Brave New World Literature Essay

Brave New Word is a science fiction novel which depicts an advanced society named World State. It is a society where feelings and sentiments does not exist, and no one has their own identity as “everyone belongs to everyone else”. The novel begins with the Director of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre taking young students on a tour of the factory. On the tour, students discover different approaches for generating babies independent of the uterus and then how to create identical of it through Bokanovsky's Process.

These embryos are then categorized into one of the castes which are Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons. Alphas, at the top level, are raised to become the head of the society. They are followed by Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons. Epsilons are at the lowest level with jobs of labors.

Leading the students to the nursery, the director describes two ways of conditioning. One was to first attract the babies to flowers and books and when they come near to it, they get an electric shock. This method was used to instill a love for country sports and hate for nature. The other was to repeat numerous words, when babies were asleep to memorize it. This novel revolves around Bernard Marx, an Alpha-Plus psychologist, who is an antisocial and Lenina Crowne, an Alpha, who is dating Henry Foster. Condemned for dating one person, Lenina decides to date Bernard and go to the Reservations with him. Bernard takes the approval of the Director for the visit. Hearing about Savage Reservation, the Director remembers his visit with a woman to the Reservation. He shares his story with Bernard of how a storm came and he left the lady. After getting permission, Bernard and Lenina travels to the Reservation. Soon, Bernard comes to know through his friend Helmholtz that Director is planning to expel him to Iceland. Helmholtz is a good friend of Bernard, with whom he used to share his dissatisfaction of the World State and its norms.

In Reservations, Bernard and Lenina came across a young boy named John and his mother Linda. John narrates his mother’s story to them of how a man left her in Reservations twenty-five years back and she could not leave as she was pregnant. Thus, she raised her son, John in Reservations. Listening to it, Bernard realized that the man who left Linda transpired to be the Director. This story lights up Bernard’s mind with an opportunity to save himself from the transfer. With the permit of Mustapha Mond, Bernard and Leina brings John and Linda to the World State. Hearing the word “Dad” from John, Director gets ashamed and resigns. So, Bernard no longer had to go to Iceland, and instead becomes famous. Linda, on the other hand, is on drugs as she could not face the reality. Helmholtz and John bonds together and discusses on a common topic, Shakespeare. John and Lenina, both fell in love with each other, but they both have a different meaning of love as they both have born and raised in different worlds. John had a perception of losing virginity after marriage while in Lenina’s society, she can openly say about sex. This baffled John and he refused Lenina of sex.

Lenina gets upset and John gets a phone call in which he learns that his mother is on the last stage of dying. Receiving the call, he dashes towards the hospital and his mother dies soon after he arrives. John gets disheartened and takes out his anger by throwing Soma, the drug, out of the window. Bernard and Helmholtz arrive there and gets arrested with John. Mustapha decides to send Helmholtz and Bernard to island and John to live in the factory. So, John descends to the lighthouse and starts to whip himself. Reporters arrive to capture the scene. As Lenina reaches, he whips her too. The next morning, comprehending the situation, he hangs himself. To conclude, I feel this novel does not highlight the true happiness. Happiness is much more than drugs and sex. Moreover, feeling unhappy is imperative in understanding the meaning of happiness.

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