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Brave New World : Summary

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Brave New World is a notable literary work by Aldous Huxley. A complete discussion of this literary work is given, which will help you enhance your literary skills and prepare for the exam. Read the Main texts, Key info, Summary, Themes, Characters, Literary devices, Quotations, Notes, to various questions of Brave New World.

Summary

We can divide the novel into 5 points to remember the story easily.

Ideas about the World State and its Environment

Ideas about the World State: The novel depicts a fictional and technological society called the World State, where babies are produced through test tubes. They are produced in five categories according to their requirements. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Alpha is the ruling class, Beta is the middle class and the next three are the labor class.

Introduction to Henry Ford: Brave New World is set in the fictional year of A.F. 632 (After Ford). That is, this science fiction novel has shown how the world will be in the future. If calculated up to 632 years after the invention of Henry Ford’s Model T Car (1908), then the world in 2540 can be seen in this novel. Henry Ford was a man who revolutionized the automobile industry in America. The American people’s lifestyle became much easier thanks to his automobile. Again God had no role in a war but Henry Ford played an important role.

Child production processes in the world state: The people of this imaginary world known as the World State consider Ford to be God. There is no religious belief, family ties, human emotions and feelings. Because babies are not delivered here but are created through test tubes (Bokanovsky’s Process) with the help of technology. People in the World State believe in technology as a social system.

Concept of Soma: Everyone here is controlled by a drug called soma. Alpha and Beta can eat soma if they want. But Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon are required to consume soma. Basically, a lot of hard work is done by them. It hurts them a lot. Soma makes them forget this sorrow.

 

The World State event at the beginning of the novel: The novel opens at a hatchery and conditioning center in central London, where the hatchery director (Tomakin) and one of his assistants, Henry Foster, are visiting a group of boys. Boys learn about Bokanovsky’s Process, which allows hatcheries to produce thousands of different human embryos. Embryos travel through a factory on a conveyor belt and are divided into five categories: alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon. The Alpha Fetus is the ruling class. Beta middle class or servant class. Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon are the Labor class.

The director tells the traveling boys that these different classes are made of different amounts of chemicals. Alpha class is highly chemicalized to instill leadership qualities within them. The beta class is mainly made up of servants or nurses or the middle class, in which chemicals are given in less quantity. And since the last three classes are labor classes, they are made with less amount of chemicals. And to control these three categories, more soma is fed to them. By drinking Soma they forget their sufferings.

Then one of the most influential controllers of the World State, Mustafa Mond, came there. He also told the boys that everyone is very happy with our reservation. No one has any sorrow. Here they are successful to remove the three weakest things in humans.

  • Emotion
  • Desire
  • Relationship

So in the beginning we see Lelina Crown, a worker or nurse at this hatchery and conditioning center. She is very interested in sexual relationships. And since there is no long-term relationship in World State, she is interested in a sexual relationship with anyone. Bernard Marx is an alpha class but suffers from an inferiority complex because he is short. He gives soma to calm the produced children. The director makes fun of Bernard for being short. Bernard’s friend Helmholtz Watson is a poet. However, due to taking soma, he is unable to express his suffering in his poetry. So he’s also a bit annoyed with the world state.

 

Director’s (Tomakin) past story of a trip to the Savage Reservation: Since Lenina was a bit sexual, she wanted to have sex with Bernard Marx. That’s why Bernard Marx wants to go on a date with Lenina. Fed up with the World State, Bernard Marx and Lenina Crown decide to go to the Savage Reservation. Before they go there, Tomakin, the director of the World State, tells a story about his past life to Bernard Marx. The director said that he also visited an Indian Savage Reservation 20 years ago. He was accompanied by Linda, a nurse from World State. When he went there, Linda got separated from him when he suddenly encountered a storm. Bernard doesn’t believe his story. Because he already disliked the director.

 

Bernard Marx and Lelina’s trip to Savage Reservation: Going to the Savage Reservation, Bernard Marx and Lenina see the lifestyle there is completely different. Because people give birth naturally. Their food, customs, and manners are all different from the World State. Then they see a man named John. He uses to quote Shakespeare’s verses. This was a real surprise to Bernard Marx. So he meets John’s mother, Linda. He then learns from Linda that she came to the Savage Reservation with the Director of World State. Then here they have a physical relationship and Linda gets pregnant. One stormy night, Linda went missing from the director. The director leaves without finding Linda. Because the way he got Linda pregnant, was outside the rules of the World State. So he left Linda for fear of honor.

But the people of the Savage Reservation did not take Linda well. Because Linda didn’t belong to them. Linda was having a hard time with John. Since the World State did not have family bondage, Linda did not teach John family manners. John used to call his mother by her name. On this reservation, a pope named Pope John helps Linda. In return, he would have sex with Linda against her will. This Pope gave Linda some Shakespeare books. And reading this book, John used to quote Shakespeare. After knowing all this, Bernard Marx found a way to insult the director. He realized that the director’s story was indeed true. So he wants to come to the World State with John and Linda. Meanwhile, John, having read about the World State in Shakespeare’s Tempest, wants to come to the World State.

 

John’s arrival in England from the Savage Reservation and his end: Bernard Marks brings Linda and John to London’s World State. There John first sees the director and calls him father in front of everyone. The director was completely embarrassed. Because children were cloned in the World State. The director had been giving those lessons to the children for so long. But his own character is not right. Finally, he resigned from his post in shame. Meanwhile, as John quoted Shakespeare’s verses, and was the director’s son, he quickly became very popular throughout England. And so once Lenina is attracted to John and wants to have sex with him. John also starts to like Lelina. However, according to the lifestyle of the World State, Lenina was liberal about sex.

John could not accept this. When John refuses to have sex with Lenina, Lenina tries to seduce John. But she fails. Meanwhile, John learns that his mother, Linda, is very ill. So he visits his mother in the hospital. But he went and saw that his mother was dead. But the lower-class boys there are not reacting to his mother’s death. This seems unusual to John. John then realizes how badly this Soma is affecting the lower three classes of the World State. So he started a movement against it. And Bernard and his friend Helmholtz help John in this work. The riots escalated to such an extent that the police came and sprayed soma to calm everyone down. Bernard, Helmholtz, and John are arrested.

Then they were brought before Mustafa Mond. Mustafa Mond banishes Bernard and Helmholtz to an island. Meanwhile, Mustafa Mond argued with John. Mustafa Mond said, the war was going on for many years, then God did not help them. It is only because of those associated with this World State that peace has come to England today. No one is suffering. And religion leads people astray and brings misery into people’s lives. But John doesn’t like his logic. He quotes Shakespeare, “Man is born free”.

Since John was raised independently but Bernard and Helmholtz were raised separately, John was not sent with them. Instead, John was allowed to choose his own place of exile. John doesn’t have a mother in the world now, Lenina doesn’t love him and only wants to have sex with him, so John thinks he should clean up the mistakes in his life. He was allowed to live in an abandoned tower on a hill near a village called Puttenham. But soon he started behaving strangely. Journalists and many people flocked there to see his behavior. Among them was Lenina. He gets very angry about seeing Lenina and starts beating her. And because of the abundance of soma in the air, John then fainted.

The next day he regained consciousness. But he remembered the incident of the previous day. He really shouldn’t have beaten Lenina the way he did. So he feels very ashamed inside. And because of all the events that happened yesterday, he started suffering from mental discomfort and eventually committed suicide. After that, news of John’s suicide spread in various newspapers. And here the novel ends.