The action of this dystopian novel takes place in a fictional World State. It is the 632th year of the era of stability, the Ford Era. Ford, who created the world's largest automobile company at the beginning of the twentieth century, is revered in the World State for the Lord God. They call him that - “Our Lord Ford”. In the state this is ruled by technocracy. Children are not born here - artificially fertilized eggs are grown in special incubators. Moreover, they are grown under different conditions, so completely different individuals are obtained - alpha, beta, gamma, delta and epsilon. Alpha, as it were, are first-class people, mental workers, epsilons - people of the lower caste, capable of only monotonous physical labor. At first, the embryos are aged under certain conditions, then they are born from glass bottles - this is called a cork. Babies are raised in different ways. Each caste pays homage to a higher caste and contempt for lower castes. The costumes of each caste are of a certain color. For example, alpha go in gray, scales in green, epsilons in black.
The standardization of society is the main thing in the World State. "Community, Identity, Stability" - this is the motto of the planet. In this world, everything is subject to expediency for the good of civilization. In a dream, children are instilled with truths that are written in their subconscious. And an adult, faced with any problem, immediately recalls some kind of saving recipe, remembered in infancy. This world lives today, forgetting the history of mankind. "History is sheer nonsense." Emotions, passions - this is what can only hinder a person. In the pre-Ford world, everyone had parents, a family home, but this did not bring people anything but unnecessary suffering. And now - "Everyone belongs to everyone else." Why love, why worry and drama? Therefore, children from a very young age are taught to erotic games, taught to see a partner in pleasures in the creature of the opposite sex. And it is desirable that these partners change as often as possible, because everyone belongs to everyone else. There is no art, there is only an entertainment industry. Synthetic music, electronic golf, “movie screeners - films with a primitive plot, watching which you really feel what is happening on the screen. And if your mood has somehow deteriorated, it’s easy to fix, you only need to take one or two grams of soma, a light drug that will immediately calm and cheer you up. "Soma grams - and no dramas."
Bernard Marx - a representative of the highest class, alpha plus. But he is different from his brothers. Too thoughtful, melancholy, even romantic. Heal is frail and dislikes sports games. Rumor has it that he was accidentally injected with alcohol in the incubator for embryos instead of a blood substitute, which is why he turned out to be so strange.
Lina Crown - Beta Girl. She is pretty, slender, sexy (they say “pneumatic” about them), Bernard is pleasant to her, although she does not understand much about his behavior. For example, she is amused by the fact that he is embarrassed when she, in the presence of others, discusses with him plans for their forthcoming pleasure trip. But she really wants to go with him to New Mexico, to the reserve, especially since getting permission to get there is not so easy.
Bernard and Linayna go to the reserve, where wild people live the way all humanity lived before the era of Ford. They did not taste the benefits of civilization, they are born from real parents, love, suffer, hope. In the Indian village of Malparaiso, Bernard and Linayna meet a strange savage - he is unlike other Indians, he is blond and speaks English - albeit some ancient. Then it turns out that John found a book in the reserve, it turned out to be Shakespeare's volume, and he learned it almost by heart.
It turned out that many years ago, a young man Thomas and a girl Linda went on an excursion to the reserve. Thunderstorm began. Thomas managed to return back to the civilized world, but the girl was not found and decided that she was dead. But the girl survived and ended up in an Indian village. There she gave birth to a child, and she became pregnant in the civilized world. Therefore, she did not want to go back, because there is no shame worse than becoming a mother. In the village, she became addicted to mezcal, Native American vodka, because she did not have a catfish, which helps to forget all the problems; the Indians despised her - according to their concepts, she behaved depravedly and easily converged with men, because she was taught that copulation, or, in Ford's way, mutual use, is just a pleasure accessible to everyone.
Bernard decides to bring John and Linda to the Transboundary World. Linda disgusts and horrifies everyone, and John, or the Savage, as they began to call him, becomes a fashionable curiosity. Bernard is instructed to introduce Savage to the benefits of civilization that do not hit him. He constantly quotes Shakespeare, who talks about more amazing things. But he falls in love with Lina and sees the beautiful Juliet in her. Lynine flatters Savage's attention, but she still cannot understand why, when she offers him to engage in “mutual use”, he becomes furious and calls her a harlot.
The Savage decides to challenge civilization after he sees Linda dying in the hospital. For him, this is a tragedy, but in the civilized world, death is treated calmly, as a natural physiological process. From a very early age, children are taken to the wards of the dying on excursions, entertained there, fed with sweets - all so that the child is not afraid of death and does not see suffering in it. After the death of Linda, the Savage comes to the point of distribution of catfish and begins to violently persuade everyone to abandon the drug, which clouds their brains. Panic can hardly be stopped by letting a couple of catfish enter the queue. But Savage, Bernard, and his friend Helmholtz are summoned to one of ten Chief Executives, his fordate Mustafa Mondu.
He explains to Savage that in the new world they sacrificed art, genuine science, passions in order to create a stable and prosperous society. Mustafa Mond talks about the fact that in his youth he was too keen on science, and then he was offered the choice between a link to a distant island, where all dissenters are gathered, and the position of Chief Executive Officer. He chose the second and stood up for stability and order, although he himself perfectly understands what he serves. “I do not want amenities,” says the Savage. “I want God, poetry, real danger, I want freedom, and good, and sin.” Mustafa also offers a link to Helmholtz, adding, however, at the same time that the islands attract the most interesting people in the world, those who are not satisfied with faithfulness, those who have independent opinions. The savage also asks for the island, but Mustafa Mond does not let him go, explaining this by the fact that he wants to continue the experiment.
And then the Savage himself leaves the civilized world. He decides to settle on an old abandoned aircraft beacon. With the last money, he buys the most necessary things - blankets, matches, nails, seeds, and intends to live far from the world, growing his bread and praying to Jesus, whether to the Indian god Pukong, or his cherished guardian of the eagle. But once, someone accidentally passing by sees a half-naked Savage passionately scolding himself on a hillside. And again a crowd of curious people rush over, for whom the Savage is only a funny and incomprehensible creature. “We want a bi-cha! We want bi-cha! " - the crowd is chanting. And here the Savage, having noticed Lina in the crowd, with a cry of “Libertine”, rushes at her with a scourge.
The next day, a pair of young Londoners arrives at the lighthouse, but when they go inside, they see that the Savage hanged himself.