However, this arrangement is the status quo. Moving right along, we meet two more of the novel’s characters, Lenina Crowne and Henry Foster, both workers in the hatchery. And you thought having an older brother was tough.

Also, the lower castes are grown in batches, so that 100 Epsilons are all exact copies of one another. In this case, they use alcohol and oxygen deprivation. These people figured out that the best way to keep non-Alphas stupid is to give them dangerous substances while they’re still in the test tube. Alphas are smart, tall, and muscular Epsilons short, dumb, and ugly. To make the system run more smoothly, humans are divided into various castes: Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and… drum roll…Epsilons.

It’s their job to be consumers and workers, which in turn keeps the economy stable and strong. Each person exists to serve the community. The Director explains to the students the process by which humans are grown inside bottles and then conditioned (read: brainwashed) to believe certain moral “truths.” This conditioning, also known as “hypnopaedia” or “sleep-teaching,” instructs the citizens to believe in the value of society over the individual. Brave New World begins in an uncomfortably sterile and controlled futuristic society, commonly referred to as “the World State.” We join the story as a group of young students are receiving a factory tour of the “London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre” from the center’s director, whose name is… The Director.

A brave new world plot