<P> The events of the Depression in Britain in 1931, with its mass unemployment and the abandonment of the gold currency standard, persuaded Huxley to assert that stability was the "primal and ultimate need" if civilisation was to survive the present crisis . The Brave New World character Mustapha Mond, Resident World Controller of Western Europe, is named after Sir Alfred Mond . Shortly before writing the novel, Huxley visited Mond's technologically advanced plant near Billingham, north east England, and it made a great impression on him . </P> <P> Huxley used the setting and characters in his science fiction novel to express widely held opinions, particularly the fear of losing individual identity in the fast - paced world of the future . An early trip to the United States gave Brave New World much of its character . Not only was Huxley outraged by the culture of youth, commercial cheeriness and sexual promiscuity, and the inward - looking nature of many Americans, he had also found the book My Life and Work by Henry Ford on the boat to America, and he saw the book's principles applied in everything he encountered after leaving San Francisco . </P> <P> The novel opens in the World State city of London in AF (After Ford) 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar), where citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programmes into predetermined classes (or castes) based on intelligence and labour . Lenina Crowne, a hatchery worker, is popular and sexually desirable, but Bernard Marx, a psychologist, is not . He is shorter in stature than the average member of his high caste, which gives him an inferiority complex . His work with sleep - learning allows him to understand, and disapprove of, his society's methods of keeping its citizens peaceful, which includes their constant consumption of a soothing, happiness - producing drug called soma . Courting disaster, Bernard is vocal and arrogant about his criticisms, and his boss contemplates exiling him to Iceland because of his nonconformity . His only friend is Helmholtz Watson, a gifted writer who finds it difficult to use his talents creatively in their pain - free society . </P> <P> Bernard takes a holiday with Lenina outside the World State to a Savage Reservation in New Mexico, in which the two observe natural - born people, disease, the aging process, other languages, and religious lifestyles for the first time . (The culture of the village folk resembles the contemporary Native American groups of the region, descendants of the Anasazi, including the Puebloan peoples of Acoma, Laguna and Zuni .) Bernard and Lenina witness a violent public ritual and then encounter Linda, a woman originally from the World State who is living on the reservation with her son John, now a young man . She, too, visited the reservation on a holiday many years ago, but became separated from her group and was left behind . She had meanwhile become pregnant by a fellow - holidaymaker (who is revealed to be Bernard's boss, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning). She did not try to return to the World State, because of her shame at her pregnancy . Despite spending his whole life in the reservation, John has never been accepted by the villagers, and his and Linda's lives have been hard and unpleasant . Linda has taught John to read, although from the only two books in her possession--a scientific manual and the complete works of Shakespeare . Ostracised by the villagers, John is able to articulate his feelings only in terms of Shakespearean drama, especially the tragedies of Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet . Linda now wants to return to London, and John, too, wants to see this "brave new world". Bernard sees an opportunity to thwart plans to exile him, and gets permission to take Linda and John back . On their return to London, John meets the Director and calls him his "father", a vulgarity which causes a roar of laughter . The humiliated Director resigns in shame before he can follow through with exiling Bernard . </P>

When does a brave new world take place