Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
Table of Contents
Key Facts
Title: Brave New World
Author: Aldous Huxley
Type of book: Novel
Genre: Dystopian Fiction
Original language: English
Written in: England, 1931
First published: 1932
Time in which the novel is set: Approximately 600 years in the future. The year is 632 A.F. (“after Ford”), or 632 years from Henry Ford’s manufacture of the Model T automobile.
Places in which the novel is set: London, England; New Mexico on the Savage Reservation
Narrator: Omniscient third-person. Huxley often uses free indirect speech, wherein the omniscient narrator describes the thoughts of the respective characters using their own styles of speech.
Points of view: Omniscient third-person narrator, Bernard Marx, Lenina Crowne, John, Helmholtz Watson, Mustapha Mond
Tense: Past
Tone: Satirical, ironic, tragic
Protagonists: Bernard Marx, who is the main character for the first half of the book. John “the Savage” takes over as the protagonist for roughly the second half.
Climax: Chapter 15 - John incites a riot by throwing rations of soma out of a window at the hospital after his mother’s death.
Falling action: Chapter 18 - John moves into a lighthouse, attempts to live as a hermit, and engages in ritual acts of self-purification. Crowds of curious onlookers incite his fury and then draw him into participating in an orgy, after which John commits suicide.
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