Summary:

chapter 1

The book opens in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. It is the year a.f. 632 (632 years Òafter FordÓ). The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning is giving a group of students a tour of a factory that produces human beings and conditions them for their roles in the World State. He explains to the boys that human beings no longer produce living offspring. The Hatchery picks a future for each person, before they are created. The five types of people are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon have the Bokanovsky Process performed on them, which involves shocking an egg so that it divides to form up to ninety-six identical embryos, which then develop into ninety-six identical human beings. The Alpha and Beta people never experience this dividing process, which can weaken the embryos. The Director explains that the Bokanovsky Process creates social stability because the clones it produces are destined to perform identical tasks at identical machines. The cloning process is one of the tools the World State uses to apply its motto: ÒCommunity, Identity, and Stability.Ó

The Director goes on to talk about PodsnapÕs Technique which speeds up the ripening process of eggs within an ovary. With this method, hundreds of related individuals can be produced from the ova and sperm of the same man and woman within two years. The average production rate using PodsnapÕs Technique is 11,000 brothers and sisters in 150 batches of identical twins. Called over by the director, Mr. Henry Foster, an employee at the plant, tells the students that the record for this particular factory is over 16,000 siblings.

The Director and Henry Foster continue to explain the processes of the plant to the boys. After fertilization, the embryos travel on a conveyor belt in their bottles for 267 days. On the last day, they are born. The entire process is designed to copy the conditions within a human womb, including shaking every few meters to familiarize the fetuses with movement. Seventy percent of the female fetuses are sterilized; they are known as Òfreemartins.Ó The fetuses undergo different treatments depending on their castes. Oxygen deprivation and alcohol treatment ensure the lower intelligence and smaller size of members of the three lower castes. Fetuses destined for work in the tropical climate are heat conditioned as embryos; during childhood, they undergo further conditioning to produce adults that are emotionally and physically suited to hot climates. The artificial process says the Director, aims to make individuals accept and even like Òtheir inescapable social destiny.Ó

The Director and Henry Foster then introduce Lenina Crowne to the students.She explains that her job is to immunize the fetuses destined for the tropics with vaccinations for typhoid and sleeping sickness. In front of the boys, Henry reminds Lenina of their date for that afternoon, which the Director finds Òcharming.Ó

Henry goes on to explain that future rocket-plane engineers are conditioned to live in constant motion, and future chemical workers are conditioned to tolerate toxic chemicals. Henry wants to show the students the conditioning of Alpha Plus Intellectual fetuses, but the Director, looking at his watch, announces that the time is ten to three. He decides there is not enough time to see the Alpha Plus conditioning; he wants to make sure the students get to the Nurseries before the ÔchildrenÕ there have awakened from their naps.