Brave New World Guided Reading Questions:
Chapters 1-4
1. Cite TWO examples from the first chapter that show that although the London
H&C Center is a place that generates life, what goes on there, in the narrator's eyes, is
quite unhealthy—even described in deathlike imagery.
2. What does the above immediately suggest about Huxley's view of the Brave New
World?
3. Why does the narrator say that after 267 days . . . one arrives at "Independent
existence--so called." What is SIGNIFICANT about the term "so called"?
4. How does the labeling of fertilized eggs indicate that this is a patriarchal society?
THINK!!
5. What is the narrator saying when he indicates that "our Ford" –for some
inscrutable reason--sometimes refers to himself as "our Freud". You must look up the
word "inscrutable" in order to answer this question. What does it tell you about
knowledge and access to learning in the BNW?
6. About what does Fanny reprimand Lenina? Why is this satirical?
7. Where did the BNWers learn that "everyone belongs to everyone else"?
8. How is "truth" determined? AND who decides what "truth" is?
9. According to World Controller Mustapha Mond, why was pre-modern man
unstable?
10. At the London H&C Center everyone has ONE AIM. What is it?
11. What is the matter with Lenina, and how does Fanny ultimately "help" her?
12. What does Mustapha Mond tell the boys they are fortunate for?
13. COMPARE the conversations / dialogues that are juxtaposed throughout this
section. What is the difference between their conversations?
Say something about Mustapha Mond, the guys at the LH&C Center, the girls, and the
disembodied repetitions.
14. CONSIDER: What happens when you take away a people's past (their history)?
Why is the past so important? (please don't say because we learn from it!!)
15. What is the significance (allusion, irony, and travesty!) of Mond's statement:
"Suffer the children"?
16. Identify the steps chronicling what happened during and after the Nine Years War.
a. _____ airplanes
b. _____ bomb
c. _____ collapse: choose _____ or _____
d. Conscription of consumption means:
e. Evidence that it was not successful:
f. What was the British Museum Massacre?
g. Why do you think these "things" were targeted?
h. What three things does society now see a need for?
Chapter 5
1. What happens to the BNW citizens when they die?
2. Find the quote that lets us know "happiness" is a BNW "truth," not a true state of
being.
2. What was Westminster Abbey? What has it become? What does this say
about the BNW society?
3.
Whom does Bernard sit next to at the Solidarity meeting?
4. What is her distinguishing physical feature? What does this suggest about the
BNW "science"?
5. What does the Solidarity meeting clearly parody?
6. What is wrong with FiFi's post-Solidarity rapture?
7. How does Bernard feel after the Solidarity meeting? QUOTE 3 phrases to answer.
CHAPTER 6
8. What does Lenina think time is for?
9. What two things does Bernard want to do on their date?
10.
In response TO WHAT does Bernard say he'd rather be himself?
11.
What does Bernard wish that shocks Lenina?
12.
What does Bernard want?
13. Why is Bernard's statement, "You must have had a terrible shock" relayed
"almost enviously"?
14. What is the difference between Lenina's awareness of numbers and
Bernard's awareness of numbers? AND what does this say about each of them?
15. What is the difference between Lenina and Bernard at the end of chapter 6?
16. What evidence exists to show the Savage Reservation is enclosed by electric
wire? What kind of thematic statement can you make about life and the fence?
CHAPTER 7
17.
Why is Lenina so uncomfortable with feeling small?
18. What is "the matter" with the Indian man?
19. At what age do BNW'ers die?
20. What is the connection between "orgy porgy" and the drums on the reservation?
21. How is the Savage Reservation performance NOT like a community sing?
22. VERY!!!!: WHAT IDEA DOES JOHN INTRODUCE that is unfamiliar to the
BNW'ers?
23. To what can you attribute John's strange language?
24. Who is Linda and where is she from originally?
25. How is the society on the reservation the REVERSE of her native land?
26. What does Bernard discover about the DHC ?
27. What do the last few sentences in chapter 7 say about Huxley's view of the
BNW?
CHAPTER 8
28. Why did the women on the reservation punish Linda?
29. Why did Linda not try to return to the BNW?
30. To what caste did Linda belong?
31. In what did John find solace?
32. What does Pope' bring Linda that becomes an important part of John's
development?
33. What three things does John discover as a young man that are foreign to
BNW'ers
34. What do John and Bernard have in common?
35. What does Bernard propose to John AND WHY?
CHAPTER 9
36. What does Bernard do while Lenina is on a soma holiday?
CHAPTER 10
37. Of what does the DHC accuse Bernard?
38. How does Bernard "defend" himself?
39. Of what does Linda accuse "Tomakin"?
40. What does John say that causes everyone to break out in laughter?
Chapter 11
1. Although everyone wants to see John, why is no one interested in Linda?
2. What does the doctor predict will happen to Linda as a result of her soma intake?
3. What is Bernard's life like now that he has charge of John the Savage?
4. Why does Bernard determine never to speak with Helmholtz again?
5. How does Bernard feel about the world now that he has achieved some success?
What does this tell us about Bernard?
6. John's comment, "O, brave new world that has such people in it" refers to what
people? AND how does he physically react to these people.
7. Where does Lenina take the Savage?
8. How does John feel about the feelies? Use the TWO ADJECTIVE that he uses.
9. What strong EMOTION does Lenina display on the roof of her apartment building
after John leaves her?
10. How does Lenina deal with her pain?
Chapter 12:
1. How does almost everyone treat Bernard now that the Savage won't appear?
2. When Lenina leaves with the Arch Community Songster of Canterbury, what does
she notice for the first time, AND why do you think she notices this?
3. On page 177 Mustapha Mond decides that a paper cannot be published. What is the
danger of the writer's ideas? O Brave New Students. THINK ABOUT THIS!!!!!!!!!
4. What does John tell Bernard near the top of p. 179 that sounds very much like what
Bernard himself used to sound like?
5. What strange comment does Huxley make about the principle function of a
friend(179)? Do you agree or disagree?
6. Why does Helmholtz's reconciliation with Bernard say about Helmholtz?
7. Why is Helmholtz in trouble with the authorities?
8. Describe the relationship between Helmholtz and John
9. What does Helmholtz realize is NECESSARY if one is to write good, penetrating,
X-rayish phrases?
CH. 13
10. What does Lenina's love-sick distractedness cause her to do--or not to do, and
what is the result?
11. CONTRAST the way John wants to show Lenina his love for her and the way she
wants to show her feelings for him. Why are their METHODS at odds?
12. How does John respond to Lenina's approaches?
13. Why does John run out of his apartment?
Chapter 14
1. Identify THREE details that describe the setting at the Park Lane Hospital for the
dying.
2. What is it about John's behavior that immediately surprises the nurse and why?
3. What does John think about as he sits by his mother's side?
4. How old is Linda? (202)
5. Whom does Linda think John is at first, and how does he react to this?
6. How does John react to Linda's death, and what wrong impression is the nurse
concerned might be conveyed to the children?
Chapter 15
7. What horrifies John as he moves among the workers as their day ends at the Park
Lane hospital?
8. Why does John try to stop the Deltas from taking their soma ration?
9. When Bernard and Helmholtz arrive at the hospital, how do their responses to the
situation differ? How do the police respond?
Chapter 16
What follows is extremely, critically important to understanding Huxley's message
(the book's major theme, its major WARNING:
1. When Monde quotes Shakespeare on page 218-19, what primary reason does he
give John for Shakespeare's absence in the BNW?
2. What does Monde say is necessary if one is to write tragedies?
3. What, does Monde confess, is the price that society must pay for stability? What
must people choose between .
4. What does Monde mean by saying, "Each one of us, of course, goes through life
inside a bottle. . ." ?
5. What "image" does Monde give as the "optimum population"?
6. Read the first several sentences in the paragraph on p. 224 ("Awful. They don't find
it so. . . .). Consider whether or not this type of life sounds appealing. What does
HUXLEY think of those to whom this does appeal?
7. In the BNW what must even science be considered?
8. How does Bernard respond to the prospect of being sent to an island? What is
finally done with him?
9. What does Monde say about truth? (227)
10. What did Ford do in his own time? Monde says he helped to shift the emphasis
from _____ to ______.
11. Monde says control is not good for truth but it is good for _____.
12. What kind of a climate does Helmholtz want to live in and WHY?
13. About what is Helmholtz most concerned at the end of chapter 16. Consider what
is happening to Helmholtz and determine what this says about him.
Chapter 17
1. What THREE things have been sacrificed to achieve happiness in the BNW?
2. What does Newman say the young will discover as time moves on? He says they
will discover that ______________ was not made for man--that it is an unnatural
state.
3. In the second book Mond reads from, what does the author say is the reason that
man turns to God as he gets older (NOT fear of death)?
4. What does the author say man feels the need for? Something that________. What
does this mean?
5. Does Mond believe in God?
6. How does God manifest himself in the BNW?
7. Why does Mond say people believe in God?
8. Contrast the Savage's suffering in Malpais with his suffering in the BNW.
9. The Savage says that God is the reason for everything that is--- list the three things
he mentions.
10. What is meant by Othello's words "If after every tempest came such calms, may
the winds blow til they have awakened death" ?
11. What does the Savage say the BNW needs AND why?
12. What is the VPS and what does it do?
13. What does John say he doesn't want, AND what SIX THINGS does he want? How
does Mond interpret John's wishes?
Chapter 18
1. What was John doing in the bathroom and why?
2. Despite their sadness, how do the three young men feel? Of what is their sadness a
symptom?
3. To where does John move, and how does he hope to survive? (166-168)
4. Look up and define the word asceticism. How does this apply to John's purpose for
coming to the lighthouse?
5. WHY do reporters first come to the lighthouse?
6. What haunts John, and why does he whip himself?
7. What brings crowds to the lighthouse? What is the name of the feely made about
John?
8. The BNWers turn the Savage's attempts at mortifying the flesh into what?
9. When the Savage awakens, what does he realize he's done? What does he do as a
result?
10. Why do you think Huxley ends the book with the specific manner of description
he uses on p.259?
11. Is this a negative or positive ending, and WHY?