Brave New World

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Brave New World

Brave New World is a novel

Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
by Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963....
, written in 1931

1931 in literature

The year 1931 in literature involved some significant events and new books....
and published in 1932

1932 in literature

The year 1932 in literature involved some significant events and new books....
. Set in the London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
of AD 2540 (632 A.F. in the book), the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology

Reproductive technology

Reproductive technology encompasses all current and anticipated uses of technology in human and animal reproduction, including assisted reproductive technology, contraception and others....
and sleep-learning

Sleep-learning

Sleep-learning attempts to convey information to a sleeping person, typically by playing a sound recording to them while they sleep.This now-discredited technique was supposed to be moderately effective at making people remember direct passages or facts, word for word....
that combine to change society. The future society is a living embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of futurism

Futurism

Futurism or Futurist may refer to:* Futurology* Futurists * Futurist architecture* Futurist meals, a gastronomic movement based on Futurism...
. Huxley answers this book with a reassessment in an essay, Brave New World Revisited (1958), and with his final work, a novel titled Island
Island (novel)

Island is the final book by English literature Aldous Huxley, 1962 in literature. It is the account of Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist who is shipwrecked on the fictional island of Pala....
(1962), both summarized below.

rave New World is Huxley's most famous novel.

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Quotations

A gramme is better than a damn.

A slogan encouraging people not to dwell on gloomy thoughts, but to obliterate them with drugs.

Cleanliness is next to fordliness.

The second hypnopædic lesson in elementary hygiene.

Every one belongs to every one else.

A government slogan encouraging sociability and sexual promiscuity.

When the individual feels, the community reels.

A slogan discouraging individualism in favor of the community as a whole.

Ending is better than mending.

A government slogan encouraging people to throw away old possessions and buy new ones, keeping the global economy strong.

Encyclopedia

Brave New World is a novel

Novel

Aldous Huxley

1931 in literature

The year 1931 in literature involved some significant events and new books....
and published in 1932

1932 in literature

The year 1932 in literature involved some significant events and new books....
. Set in the London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
of AD 2540 (632 A.F. in the book), the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology

Reproductive technology

Sleep-learning

Futurism

Background

Brave New World is Huxley's most famous novel. The ironic title ultimately derives from Miranda's

Miranda (Shakespeare)

In William Shakespeare's play The Tempest , Miranda is the beautiful daughter of the old Duke Prospero.Cast away with her father since she was three years old, she has lived an extremely sheltered existence....
speech in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:

"O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is!

O brave new world!

That has such people in't!"

Huxley's title also appears in Emile Zola's "Germinal" (1885):

"He laughed at his earlier idealism, his schoolboy vision of a brave new world in which justice would reign and men would be brothers."

(Translated from the French by Roger Pearson, p. 241)

However, a derivation not only more recent but more appropriate occurs in Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English author and poet. Born in Mumbai, British India , he is best known for his works of fiction The Jungle Book , Kim , many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King ; and his poems, including Mandalay , Gunga Din , and If? ....
's 1919 poem The Gods of the Copybook Headings:

"And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

"When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins ..."-Rudyard Kipling

Translations of the novel into other languages often allude to similar expressions used in domestic works of literature in an attempt to capture the same irony: the French edition of the work is entitled Le Meilleur des Mondes (The Best of All Worlds), an allusion to an expression used by the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a Germany polymath who wrote primarily in Latin and French language.He occupies an equally grand place in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics....
.

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931 while he was living in France

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
and England

England

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
writer, he moved to California

California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
in 1937). By this time, Huxley had already established himself as a writer and social satirist. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)

Vanity Fair is an American magazine of culture, fashion, and politics published by Cond? Nast Publications....
and Vogue
Vogue (magazine)

Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine published in eighteen countries by Cond? Nast Publications. Each month, Vogue publishes a magazine addressing topics of fashion, life and design....
magazines, had published a collection of his poetry (The Burning Wheel, 1916) and four successful satirical novels: Crome Yellow
Crome Yellow

Crome Yellow is the first novel by British author Aldous Huxley. It was published in 1921. In the book, Huxley satirises the fads and fashions of the time....
in 1921, Antic Hay
Antic Hay

Antic Hay is a comic novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1923. The story takes place in London, and depicts the aimless or self-absorbed cultural elite in the sad and turbulent times following the end of World War I....
in 1923, Those Barren Leaves
Those Barren Leaves

Those Barren Leaves is a satire by Aldous Huxley, published in 1925. The title is derived from the poem The Tables Turned by William Wordsworth which ends with the words:...
in 1925 and Point Counter Point
Point Counter Point

Point Counter Point, published in 1928, was Aldous Huxley's fourth novel. It is highly regarded: the Modern Library lists it in the top 100 novels of the 20th century....
in 1928. Brave New World was Huxley's fifth novel and first attempt at a dystopian work.

Brave New World was inspired by the H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells , known by his pen name H. G. Wells, was an England author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction"....
' utopian novel Men Like Gods
Men Like Gods

Men Like Gods is a novel written in 1923 by H. G. Wells. It features a Utopia Parallel universe ....
. Wells' optimistic vision of the future gave Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the novel, which became Brave New World. Contrary to the most popular optimist utopian novels of the time, Huxley sought to provide a frightening vision of the future. Huxley referred to Brave New World as a "negative utopia" (see dystopia

Dystopia

A dystopia is the vision of a society that is the opposite of utopia. A dystopian society is one in which the conditions of life are suffering, characterized by human misery, poverty, oppression, violence, disease, and/or pollution....
), somewhat influenced by Wells' own The Sleeper Awakes
The Sleeper Awakes

The Sleeper Awakes is a dystopian novel by H. G. Wells about a man who sleeps for two hundred and three years, waking up in a completely transformed London, where, because of compound interest on his deposit account, he has become the richest man in the world....
and the works of D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an England author, poet, playwright, essayist and literary criticism. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization....
. Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin was a Russian author, most famous for his 1921 in literature novel We , a story of dystopian future which influenced George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Ayn Rand's Anthem , Ursula Le Guin?s The Dispossessed and, indirectly, Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano ....
's novel We
We (novel)

We is a dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin completed in 1921 in literature.It was written in response to the author's personal experiences with the Russian revolutions of Russian revolution of 1905 and Russian Revolution of 1917, his life in the Newcastle upon Tyne suburb of Jesmond and work in the River Tyne, England shipyards at nea...
, completed ten years before in 1921, has been suggested as an influence, but Huxley stated that he had not known of the book at the time.

Huxley visited the newly-opened and technologically-advanced Brunner and Mond plant, part of Imperial Chemical Industries

Imperial Chemical Industries

Imperial Chemical Industries is a United Kingdom Chemistry subsidiary of a Netherlands Conglomerate and one of the largest chemical producers in the world....
, or ICI, Billingham

Billingham

Billingham is a civil parish and town in the Stockton-on-Tees in North East England with a population of 35,765 . It was founded circa 650 by a group of Saxons known as Billa's people, which is where the name Billingham is thought to have originated....
and gives a fine and detailed account of the processes he saw. The introduction to the most recent print of Brave New World states that Huxley was inspired to write the classic novel by this Billingham visit.

Although the novel is set in the future, it contains contemporary issues of the early 20th century. The Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomics and cultural conditions in United Kingdom....
was bringing about massive changes to the world. Mass production

Mass production

Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines. The concepts of mass production are applied to various kinds of products, from fluids and particulates handled in bulk to discrete solid parts to assemblies of such parts ....
had made cars, telephones and radios relatively cheap and widely available throughout the developed world. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the First World War

World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
(1914–1918) were resonating throughout the world. Many characters in the story are named after influential people of the time, for example, Benito Hoover and Bernard Marx.

Huxley was able to use the setting and characters from his science fiction novel to express widely held opinions, particularly the fear of losing individual identity in the fast-paced world of the future. An early trip to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
gave Brave New World much of its character. Not only was Huxley outraged by the culture of youth, commercial cheeriness, sexual promiscuity, and inward-looking nature of many Americans, he also found a book by Henry Ford

Henry Ford

Henry Ford was the United States founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T History of the automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry....
on the boat to America. There was a fear of Americanization

Americanization

Americanization is the term used for the influence the United States has on the culture of other countries, resulting in such phenomena as the substitution of a given culture with Culture of the United States....
in Europe, so to see America firsthand, as well as read the ideas and plans of one of its foremost citizens, spurred Huxley to write Brave New World with America in mind. The "feelies" are his response to the "talkie" motion pictures, and the sex-hormone chewing gum is parody of the ubiquitous chewing gum

Chewing gum

Chewing gum is a type of confection traditionally made of chicle, a natural latex product, or synthetic rubber. For reasons of economy and quality, many modern chewing gums use rubber instead of chicle....
, which was something of a symbol of America at that time. In an article in the 4 May 1935 issue of Illustrated London News, G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was one of the most influential English writers of the 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy and detective fiction....
explained that Huxley was revolting against the "Age of Utopias"—a time, mostly before World War I, inspired by what H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw, was an Irish people playwright.Although Shaw's first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, his talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays....
were writing about socialism and a World State.

For Brave New World, Huxley received nearly universal criticism from contemporary critics, although his work was later embraced. Even the few sympathetics tended to temper their praises with disparaging remarks.

Synopsis

The Introduction (Chapters 1-6)

The novel opens in London

London

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was first proposed by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius, and decreed by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom it was named, on 24 February 1582 by the papal bull Inter gravissimas....
). In this world, the vast majority of the population is unified under The World State

The World State

The World State is the primary setting of Aldous Huxley's 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World. In the novel, The World State is a World government which administers the entire planet, with a few isolated exceptions....
, an eternally peaceful, stable global society, in which goods are plentiful and everyone is happy. In this society, natural reproduction has been done away with and children are decanted and raised in Hatcheries and Conditioning Centres. Society is divided into five caste

Caste

Castes are hereditary systems of wikt:occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, and political power, the assignment of individuals to places in the social hierarchy is determined by social group and culture....
s, created in these centres. The highest caste is allowed to develop naturally while it matures in its "decanting bottle". The lower castes are treated to chemical interference to arrest intelligence or physical growth. The castes are Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, with each caste further split into Plus and Minus members. Each Alpha or Beta is the product of one fertilized egg developing into one fetus. Members of other castes are not unique but are instead created using the Bokanovsky process which enables a single egg to spawn (at the point of the story being told) up to 96 children and one ovary to produce hundreds, if not thousands of children.

All members of society are conditioned in childhood to hold the values that the World State idealizes. Constant consumption is the bedrock of stability for the World State. Everyone is encouraged to consume the ubiquitous drug, soma
Soma

Soma , or Haoma , from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sauma-, was a ritual drink of importance among the early Indo-Iranians, and the later Vedic civilization and Greater Iran cultures....
, which is probably a historical allusion to a mythical drink of the ancient Aryans. Soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free "vacations".

Recreational heterosexual sex is an integral part of society. In The World State, sex is a social activity rather than a means of reproduction and is encouraged from early childhood; the few women who can reproduce are conditioned to take birth control. The maxim "everyone belongs to everyone else" is repeated often, and the idea of a "family" is repellent. As a result, sexual competition and emotional, romantic relationships are obsolete. Marriage, natural birth, the notion of being a parent, and pregnancy are considered too obscene to be mentioned in casual conversation.

Spending time alone is considered an outrageous waste of time. Admitting to wanting to be an individual in the social group is shocking, horrifying, and embarrassing. Conditioning trains people to consume and never to enjoy being alone, so by spending an afternoon not playing "Obstacle Golf", or not in bed with a friend, one is forfeiting acceptance.

In The World State, people typically die at age 60 having maintained good health and youthfulness their whole life. Death isn't feared; anyone reflecting upon it is reassured by the knowledge that everyone is happy, and that society goes on. Since no one has family, they have no ties to mourn.

The conditioning system eliminates the need for professional competitiveness; people are literally bred to do their jobs and cannot desire another. There is no competition within castes; each caste member receives the same food, housing, and soma rationing as every other member of that caste. There is no desire to change one's caste.

To grow closer with members of the same class, citizens participate in mock religious services called Solidarity Services. Twelve people consume large quantities of soma and sing hymns. The ritual progresses through group hypnosis and climaxes in an orgy.

In geographic areas non-conducive to easy living and consumption, The World State allows well controlled, securely contained groups of "savages" to live.

In its first chapters, the novel describes life in the World State and introduces Lenina and Bernard. Lenina, a beta plus, is a socially accepted woman, normal for her society, while Bernard, a psychologist, is an outcast. Although an Alpha Plus, Bernard is shorter in stature than the average of his caste—a quality shared by the lower castes, which gives him an inferiority complex. He defies social norms and despises his equals. His work with sleep-teaching has led him to realize that what others believe to be their own deeply held beliefs are merely phrases repeated to children while they sleep. Courting disaster, he is vocal about being different, once stating he dislikes soma because he'd "rather be himself, sad, than another person, happy". Bernard's differences fuel rumours that he was accidentally administered alcohol while incubated, a method used to keep Epsilons short.

Bernard is obsessed with Lenina, attributing noble qualities and poetic potentials to her which she does not have. A woman who seldom questions her own motivations, Lenina is reprimanded by her friends because she is not promiscuous enough. Both fascinated and disturbed by Bernard, she responds to Bernard's advances to dispel her reputation for being too selective and monogamous.

Bernard's only friend is Helmholtz Watson, an Alpha-Plus lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering (Department of Writing). Helmholtz is also an outcast, but unlike Bernard, it is because he is too gifted, too handsome. Helmholtz, successful, charming, attractive, is drawn to Bernard as a confidant: he can talk to Bernard about his desire to write poetry. Bernard likes Helmholtz because, unlike anyone else, Helmholtz likes Bernard. He is also, Bernard realizes, everything Bernard will never be.

The reservation and the Savage (chapters 7-9)

Bernard, desperately wanting Lenina's attentions, tries to impress her by taking her on holiday to a Savage Reservation. The reservation, located in New Mexico, consists of a community named Malpais

Malpais

Malpais may refer to:* 6370 Malpais, a main-belt asteroid* Malpais, Costa RicaSee also* Malpa?s...
(which in Spanish means "bad country", one of many Spanish puns throughout the novel). From afar, Lenina thinks it will be exciting. In person, she finds the aged, toothless natives who mend their clothes rather than throw them away repugnant, and the situation is made worse when she discovers that she has left her soma tablets at the resort hotel. Bernard is fascinated, although he realizes his seduction plans have failed.

In typical tourist fashion, Bernard and Lenina watch what at first appears to be a quaint native ceremony. The village folk, whose culture resembles that of the Pueblo

Pueblo

Pueblos are traditional communities of Native Americans in the United States in the southwestern United States of America. The communities are recognized worldwide for their adobe buildings, which are sometimes called "pueblos"....
peoples such as the Hopi

Hopi

The Hopi are American Indians in the United States people who primarily live on the 12,635 km? Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi Reservation is entirely surrounded by the much larger Navajo Reservation....
and Zuni

Zuni

The Zuni or A:shiwi are a Native Americans in the United States tribe, one of the Pueblo peoples, most of whom live in the Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico on the Zuni River, a tributary of the Little Colorado River, in western New Mexico, United States....
, begin by singing, but the ritual quickly becomes a passion play where a village boy is whipped to unconsciousness.

Soon after, the couple encounters Linda, a woman formerly of The World State who has been living in Malpais since she came on a trip and became separated from her group and her date, whom she refers to as "Tomakin" but who is revealed to be Bernard's boss, Thomas. She became pregnant because she mistimed her "Malthusian Drill" and there were no facilities for an abortion. Linda gave birth to a son, John (later referred to as John the Savage) who is now eighteen.

Through conversations with Linda and John, we learn that their life has been hard. For eighteen years, they have been treated as outsiders; the natives hate Linda for sleeping with all the men of the village, as she was conditioned to do and John was mistreated and excluded for his mother's actions, not to mention the role of racism. John's one joy was that his mother had taught him to read although he only had two books: a scientific manual from his mother's job and a collection of the works of Shakespeare (a work banned in The World State). John has been denied the religious rituals of the village, although he has watched them and even has had some of his own religious experiences in the desert.

Old, weathered and tired, Linda wants to return to her familiar world in London; she is tired of a life without soma. John wants to see the "brave new world" his mother has told him so much about. Bernard wants to take them back as revenge against Thomas, who threatened to reassign Bernard to Iceland as punishment for Bernard's antisocial beliefs. Bernard arranges permission for Linda and John to leave the reservation.

The Savage visits the World State (chapters 10-18)

Upon his return to London, Bernard is confronted by Thomas, the Director of the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre who, in front of an audience of higher-caste Centre workers, denounces Bernard for his antisocial behavior and again threatens to send him to Iceland. Bernard, thinking that for the first time in his life he has the upper hand, defends himself by presenting the Director with his lost lover and unknown son, Linda and John. The humiliated Director resigns in shame.

Bernard's new pet savage makes him the toast of London. Pursued by the highest members of society, able to bed any woman he fancies, Bernard revels in attention he once scorned. Everyone who is anyone will endure Bernard to dine with the interesting, different, beautiful John. Even Lenina grows fond of the savage, while the savage falls in love with her. Bernard, intoxicated with attention, falls in love with himself.

The victory, however, is short lived. Linda, decrepit, toothless, friendless, goes on a permanent soma holiday while John, appalled by what he perceives to be an empty society, refuses to attend Bernard's parties. Society drops Bernard as swiftly as it had taken him. Bernard turns to the person he'd believed to be his one true friend, only to see Helmholtz fall into a quick, easy camaraderie with John. Bernard is left an outcast yet again as he watches the only two men he ever connected with find more of interest in each other than they ever did in him.

John and Helmholtz's island of peace is brief. John grows frustrated by a society he finds wicked and debased. He is moved by Lenina, but also loathes her sexual advances, which revolt and shame him. He is heartbroken when his mother succumbs to soma and dies in a hospital. John's grief bewilders and revolts the hospital workers, and their lack of reaction to Linda's death prompts John to try to force humanity from the workers by throwing their soma rations out a window. The ensuing riot brings the police who soma-gas the crowd. Bernard and Helmholtz arrive to help John, but only Helmholtz helps him, while Bernard stands to the side, torn between risking involvement by helping or escaping the scene.

When they wake, Bernard, Helmholtz and John are brought before Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller for Western Europe. Bernard and Helmholtz are told they will be sent to Iceland

Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
and the Falkland Islands

Falkland Islands

The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located from the coast of Argentina, west of the Shag Rocks , and north of the British Antarctic Territory ....
, two of several island colonies

Colony

In politics and in history, a colony is a Territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies....
reserved for exiled citizens. Helmholtz looks forward to living on the remote Falkland Islands, where he can become a serious writer but Bernard is devastated, throws a fit and has to be dragged away. Mond explains that exile to the islands is not so much a threat to force freethinkers to reform and rejoin society but a place where they may act as they please, because they will not be an influence on the population. After Bernard and Helmholtz leave the room, a philosophical argument between Mustapha and John on morals behind the godless society, which leads to the decision that John will not be sent to an island. Mustapha says that he too once risked banishment to an island because of some experiments that were deemed controversial by the state, alluding to an understanding of Bernard's, Helmholtz' and John's position as outsiders and even ceding to John's perception of the flawed society.

In the final chapters, John isolates himself from society in a lighthouse outside London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
where he finds his hermit life interrupted from mourning his mother by the more bitter memories of civilization. To atone, John brutally whips himself in the open, a ritual the Indians in his own village had said he wasn't capable of. His self-flagellation, caught on film and shown publicly, destroys his hermit life from without as hundreds of gawking sightseers, intrigued by John's violent behavior, fly out to watch the savage in person. Even Lenina comes to watch, crying a tear John does not see. The sight of the woman whom he both adores and blames, is too much for him; John attacks and whips her. This sight of genuine, unbridled emotion drives the crowd wild with excitement, and—handling it as they are conditioned to—they turn on each other, in a frenzy of beating and chanting that devolves into a mass orgy

Group sex

Group sex is sexual behaviour involving more than two participants at the same time. The main focus of this page is group sex among humans; however, group sex also exists with other species in the animal kingdom - e.g., bighorn sheep and bonobos....
of soma and sex. In the morning, John, hopeless, alone and horrified by his drug use, debasement and attack on Lenina, makes one last attempt to escape civilization and atone. When thousands of gawking sightseers arrive that morning, frenzied at the prospect of seeing the savage perform again, they find John dead, hanging by the neck.

Characters

In order of appearance

Thomas "Tomakin", Alpha, Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning (D.H.C.) for London; later revealed to be the father of John the Savage.
Henry Foster, Alpha, Administrator at the Hatchery and Lenina's current partner.
Lenina Crowne, Beta- Plus, she wears green, however she also says she's glad she's above a Gamma; Vaccination-worker at the Hatchery; loved by John the Savage.
Mustapha Mond, Alpha-Double Plus, World Controller for Western Europe (9 other controllers exist, presumably for different sections of the world).
Assistant Director of Predestination.
Bernard Marx, Alpha-Plus, psychologist (specializing in hypnopædia).
Fanny Crowne, Beta, embryo worker; a friend of Lenina.
Benito Hoover, Alpha, friend of Lenina; disliked by Bernard.
Helmholtz Watson, Alpha-Plus, lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering (Department of Writing), friend and confidant of Bernard Marx and John the Savage.

At the Solidarity Service

Morgana Rothschild, Herbert Bakunin, Fifi Bradlaugh, Jim Bokanovsky, Clara Deterding, Joanna Diesel, Sarojini Engels, and "that great lout" Tom Kawaguchi.

Miss Keate, headmistress of the high-tech glass and concrete Eton College
Eton College

Eton College, also known as Eton, is a world-famous British independent school for boys, founded in 1440 by Henry VI of England. It was founded as the King's College of Our Lady of Eton beside Windsor....
.
Arch-Community Songster, a quasi-religious figure based in Canterbury
Canterbury

Canterbury lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a local government district of Kent, in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
.
Primo Mellon, a reporter for the upper-caste news-sheet Hourly Radio, who attempts to interview John the Savage and gets assaulted for his troubles.
Darwin Bonaparte, a paparazzo
Paparazzi

File:Paparazzi by David Shankbone.jpgPaparazzi is a plural term for photographers who take unstaged and/or candid photographys of celebrities caught unaware....
who brings worldwide attention to John's hermitage.

Of Malpais

John the Savage ('Mr. Savage'), son of Linda and Thomas (Tomakin/The Director), an outcast in both primitive and modern society.
Linda, a Beta-Minus. John the Savage's mother, and Thomas's (Tomakin/The Director) long lost lover. She is from England and was pregnant with John when she got lost from Thomas in a trip to New Mexico. She is disliked both by savage people because of her "civilized" behavior, and by civilized people because she is fat and looks old.
Popé, a native of Malpais. Although he reinforces the behavior that causes hatred for Linda in Malpais by sleeping with her and bringing her Mezcal
Mezcal

Mezcal, or mescal, is a Mexican distilled spirit protected by International Denomination of Origin made from agave plants. Its production and consumption is popularly associated with the Mexican state of Oaxaca....
, he still holds the traditional beliefs of his tribe. John also attempts to kill him, in his early years.

Background figures

These are fictional and factual characters who died before the events in this book, but are of note in the novel:

Henry Ford
Henry Ford

Henry Ford was the United States founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T History of the automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry....
, who has become a messianic figure to The World State
The World State

The World State is the primary setting of Aldous Huxley's 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World. In the novel, The World State is a World government which administers the entire planet, with a few isolated exceptions....
. "Our Ford" is used in place of "Our Lord", as a credit to his invention of the assembly line
Assembly line

An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods....
.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalysis of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of Psychological repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for curing psychopathology through dialogue...
, "Our Freud" is sometimes said in place of "Our Ford" due to the link between Freud's psychoanalysis and the conditioning of humans, and Freud's popularization of the idea that sexual activity is essential to human happiness and need not be open to procreation. It is also strongly implied that citizens of the World State believe Freud and Ford to be the same person.
H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells , known by his pen name H. G. Wells, was an England author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction"....
, "Dr. Wells", British writer and utopian socialist
Utopian socialism

Utopian socialism is a term used to define the first currents of modern Socialism thought. Although it is technically possible for any person living at any time in history to be a utopian socialist, the term is most often applied to those utopian socialists who lived in the first quarter of the 19th century....
, whose book Men Like Gods
Men Like Gods

Men Like Gods is a novel written in 1923 by H. G. Wells. It features a Utopia Parallel universe ....
was an incentive for Brave New World. "All's well that ends Wells" - wrote Huxley in his letters, criticizing Wells for anthropological assumptions Huxley found unrealistic.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov

For other uses, see Pavlov.Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a Russian Empire, and later Soviet, physiologist, psychologist, and physician. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904 for research pertaining to the digestive system....
, whose conditioning techniques are used to train infants.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
, whose banned works are quoted throughout the novel by John, "the Savage". The plays quoted include Macbeth
Macbeth

Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest Shakespearean tragedy and is believed to have been written some time between 1603 and 1606, with 1607 being the very latest possible date....
, The Tempest
The Tempest

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610?11, although some researchers have argued for an earlier dating. Its protagonist is the banished sorcerer Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, who uses his magical powers to punish and forgive his enemies when he raises a tempest that drives them ashore....
, Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a Shakespearean tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young "Star-crossed" whose untimely deaths ultimately unite their feuding families....
, Hamlet
Hamlet

Hamlet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle King Claudius, who has murdered King Hamlet, the King, and then taken the throne and married Gertrude ....
, King Lear
King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered one of his greatest works....
, Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure is a Play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was originally classified as a comedy, but is now also classified as one of Shakespeare's Problem plays s....
and Othello
Othello

Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian language short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio first published in 1565....
. (See List of quotes from Shakespeare in Brave New World
List of quotes from Shakespeare in Brave New World

The list of quotes from Shakespeare in Brave New World refers to the large number of quotations in the 1932 Utopian and dystopian fiction by Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, which are derived from the Play and other works of William Shakespeare....
.) Mustapha Mond also knows them because he, as a World Controller, has access to a selection of books from throughout history, such as a Bible.
Thomas Malthus
Thomas Malthus

The The Reverend. Thomas Robert Malthus Royal Society was an England political economy and demography.His main contribution was to draw attention to the potential dangers of population growth:...
, whose name is used to describe the contraceptive techniques (Malthusian belt) practiced by women of the World State.
Reuben Rabinovitch, the character in whom the effects of sleep-learning, hypnopædia
Sleep-learning

Sleep-learning attempts to convey information to a sleeping person, typically by playing a sound recording to them while they sleep.This now-discredited technique was supposed to be moderately effective at making people remember direct passages or facts, word for word....
, are first noted.

Sources of names and references

The limited number of names that the World State assigned to its bottle-grown citizens can be traced to political and cultural figures who contributed to the bureaucratic, economic and technological systems of Huxley's age, and presumably those systems in Brave New World:

Bernard Marx, from Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard

Claude Bernard was a France physiologist. Historian of science I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science"....
(or possibly Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercians was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian monastic order. After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order....
) and Karl Marx
Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosophy, political economy, historian, sociologist, humanism, political theorist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism....
.
Lenina Crowne, from Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin , born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and also known by the pseudonyms V.I. Lenin and N. Lenin, was a Russians revolutionary, a Bolshevik Communism politician, the principal leader of the October Revolution and the first head of the USSR....
, the Bolshevik leader during the Russian Revolution.
Fanny Crowne, from Fanny Kaplan
Fanny Kaplan

Fanni Yefimovna Kaplan , also known as Fanny Kaplan and as Dora Kaplan), was a Russian political revolutionary and an attempted assassin of Vladimir Lenin....
, famous for an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Lenin. Ironically, in the novel, Lenina and Fanny are friends.
Polly Trotsky, a minor character. From Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronstein , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxism theorist. He was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Lenin....
, the Russian revolutionary leader.
Benito Hoover, from Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, Order of the Bath Sovereign Military Order of Malta Order of the Tower and Sword was an Italy politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
, dictator of Italy; and Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States . Besides his political career, Hoover was a professional mining engineer and author....
, then President of the United States
President of the United States

The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition....
.
Helmholtz Watson, from the German physician and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann von Helmholtz

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz was a Germany physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science....
and the American behaviorist John B. Watson
John B. Watson

John Broadus Watson was an United States psychology who established the List of psychological schools of behaviorism, after doing research on animal behavior....
.
Darwin Bonaparte, from Napoleon Bonaparte, the leader of the First French Empire
First French Empire

The Empire of the French , also known as the Greater French Empire or First French Empire, but more commonly known as the Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France in France....
, and Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin Royal Society was an English people natural history who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolution over time from common descent, through the process he called natural selection....
, author of The Origin of Species
The Origin of Species

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is a seminal work in scientific literature and a landmark work in evolutionary biology. The book's full title is On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life....
.
Herbert Bakunin, from Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was an England philosopher, prominent Classical liberalism political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era....
, the English philosopher and Social Darwinist
Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism refers to various ideologies based on a concept that competition among all individuals, groups, nations, or ideas drives social evolution in human societies....
, and Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism.Born in the Russian Empire to a family of Russian people nobles, Bakunin spent his youth as a junior officer in the Russian army but resigned his commission in 1835....
, a Russian philosopher and anarchist.
Mustapha Mond, from Mustapha Kemal Atatürk, founder of Turkey
Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
after World War I
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
, who pulled his country into modernisation and official secularism
Secularism

Secularism is the assertion that governmental practices or institutions should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs.In one sense, secularism may assert the right to be free from religious rule and teachings, and freedom from the government imposition of religion upon the people, within a state that is neutral on matters...
; and Mond, an apparent reference to Brunner Mond, a division of Imperial Chemical Industries.
Primo Mellon, from Miguel Primo de Rivera
Miguel Primo de Rivera

Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2. Marqu?s de Estella was a Spanish dictator, aristocrat, and a military official who was appointed Prime Minister by the King and who for seven years was a dictator, ending the turno system of alternating parties....
, prime minister and dictator of Spain (1923–1930), and Thomas Mellon
Thomas Mellon

Thomas Alexander Mellon was an Scotch-Irish American-American entrepreneur, lawyer, and judge, best known as the founder of Mellon Financial Corporation and patriarch of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....
, banker.
Sarojini Engels, from Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels was a German Social science and Philosophy, who developed Communism alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto ....
, co-author of The Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto

Manifesto of the Communist Party , often referred to as The Communist Manifesto, was first published on February 21, 1848, and is one of the world's most influential Politics manuscripts....
along with Karl Marx
Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosophy, political economy, historian, sociologist, humanism, political theorist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism....
: and Sarojini Naidu
Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu or Sarojini Chattopadhyaya , also known by the sobriquet Bharatiya Kokila , was a child prodigy, freedom fighter, and poet....
, an Indian politician.
Morgana Rothschild, from the Rothschild family
Rothschild family

The Rothschild family , is an international banking and finance dynasty of Germany Jewish origin that established operations across Europe, and was ennobled by the Austrian and British governments....
, famous for its European banking operations.
Fifi Bradlaugh, from the British political activist and atheist Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh

Charles Bradlaugh was a political activist and one of the most famous England atheism of the 19th century. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866....
.
Joanna Diesel, from Rudolf Diesel
Rudolf Diesel

Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel was a French_People/German_people inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the diesel engine....
, the German engineer who invented the diesel engine.
Clara Deterding, from Henri Deterding
Henri Deterding

Henri Wilhelm August Deterding order of British Empire, was one of the founders of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and for 36 years its chairman and the chairman of the combined Royal Dutch Shell oil company....
, one of the founders of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company.
Tom Kawaguchi, from the Japanese Buddhist monk Ekai Kawaguchi
Ekai Kawaguchi

File:Kawaguchi in Nepal.jpg was a Japanese people Buddhist monk, famed for his four journeys to Nepal , and two to Tibet , being the first recorded Japanese citizen to travel in either country....
, the first recorded Japanese traveler to Tibet and Nepal.
Jean-Jacques Habibullah, from the French political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean Jacques Rousseau was a major philosopher, writer, and composer of the eighteenth century The Age of Enlightenment, whose political philosophy influenced the French Revolution and the development of modern political and educational thought....
and Habibullah Khan, who served as Emir of Afghanistan in the early 20th century.
Miss Keate, the Eton headmistress, from nineteenth-century headmaster John Keate
John Keate

John Keate was an England schoolmaster, one of the most famous headmasters in Eton's history.He was born at Wells, Somerset, the son of Prebendary William Keate, D.D., rector of Laverton, Somerset, and brother of Robert Keate FRCS , Serjeant-Surgeon to King William IV and Queen Victoria....
.
Arch-Community Songster, a parody of the Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the chief bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the Diocesan Bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury, the Episcopal see that churches must be in communion with in order to be a part of the Anglican Communion....
and the Anglican Church's decision in August 1930 to approve limited use of contraception.
Popé, from Popé
Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and head of state of Vatican City. The current pope is Pope Benedict XVI, who was elected April 19, 2005 in Papal conclave, 2005....
, the Native American rebel who was blamed for the conflict now known as the Pueblo Revolt
Pueblo Revolt

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 or Pop?'s Rebellion was an uprising of many pueblos of the Pueblo people against Spanish colonization of the Americas in the New Spain province of New Mexico....
.

Fordism and society

The World State is built upon the principles of Henry Ford's assembly line

Assembly line

An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods....
—mass production, homogeneity, predictability, and consumption of disposable consumer goods. At the same time as the World State lacks any supernatural-based religions, Ford himself is revered as a deity, and characters celebrate Ford Day and swear oaths by his name (e.g., "By Ford!"). In this sense, some fragments of traditional religion are present, such as Christian crosses, which had their tops cut off in order to be changed to a "T." The World State calendar numbers years in the "AF" era—"After Ford"—with year 1 AF being equivalent to 1908 AD, the year in which Ford's first Model T

Ford Model T

The Ford Model T was an automobile produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from 1908 through 1927. The Model T set 1908 as the historic year that the automobile came into popular usage....
rolled off of his assembly line. The novel's actual year is AD 2540, but it is referred to in the book as AF 632.

From birth, members of every class are indoctrinated

Indoctrination

Indoctrination is the process of wikt:inculcate ideas, attitude , cognition or a professional methodology. It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critical thinking the doctrine they have learned....
by recorded voices repeating slogans while they sleep (called "hypnopædia" in the book) to believe that their own class is best for them. Any residual unhappiness is resolved by an antidepressant

Antidepressant

An antidepressant is a psychiatric medication used for alleviating major depressive disorder or dysthymia. Drug groups known as MAOIs, tricyclics, and second-generation antidepressants such as SSRIs, and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors are particularly associated with the term....
and a hallucinogenic drug called soma (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
for "body"), distributed by the Arch-Community Songster of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the chief bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the Diocesan Bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury, the Episcopal see that churches must be in communion with in order to be a part of the Anglican Communion....
, a secularised version of the Sacrament

Sacrament

A sacrament, as defined in Hexam's Concise Dictionary of Religion is "a rite in which God is uniquely active." Augustine of Hippo defined a Christian sacrament as "a visible sign of an invisible reality." The Anglican Book of Common Prayer speaks of them as "an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible Grace." Examples of sacram...
of Communion

Communion

Communion is a polyvalent term. Though not Christian-specific, the term "communion" has several denotations within the Christian traditions. It may refer to:...
("The Body of Christ").

Contrary to what modern readers would expect, the biological techniques used to control the populace in Brave New World do not include genetic engineering

Genetic engineering

Engineering There are a number of ways through which genetic engineering is accomplished. Essentially, the process has five main steps# Isolation of the genes of interest...
. Huxley wrote the book in the 1920s, thirty years before Watson

James D. Watson

James Dewey Watson is an American molecular biology, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA. Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer...
and Crick

Francis Crick

Francis Harry Compton Crick Order of Merit Royal Society , Ph.D., was a British molecular biology, physics, and neuroscience, and most noted for being one of the co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953....
discovered the structure of DNA

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetics instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses....
. However, Mendel's work with inheritance patterns in peas had been re-discovered in 1900 and the eugenics

Eugenics

Eugenics is a scientific field involving the controlled breeding of humans in order to achieve desirable traits in future generations. Eugenics was at its height in first half of the 20th century and was largely abandoned with the end of World War II....
movement, based on Artificial selection

Artificial selection

Artificial selection describes intentional breeding for certain traits, or combination of traits. It was defined by Charles Darwin in contrast to natural selection, in which the differential reproduction of organisms with certain traits is attributed to improved survival or reproductive ability ....
, was well established. Huxley's family

Huxley family

The Huxley family is a British family, with outstanding scientific, medical, artistic, and literary talent. The patriarch was the zoologist and comparative anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley ....
included a number of prominent biologists including Thomas Huxley

Thomas Huxley

Thomas Henry Huxley Privy Councillor Royal Society was an English people biologist, known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution....
, half-brother and Nobel Laureate Andrew Huxley

Andrew Huxley

Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley, Order of Merit , Royal Society is an England physiology and biophysics, who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work with Alan Lloyd Hodgkin on the basis of nerve action potentials, the electrical impulses that enable the activity of an organism to be coordinated by a central nervous system....
, and brother Julian Huxley

Julian Huxley

Sir Julian Sorell Huxley Fellow of the Royal Society was an English evolutionary biologist, Humanist and Internationalism . He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis....
who was a biologist and involved in the eugenics movement. In light of this, the fact that Huxley emphasizes conditioning over breeding is notable (see nature versus nurture

Nature versus nurture

The nature versus nurture debates concern the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities versus personal experiences in Determinism or causality individual differences in physiology and behaviour traits....
). As the science writer Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley

Matthew White Ridley is an English journalist, science writer, businessman and aristocrat. Ridley was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford where he received a doctorate in zoology before commencing a career in journalism....
put it, Brave New World describes an "environmental not a genetic hell." Human embryos and fetuses are conditioned via a carefully designed regimen of chemical (such as exposure to hormones and toxins), thermal (exposure to intense heat or cold, as one's future career would dictate) and other environmental stimuli, although there is an element of selective breeding

Selective breeding

Selective breeding in domesticated animals is the process of a Breeder developing a cultivated breed over time, and selecting qualities within individuals of the breed that will be best to pass on to the next generation....
as well.

Comparisons with George Orwell's 1984

Social critic Neil Postman

Neil Postman

Neil Postman was an United States author, media theory and cultural critic, who is best known by the general public for his 1985 book about television, Amusing Ourselves to Death....
contrasts the worlds of 1984
Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic utopian and dystopian fiction by English author George Orwell. Published in 1949 in literature, it is set in the eponymous year and focuses on a repressive, totalitarian regime....
and Brave New World in the foreword of his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death
Amusing Ourselves to Death

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business , is a book by Neil Postman in which he argues that media of communication inherently influence the conversations carried out over them....
. He writes:

Journalist Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Eric Hitchens is a United Kingdom-born, United Kingdom and United States author, journalist and literary critic. Currently living in Washington, D.C., he has been a columnist at Vanity Fair magazine, The Atlantic, World Affairs , The Nation , Slate , Free Inquiry, and a variety of other media outlets....
, who has himself published several articles on Huxley and a book on Orwell, notes the difference between the two texts in the introduction to his 1999 article "Why Americans Are Not Taught History":

Brave New World Revisited

Brave New World Revisited (Harper & Row

Harper & Row

Harper & Row was a publishing company based in New York City. It was formed through the 1962 merger of Harper & Brothers with Row, Peterson & Company....
(US) 1958, Chatto & Windus (UK) 1959), written by Huxley almost thirty years after Brave New World, was a non-fiction work in which Huxley considered whether the world had moved toward or away from his vision of the future from the 1930s. He believed when he wrote the original novel that it was a reasonable guess as to where the world might go in the future. In Brave New World Revisited, he concluded that the world was becoming like Brave New World much faster than he originally thought.

Huxley analyzed the causes of this, such as overpopulation

Overpopulation

Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. In common parlance, the term usually refers to the relationship between the world population and its environment , the Earth....
as well as all the means by which populations can be controlled. He was particularly interested in the effects of drugs

Recreational drug use

Recreational drug use is the use of psychoactive drugs for recreational purposes rather than for employment, Medicine or Spirituality purposes, although the distinction is not always clear ....
and subliminal suggestion

Subliminal message

A subliminal message is a signal or message embedded in another medium, designed to pass below the normal limits of the human mind's perception....
. Brave New World Revisited is different in tone due to Huxley's evolving thought, as well as his conversion to Vedanta

Vedanta

Vedanta is a spiritual tradition explained in the Upanishads that is concerned with the self-realisation by which one understands the ultimate nature of reality and teaches the believer's goal is to transcend the limitations of self-identity and realize one's unity with Brahman....
in the interim between the two books.

Huxley's Island

Huxley's final work, Island
Island (novel)

Island is the final book by English literature Aldous Huxley, 1962 in literature. It is the account of Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist who is shipwrecked on the fictional island of Pala....
, written in 1962 after Huxley had experienced the psychedelic

Psychedelic

The word 'psychedelic' is an English term coined from the Greek language words for "soul," ???? , and "manifest," d???? . A psychedelic experience is characterized by the perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly ordinary fetters....
drugs mescaline

Mescaline

Mescaline or 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine is a naturally-occurring psychedelic alkaloid of the phenethylamine class. It is mainly used as a recreational drug, an entheogen, and a tool to supplement various practices for transcendence , including in meditation, psychonautics, art projects, and psychedelic psychotherapy....
and LSD

LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, LSD-25, or acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family. Its unusual psychological effects, which include visuals of colored patterns behind the eyes in the mind, a sense of time distorting, and crawling geometric patterns, have made it one of the most widely known psyched...
, includes background elements in common with Brave New World, used for good in the former and for ill in the latter. Such elements include:

Theme comparison
Island	Brave New World
Drug use for enlightenment, and self-knowledge	Drug use for pacification
Group living (in the form of Mutual Adoption Clubs) so that children would not have unalloyed exposure to their parents' neuroses	Group living for the elimination of individuality.
Trance states for super learning	Trance states for indoctrination
Assisted reproduction Reproductive technology Reproductive technology encompasses all current and anticipated uses of technology in human and animal reproduction, including assisted reproductive technology, contraception and others.... (low-tech artificial insemination Artificial insemination Artificial insemination is the process by which spermatozoon is placed into the reproductive tract of a female for the purpose of impregnating the female by using means other than sexual intercourse.... )	Assisted reproduction (high-tech artificial womb)
Natural methods of contraception, expressive sex	Universal forced sterilization, meaningless sex
Dangerous climb to a temple as spiritual preparation	Violent Passion Surrogate
Parrots trained to utter uplifting slogans	Ubiquitous loud speakers

The culture of the fictional Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia....
n island, Pala, is the offspring of Scottish Secular Humanism

Secular humanism

Secular humanism is a Humanism philosophy that upholds reason, ethics, and justice, and specifically rejects the supernatural and the Spirituality as the basis of moral reflection and decision-making....
and Mahayana

Mahayana

Mahayana is one of the two main existing schools of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophy and practice. It was History of Buddhism in India....
Buddhism, making Huxley's ideal fusion of East and West. A central element of Palanese society is restrained industrialization, undertaken with the goal of providing fulfilling work and time for leisure and contemplation. For the Palanese, progress means a selective attitude toward technology. The Palanese also circumspectly incorporated the use of "moksha

Moksha

In Indian religions, Moksha or Mukti , literally "release" , is the liberation from samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth or reincarnation and all of the suffering and limitation of worldly existence....
medicine", a fictional entheogen

Entheogen

An entheogen , in the strictest sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religion or shamanism context. Historically, entheogens are derived primarily from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts....
taken ceremonially in rites of passage for mystical and cosmological insight.

Related works

The Scientific Outlook by philosopher Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, Order of Merit , Fellow of the Royal Society , was a British people philosopher, mathematical logic, mathematician, historian, advocate for social reform, and pacifism....
. When Brave New World was released, Russell thought that Huxley's book was based on his book The Scientific Outlook that had been released the previous year. Russell contacted his own publisher and asked whether or not he should do something about this apparent plagiarism. His publisher advised him not to, and Russell followed this advice.
The 1921 novel Men Like Gods
Men Like Gods

Men Like Gods is a novel written in 1923 by H. G. Wells. It features a Utopia Parallel universe ....
by H.G. Wells. A utopian novel that was a source of inspiration for Brave New World.
The 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Amusing Ourselves to Death

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business , is a book by Neil Postman in which he argues that media of communication inherently influence the conversations carried out over them....
by Neil Postman
Neil Postman

Neil Postman was an United States author, media theory and cultural critic, who is best known by the general public for his 1985 book about television, Amusing Ourselves to Death....
alludes to how television is goading modern Western culture to be like what we see in Brave New World, where people are not so much denied human rights like free speech, but are rather conditioned not to care.
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a prolific and genre-bending American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five , Cat's Cradle , and Breakfast of Champions .He was also known for his Humanism beliefs and being honorary president of the American Humanist Association....
said that in writing Player Piano (1952) he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin
Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin was a Russian author, most famous for his 1921 in literature novel We , a story of dystopian future which influenced George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Ayn Rand's Anthem , Ursula Le Guin?s The Dispossessed and, indirectly, Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano ....
's We
We (novel)

We is a dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin completed in 1921 in literature.It was written in response to the author's personal experiences with the Russian revolutions of Russian revolution of 1905 and Russian Revolution of 1917, his life in the Newcastle upon Tyne suburb of Jesmond and work in the River Tyne, England shipyards at nea...
."
The Iron Maiden song by the same name on their album Brave New World
Brave New World

Brave New World is a novel by Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 in literature and published in 1932 in literature. Set in the London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society....
. (2000)
Brazilian rock singer Pitty
Pitty

Priscilla Novaes Leone , better known as Pitty, is a Brazilian hard rock singer....
's debut album, released in 2003, is called Admirável Chip Novo (Brave New Chip).

Adaptations

Brave New World (radio broadcast) CBS Radio
CBS Radio

CBS Radio Inc., formerly known as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, is one of the largest owners and operators of radio stations in the United States, fourth behind main rival Clear Channel Communications , Cumulus Media and Citadel Broadcasting....
Workshop (27 January and 3 February 1956)
Brave New World (TV) (1980)
Schöne Neue Welt (Rock Musical) Roland Meier/Stefan Wurz, Kulturhaus Osterfeld Pforzheim, Germany, 1994
Demolition Man (film)
Demolition Man (film)

Demolition Man is a 1993 in film Cinema of the United States dystopian action film directed by Marco Brambilla, and starring Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne and Denis Leary....
Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an 48th Academy Awards-nominated American actor, film director, film producer and screenwriter....
, Wesley Snipes
Wesley Snipes

Wesley Trent Snipes is an United States actor, film producer and martial artist. He has starred in action-adventures, thrillers, and dramatic feature films but is best known for his role as Blade in the Blade ....
and Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock

Sandra Annette Bullock, IPA: is a Screen Actors Guild Award-winning and two-time Golden Globe Award-nominated American-German actor. She came to fame in the 1990s, after roles in successful films such as Speed and While You Were Sleeping....
star in this film set in a not-too-distant future utopian society based on a Brave New World. Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock

Sandra Annette Bullock, IPA: is a Screen Actors Guild Award-winning and two-time Golden Globe Award-nominated American-German actor. She came to fame in the 1990s, after roles in successful films such as Speed and While You Were Sleeping....
's character is even named Lenina Huxley, referencing the author and character from the book. (1997)
Brave New World (film)
Brave New World (film)

Brave New World is a 1998 in film made-for-TV film loosely based on Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. The film stars Peter Gallagher and Leonard Nimoy....
(1998)
Brave New World (stage adaptation) Brendon Burns, Solent Peoples Theatre 2003
Schöne Neue Welt (Musical) GRIPS Theater Berlin, Germany, 2006
Brave New World (film) (release TBD) Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott

Sir Ridley Scott is a United Kingdom Academy Award nominated and Golden Globe Award, Emmy Award and British Academy of Film and Television Arts winning film director and film producer known for his stylish visuals and an obsession for detail....
, Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor, film producer whose career rose with his role in the television sit-com Growing Pains and quickly moved to films....
collaborating

Publications

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley; Perennial, Reprint edition, 1 September 1998; ISBN 0-06-092987-1

Brave New World Revisited

Aldous Huxley; Perennial, 1 March 2000; ISBN 0-06-095551-1

Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited

Aldous Huxley (with a foreword by Christopher Hitchens); Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005; ISBN 0-06-077609-9

Brave New World & Brave New World Revisited

Aldous Huxley (with an introduction by Margaret Atwood); Vintage Canada Edition, 2007; ISBN 978-0-307-35655-0

Huxley's Brave New World (Cliffs Notes)

Charles and Regina Higgins; Cliffs Notes, 30 May, 2000; ISBN 0-7645-8583-5

Spark Notes Brave New World

Sterling, 31 December 2003; ISBN 1-58663-366-X

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (Barron's Book Notes)

Anthony Astrachan, Anthony Astrakhan; Barrons Educational Series, November 1984; ISBN 0-8120-3405-8

Also publications for NSW HSC students.

Bibliography

External links

as he reflects on his life work and the meaning of Brave New World
. A critical review of Huxley's novel by David Pearce
David Pearce

David Pearce may refer to:*David Pearce , former British heavyweight boxing champion*David Pearce , pioneer of environmental economics*David Pearce , British philosopher and negative utilitarian...
.