Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 to Chapter 2
Chapter One Summary
The book opens at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center, where the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning (D.H.C.) is giving his new students a tour. It is the year A.F. 632 (After Ford). A group of worshipful students follows him through the center, frantically scribbling notes, “straight from the horse’s mouth.” He takes them first into the Fertilizing Room, where he shows them the incubators full of female ova and male gametes contained in test tubes. The D.H.C. explains the history and science of the caste system of fertilization. Alphas and Betas are fertilized and then left to grow into genetically individual humans. Using “Bokanovsky’s Process,” however, the lower castes of Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons are produced in batches of multiple twins.
The D.H.C. explains to his students, as well as the reader, how Bokanovsky’s Process has made it possible to mass produce the lower castes, perfectly designed for their respective functions. After their test-tube births, humans are then carefully conditioned so that not only are they physically ideal for their designated task in life, but they also totally accept and actually like their “inescapable social destiny.”
Henry Foster, an Alpha scientist, now joins the group and continues the lecture. Next, the group enters the Bottling Room, where the conveyer belt process of making humans continues, and then the Embryo Store, Social Predestination Room and the Decanting Room.
Chapter Two Summary
The D.H.C. continues the tour in the Nursery. On the notice board reads a sign: “INFANT NURSERIES. NEO-PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING ROOMS.” Here the students observe the conditioning process in action. First, a group of Delta infants—destined to perform repetitive factory work—are presented with beautiful flowers and books containing appealing nature images. When they happily touch the objects, a hideous alarm goes off and makes them cry. An electric shock is...
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