Brave New World

Chapter Questions 1 and 2 1. What is the very 1st indication that Brave New World is a futuristic novel? The very 1st indication is when it mentions the hatchery.

2. Find an example of personification on the first page. “A harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure.”

3. In Brave New World Huxley provides the necessary exposition by having the expert explain the situation to the novice who knows little about it. Specifically, the Director is explaining the activities of the CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING to a group of students. At the start of the novel, why do you think the reader is not told directly what is being hatched? It’s not told directly what is being hatched to add tone to the scene.

4. In two short summaries explain the processes of both “Hatchery” and the “Conditioning Center”. Include definitions for any of the terminology. After each summary, state your personal reaction to each process. What are the names of the five categories of people? The Hatchery determines each fetus for a certain caste in the World State. The Conditioning Center is where those recently formed eggs go to be conditioned. They go about conditioning by using shock therapy along with hypnopaedia in order to make every person belong in their caste. By doing this, each person is happy with their position in life, or at least they think they are. I think both of them are wrong to do to people. I don’t think people should have to take medicine just to be happy with their life. The five castes are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon.

5. What might be annoying about the Director’s and Mr. Foster’s explanations?
Their explanations may be annoying to the reader because they talk about our current society and culture as if it is inferior to theirs.

6. Do you think anything like this is happening now or might happen in the future? Consider the fact that Huxley wrote this book in 1932 and the many scientific advances since then.
In the future, technology will be more advanced compared to now, and I think this will happen eventually.

7. In what way is the Bokanovsky process a major instrument of social stability?
It gives the government control of the number of people in the world and in each caste. 8. The date is given as “this year of stability A.F. 632”. Why is it significant that the date is A.F. rather than A.D.? What does A.F. stand for, and what does A.D. stand for?
A.F. stands for after ford, and A.D. stands for Anno Domini, meaning “in the year of the lord.” 9. Consider the following exchange between the Director and a student: “But why do you want to keep the embryo below par? Asked an ingenuous student. “Ass!” said the Director, breaking a long silence. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that an Epsilon embryo must have an Epsilon environment as well as an Epsilon heredity? It evidently hadn’t occurred to him. He was covered in confusion In the exchange above, who is the target of the satire?
The target of the satire would be the student.

10. In what way is Huxley’s presentation of the Director satirical?
The director often ridicules traditions, ideas and other things that we have and go by now.

11. Describe and explain the response of the students to the Director.
The Director is telling a story about Reuben who has Polish-speaking parents. The students blush when they hear him say the word “parents.” The words “mother” and “father” are references to sexual reproduction and are considered pornographic. 12. In this World State, what is the primary function of THE HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTER?
Their primary function is to create the right number and kind of people in each caste to create stability in the community.

13. What are some actual scientific principles being presented? What seems to be a problem the society has all but solved?
They've "all but solved" the maturation process because they want people to mature as soon as possible but if it’s too early, they aren't smart enough. 14. As Huxley looks at the principles, what does he see for the future?
He thinks everyone will always is the same, and they’re always happy.

15. Explain the designations the society gives to individuals. How is Huxley using these titles? What strikes you as significant about them?
The Bokanovsky Process, and hypnopaedic conditioning. Another is the creation of complicated entertainment machines that generate both harmless leisure and the high levels of consumption and production that are the basis of the World State’s stability.

16. What social problems have been eliminated in Brave New World? Explain. The lower castes are now conditioned to hate the countryside but to love country sports. All country sports in the World State require the use of elaborate apparatus. As a result, the lower castes now pay for both transportation and manufactured goods when they travel to the country for sporting events.

17. Explain the motto “Community, Identity, Stability”. The community has stability because of the caste system, which is their identity.

18. What are the people giving up to achieve these goals?
People are giving up their ability to make choices because they can't think for themselves.

19. At this point what is your opinion of Huxley’s new world; is it a utopia or dystopia? Explain your reasons.
It’s a utopia. Everything is done for the good of humanity as a whole, and evils like war and poverty cannot exist.

20. How is Huxley mocking Christianity? Why may some readers be offended by this? Explain. He's replaced the idea of worshiping a god with worshiping a man. In this case, that man is Henry Ford. Cutting all the tops off of crosses to make a 'T' as in Ford's Model 'T' is one example of how he mocks current religions. Many readers are Christian and will take this offensively because they think it’s wrong.

21. Who are Henry and Lenina Crowne? What is your opinion of each? Lenina is an alpha who sometimes wonders why people aren't supposed to be in relationships with just one person. Henry is a scientist in the Hatchery. He’s the Alpha that Lenina dated for a few months. I think they’re both happy, shallow people.

22. Why are the Delta children conditioned to dislike books and nature?
To prevent them from wasting the community’s time reading books that might “decondition” them, and the idea was to compel them to visit the country often and “consume transport” in the process. But since nature is free, they consumed nothing other than transportation.

23. Why can hypnopaedia be used to inculcate more beliefs and emotional attitudes but cannot be used to learn science? It makes people remember and memorize the things they hear, but since they don't have the ability to think for themselves, they can't make sense of it.

24. Near the end of Chapter Two, what does Huxley state is the aim of the new world’s conditioning?
His aim of the new world’s conditioning is to create individuals without individuality.