In the first chapter, Aldous Huxley takes us to the Central London Hatchery
And Conditioning Centre, with the World State motto above
the door: Community, Identity, Stability.
The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning is taking his students on a
tour of the Centre, in the year of A.F. 632 (632 years “after Ford”), I am not
really sure what A.F. 632 means, but I am hoping I find out soon. He shows them the Fertilizing Room, and
explains how humans would no longer produce living offspring; instead they
remove ovaries to create ova to produce artificial living beings. Next, D.H.C. explains “Bokanovsky’s Process”;
when the Gamma, Delta and Epsilon embryos would divide from one to eight to
ninety-six buds that will grow into perfectly developed human beings. As they
are walking, we are introduced to a Mr. Foster (explained to be a “ruddy young
man”), he joins the Director on his tour and expresses his knowledge on each
process. Both Mr. Foster and the
Director discuss how individuals were produced that were sexually mature at
four and full-grown at six, though, a six year old would not be smart enough to
do Epsilon work. Lastly, we are
introduced to Lenina, a nurse, who is immunizing fish against the future “man’s
disease”. The chapter ends with Mr.
Foster pleading to go to the Decanting Room and D.H.C. giving in. So far I feel as if this first chapter is the
behind the scenes of a World control scheme by multiplying test tube embryos
into perfect humans. The question is, why
would anyone want to produce perfect humans by the masses?
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