What Is The Caste System In Brave New World

One part of this portion of the novel that I found to be troubling was the caste system and the pursuit of the greater good. The caste system was broken into 5 tiers and two sub-tiers, Alphas and Betas being above Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon, with plusses and minuses within each tier. From the moment they are ‘conceived’, they are designated to a certain caste. Without any input from themselves, someone decided their abilities, their fears, their desires, and their entire life. They have had not only the equality of opportunity taken from them, and with that the equality of condition. The lower castes are physically and mentally inferior to others, after being forced to grow stunted physically and intellectually. No matter how hard they try, there is very little one could do to try and best an Alpha.
However, the equality of opportunity still existed to a degree. Even though some might be a disadvantage, having bad genes does not disallow people to overcome what others think they can. The most prominent example of this would be when Vincent out swam his brother, multiple times. Even thought Anton was supposed to be better in everyday in comparison to Vincent, he still managed to succeed. In Brave New World, there aren’t chances like that. Lower castes have stunted growth and abilities in comparison to the elite caste, instituted by the elite to keep them in the lower class. The ruling class is in effect, playing god, by deciding which members of society will be productive and survive, and which ones will fall to the