Patrick Graham
9 May 2019

Utopian Fiction: Better Said Than Read

Utopian fiction is a subject that bears many ideas for how to improve society. However, works of utopian fiction tend to bear idiosyncrasies that prevent readers from “getting into them.”  In spite of the occasional outlier, like Oryx and Crake, utopian literature’s weaknesses in style and form, as in works such as The Dispossessed and The Handmaid’s Tale, render it better discussed than read.

Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Dispossessed fails to deliver its potential contribution to the literature of ideas as a result of its detachment from the world of today. It is set in a world many years in the future and on a different planet in a different galaxy. This makes it difficult for the reader to relate to the story. When the reader cannot relate to a story, he is likely to filter out many of the ideas that it might offer. The separation between story and reader does not stop there: The Dispossessed stars a cast of characters with bizarre-sounding names, and they all hold jobs in fictitious disciplines that are foreign to the reader’s life. As a result, the reader feels alienated from the story’s world and its characters. Also, the reader has difficulty discerning the protagonist from the antagonist, as well as understanding any of the characters’ conflicts. This makes for some pretty unengaging reading, and that leads to the author losing her ideas on the reader.

The world of The Dispossessed is not an unusual one for literature, though. Many titles of science fiction take place in farfetched times and places. However, they follow conventions that are familiar to readers far and wide. For instance, the “space opera” takes place in different times and in different galaxies, and it follows a hero on a quest to defeat a villain. The use of these tropes make such alien worlds accessible to readers. Unfortunately, the literature of ideas that is utopia discards such tropes.

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale offers a relatable world, and that gives it a better potential to resonate with the reader. A work of dystopian fiction, it tells a story of a structurally patriarchal society that rose after the society that we live in collapsed. This way, it comes off as more accessible to the reader than the bizarre world of The Dispossessed. Throughout the narrative, the story’s protagonist Offred reminisces about her life before the new system. These descriptions of the old days suit the reader as well, because they are mini-narrations of the world they already inhabit.

Sadly, The Handmaid’s Tale’s accessibility does not stand up to the prose’s unengaging form and distracting style. The story bears many elements of a confessional novel, in which the narrator prioritizes self-reflection over story and narration. This can be seen in the way that the protagonist spends most of the story elaborating on her own thoughts, feelings and memories. One might be interested in reading such a work when he knows what he is getting. However, when one wants to read a work of utopian fiction and instead gets the pontifications of a single character, he is apt to feel disappointed. This disappointment will lead to rejection of any other merits the novel might offer. Furthermore, the story’s style suffers when the author takes creative license with her use of punctuation. For instance, she does not consistently use quotation marks to signify dialogue. This makes it difficult for readers to follow characters’ conversations, and it creates a risk of readers missing out on important story points. These negatively affect the story’s ability to contribute ideas to the conversation.

Atwood’s Oryx and Crake succeeds where the previous two works fail by telling a more engaging story with the more palatable elements of the novel. It is a dystopian novel, but it borrows elements from other genres and tropes from familiar stories. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, it tells the story of a boy named Jimmy as he grew from being a child to a man to a survivor of the disaster that created the bleak environment of the present. As Jimmy navigates the present world, the narrative plays out like that of a lone hero who wanders a barren environment on the quest for survival. This trope shows up in other media—in films like Castaway, novels like Robinson Crusoe, and video games like Fallout—because it naturally engages viewers. Soon after Jimmy’s introduction, the narration jumps to a time before the disaster, and the reader learns about Jimmy’s early life. Here, the reader meets other characters and sees how Jimmy interacts with them. These interactions create complications that lead to rising action that holds the reader’s attention. After a couple of chapters, the story jumps back to Jimmy in the present. Then, it goes back to Jimmy’s past. This cycle repeats throughout the novel. This back-and-forth ebb-and-flow between two times hooks the reader. Oryx and Crake also engages the reader by using character archetypes. Jimmy fits the role of the hero, and Crake serves as the villain. Oryx functions first as a damsel in distress and later as a mentor who dispenses wisdom and insight to both aforementioned characters. These archetypes strike readers as familiar and support the story’s accessibility.

The genre of utopia is ripe with ideas that could benefit our world. It is also ripe with titles, such as The Dispossessed and The Handmaid’s Tale that repel readers with their confusing styles and boring stories. It occasionally produces outliers, such as Oryx and Crake that are free of these weaknesses, but those are not enough to make the genre an effective medium for the conversation of progress. That said, deliberation should be left to politicians, and fiction should remain a means of entertainment and escape.

“How Can I Reach These Kids?” Attracting Outsiders to Utopian Fiction

Universities attract thousands of different students. All students have their own unique interests, but they must inevitably take courses that seem to contradict their interests. However, it is the job of the professors of these courses to help unwilling students access the material. For instance, non-literature students may feel unenthusiastic about taking a course about utopian literature. Well, utopian fiction has themes of interdisciplinary humanities and social sciences, and an instructor can leverage these themes to hook students who might not read the genre otherwise.

A student who does not enjoy reading fiction still has many reasons to be interested in the genre of utopia. Utopia draws inspiration from disciplines such as history, political science, philosophy and sociology. Also, utopia has the potential to influence these fields. Educators should consider this; they should come up with ways to help students, who favor these disciplines, to find meaning in utopian fiction.

Utopia has shown up in the real world throughout history. For instance, the United States was founded because various groups of Europeans sought to create a better world than the ones they came from. Also, several groups of people have created “intentional communities” with the aim of emulating utopia on a small scale. These are but a couple of many examples of how real people have tried to create utopia. This can appeal to students of history.

Utopia’s central theme is how to perfectly govern a group of people. It shares this theme with the discipline of political science. While political science deals with theories and practices of government, fiction serves as a sandbox for testing these theories. An author of a work of utopian fiction can weave a hypothetical story of how a perfect government might work and how it might fail. This can appeal to students of political science.

Similar to political science, the discipline of sociology deals with groups of people. It examines the way people behave when they are in groups, and it observes how that behavior changes under different circumstances. Ultimately, it seeks the ideal way that humans should behave. Utopian fiction does this, too. Like all narratives, it takes a group of characters, puts them in different situations, and a story ensues. Utopian fiction stands apart, though, because it puts the characters in situations that are presumed to be ideal. The story’s results comment on the value and practicality of that ideal. This can appeal to students of sociology.

One step above political science and sociology lies the discipline of philosophy. Philosophy asks all sorts of broad questions: how should one live? What is good, and what is bad? Why are we here? Well, utopia attempts to answer these questions. A utopian author picks out any given philosophical question, picks out a potential answer, and elaborates on that answer by creating a world out of it. Then, she tells a story set in that world. That story prompts everyone to evaluate not only the author’s answer to the philosophical question, but their own beliefs and ideas. This can appeal to students of philosophy.

How can instructors of utopian literature leverage this potential? They could invite experts from these disciplines to give guest lectures in their courses. For instance, a professor of Middle Eastern history could give a presentation on the kibbutzim of the 19^th century in Israel. His deep knowledge of these utopian communities, and his historical perspective, would resonate with students who identify more with history than literature. Then, the course instructor could relate the kibbutzim to the utopias in the course readings. This would prime the students for more interest and better understanding.

Instructors of utopian literature could also engage non-literary students by prefacing each course reading with a discussion of theory. For instance, before reading Ayn Rand’s Anthem, an instructor could give students a primer on totalitarian forms of government. Then, he could give a profile of Rand herself and of her objectivist philosophy. These pre-discussions would engage students who are interested in the political and philosophical aspects of utopia. Then, the instructor would transition from the theory to the literature, with a preview of how the theory will show up in the novel. This way, the students will be more eager to complete the reading.

Utopian fiction draws inspiration from various different disciplines. Students have different interests in just as many areas. However, students will not always venture into different disciplines on their own. As instructors, it is our job to guide students to, and through, disciplines that are foreign to them. Also, it is our privilege to share our passion with them. We can do this by engaging their passions: by connecting their disciplinary interests to utopian fiction, we can help them find meaning in a vast and important genre of literature.

Utopia: A Weak Goal But a Strong Method

          History is full of instances in which ideas were taken too literally and chaos ensued. For instance, Russians took the ideas of Karl Marx and created a Communist empire that led to thousands of deaths. Likewise, plenty of good ideas exist in forms that do not seem to welcome access to them. For instance, many people praise the ideas of psychologist Carl Jung, but his work is notoriously dry and dense to the reader. The genre of utopian literature, sadly, suffers from both of these weaknesses. Utopia holds a reputation of its fiction being unbearable to read and its ideas being too unrealistic to apply. When viewed as a symbolic source of inspiration, though, it can lead to incremental progress for society.

          The bleak, unengaging style of many works of utopian fiction alienates readers, and this hinders the genre from contributing ideas to society. McDonald points out an axiom of all types of narratives: “Plots require conflict to give the reader some action in the story” (McDonald, Utopian Literature and Social Change). If a story is going to engage a reader at all, then it ought to offer some form of complication. Utopian fiction fails to offer that because of a defining component of utopia—perfection and total harmony. “The harmony of a utopian story makes it less effective as entertainment than one including dystopian elements” (McDonald, Utopian Literature and Social Change). A utopian story is about a perfect society, and perfection implies that there is no conflict among the people that live in that society. This makes it virtually impossible for readers to sympathize with any of the characters. In dystopia, however, nothing is perfect and everything is bad. In other words, complication is built into the premise. Therefore, utopian stories always run the risk of rejection by readers for the reason of not being enjoyable.

          A problem that utopian and dystopian works share is a tendency to favor theory over substance, and this sacrifices readability. “The problem…with utopian novels,” says McDonald, “is that the tendency to lean more toward proving a point or putting forward a compelling argument pushes away the conflict that makes a good story” (McDonald, Utopian Literature and Social Change). The importance of conflict to a story was discussed in the previous paragraph. Now, McDonald argues that conflict gets sacrificed even more in utopian fiction in favor of putting forth an idea or agenda. Doing so tends to involve long, drawn-out explanations of abstract theories. In the process, “readers…get bogged down in the descriptions or feel bombarded by the message” (McDonald, Utopian Literature and Social Change). Theory and story are both powerful tools, but when it comes to catching and holding attention, story is stronger. Unfortunately, too many authors of utopian works have lost sight of this.

          Many utopias have been attempted in real life, and many have failed. An obvious reason that some of them failed is that they tried to create societies of total harmony, and this is not realistic. A common theme of utopian fiction is the lack of individuation, or the complete removal of any individual identity, in society. Ayn Rand’s Anthem gives an example of an extremely de-individuated society. An author can easily create such a society in the world of fiction, but it does not—some would argue that it cannot—work in real life. For instance, the Oneida community attempted to replicate such a society in America in the 19^th century, and it failed. Many will argue that “utopias don’t work…because… [they] try to control communities in every aspect, to the point of…suffocating them.” (Omari). In other words, attempts to exert total control over large groups of individuals will meet with resistance. Since history has plenty of examples of utopias that failed for similar reasons, utopia bears a bad reputation that will prevent many people from taking an interest in the subject.

          Utopia is boring to read and does not work in real life. So, what good is it? Well, a productive use for utopia is to use it as a source of inspiration and not as a blueprint. It is clear that utopias have their flaws, but we should not dismiss them outright. Instead, we should learn from them. McDonald argues that utopia “give[s] society something to strive toward and give[s] us ideas to bring into our own communities, even if a true Utopia is unattainable” (McDonald, Utopian Ideals in the Community). She suggests that we view a utopia as an ideal to inspire our attempts to make society better. Like Plato’s forms, we cannot achieve that ideal, but we can do our best to get as close as possible to it. So, we ought to attempt to create a better society based on utopian ideals and learn from what works and what does not. Also, we must remember that we will never achieve a perfect society, simply because people are different. “Utopian ideals…work for some people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time” (McDonald, Utopian Ideals in the Community). If we lose sight of this—if we try to create a proper utopia—we set ourselves up for failure.

          Despite its bad reputation in literature and history, utopia is a valuable tool that can guide society toward progress. When more people realize this, maybe they will be more willing to read utopian literature because they will see it as a source of inspiration. It is sad that historical utopias have poor success records, but we can learn from this. We can see them as counterexamples of the purpose of utopia. Overall, though, we must keep a diligent desire to create better conditions for people. We must remember that progress is a perpetual process and not an endgame. With this mindset, utopia will continue to provide a wealth of ideas to keep that process going.

Works Cited

McDonald, Ruthi Engelke. “Utopian Literature and Social Change.” 2013. LITR 5431 American   Literature. Craig White. Web. 1 May 2019.

McDonald, Ruthi Engelke. “Utopian Ideals in the Community.” 2013. LITR 5431 American   Literature. Craig White. Web. 1 May 2019.

Omari, Munira. “Personal Interests in Experimental Communities.” 2013. LITR 5431 American   Literature. Craig White. Web. 1 May 2019.