Beginning of Essay
was published in 1932. It is a remarkable piece of science fiction for both its time and our own. It seems to withstand the intervening 65 years, primarily because of its depiction of a tightly controlled, rigidly stratified homogenous society. Issues of social c ....

Middle of Essay
.... bottled, labelled and sent down the conveyor belt to the "Social Predestination Room". It is here that they are given a caste designation (Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon), carded into the main card index and stored. It is here that they are "sexed". Thirty percent of the female embryos are allowed to develop normally (to maintain the supply of initial ova). The rest of the female embryos are given a large dose of male hormone that renders them structurally female in all ways, but sterile. It is also here that their caste designation determines how much oxygen they will receive in their bottle. "The lower the caste, the shorter the oxygen." The lower ....