LITR 5439: Literary & Historical Utopias
Final Exam Submission 2009
Kathryn Vitek
Topic A1
“The Value of Evaluation”
First and foremost, utopian stories are stories. They are works of fiction published for the purpose of being bought, read, and profited from in a commercial market. If a writer were interested strictly in explaining a social theory, he could publish in an academic journal or contribute to any number of textbooks covering the multitude of topics touched on in utopian novels. But the works read in this course have not been photocopied out of textbooks, newspapers, or magazines. They are mostly bound books that can be purchased at your local Barnes and Noble. But if the books’ aesthetics are enough to convince buyers of their fiction status, why is the question of their genre raised at all? The reason is that the utopian genre is not pure. It is a hodgepodge of different academic fields, social theories, and writing styles combined in shaky plot structures written by what are often novice fiction writers. That fact allows many other works to sneak under the genre’s umbrella, such as biblical, political, and historical texts written for religious or expository purposes. Despite these difficulties, the genre has a literary value all its own. (Objective 1)
Studying works in the Utopian genre can teach readers about the value of different aspects of literature. On the most basic level, utopian novels force the reader to consider the importance of plot structure. Where most stories pick up slowly and build toward a climax, utopian novels are in the unique position of beginning at the resolution of a previous story. So where can the writer go when his basic premise is that conflict in his setting has been eliminated? Utopian novels show us. One direction taken is to focus on characterization. Despite the peace in Boston in Looking Backward, Julian West faces not only a dilemma of time travel but also an internal struggle of belonging and love. Although William Weston is free to write what he chooses and to come and go in Ecotopia when he wants, he struggles with his own beliefs and desires. By focusing on the internal struggles of characters, writers can create conflict without endangering the foundation of their story. The genre forces the writers to take this path, thus challenging creativity to new heights. At the same time, it makes both the writer and the readers question what types of conflict are internal and external, helping to engage the reader through empathy. (Objective 2)
Another path writers can choose is to place their narrators outside of their stories’ chosen settings. Recognizing that Van is telling his story after leaving Herland, readers anticipate a climactic question of when and how he will leave the country. Their status as outsiders also allows the characters to encounter conflict with members of the society without falsifying the claim that those who reside in the society experience no conflict with one another. However, having the narrator tell his story after leaving the utopian society, such as in Herland and Utopia, can create a problem of the story sounding more didactic than entertaining. In 2007, student Donny Wankan explained the complication that, “Their (Utopian novels’) intellectual purpose stood in the way of the literary escape element.” This is a challenge to the writer to include enough plot structure and conflict that the story remains a story rather than becoming an essay or a lecture. The writer also needs to write with enough voice that the reader believes in the authenticity of the narrator and doesn’t begin to mistrust him as the author’s agenda in disguise. A benefit of the genre in literary studies is that students can look at how the writer accomplishes these tasks and question whether he accomplishes them at all. In exploring those questions, students must consider the relative values of writing style, plot structure, and storytelling ability. Those considerations force the students to really deconstruct the novel. Their conclusions can then be applied to other genres, giving them an increased appreciation of writing technique. (Objectives 2 & 5)
Beyond novels, aspects of the utopian genre lend themselves to other texts. Religious texts, such as the books of Genesis, Acts, and Revelation in the Bible, include visions of a utopian society in heaven and on earth and also offer insight into millennial prophesies so often encountered in the genre. Political texts like the Declaration of Independence and Dr. King’s Dream Speech show how utopian language has found its place in American culture. Historical texts like The Wealth of Nations show how people’s visions of an ideal society differ and what might contribute to those differences. Looking at utopian elements of all these different genres can help students see the influences that flow back and forth between history and literature. It also raises the question, “What makes political or historical writing good enough to qualify as literature?” When students begin to answer that question, they can also begin to appreciate the quality of writing in other fields and how writing technique can improve a writer’s message, no matter what is being written.
Writing in the Utopian genre, whether it be fictitious or not, has literary and educational value. It is studied for its interdisciplinary ideas, its creativity, its writing technique, and for its entertainment value. Despite the temptation for course discussions to stall on impossibility and disperse into social theories, these works have literary value to offer. All of these learning opportunities allow literary courses to keep the focus on the literary aspects of the writing without straying too far into other fields of study.
Kathryn Vitek
Topic B5 (Objective 5C)
“Underestimating the Power of Personal Choice for the Sake of a Communal World”
When the subject of utopias is broached, many people reflexively dismiss it as unrealistic and unattainable. My approach to the subject has been the opposite. I embrace the idea of a utopia and instead of asking, “How could it work?” I find myself asking, “Why would it not work?” This mental premise has led me to search for flaws in our course texts – something that would convince me of the impossibility of creating a utopian society. While I remain unconvinced, I have identified some of the elements that I believe lead people to automatically reject the genre. There are two main categories of traps that I believe authors fall into. The first is overemphasizing the admirable qualities of humanity. The second is leaving the darker qualities of humanity unaccounted for.
All of the course’s texts highlight citizens who are willing to sacrifice personal gain and cooperate unquestioningly with their neighbors. Utopia, Looking Backward, Herland, and Ecotopia present this willingness as a matter of course, suggesting that it is a natural instinct thwarted by competitive societies. Anthem is the only novel that presents it as a dangerous lifestyle. The most obvious example is that all of these stories feature communal living. Personal privacy is converted from a common desire into a device for creating loneliness. However, having one’s own personal space is one manifestation of achievement that most people crave. In a historical context, slave narratives show former slaves working toward owning a home as a symbol of freedom. Frederick Douglas describes his own astonishment at the men’s pride in their work and in the homes they have been able to create for themselves and their families. After years of the worst type of communal living on plantations, slaves yearned for privacy as a symbol of freedom. Taking pride in one’s work is seen again in Harriett Jacobs’ memoir when she describes her grandmother baking crackers to earn money to feed, clothe, and ultimately purchase her children. After working all day, her grandmother found strength to keep going in the motivation of personal capability and of reaching her goals.
Part of a person’s internal motivation is the desire to set and meet goals for themselves. It is seen every day in thousands of different ways, from athletics and academics to every day activities like housekeeping. Utopian novels seem to remove this motivation. In Ecotopia, for instance, citizens work only twenty hours and William marvels at the way Marissa is able to forget about her work entirely when she is not in the forest. Her work is something she enjoys, but Callenbach doesn’t emphasize any personal pride in it. Another form of motivation is the ability to make one’s own decisions. The inability to affect one’s own fate is shown most thoroughly in Anthem, where citizens don’t even have a say in what line of work they do. But it is also shown in other texts, such as consumers not having options in their purchases in the uniform stores in Looking Backward, or mothers in Herland having no choice but to accept the group’s decision that they are not capable of making the best decision for their own children and must therefore hand the child’s education over to someone else. The authors present these scenarios as being happily accepted by members of the society. But would they really be? In my research of prohibition, I found accounts of people breaking laws who never had before because they felt that it was wrong for the government to control their personal freedoms. The anti-prohibitionist Percy Andrae said, “In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, it aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike.” In this real historical example, crime rates in the United States rose drastically because people refused to be told what to do. That makes it difficult to believe that people would submit so willingly to having their choices controlled by the government in a utopian society.
Utopian novels overemphasize people’s willingness to sacrifice, just as the prohibitionists counted too heavily on the people’s willingness to give up alcohol because the government told them they should. Another instance where the fault of this logic is proven is in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Smith believed that the country’s wealthiest citizens had a responsibility to pay a higher tax to support their less fortunate countrymen. While this occurs to some extent today, Smith’s ideas have not been carried out to the degree he seemed to intend. The result has been a steady increase in the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States. Despite the logic of Smith’s proposal, the wealthy have proven largely unwilling to give up their earnings. All of this selfishness that is so underestimated in utopian novels was implied centuries ago when in Plato’s Republic Glaucon expanded the necessities of a state to include personal luxuries. Socrates’ observation foreshadows what real modern society has shown us - that people are inherently greedy. Utopian societies seem to claim this isn’t true, but the fact that it has yet to be proven in reality contributes greatly to people dismissing the genre.
Utopian ideas of cooperation and sacrifice paint a pretty picture, but historical attempts at manifesting them in society have set a precedent that they are just not possible on a large scale. I believe that in order for the mass public to stop dismissing the genre reflexively and accept utopian stories more readily, authors need to account for these truths and find ways to incorporate personal motivation and pride more believably in their utopian worlds.