong with Bernard Marx. Although he ought to be, in keeping with everyone else in this engineered society, an absolute conformist, he evinces certain quirks that his fellows find disturbing. They theorize that something must have gone wrong chemically during his incubation. Bernard dates Lenina Crowne, but he wants her all to himself. This is against the mores of their society, which prescribes communal sexual relations and proscribes monogamous pairing. Lenina is outraged by his request for monogamy. Any contravention of the societal motto of “Community, Identity, Stability” is regarded as a heinous offense.

Happiness is not an individual quest; it is a daily, community guarantee. Through early conditioning, people are educated to be happy for what they are allotted, with allotments made according to class, which is determined at conception. A drug called soma provides a haven from any temporary unhappiness.

Lenina and Bernard, on vacation, visit a Native American reservation in New Mexico that is a mixture of living museum and circus. There they find John, who was reared on the reservation by his mother, Linda, a woman from Western Europe. John later is revealed to be the illegitimate son of the director of the Bloomsbury Hatchery. As someone outside mainstream society, he is able to find flaws in it. He has escaped the universal conditioning and has steeped himself in the works of a forbidden author, William Shakespeare. A collection of Shakespeare’s works is the only book he has ever read. He is imbued with the spirit of drama and finds the utter placidity of the present world an affront to the human spirit: riskless, monotonous, and amoral. When Lenina, who fancies him, disrobes in preparation for a guiltless sexual episode, he rejects her for her supposed whorishness even though he is in love with her.

After his mother’s death from an overdose of soma, John attempts to subvert some workers who are about to receive their allocation of the drug. This causes a riot, which results in the banishment to Iceland of Bernard and Helmholtz Watson, another “flawed” person. Mustapha Mond, controller of Western Europe, refuses to extend this sentence to John, wanting to keep him nearby so that he can study him.

John retreats from the world into a lighthouse, where he flagellates himself for his sins. He is recorded doing so by a reporter with a sound camera, and this footage is made into a “feely,” a film with sensations added, that receives widespread attention. Tourists arrive in helicopters to gawk at this curious creature who cultivates his own pain. Among them is Lenina. John lashes her and, as she writhes on the ground, himself. This drives the onlookers into an orgiastic frenzy, which catches John up in its license. The next day, when he realizes to what degrading ends his self-mortification has been put, he hangs himself.

Point of View

Huxley narrates Brave New World using an omniscient third-person perspective. The story unfolds mostly in chronological order, with occasional flashbacks to provide background, such as when the Director recounts his visit to the reservation, or when John and Linda reflect on their past before meeting Bernard and Lenina. The initial six chapters contain minimal action, focusing instead on explaining the mechanics of this society. This exposition is delivered through the reader eavesdropping on tours led by the Director and later the Controller, through the “hatchery,” a facility for human reproduction, as they lecture a group of students.

Once the reader is acquainted with this futuristic world, character development unfolds through dialogue and interactions. For instance, Bernard and Lenina’s conversation during their date highlights Lenina’s deep-seated conditioning and Bernard’s struggle to conform to societal expectations. As the story progresses, Huxley continues to showcase societal functions through ordinary events rather than direct lectures. The arguments for and against the societal compromises made to achieve harmony are ultimately presented in a dialogue between Mustapha Mond and John the Savage. The novel concludes with a poignant and stark depiction of John’s futile attempt to live as a hermit, contrasting sharply with the book’s generally humorous and satirical tone, making the ending particularly impactful.

Setting

Set in London, England, six hundred years into the future, Brave New World depicts a totalitarian society where freedom, diversity, and conflict are supplanted by efficiency, progress, and harmony. The stark contrast between our current world and the society in Huxley’s vision is highlighted when the narrative introduces the Native American reservation in New Mexico, where Indigenous culture remains “primitive.” Huxley chose London as the primary setting because it was his home, but he suggests, through references to the ten world controllers, that this societal structure is global.

Irony and Satire

Brave New World is often categorized as a novel of ideas, also known as an apologue. In this type of work, the concepts and themes take precedence over characterization and plot. Huxley employs satire, parody, and irony to highlight the absurdity of both the future society’s values and our own contemporary values. Satire ridicules human folly, parody humorously imitates a recognizable style, and irony involves words meaning something entirely different than their literal interpretation or what characters believe they mean.

Recognizable scenes, such as church services and dates, are depicted with behaviors, internal thoughts, and dialogues that expose the distorted and absurd values of future citizens. Since many practices in this futuristic society have roots in contemporary ideas, readers are prompted to question modern values. For instance, while society today values progress and efficiency, the extreme example of babies being hatched in bottles for maximum efficiency illustrates that not all progress and efficiency are beneficial. Huxley even mocks sentimentality by having future citizens sing nostalgic songs about “dear old mom,” but with a twist—they fondly remember their “dear old bottle,” the container in which they were grown as fetuses. This sentimentality about test tube origins strikes readers as both humorous and ironic.

Allusion

Huxley’s extensive knowledge of science, technology, literature, and music is evident throughout the book. He frequently alludes to Shakespeare, particularly through the character of John, who quotes Shakespeare to express strong emotions. The title itself, Brave New World, is taken from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, where Miranda, upon encountering men for the first time, exclaims, “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That has such people in’t!”

Huxley also references influential figures of his time by naming characters, buildings, and religions after them. For example, Henry Ford (1863–1947) is revered as a god; his name is used in expressions (Oh my Ford!) and in the calendar system (A.F., or After Ford, instead of A.D., which stands for “anno domini”—in the year of our Lord). Even the Christian cross has been modified to resemble the T from Ford’s Model T car.

The character of the Savage echoes the concept of the Noble Savage, which suggests that “primitive” people are more innocent and pure-hearted than “civilized” ones. However, Huxley does not depict him as a hero or his culture as ideal. The reader sympathizes with the Savage because he most closely represents contemporary values.

One of the more nuanced influences on the story is Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the pioneer of modern psychoanalysis. The Savage character exemplifies someone afflicted by what Freud called the Oedipus complex, a deep-seated desire to bond with one’s mother. At a certain point, when he observes his mother with her lover, he resonates with Hamlet, who is also interpreted as having an Oedipal complex—an excessive attachment to his mother that hindered him from seeing her as sexually independent of him.

Freud asserted that childhood experiences mold adult perceptions, emotions, and behaviors. The characters in the novel are clearly driven to feel and act based on the lessons they absorbed during childhood, even when such behaviors lead to personal distress.