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Fiction

Notes The underlying principle of the regime is utilitarianism, or maximizing the overall happiness
of the society. The novel begins at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center, a
production factory for human beings. A group of students receives a tour of the facilities by
the Director.
The students view various machines and techniques used to promote the production and
conditioning of embryos. The scientists take an ovary, remove and fertilize the eggs, force the
eggs to bud up to ninety-six times, and subsequently grow the embryos in bottles. Predestinators
then decide the future function of each embryo within the society, essentially assigning a
future job to each human.
The society contains a five-tiered caste system that ranks Alphas and Betas on top. Only the
Alphas and Betas come from single eggs that are not budded and hence have no twins. The
Centre conditions all the non-Alpha and Beta embryos for their future status in society by
dividing them into Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Thus, the Alphas represent the intellectually
superior group, followed by the Betas, and continuing down to the Epsilons, who have little
to no intelligence.

Analysis
The idea of totalitarian social stability occurs first in this chapter. While few critics have called
the governmental regime “totalitarian” in nature, Huxley explicitly describes it as such. Huxley
stated in Brave New World Revisited that the only way to create a permanently stable society
is for a totalitarian regime to have absolute power. The regime must then ensure that people
are happy all the time, be able to control the behavior of each individual, and ensure that
independent thinkers are forbidden from disturbing the social fabric.
Huxley creates a society that frowns on individual creativity and that only welcomes those
who conform. The social motto “Community, Identity, Stability” frames this social structure.
Huxley generates “community” by dividing the population into segments, where the Alphas
serve as intellectual superiors and Epsilons function as pure menial labor. Huxley shows how
“identity” comes from the Conditioning Centre through the selection of the embryos into each
of five groups. “Stability” occurs through the limitations placed on the intelligence of each
group.
The fundamental tenet behind the society is utilitarianism, which describes a society that seeks
to create the maximum happiness. Limiting the intelligence of each person to fit their future
job is one way this society makes them happy. Thus, Alphas receive challenging jobs and
Epsilons receive grunt work that would be boring for higher caste members. Social conditioning
and stunted development maximizes each person’s happiness. The goal of utilitarianism is to
make the society “happier” and thus more efficient. The society described by Huxley is therefore
a “utilitarian totalitarianism.”

Chapter 2

Summary
The students continue their tour of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre.
They watch “Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning,” a technique that trains infants. Here, the use of
electric shocks and sirens in response to touching roses or books modifies the behavior of
Deltas. This discourages behavior that might destabilize society, such as allowing Deltas to
read books and acquire knowledge. The students also view a group of sleeping infants who
receive moral instruction through hypnopaedic learning as they sleep. Sleeping babies listen
to repeated catchphrases, and in this chapter, infant Betas listen to a tape played hundreds of

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