Example Group Blog Post 1

Chapter 1

Group 1: Ms. Cahill, Ms. Maffio, & Ms. Stone

Summary:
The novel opens in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre.The year is a.f. 632 (632 years“after Ford”). The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning is giving a group of students a tour of a factory that produces human beingsand conditions them for their predestined roles in the World State. He explains to the boys that human beings no longer produce living offspring. Instead, surgically removed ovaries produce ova thatare fertilized in artificial receptacles and incubated in specially designed bottles.

The Hatchery destines each fetus for a particular caste in the World State. The five castes are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta,and Epsilon. Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon undergo the Bokanovsky Process, 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 embryos never undergo this dividingprocess, which can weaken the embryos. The Director explains that the Bokanovsky Process facilitates social stability because the clones it produces are predestined to perform identical tasks at identical machines. The cloning process is one of the tools the World State uses to implement its guiding motto: “Community, Identity,Stability.”

The Director goes on to describe Podsnap’s Technique, which speeds up the ripening process of eggs within a single ovary.With this method, hundreds of related individuals can be producedfrom the ova and sperm of the same man and woman within two years.The average production rate using Podsnap’s Technique is 11,000 brothersand sisters in 150 batches of identical twins.Called over by the Director, Mr. Henry Foster, an employee at the plant, tells the attentive 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,the gestation time period for a human fetus. On the last day, theyare “decanted,” or born. The entire process is designed to mimic 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 “freemartins.”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 destinedfor 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 “their inescapable social destiny.”

The Director and Henry Foster then introduce Lenina Crowneto 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 datefor that afternoon, which the Director finds “charming.” Henry goes onto 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 children there have awakened from their naps.

Characters:
In this chapter we are introduced to the DHC (Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning), Henry Foster, and Lenina Crowne.

The DHC
At the onset of the chapter we first meet the DHC who is described as being, "tall and rather thin but upright... [with] a long chin and big rather prominent teeth, just covered... by his full, floridly curved lips" (Huxley, 4). Of course, like the others in the World State, we are unaware of how old this guy really is.

Henry Foster
Mr. Foster, as he is often referred to in this chapter, is described as "a fair-haired, ruddy young man..." (Huxley, 8). He can also be described as quite the expertise in the particular field in which he works at the Hatchery. As the the DHC and passes him with the group of students, he ends up joining as an additional tour guide where he rattles off a number of statistics and figures. It is also important to note that he and Lenina are involved.

Lenina Crowne
In this chapter we don't really learn very much character details about Lenina, except for the fact that she works a the Hatchery and Conditioning Center. We also learn about her appearance when the narrator asserts that, "one could see that, for all the lupus and the purple eyes, she as uncommonly pretty" (Huxley, 16). 

Questions:

1.  Why do you think the World State chose to worship Henry Ford?
2. In this chapter we are introduced to the different groups within the established caste system, as well as  how they are decanted and conditioned. Think about our world today, are there any connections between the caste system groups of Brave New World and the class system groups of our current society? 
3. Why do you think there are so many animal references like "straight from the horses mouth" in Brave New World? How is this ironic?