The James Logan Courier

By Abhishek Saluja, Courier Book Editor

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Genre(s): Dystopian novel
Publisher: Chatto and Windus (London)
Publication date: 1932
Media type: Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages: 288 pp (Paperback edition)
ISBN: 0-06-080983-3 (Paperback edition)

A world in which one’s class determines one’s features, social stature, and line of work; this is the world that Aldous Huxley creates in his novel Brave New World.

Humans are created artificially in bottles and controlled from the moment of their creation. The society strips many and most freedoms through its very design. Things out of the set ordinary are discouraged and punished by banishment from the regular society.



Henry Foster, Bernard Marx, Lenina Crowne, and John the Savage’s relationship dominates the plot of the story. Foster, Bernard and Crowne work in the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Center.

The society encourages the citizens to remain single and stay away from the emotions involved with families.

Bernard dislikes the controlling society and rebels against it as often as possible. He boycotts by not participating in the many regular activities that the normal folk enjoy; and leads his own life blocking out most of the modern world.

Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne travel to a savage reservation for a vacation, and there they meet John the Savage. Bernard is intrigued by his story and character; and thus he decides to bring John back to the modern world.

John is used by many for whim satisfactions and becomes frustrated as the story progresses. Furthermore, John’s woes continue throughout the story and the modern society and its ways frustrate John into suicide.

This new society’s way of controlling is difficult to break away from. All are encouraged to ignore free thinkers and discouraged from changing the way of living. Worthwhile reading is prohibited; and as soon as one feels the need to escape one may take soma (a drug) and indulge into a wonderful dream.

The futuristic setting of Brave New World creates an out of the ordinary society which serves to illustrate a story which is a bit difficult to fathom at times. The story is mostly uninteresting and in all should not be read unless necessary.