Summary

Brave New World takes place in England, nearly six hundred years in the future ("After Ford"). Human life has been almost completely industrialized. The World State was controlled by 10 World Controllers of different parts of the world. These people were of higher power, and are often called, "your Ford Ship." These individuals are responsible for enforcing the ideals and values of the World State.

In the beginning of the novel, students are offered a tour of a lab where human beings are created and conditioned according to the society's strict caste system. The conditioning of humans occur at the London Hatching and Conditioning Centre. The tour is being led by the Director of the facility. The Director explains to the students the processes of how humans are created. He begins to tell the students that humans are grown inside test tubes, and injected with certain chemicals and alcohols to "breed" desired traits. The processes within the centre are meant to replicate the human process of producing inside the womb. The Director explained the processes of hypnopaedia, or sleep teaching. This process is meant to instruct the future citizens of the beliefs and values of the World State. Men and women are born into one of the five castes. These castes are meant to show individuals their place in the world, and to increase social stability. The five castes include: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. The Alphas and Betas are among the most intelligent, while the Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons are among the least intelligent. Alphas are tall, intelligent, and muscular, while Epsilons are short, unintelligent, and ugly. Epsilons are born in large batches, and each one of them are an exact copy of the others.

The Director then leads the boys to the Nursery, where they observe a group of Delta infants being reprogrammed to dislike books and flowers. The young children first began to like books and flowers, but were then shocked to program them to dislike both. The Director explains that this conditioning helps to make Deltas docile and eager consumers. He then tells the boys about the hypnopaedic (sleep-teaching) methods used to teach children the morals and values of the World State. In a room where older children are napping, a whispering voice is heard repeating the phrase, ""Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able …""
Following the talk of hypnopaedia, The Direction takes the students outside to the gardens where many naked girls and boys engages in sexual play, and games such as games like “Centrifugal Bumble-puppy.” Suddenly, a young boy begins crying, he comes out of the bush with tears on his face. A nurse took the boy by the hand, and they headed to see a psychologist for evaluation. The young girl who had been engaging in sexual play was anxious. She was unsure of the boy was hurt or not. After she scampered off, The Director proceeded with speaking once again. Following a few minutes of speech, Mustapha Mond, one of the ten World Controllers arrived and introduced himself to the boys. He began telling the boys of the history of the World State, and focused on the State's efforts to remove emotions, desires, and human relationships from society. The World State believed that everyone belongs to everyone, that individuals should not be exposed to literature or religious texts, and that everyone had a place. These beliefs were created so the conditioned humans would not develop any other thoughts or feelings of the opinions and ideals found in "ancient" literature and religious/sacred texts.

While the tour continues on the outside, the novel switches back to the inside the Hatchery where Lenina chats in the bathroom with Fanny Crowne about her relationship with Henry Foster. Fanny chastised Lenina for going out with Henry almost exclusively for several months. Lenina admits she is attracted to Bernard Marx. In another part of the Hatchery, Bernard is enraged when he overhears a conversation between Henry and the Assistant Predestinator about “having” Lenina.

After work, Lenina tells Bernard that she would be happy to join him on the trip to the Savage Reservation in New Mexico that she was invited to. Bernard flies a helicopter to meet his friend, Helmholtz Watson. Both Helmholtz and Bernard speak of their disgust and disagreements regarding World State. A few days later, Bernard asks the Director for permission to visit the Reservation. The Director then goes into his story regarding his visit to the Reservation, and how he met Linda, the mother of his son, John. The Director recalls that the woman was lost and never recovered. Following his story, he grants Bernard the permission to leave, and Bernard and Lenina depart for New Mexico. Before heading into the Reservation, Bernard calls Helmholtz and learns that the director was planning on exiling Bernard to Iceland.
Once Lenina and Bernard enter the reservation, they are shocked to see aged and ill residents; no one in the World State was subject to aging or illness. Both witness a religious ritual where a young man was whipped, and found it strange. After the ritual, they meet a young boy named John. John tells them both about his childhood, and mentioned his mother, Linda, who was rescued by the villagers over twenty years ago. After listening to the young boy's story, Bernard realizes that Linda was the women from the story mentioned by The Director. Linda was reprimanded for her willingness to engage in sexual acts with all the men in the village. This shows that Linda was a member of World State before she visited the Reservation. Because of her sexual openness, her song, John, was kept in isolation on the Reservation. John notes that he grew up reading The Chemical and Bacteriological Conditioning of the Embryo and The Complete Works of Shakespeare. John tells Bernard that he is longs to see the “Other Place”- the “brave new world” that his mother has told him about. Bernard invites him to return to the World State with him. John agrees, but insists that Linda be allowed to come as well.

After being on the Reservation for only a short time, Lenina is disgusted. She takes enough soma ("Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant" quoteed by Mustapha) to leave her unconscious for several hours. During the time of her unconsciousness, Bernard flies to Santa Fe and decides to call Mustapha Mond to receive permission to bring John and Linda into World State. Bernard, Lenina, John, and Linda fly back into World State, where the directed is waiting to exile Bernard. In order to embarrass the Director, Bernard introduces John and Linda (his son, and mother of the child). After showing John and Linda to the Director's Alpha coworkers, the Director resigned, leaving Bernard to remain in London.

After being in England for a while, John becomes popular. John is overwhelmed with what he sees in World State; individuals engaging in multiple acts of sex, lack of religion and literature. Because Bernard brought John and Linda into World State, he becomes popular as well. He was having dinner parties so everyone could see and hear John's story. He was also sleeping with many women. One night, John refuses to meet the guests, and Bernard's social status declines.

After Bernard introduces John and Helmholtz to each other, they quickly converse. John reads Helmholtz parts of Romeo and Juliet, but Helmholtz cannot prevent himself from laughing at the ideas of love, marriage, and parents—ideas that are ridiculous in the culture of World State.
Lenina is aware of John's affection for her, and suddenly becomes obsessed with him. Lenina takes some soma and visits John a Bernard's apartment, where she hopes to seduce him into sex. John, however, is not in the mood, and responds to her advances with hurtful words and quotes of Shakespeare. In anger and frustration, Lenina flees into the bathroom while John was in a phone call. During the phone call, he learned that Linda, who was on a permanent holiday on soma, is about to die. At the Hospital for the Dying, John watches her die while a group of boys received their "death conditioning." Upon Linda's death, John is acquainted with a group of Delta clones who are receiving their ration of soma. In anger, he convinces them to throw the soma out the window, which results in a riot. Once Bernard and Helmholtz heard of the riot, they rushed to the scene. After the riot was calm by the police with soma vapor, John, Helmholtze, and Bernard were arrested and taken to Mustapha Mond's office.

John and Mond discuss the value of the World State's policies and ideals. John argues that the policies dehumanize the residents of the state, and Mond argues that stability and happiness is more important than humanity. Mustapha explains that in order to have social stability, there must be a sacrifice of art, science, and religion. John proceeds to tell Mustapha that life without religion, art, and science is not one worth living. Mustapha Mond then says that Bernard and Helmholtz will be exiled. Helmholtz accepts the exile, believing it to give him the chance to write. Once Bernard and Helmholtz were out of the room, John and Mond continued their discussion regarding religion and the use of soma to control negative emotions.

John says goodbye to Helmholtz and Bernard, and refused the option to follow them to the islands. John then retreats to a lighthouse in the country where he attempts to purify himself. World State citizens soon catch him, and reporters go to film the event. Many people came to witness the act, and they demanded that John whip himself. Lenina comes and approaches John with open arms. John begins screaming, "Kill it! Kill it!" The next morning, John wakes up angry for his submission to the ideals, values and morals of the World State. In this stressful situation, John commits suicide by hanging himself.

60secondRecap describes how the novel takes place in a dystrophic setting.