Imagination Gone Wild

"Nothing like oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par." Again he rubbed his hands.
"But why do you want to keep the embryo below par?" asked an ingenuous student.
"Ass!" said the Director, breaking a long silence. "Hasn't it occurred to you that an Epsilon embryo must have an Epsilon environment as well as an Epsilon heredity?" -pg 14

Reading the sections of the novel that described the ways embryos were conditioned to the roles they would take on once they were "decanted", I wondered who could think of these things. By manipulating surrogate blood flow during fetal positions, adjusting temperatures to extremely hot or extremely cold, or controlling oxygen levels, unborn babies are trained to fit into the caste system they were chosen for. I found the creativity and resourcefulness of the characters in control (or the Huxley I guess) a little disturbing. I suppose that was the author's desired effect, but imagination put into these fictional methods surprised me.


Through the casual dialogue, some of which came from less learned questioners of the system, Huxley quickly depicted the Hatcheries of his futuristic novel without having to literally describe them. The nature of the dialogue -casual and in Mr. Foster's case competitive and enthusiastic- showed how dominant and effective the methods of the Hatcheries are. Dissent was apparently widely eradicated by not only the Bokanovsky Process, but also the disturbing treatments inflicted on the unborn. I was impressed - in a perverse way- by how well the author made this social organization seem so plausible and easy. The thorough details of how each treatment was achieved (including a lot of chemicals and hormones I can't pronounce) were the greatest contributors to the Huxley's clearly defined system or conditioning and decanting. I have a feeling the author put in a good deal of research into his imaginary Hatcheries. At this point I hope, more than officially predict, that there will be a rebel character appearing soon to challenge the thesis the Hatcheries exist on: one belongs to the many.