1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

2. Characters List
Bernard Marx — An Alpha male who by some chance is physically much smaller than Alphas are supposed to be. Bernard's small stature has given him an inferiority complex. As a result, he feels like an outsider to World State society for that reason is more self-conscious and more of an individual than other citizens of the World State. This outsider status and individuality allows Bernard both to recognize and criticize the flaws of the World State. But his inferiority complex also makes him defensive, resentful, jealous, cowardly, and quick to boast.

3. Characters List
Helmholtz Watson — Helmholtz is the opposite of Bernard: he is the perfect embodiment of an Alpha male. But just as Bernard's imperfections make him an individual, Helmholtz's perfection makes him individual. Everything in life comes so easily to Helmholtz—from women, to physical prowess, to professional achievement—that he comes to believe there is more to life. In looking for ways to challenge himself, he realizes the limitations that the World State imposes on its citizens. Unlike Bernard, who often seems to be compensating for his insecurities, Helmholtz is generous, kind, and fun- loving.

4. Characters List
John (the Savage) — Because of an accident, John is born to a woman from the World State, Linda, who gets stranded in a Savage Reservation. He spends the first twenty years of his life on the Reservation, and though the Reservation natives treat him as an outsider he still picks up their religious and moral values (which are much more similar to our own values today than to those of the World State), and develops a love of Shakespeare. John is eager to see the World State since his mother talks about it as a paradise, but once there he thinks the World State culture is immoral, infantilizing, and degrading to humanity.

5. Characters List
Lenina Crowne — A beautiful Beta woman. She is slightly unconventional in that she has a tendency to date only one man at a time, but otherwise she never challenges her conditioning. During the novel she dates Henry Foster and Bernard Marx, but ultimately becomes obsessed with John because he does not immediately sleep with her.

6. Characters List
Mustapha Mond — One of the ten World Controllers of the World State. Mond was once a physicist who loved truth and science so much that he carried out some secret experiments. He was then given the choice of becoming either a World Controller or going to an Island where he could continue his experiments. Mond chose to become a World Controller, and while he has read Shakespeare and loves truth, throughout the novel he holds up happiness and stability as more important than, and mutually exclusive of, love or truth.

7. Characters List
Linda — A Beta-minus woman, who is separated from the Director in storm during a visit to the Reservation. Though she had taken all the proper precautions, she was pregnant withJohn when separated from the Director, and was so embarrassed at giving birth that she didn't try to leave the Reservation. Her World State belief in promiscuous sex and drug-taking make her and John outcasts in the Reservation. Once she returns to the World State she drugs herself into a permanent soma-stupor until she dies.

8. Characters List
The Director (Thomas) — A pedantic, charmless, pretentious, and thoroughly conventional Alpha male who runs the Central London Hatchery. He takes exception to Bernard'sunconventional behavior, but Bernard discovers and reveals that the Director abandonedLinda in the Reservation and unknowingly fathered a child: John.

9. Characters List (Minor)
Fanny Crowne — Lenina's friend and coworker at the Hatchery. Fanny is even more conventional than Lenina, and essentially speaks, acts, and thinks exactly as she was conditioned to. Benito Hoover — An affable though rather hairy former lover of Lenina's.

10. Characters List (Minor)
Henry Foster — One of Lenina's lovers. He is a supremely conventional Alpha male, and an employee at the Hatchery. The Arch-Community-Songster — The World State version of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Popé — One of Linda's lovers in the Reservation. He brings her drugs and gives John a book ofShakespeare.

11. Symbols
Ford The World State doesn't really have a religion, but it does have a symbolic and revered father figure: Henry T. Ford. Ford is the perfect "god" for World State society because in developing his Ford Motor Company, he invented mass production by means of the assembly line and the specialization of workers, each of whom has one single and specific job. The World State takes Ford's ideas about mass production and the assembly line and applies them to biology—to people. The entire World State is an assembly line, pumping out people conditioned to fit into a single specialized caste and job.

12. Symbols
Shakespeare In Brave New World, Shakespeare represents two things. First, he represents all of the art that has been rejected and destroyed by the World State in the interest of maintaining stability. Second, the powerful emotion, passion, love, and beauty on display in Shakespeare's plays stand for all of the noble aspects of humanity that have been sacrificed by the World State in its effort to make sure all of its citizens are always happy.

13. Chapter one
The novel opens in the year A.F. 632 in the social conditioning and hatchery center in London. The director and Henry Foster are conducting a tour. Babies are no longer born. They are hatched. The director explains the Bokanovskification process, which takes one embryo and splits it into multiple soon-to-be babies. The embryos are then treated based on its predetermined social caste--Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon.

14. Chapter two
The Director continues his tour and brings the students to the nurseries. They observe a group of 8-month old Deltas crawling towards books and flowers. Once they reach the items, alarms sound, followed by electric shocks. The whole scene is meant to condition Deltas to hate books and nature. The lower castes are also conditioned to love transportation and elaborate sports in order to increase consumption. The Director then explains hypnopaedia, a process in which sleeping children are conditioned according to caste by the replay of messages as they sleep.

15. Chapter three
The Director leads the students to a garden where hundreds of naked children engage in erotic play. Students are shocked that sexual behavior in children and adolescents used to be discouraged. His Fordship Mustapha Mond enters. The clocks strike four and the day shift ends. The remainder of the chapter involves constant scene switching among Mustapha Mond's lecture to the students, Lenina Crowne's conversation with her roommate, and Henry Foster's conversation with coworkers. Mond discusses industrialization, the world before the revolution, and the invention of soma, the perfect drug used by all citizens to escape from their troubles. Lenina's roommate advises her to be a good girl and be more promiscuous. Bernard Marx overhears Henry Foster's conversation in the men's room and is disgusted by it. Lenina tells her roommate, Fanny, that she's accepted Bernard's invitation to visit an Indian reservation.
Analysis: Brave New World, like Orwell’s 1984, portrays a dystopia. In their efforts to create social and economic stability, world leaders and scientist use technology and psychology to eliminate individuality and discourage all activity that requires solitude or thought. Devices used to promote stability are sex, drugs, music, brainwashing, and class consciousness. Huxley's world combines the worst aspects of socialism--the loss of individuality--and capitalism--an unsatiated desire for consuming.

16. Chapter four
 Lenina accepts Bernard's invitation to visit the Indian reservation. She then goes on a date with Henry. Bernard visits his friend Hemholtz, a physically superior Alpha plus, and the two discuss their yearning for individuality. Hemholtz desires to write something more meaningful than Hypnopaedic expressions.

17. Chapter five
Henry and Lenina enjoy their date, with the help of soma. Bernard attends his mandatory community solidarity service where the twelve participants eat soma, sing hymns, and have an orgy.

18. Chapter six
Lenina and Bernard go on a date. Lenina worries as Bernard hovers over rushing water and expresses how it makes him feel like an individual. They return to Bernard's and have sex, something which Bernard claims he did not want to do on their first date. Bernard gets permission to visit the reservation and finds out the Director had visited the reservation 20 years earlier with a woman, who got lost there. The Director, embarrassed by his confession, threatens to send Bernard to Iceland for anti-social behavior. Bernard and Lenina arrive at the reservation. Bernard phones Hemholtz and discovers he has been exiled to Iceland.
Analysis: For those wondering what life would be like if high school went on forever, here's the answer. The only thing that maters is what others think of you. Anyone who steps out of line is ostracized. Those who are ostracized revel in rebellion, more out of sour grapes, and whimper as soon as they are punished.

19. Chapter seven
Bernard and Lenina enjoy the reservation ceremony and are surprised to find a blond haired boy (John) who speaks perfect English. They meet his mother, Linda, who had been abandoned on the reservation 20 years earlier. She carries on her conditioned customs by sleeping with all the men, something which causes her to be beaten often.

20. Chapter eight
John tells Bernard of his life on the reservation, of his ostracism on account of his mother's whorish ways. He learns to read and finds a copy of Shakespeare's collected works that he reads frequently. Bernard offers to bring him to London.

21. Chapter nine
Lenina goes on an 18-hour soma holiday as Bernard gains permission to bring Linda and John to London.

22. Chapter 10
The Director exiles Bernard to Iceland in front of the entire hatchery. Bernard retaliates by presenting John and Linda. John sends the crowd into hysterics by repeatedly calling the Director, father

23. Chapter 11
John the Savage becomes a social icon. Bernard, his guardian, becomes popular and brags to Hemholtz about his sex life. Linda constantly takes soma. John is repulsed by Bokanovsky twins. Lenina takes John to a "feely." It repulses him. Lenina is disappointed that John will not have sex with her.

24. Chapter 12
Bernard schedules an important party, but John refuses to participate, humiliating Bernard. Hemholtz meets the savage and the two become instant friends. They read Shakespeare and Hemholtz laughs at Romeo and Juliet, which insults the savage.
Analysis: John fits in to neither world. He's an outcast on the reservation and wishes to be left alone in London. Bernard's dissatisfaction with his life changes as he becomes popular. After his humiliation he becomes dissatisfied again, demonstrating that John's rebellion had more to do with his insecurities than it did with his society.

25. Chapter 13
 Lenina ingests soma and visits John. John goes to one knee and expresses his love. Lenina undresses. John calls her a whore and roughs her up. She escapes to the locked bathroom. The phone rings. John answers it and leaves.

26. Chapter 14
John rushes to the dying ward at the hospital and asks to see his mother, a phrase which makes the nurse blush. A large group of 8-year old Bokanovsky twins enter the room for their death conditioning. John swats one of them in the head. Linda mistakes John for Popé, which angers him. Linda dies. John leaves the hospital angrily.

27. Chapter 15
John is infuriated by workers receiving their post work soma rations. He runs to the rationing location and throws the soma tablets out the window, calling the drugs a device for enslavement. Hemholtz and John arrive. A riot begins. Hemholtz goes to help John. Bernard fears for his life and wavers between helping and not helping the two. The riot police arrive and spray soma into the air to stop the riot.

28. Chapter 16
John, Bernard, and Hemholtz are taken to Mustapha Mond's office. He quotes Shakespeare and explains to John why civilization has developed the way it has. In order to create stability; feelings, relationships, passions, commitments, art, and truth must be eliminated.

29. Chapter 17
John and Mustapha discuss religion. Mustapha justifies its elimination.

30. Chapter 18
Mond wishes to continue the experiment. The other two are exiled and John takes up residence in an abandoned lighthouse where he performs his "savage" rituals. Two Deltas witness John whipping himself and the next day two reporters show up. John beats both of them. On the following day a swarm of reporters arrive. John thinks lustfully about Lenina and whips himself. A reporter hiding in the bushes records it and it is made into a "feely." Lenina arrives. John gives into temptation. He is found the next day, dead.

31. Themes
The Dangers of Technology: Technology in the wrong hands can be devastating--the topic of thousands of spy movies of the 20th-century. The worst hands for technology is government. In Huxley's Brave New World, technology is used to predetermine physical appearance, attitude, and preferences. The individual exists only for the benefit of the state. Although technology is usually controlled for mankind's benefit, government and those in power tend to abuse it. Something to consider the next time you read about wire-tapping, surveillance capabilities, or stem cell research--perhaps the most applicable of Brave New World technologies.

32. themes
The Dangers of Big Government: Government that attempts to control all aspects of life and sets itself up as the provider of happiness is a government certain to destroy individual liberties. Should government be involved in business, in industry, in health care? Huxley and history would argue no. The main difference between the government in Brave New World and real governments' attempts to become the almighty is the former did so efficiently whereas the latter has screwed everything up. Take for example the low standard of living caused by authoritarian Communist and Socialist regimes throughout Asia and Eastern Europe in the 20th-century. A look at the United States government even shows its incompetence in providing solutions on matters it is not meant to solve; hence, the need to rely on the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

33. themes
The Degradation of Human Sexuality and its Implications: Along with the loss of individuality comes the loss of self worth. Lenina considers herself a commodity to be shared with all. Everybody belongs to everyone is a hypnopaedic preconditioning repeated frequently in the novel. The proliferation of pornography and the increase in infidelity in marriage is one example of modern society mirroring Huxley's dystopia.

34. THEMES
The Disregard for Human Life: Even in death, individuals are viewed as commodities, as a source of phosphorus. The dead are sent to the hospital to die in solitude. Bokanovsky twins swarm throughout the hospital mortality ward as a form of "death conditioning." Modern readers need look no further than wanton violence and late term abortions to see real examples of the disregard for human life prevalent today.

35. themes
The Dangers of Consumerism: The need to consume more goods to maintain economic stability is at the heart of preconditioning and genetic tampering. Modern readers do not need to read Brave New World to witness rampant consumerism and materialism and its effects.

36. themes
The Mind-numbing Effects of Drugs: The distribution of soma keeps citizens under control and helps them forget about their problems. An obvious correlation exists between soma and the use of illegal narcotics and other illegal drugs today; a closer look, however, reveals that soma relates even more closely to the abuse of pain killers and other legal prescription drugs. If you don't believe drugs are being used at an alarming rate, take a look at the number of pharmacies in your home town. Can you see some of the warnings from the novel coming true in our own time?