Brave New World is set in a futuristic, dystopian world. The majority of the story takes place in a 'utopian' London where the air is clean and sterile, the people are never unhappy or lack anything they desire, and the state has totalitarian control over every person born.
Central London is a ring of buildings and flats surrounded by parkland used for sport and play. Outer London offers playing courts for the different caste workers: "a double row of Escalator-Fives Courts lined the main road from Notting Hill to Willesden. In the Ealing stadium a Delta gymnastic display and community sing was in progress." There are also huge community buildings that keep the state intact.
There is no wild, uncultivated countryside, only fields, and no abandoned or "for sale" buildings; every building belongs to the state and is used to its full capacity. This London is perfect, with every inch used for either work or play.
A Skyscraper - Credit: Schaffhausen/Wikimedia Commons
This is the work place of the book's main characters.
The building is squat and grey, thirty-four stories high and lined with windows.
One possible illustration of this building.
Inside the building, the atmosphere is tropical. The rooms are half-filled with rack upon rack of embryos, ova and spermatozoa; the other half holds babies and children being hypnopaedically conditioned.
Zuni Pueblo - Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The 'savage reservations' are areas that remain untouched by science and the new world, allowing the native people to preserve their customs and traditions. Although Malpais is a fictional place, its inspiration lies in the Southwest United States, where real Zuni reservations can still be found.
The Zuni tribe live in a pueblo (town or village), on Mesas: isolated flat-topped hills with steep sides. Ladders are used to reach their homes.
The area is surrounded by desert. Rainfall is scarce and erratic. The Zuni, therefore, build dams to collect water.
A Lighthouse - Credit: The Wandering Angel at Flickr
The Savage had chosen as his hermitage the old lighthouse which stood on the crest of the hill between Puttenham and Elstead.
Leaving civilization behind, the Savage retreats to a lighthouse in the rural countryside, roughly thirty-five miles from London. Quite what a lighthouse is doing in landlocked Surrey is not clear. Perhaps Huxley was ahead of his time in prophesying rising sea levels...
Puttenham and Elstead are villages in Surrey on the south side of the Hog's Back. The views from Puttenham are picturesque, including woods and heaths, the Hindhead and Blackdown ranges, extending over Sussex to the South Downs.
Puttenham - Credit: Humphrey Bolton at Geograph
Elstead is similarly picturesque. It is a spacious village on the River Wey, with handsome properties dating back to the 17th century. Elstead has a tranquil atmosphere and offers quiet walks along the beautiful banks of the River Wey.