Aldus Huxley's Brave New World mixes elements of science fiction and philosophy to examine a series of characters living in a unified, futuristic totalitarian state. Society is rigorously divided from conception, with people's roles set out through interference in their embryonic development, which takes place in the form of in-vitro fertilisation. 'Alphas' and 'Betas' are accorded a higher status, and developed to work in more challenging, intellectual roles, while 'Gammas', 'Deltas' and 'Epsilons' are consigned to lower-class positions.
Bernard and Helmholtz, a couple of Alphas, are somewhat independent-minded, and suspicious of the lack of emotion embodied by their society's obsession with obsequious consumption, drug-taking and excessive, orgiastic physical-pleasure seeking. At the same time, Bernard is compelled by the desire for acceptance, reflected in his obsession with fellow-Alpha, Lenina. A trip to the 'wilds' of the Nevadan desert bring them in to contact with an altogether different form of society, where people are more inter-dependent, emotionally-attached, and less frivolous. They bring an outcast 'savage', John, back with them, both for the purposes of anthropological investigation, and, in the case of Bernard, cynical self-aggrandisement. Trouble ensues when John's inherent dislike for all the trashy amusement's of his 'brave new world' brings him into conflict with the dictates of The World State, and its ruling clique and ethos, embodied by Resident World Controller Mustapha Mond.
