Jenna Zucha

Topic AI. Utopia as Literature: Arrested Progress in Narrative Form

•Using Ecotopia as a leading example, what are some frustrations and pleasures of reading utopian fiction? In what ways does or doesn't it measure up to the quality of literature you expect in a graduate seminar? Compare to other texts this semester. How do you rationalize these issues of literary quality?

Utopian literature falls under the category of fiction because it is “works of the imagination.” The author of a fictional text is expected to overcome the boundaries of reality and create people, places, and events that represent an uncharted idea or possibility. The imaginative aspect of utopian literature is the place and the process by which this place has become good or better than the present reality. C. Fred Alford offers an explanation for why utopian literature, in the past, has been viewed as counterproductive to actual human progress in his article “Critical Rationalism & the Problem of Utopian Thought: A Second Look.” Alford recognizes the standard argument that utopian thought is limited in its narrative capabilities because “the utopian goal is an arrested society, a perfect and unchanging social order” (483). This goal seems to limit progress and imaginative thought in utopian literature; however, utopia as an idea seems limitless, full of never-ending possibilities of place, ideals, technology, and communication. This struggle stems from the tension between the author’s description of a social theory and the reader’s demand for a story (Objective 2C). Limits are only discovered when the utopian idea is bound by the narrative form. The author, not the utopian goal or thought, arrests future progress and imagination.

A primary frustration in reading utopian literature is discovering the limitations of the author. This is most apparent in Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia. The blueprints of any utopian society are easily laid, it is only when you start throwing in the common everyday aspects of life do the perfect lines of the plan begin to fade and show areas of weakness. In Plato’s Republic Socrates describes “the true and healthy constitution of a State” is the one in which the inhabitants are given “the ordinary conveniences of life.” The plan seems easy and simple enough until Glaucon mentions that “you have not given them a relish to their meal.” At this point the creation of the State becomes much more complicated and complex “they will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture” because “many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life.” This obsession with the materialistic is not the only complication to recognize in the creation of a utopian state. Another area of concern is the daily interactions between people of the opposite sex, family members, strangers, and outsiders. Early utopian novels avoid this aspect of the narrative and concentrate on educating the reader on the importance of the overall plan rather than the actual application of the plan. In Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward the reader receives a limited view of the daily interactions among the people and how they feel about their environment. When Julian West encounters a waiter in the neighborhood restaurant he is told by Dr. Leete that “the individual is never regarded, nor regards himself, as a servant,” but West never has an opportunity to ask the young man directly how he feels about his current situation (71). Ecotopia attempts to bridge the gap between creation and application, but falls short in believability because of the many contradictions and inconsistencies with the ideal and the actual.

Naomi Jacobs states in her article, “Failures of the imagination in Ecotopia” that “Callenbach creates a plausible future world full of rich detail and surprising new ideas; but where his work moves from explanation to dramatization—from general discussion to specific portrayals of individuals in action—the unregenerate, dystopic presence of the author's own culture often persists” (318). Callenbach claims that this is a place of gender equality and that men and women share the burdens of power in Ecotopia, but this idea is not represented through the interactions of the characters, and the descriptions of these characters in the novel.

The reader is told that the nation accomplished “independence” with the help of the Survivalist Party which is mostly made up of female members, and that the nation is led by a woman, Vera Allwen. Yet every government official Will Weston meets and speaks with is male. From the guards at the border to the "high government spokesman" (114) who tells him about the economy, and his contact at the War Ministry is male. Though we are told that both men and women took part in the helicopter war (145), the only soldiers Weston encounters are male (154-55). There is only one female journalist “at the cove” and she rarely interacts with Will on a professional level. All interactions with women in Ecotopia, with the exception of Vera Allwen, have to do with sex or some sort of relationship-based conflict. Once Will actually meets the president of the nation, Vera Allwen, she is described in gender specific stereotypes. First seeing her on videotape, he describes her as "plain but strong" with "a lot of warmth, yet a certain menace too" (47). Will describes her as a “remarkable woman” but downplays her power as that of a mother reprimanding her child, "there's a family feeling even when she's chastising someone"(48).When Weston finally meets Allwen, he responds to her first as a woman, commenting on her appearance just as he does with most of the women—but few of the men—he encounters. The conversation soon turns personal, and in the end Vera is responsible for guiding him through his transformation like a Fairy God Mother, “I was dumbfounded: that weird old woman must have seen what was going on in my mind when I didn’t know myself” (180). So even though Callenbach sets the character up for empowerment he describes her in a way that belittles her political equality in the utopian state.

The main character’s relationship with Marissa seems forced and unrealistic because at times she is free-loving and empowered by her ability to choose her mate— “with Marissa, coming into a place is just coming into a place. We will relate to the people there individually or together, intimately or not at all, as it happens to go” (117)—and at other times she is jealous, unpredictable, and protective of Will: “there was Marissa, full of a sardonic  kind of sympathy…she appraised Linda with steely calm. But while Marissa was there she didn’t let Linda near [Will]” (152). The author can’t completely let go of his own conventions of gender roles to create a purely equal environment for both men and women. According to Objective 3f it is important to evaluate gender roles and standards of sexual and love relationships in utopian communities because the point of creating a perfect society involves the equality of all members—women and men.

However, this area of frustration does add an element of pleasure that is lacking in earlier texts like Thomas More’s Utopia. Even though the relationships created in Ecotopia are flawed, at least they exist and offer layers of perception in the utopian state. Donny Wankan elaborates this idea in his final essay from the 2007 Utopian seminar, “Callenbach was able to present a reasonably exciting story between his descriptions of the Ecotopian infrastructure and technology.  The journal entries provided a break from the reporter's fact sheets, by taking us into his emotional reactions to the circumstances.  It was mainly in the journals that the plot of the story took place, as clear as it was.”  Utopian literature is a difficult subject matter because it is demanding in two different areas. The author of a utopian text is expected to lay out a clear frame work for a functioning society, while enhancing the reader’s pleasure through character development, conflict, and imaginative speculation (Objective 2B).

Works Cited

Alford, C., Fred. “Critical Rationalism & the Problem with Utopian Thought: A Second Look.” Polity. Vol. 14, No.3 481-500. JSTOR. Web. 6 July 2011.

Jacobs, Naomi. "Failures of the imagination in Ecotopia." Extrapolation 38.4 (1997): 318+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 6 July 2011.