1984, Atlas Shrugged, Clockwork Orange, Fahrenheit 451, We. All novels of similar futuristic settings, based on a satirical exaggeration of a trend in the author's present. Brave New World is not unlike these three, questioning the sexual rigidity and birth of industry of Huxley's 1930s.
Somehow, sex has lost it's reproductive power to the artificiality of industry. Humans are manufactured from a single ovary, and several sets of twins are developmentally controlled to occupy certain caste characteristics, leading to particular occupations. This seems to be motivated by maximizing the citizen's happiness: sex is no longer monogamous, people are brainwashed into their careers, and everyone is constantly sedated by a drug called soma, which is something like alcohol without the after effects.
At first, this world seems like paradise. Then we meet our protagonist, Bernard Marx. (On the instance of naming, many characters have famous first names and surnames even when they cannot see the significance because the historical names have lost their connotation). Bernard protests the idea of community through what he comes to see as being humane. An Alpha plus, he has been bred to be of the highest caste, prepared for intellectual and weighty work. As a result, he deals openly with his own emotion. On a trip to impress a girl, he goes to the only world in New Mexico where this communal nature remains kept at length.
The introduction of John, a "Savage" because he was conceived in what is to be considered the normal way for contemporary readers opens up questions of what is normal and what is atypical. His familiarity with Shakespeare allows him to draw connections between what he understands as his natural world, the new world which he is visiting, and the behaviors and traditions of the past. Would consistent happiness really be the answer to all humanity's problems? Could there be art, literature, music, film, or other expressive mediums without the forces of tragedy and frustration?
I think the most compelling part of this novel is the technology. Written in the 30s with the birth of the mass produced automobile (Ford is akin to God), the innovation of mass production touches all elements of technology. Although computers have not been imagined, individuals travel by helicopter and rocket ship back and forth to both work and vacation destinations. All manufactured goods, especially leisure games such as golf, suggest some sort of digital elements. However, the fertilization process is all carried out by hand. Perhaps this suggests a faith in humanity to always have a part in their own growth, or maybe it adds fallibility to the equation, in direct imitation of the act as we know it today.