Chapter 15 Summary

John shoves his way through the crowd of Deltas coming off shift and waiting for their daily ration of soma. As he looks around, he's overwhelmed by the sea of sameness—all one hundred and sixty-two people with just two faces and voices—two identical Bokanovsky groups, one male, one female. He thinks of them as maggots swarming around, like the ones that swarmed over Linda. "How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world…." The words now mock him.

Then a loud voice announces the soma distribution and the Deltas line up. Enslaved, thinks John. Linda was enslaved, and she died. Others should live in freedom, he thinks, and the world will be made beautiful. It's suddenly clear what he has to do. He rushes through the crowd and begs the shocked Deltas not to take...