Summary

Part 1: Introduction and the journey to the savage reservation

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World describes a highly developed utopian  society where the most important principles are collectivity, identity and stability.

People in the so-called ‘World State’ are artificially created in the Hatchery and Conditioning Center. They are divided into five castes: Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, with the Alphas being the most intelligent and unique people. The Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, on the other hand, are identical twins produced through the Bokanowski process. Completely identical human beings emerge from this process.

The Director of the Hatchery and Conditioning Center leads some students through the facility and explains that human lives are predetermined when the fertilization process begins. They’ll be conditioned accordingly in the course of their development. During this conditioning they’ll learn the most important basic rules of the state, and also how to live together. They are trained what to hate and what to like with the help of the so-called ‘sleep teaching’ and other conditioning processes. 

The Director asks one of his employees, Henry Foster, another Alpha, to introduce some of the processes to the students. Foster eagerly explains his job and research at the center. During their sightseeing tour, the students also get to know Foster's colleague Lenina Crowne, a Beta.

As the Director goes into the garden with the students to watch children play, they are joined by Mustapha Mond, the World Controller. He is an influential man responsible for the politics and organization of Western Europe. Mond gives students a history lesson on the ancient world. He explains that back then children were born alive and grew up in families. Fortunately, however, the Nine Years' War brought the old system to collapse, and in today’s highly developed society only happy people live.

Henry Foster and Lenina Crowne have been dating regularly for four months. A long-term relationship is rather unusual in the state, as people should change partners as often as possible. Another Alpha-Plus colleague of Foster's, Bernard Marx, is also interested in Lenina. He cannot stand Henry Foster and the fact that he only cares about how Lenina looks. 

Bernard Marx invites Lenina to visit a savage reservation with him. Lenina does not really know what to think of Marx, so she discusses this offer with her friend, Fanny Crowne. Lenina and Bernard arrange a few dates where the differences between them become clear. Bernard would like to be free, while Lenina is happy with her current life. She consumes a lot of soma, a drug freely available in the state. On the one hand, she is confused by Bernard's views, but on the other hand, she also likes him very much. Even so, ...