brave new world is about a futuristic society that has tried to create a perfect community where everyone is happy they use science to mass-produce people and condition them to do and want only the things they're supposed to but in doing that they take away freedoms like the freedom to think for oneself the few characters we see who do think for themselves aren't happy so the novel poses a question is it better to be happy or free the book starts with the director of the central London hatching and conditioning center explaining to a group of students
how they create people since women don't actually get pregnant anymore ex are fertilised and then undergo a process that causes the fertilized eggs to divide they can get up to 96 identical twins from a single fertilized egg this way the director brings the group into one of the conditioning rooms nurses lay out flowers and books and then bring in a group of babies then they shock the babies through an electrified strip in the floor over time the babies will learn to instinctively dislike books and nature these babies are deltas one of the societies lower castes
and the lower castes perform non-intellectual jobs like factory work by conditioning the Delta babies to hate books the Society ensures that they won't ever have any desire for them and by conditioning them to hate flowers in nature they'll want to stay near their work in the cities they condition all the castes this way according to what their role will be in the community the group continues into an outdoor garden where several hundred naked children are engaged in erotic play this play conditions the children to grow up feeling comfortable being sexually promiscuous the group runs into
Mustapha Mond a very powerful man in one of the ten world controllers he told them what it was like in the past when mothers gave birth to children and people grew up in families an adult still paired off into monogamous couples everyone is really grossed out by the idea of mothers and families the story cuts to Lenina and Bernard Bernard is a psychologist even though he's a member of the highest caste he feels like an outsider because he's smaller and looks different than most men in his caste he likes Lenina but it bothers him that
she acts like everyone else he and Lenin are planning a trip to a savage Reservation in New Mexico but tonight she has a date with Henry Foster Lenina leaves for her date and a man named Benito Hoover walks Oh were and talks about how attractive Lenina is Barnard gets annoyed so bonito offers him soma which is a drug that everyone takes to feel happy and kind of stoned Barnard just turns and walks away Barnard picks up his friend Helmholtz Watson Helmholtz feels he has something important inside him that he wants to let out through his
writing but he doesn't know what it is or how to write it Barnard in Helmholtz both feel like they're different this shared sense of being different creates a bond between them that night Barnard attends solidarity service which is kind of like church all the people sing hymns together and praise their prophet and await the coming of a greater being the Prophet they're praising is Henry Ford who introduced the assembly line and revolutionized mass production and they all take soma to feel like they're dissolving into one unified whole finally they break out into dance then dim
the lights and have an orgy while a voice has a refrain that begins with the phrase orgy porgy Lenina remembers the first time she and bernard went out together he stopped their helicopter over the English Channel to watch the waves below he said the sea made him feel like he was an individual Lenina felt shocked and angry with him so Bernard gave up and took her back to his apartment where they took soma and had sex bernard goes to the director of the hatching and conditioning center to get permission to visit the savage reservation in
new mexico the director gets upset and he tells Bernard about his own trip to the reservation many years earlier he went with a woman and on the last day of their trip they rode horses up a mountain after lunch he took a nap and when he woke up she was gone a terrible thunderstorm broke out and the Lightning scared the horses he hurt his knee trying to catch them but they ran off the next day they searched for the woman but she was never found he ends the meeting by telling Bernard he's very unhappy with
Bernards behavior and threatens to relocate him to Iceland Bernard and Lenina go to the savage reservation and witness a ritual where a young man must remain silent while he's whipped the square empties out and a young savage approaches Bernard and Lenina unlike the others he's white and he speaks English this savage whose name is John wanted to be whipped to prove he's a man and to sacrifice his body for the village he explains that his mother Linda wasn't from the reservation she had been visiting with a man and while on a walk in the mountains
she fell down a ravine and hit her head some hunters from the village found her and carried her back she was already pregnant with John who was born and raised in the village Barnard remembers the director story John takes them to see his mother she's thrilled to see civilized people and tells them how awful it is on the reservation with the women having babies all the time and the people pair off into couples and only have sex with that person outside John tells Bernard about his childhood in the village his mother often got drunk and
slept with a man named Pope a John hated him and he remembers the time when some of the village women held his mother down and whipped her because she kept sleeping with their husbands but Lynda taught John to read and one day Papa brought him a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare John read the book all the time because he loved the language and to deal with his loneliness Bernard invites John to come back to London with them and he says Linda can come too he knows he can use her as leverage against the
director Lenina feels so stressed from everything that she takes a bunch of Soma and spends a day asleep john comes looking for Bernard and finds her there he's been in love with her since he first saw her he wants to touch her but he won't allow himself to they all arrived back in London and Bernard is called to come see the director at work the director announces that to keep Bernard from infecting others with his unorthodoxy he's sending him to Iceland but Bernard calls Linda in and she immediately recognizes the director and says that she
had a baby because of him John comes in and falls to his knees in front of the director calling him my father over and over the director is horrified it's obscene to talk about pregnancy and shameful to be called the father and all the workers laugh hysterically like it's all a dirty joke until the director runs out of the room Bernard starts to show John what life in London is like and John becomes instantly famous his celebrity makes Bernard popular to Linda meanwhile does nothing but lie in bed and takes OMA one evening Lenina takes
John to the Feelies which are like movies that engage all the senses so you can actually feel and smell what's happening the feeling involves a lot of casual sex and afterward they go back to Lynne eanes apartment but John is unhappy he leaves and Lenina still can't understand why he won't sleep with her on the night of Bern are biggest party which several important officials have agreed to attend John refuses to come out of his room Barnard has to tell all his guests that the Savage won't be appearing the guests are furious during his brief
popularity Bernard had stopped speaking with Helmholtz Watson but he goes to see Helmholtz after his public embarrassment and the two become friends again when Helmholtz and John meet they're instantly close Helmholtz who's been trying to express his emotions through Rimes hears Shakespeare for the first time John's refusal to sleep with Lenina has Lenina thinking of him constantly finally she decides to act and goes to his apartment she marches in and when John mentions marriage she's horrified she decides to take her clothes off and get him into bed he becomes enraged and calls her a Lenina
runs into the bathroom to hide John gets a phone call about his mother and leaves Linda is at the hospital and as John tries to speak to her she keeps dozing off because she's on a high dose of Soma making the situation worse several young boys were in the room for death conditioning keep gawking at her then Linda dies and as john rushes out of the room he shoves one of the boys over in a rage in the hospital's vestibule John runs into a group of workers getting their soma rations he freaks out and starts
shouting that soma is poison he says they're all slaves and he's going to make them free then he starts throwing the somme out the window Bernard and Helmholtz get a call and go to find John at the hospital when they get there a brawl is going on Helmholtz jumps in to help John while Bernard basically can't decide what to do John Bernard and Helmholtz are brought to Mustapha Mond who explains to them why old things like Shakespeare are prohibited first society needs people to want new things not old ones people have to keep buying consuming
for the sake of the economy you also can't write or understand tragedies without social instability and social instability no longer exists they've made everyone happy and engineered a perfect society where everyone plays a role exactly suited to their desires and abilities Mon says sometimes people don't fit in their roles he was one of those people he had the choice of being a sent away to an island or joining a program to become a world controller Bernard and Helmholtz are going to be sent to Islands other people who don't fit in Barnard freaks out and is
escorted from the room Helmholtz goes to check on him and monde and John keep talking Mon says they've also gotten rid of God God and religion are only compatible with the society where people get old and suffer losses God and religion also lead to self-denial but modern industrial civilization only works when people indulge every desire it keeps people buying things and it keeps them from ever feeling any real passion or frustration which can lead to instability when they do feel something they have soma to keep them happy John says he doesn't like it he would
rather be free to suffer losses get sick and grow old so Bernard and Helmholtz are sent to different islands and John goes to live in a deserted lighthouse in the countryside he enjoys living alone but he thinks he enjoys it too much so he whips himself as punishment crowds and reporters start turning up the lighthouse demanding that the savage do his whipping stunt eventually a huge crowd appears and they end up beating one another in front of John's house while chanting orgy Porgy when John wakes up the next day he remembers everything and feels horrified
when the crowd comes back that night they find him hanging for more information about brave new world check out the brave new world spark note at spark notes calm you
