The novel opens in the distant future at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. This institution plays an essential role in the artificial reproduction and social conditioning of the world’s population.
As the chapter begins, the Director of the Centre (the D.H.C.) conducts a group of new students, as well as the reader, on a tour of the facility and its operations—a biological version of the assembly line, with test-tube births as the product. They begin at the Fertilizing Room, move on to the Bottling Room, the Social Predestination Room, and the Decanting Room. Along the way, the D.H.C. explains the basic operation of the plant—Bokanovsky’s Process—in which one fertilized egg produces from 8 to 96 “buds” that will grow into identical human beings.
The conditioning that goes along with this process aims to make the people accept and even like their “inescapable social destiny.” That destiny occurs within a Caste System (or social hierarchy) ranging from the handsome and intelligent Alpha Pluses down to the working drone Epsilons.
The chapter also introduces two workers at the Centre: Henry Foster, who will figure as a minor character in the story; and “pneumatic” Lenina Crowne, a major character who will affect the destiny of the novel’s protagonist.
