John Sissons

Essay 1 In Search of Literary Ustopia: The Dispossessed, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Oryx and Crake

In answer to objectives 1b and 1c.

          My research interests in the MA LITR program center on story telling in general and writing science fiction in particular. I have read with interest Margaret Atwood’s chapter, assigned for this class, “Dire Cartographies: The Roads to Ustopia.” In this chapter, Atwood describes how both utopias and dystopias function in science fiction or, as it is sometimes labeled, speculative fiction. The point she ultimately makes is that the story must be believable enough so that the reader can suspend his or her belief for the duration of the story. To that end, Atwood defines literary cartography. Literary cartography must have the usual three dimensions of space, i.e. depth, width, and length. In addition to the mandatory dimensions, Atwood says, “Maps are not only about space, they are also about time: maps are frozen journeys” (70). When a traveler comes home in a book, the tale told or the map drawn is frozen. It cannot be updated until another journey takes place. Time also places the story either nowhere, e.g. “Bluebeard”, or somewhere, e.g. A Handmaid’s Tale, or somewhere in between the two, e.g. The Dispossessed. Or, as Atwood puts it, “In literature, every landscape is a state of mind, but every state of mind can also be portrayed by a landscape. And so it is with ustopia” (75).

          In The Dispossessed, the landscape is an arid world where the inhabitants must work to keep the society moving. When all citizens of Anarres work together, they have what appears to be a utopia. The map to Anarres is clearly laid out with suitable elasticity for the reader to make some assumptions. First, the time is in the future because Earth, as reported by the Terran ambassador, is a wasteland of one-half billion people. Earth is clearly not that as yet. The Anarres people emigrated from their home world, Urras, a little over one and a half of their centuries earlier to the smaller world of Anarres. The reader knows that Anarres is smaller because Shevek complains of the increased gravity of Urras. The reader does not know how long a year is on the binary planetary system, but that is not important. Urras is also almost completely covered in water and has continents. The reader may either use the map provided by Le Guin or substitute present day earth for that image. All four of the elements of the story’s literary cartography are present early in this book.

          In The Handmaid’s Tale, the map is known; it is the eastern seaboard of the present United States. The reader knows this because of the description of the city Offred lives in and the man Offred serves makes trips to Washington, D.C. The story is set in the near future. On page 151, there is s reference to Agent Orange and the men who were exposed to those defoliant chemicals (there were other colors) were born before 1954 and are dying off quickly, so they will not be able to pass on defective sperm soon. We also know that she has been away from her daughter for a short time, maybe three or four years. So the reader has a clear literary cartography, in four dimensions, of the setting of the book. The catastrophe that brought on the dystopia happened quickly and it could happen soon.

          In Oryx and Crake, the map is also known. American research universities set in city suburbs can be easily imagined. This scenario also places the time in the future, but not exactly when in the future. The United States would have to have time for the scientists to be sequestered inside Modules (capitalized in the book) and the cities would have to get rid of their very intricate court and extensive police systems. The time for the literary cartography of Oryx and Crake is hazy, but the mention of Jimmy’s mother smoking cigarettes tells the reader that it is not too far in the future. Parents of well educated people rarely smoke in front of their children today, if they smoke at all. This brings up an interesting point about the time element of science fiction, or speculative fiction. Some of the literary works in that genre predict the future fairly closely. Here, Margaret Atwood predicts the current opioid crisis that has been brought on by elements of the current pharmaceutical industry. The reader can readily believe that nicotine and opioids will be around for a long time. Also, the sex-slave industry is alive and well in all parts of the planet now. In addition, in the book, Boston has been drowned by the Atlantic Ocean and that will take a few hundred years if we are lucky.

          All three books have completed the first part of Atwood’s requirement for utopia/dystopia/ustopia. The second part is for the writer to make a convincing story. Atwood writes, speaking of romance novels, “But I found that I couldn’t do this: as with any kind of writing, you somehow have to believe in it yourself or it isn’t convincing” (76). Ursula Le Guin sets up two competing social systems on a binary planetary system in The Dispossessed. She plays them off each other in a very believable way. To find the ustopia in the Dispossessed is easy. Le Guin has Shevek dreaming of Urras, but when he gets there to actually live with the denizens of Urras, he wants back to Anarres even though he knows what the challenges are. His initial idea of utopia (Urras and big universities) has been replaced by Anarres and his paired mate, Takver. As is the custom for science fiction, he brings along a visitor from the oldest human civilization when he returns to Anarres. The return is one of Atwood’s requirements for a utopia, but by this time in the book there is no utopia or dystopia on either planet in Shevek’s mind. They are both ustopias, mixes of utopia and dystopia.

          The Handmaid’s Tale has been defined by Atwood as an ustopia in her chapter on page 91. There is a utopia inside Offred’s mind, according to Atwood. Offred imagines a better past with her husband and daughter, which is her small utopia. The Afterward tells of a future peaceful time where women are also academics, unlike Gilead, and the academics in the brief story study ancient history. The future is perhaps a utopia, while the past Gilead is the dystopia. Shevek perceives the unknown Urras as a utopia at first and Offred realizes that her flawed past is her utopia. These two ustopias are all in the minds of the characters.

          Oryx and Crake, on the other hand, does not have a clear future utopia. Jimmy/Snowman does not like his past particularly well, but it is all he has. The ending leaves the reader with endless possibilities. The Crakers could evolve into better people or the four human survivors may find more women to repopulate the earth. One woman is not a good number as all her offspring would be siblings. Or, which I choose to believe, the humans all die and the Crakers’ thirty year artificial lifespan and annual reproduction biology synchronizes so all of them die off at the same time after a century or so. Jimmy/Snowman’s utopia must be in his immediate future then, always out of reach. He must be content to protect the Crakers to prevent the past mistakes of humans. He is living in his dystopia.

          Atwood’s chapter on ustopias is very liberating for my writing. I know that I do not have to make a story that is perfectly utopian, now that I know I have written one with Marilyn Carter, or dystopian. The stories can be like The Dispossessed with complicated characters that are not sure what they want or exactly where they are going. Atwood says, “find the story compelling and plausible enough to go along for the ride” (87).

Essay 2- “[F]ind the story compelling and plausible enough to go along for the ride.”

Utopia as literature.

          The last three books assigned for this class were all well written stories that pulled the reader along. The Handmaid’s Tale was written by Atwood to display the historical and current actions of humanity and how that would play out in America. Although trying to imagine such a millennial event as the murder of the entire elected federal government is difficult to believe in the real world, it works in a fictional world. A writer must stay consistent with the premise he or she has laid out at the beginning. For example, Atwood has Offred enduring extreme humiliation while also trying to become pregnant by Fred the commander. That storyline is consistent throughout the story. What is important for my interests is that Atwood stays true to her characters as they interact inside the literary cartography she builds for the reader.

          The Dispossessed is a similarly constructed story in that it exists only in the mind of the reader. The story revolves around one character, Shevek, and he explores both worlds in his binary planetary system. The reader becomes familiar with both worlds and with the aid of the maps inside the frontispiece the action can be followed easily. What Le Guin does very skillfully is to make the planets Urras and Annares believable places. The detail Le Guin puts into her writing also makes the story believable in the mind of a reader.

          Oryx and Crake does not follow a set temporal linear sequence of events. Jimmy/Snowman is portrayed as a stressed young man who does not particularly care for his past life, thus he does not look at it as any kind of utopia like Offred. The setting of the novel is believable because universities do exist inside and close to big cities. Cities today are packed with strips of shops that promise or sell almost anything, just as portrayed in the novel. Jimmy/Snowman’s experiences inside that world can be believed easily enough. The key for the reader is the setting and the detail that motivates the characters must fit the established storyline.  

Utopia fiction in all of its forms relies on detail and presenting that detail in a consistent manner. Utopias have an additional feature to the writing. The well done utopia brings up problems that either exist or may exist for the reader to ponder. When I write my stories, I must remember who the character is and how she is expected to react to any scenario. The problems I bring up are problems our society has always debated, e.g. judicial homicide. The whole point of writing is to bring the reader along for the ride.

Personal/professional interests: Writing Utopia and Dystopia as Literature: Continuing my midterm and research post: “Literary Utopia as Science Fiction.”

          In our class handout, “The Queen of Quinkdom: The Birthday of the World and Other Stories,” Margaret Atwood takes on the difficult task of assigning genre. She writes of Ursula Le Guin, “’Science fiction’ is the box her work is usually placed, but it’s an awkward box: it bulges with discards from elsewhere” (115). When I read the first four of our assigned books, Utopia, Herland, Anthem, and Ecotopia I had a similar thought to the Atwood quote. It seemed that the four really had little in common with typical science fiction I was familiar with. As I thought about the four, I began to realize that I may have the same reaction from readers of my writing. I call it science fiction because there was nowhere else to place all twelve volumes together in the Amazon pantheon of genres. Some of my volumes deal with almost spiritual themes, others are more adventure oriented, however if I separated those from the volumes that are science fiction or science-adventure I am afraid of becoming lost, as it were, among other genres.

Thomas More wrote in extreme detail in Utopia and I wish to avoid that trap. The reader should be allowed some elasticity in thought. Although Charlotte Perkins Gilman does detail a utopia, like More does, there is also no science fiction in the story, like More. There is fantasy, however, in Herland with the spontaneous reproduction of the women in Herland. Although I wrote that Ayn Rand’s Anthem suffered the same detail laden storyline as Utopia and Herland, I was referring to Equality 7-2521’s long paragraphs, e.g. paragraph 1.32 in the class website, detailing everyday life instead of telling a story. For a work of fiction to be readable, as Atwood says, it must bring the reader along for the ride. Anthem does not do that. Rand’s detail laden paragraphs, while rare in a short work, bring the narrative to a halt. Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia also has no science fiction in it. The constant reference to William Weston’s sexual prowess is a little off-putting, but the ideas for a sustainable material existence are there in the book. Ralph Nader even says on the back cover of the class text that everything in Ecotopia is doable now. So, where do these four books fit? Like my series, there is no comfortable place to store them for future retrieval by interested readers and students. Are they in Atwood’s ‘discard box’? I would place them in the science fiction genre for the same reason I placed mine in Atwood’s ‘discard box’: It is a comfortable box and I believe that the early utopia/dystopian literature should be listed where students of science fiction and speculative fiction can find them.

As the semester has progressed, I have enjoyed the last three assigned books immensely. The Handmaid’s Tale definitely belongs in the speculative literature genre. Margaret Atwood is predicting a dystopia in a future that probably will never come to pass. But it is well done. The remarkable part of the book is that the chapters tend to be short. This works well as Atwood describes the complete rebuilding of a modern western society. In J. Max Patrick’s article, he points out that an important part of utopian fiction is to engage in iconoclastic behavior. “To ignore or slight this and define utopias in the traditional manner is to misunderstand the full nature and significance of the genre” (Patrick, 158). Atwood’s earlier comment about Offred’s thoughts of a wonderful past with her child and husband notwithstanding, Atwood is bent on telling a speculative story. However, she grounds her work in reality. In the article we have read for class, “Dire Cartographies,” she says, “I would not put into this book anything that humankind had not already done” (88). That is an important lesson for me to learn in order to make my fiction not only believable, but also bring the reader along for the ride.

The Dispossessed is an easier call for the science fiction genre. It has spaceships and instant communications with other worlds. It is an ustopia for the reasons I have outlined above. It also has a bit of iconoclasm built into it by pointing out the foibles of government run cultures. For example, Shevek has to put up with censorship inside his Science Syndicate. On page 174 of the class text is a discussion Shevek has with Bedap about the syndicates. Bedap cannot be accepted in the Music Syndicate as a composer until he establishes himself, like Shevek must establish himself in the Science Syndicate. Until then, Bedap and Shevek must dig ditches. Le Guin is subtly pointing out that utopias have ‘share’ built into them and the only way to enforce that is through cooperation. Anarres has a government in all but name through the syndicates that enforces collective behavior like Ayn Rand’s Anthem’s oppressive government enforces collective behavior. This behavior is skillfully contrasted with the income inequality that exists on Urras, as it exists in our own society.

Oryx and Crake is also science fiction. Atwood is stretching the bounds of genetically designed people, but not by much. This book is delightfully unpredictable. Another lesson I could well learn with practice. Jimmy/Snowman’s narrative bounces around from past to present in unpredictable ways. The reader must be aware that the present for Jimmy/Snowman is the post-millennial event of Crake’s BlyssPluss pill. Jimmy/Snowman is remembering the past as humans always remember the past: flawed. Atwood keeps the reader’s attention with this technique of bouncing from one time, the present, to another, the past. When I write, I use what is termed a ‘braided’ story telling. Events are synchronized chronologically even if the events in each of the story ‘braids’ are unrelated. Atwood has no problem with exploring Jimmy/Snowman’s relationship with his mother while mixing up the time sequence, for example. What results is the warping of time in the story’s literary cartography. We have the usual three dimensions consisting of walled Modules and wild city (Pleeblands), but the fourth dimension is not linear the way time is expected to flow inside a story. Each turn of the page seems to bring a surprise.

There is something to be learned from each of the books we read this semester, but the last three were the most instructive. I can relax my story line, for example the timeline, while keeping my own voice coherent within the narrative I will write. My thesis work begins in the Fall Semester of 2019 and I imagine that these books will only improve the story I will write. I will place my work in Atwood’s very comfortable ‘discard box’ because it allows stories in which the reader may “find the story compelling and plausible enough to go along for the ride” (87).

Essay 3: The Art of Storytelling

I have chosen the following three research posts because they address story telling in some fashion.  I also chose them because they have addressed my earlier questions in some form or other. Because my goal in the LITR program is to write an original work of fiction, I focused on research posts that addressed the writing in our assigned texts. I have broken that down into three parts. The first is to find another definition, if possible, of literary utopia. The second is to see if the genre of utopia/dystopia/ustopia can be expanded to include some other form of fiction. Perhaps someone else had a similar idea. And the third is to address some aspect of the creative process that has not been covered yet. I am sure that all descriptions of creating literary utopias have not been explored.

          The first post that interested me is from 2009 written by Cana Hauerland. Hauerland is writing about Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s body of utopian fiction. Margaret Atwood, as I have noted above, maintains that within every utopia there is at least a hint of dystopia, as well as the other way around. Terry tells of the happy times with the girls back home, for example, while enduring his dystopia of rejection by the women in Herland. Gilman tries to write a purely utopian story in Herland with the usual questions from the three young visiting men to explain the utopia. Hauerland continues with a description of another of Gilman’s utopian stories, a short story titled “The Cottagette.” The protagonist wants to be around people like herself so that she can study her passion, music. The three dimensions of width, length, and depth seem to be present for a literary cartography. It may be set in the reader’s present time, which is entirely acceptable story telling. Even if a story is very old, a skillful writer can make the plot sound genuine for any reader’s present time. Fairy tales often operate that way. Hauerland goes on to describe the sequel to Herland, Ourland. In that story Gilman has Ellador visit the United States. Hauerland quotes a passage from the book which has Ellador condemning the American civilization as a dystopia, which was snatched from the jaws of utopia, as it were.

Hauerland has added another dimension to the idea of literary utopia, which makes a lot of sense, whether Gilman meant it or not. Utopia can simply mean that a person is with other people of like mind. Stress is reduced if all in the group cooperate if only for a short time. I have personally experienced what I will label ‘short time utopias.’ Hauerland has, in effect, added another definition for all sorts of utopia. Utopia can be what we make it and it can be temporary. Literary utopia can be temporary inside the story arc as well if that is the character’s wish.

The next post is from 2011 and was written by Amy Shanks. In this post she explores The Wizard of Oz as a literary utopia. Shanks also comments on the earlier literary utopias that the class was assigned in the semester. Of those books she points out that the stories were, “at times even sacrificing possible opportunities for character and plot development.” However, Shanks writes that The Wizard of Oz is a skillfully written story that fleshes out the characters. Readers have a believable four dimensional map, i.e. Kansas of the late nineteenth century. The journey to Oz on a tornado is explained well and a reader could be forgiven for imagining that such a mode of travel is possible. Like Hauerland’s observation of utopias as something we make, Shanks quotes Hearn who says that “Baum was creating a personal mythology.” Shanks goes on to point out the relationship between literary utopia and dystopia. Shanks calls the relationship between the two “inescapable.” What Shanks has done here is describe Atwood’s ustopia. However, that is not the really interesting part of Shanks’ analysis. Shanks says that readers asked Baum for more Oz stories. The character of Dorothy was interesting, but what really pulled the reader along into Oz was the story of Oz itself. The story of Oz is an example of Atwood’s literary cartography. Shanks’ also writes that the idea of literary utopia is its own process. “Another structural element that characterizes utopian literature is the journey.” It is the journey that brings the reader along for the ride. The journey is the story.

The next post is from 2013 by Michael Luna. This post concerns names of characters in stories. Although Luna addresses literary utopias that we read for this class, this post can apply to any literary genre. The first character Luna studies is Raphael Hythloday in More’s Utopia. The name literally means Raphael, speaker of nonsense. Although More may have been engaging in a little cover-up so that Henry VIII did not behead him any earlier for sedition than he did, the point is well taken that names can and often do mean something in literary works. Luna continues with the names of the characters in Gilman’s Herland. Although I could guess at the meaning of Celis, the idea that Gilman could have found the Arabic word for ‘wise’ (Alima) is certainly intriguing. Luna’s try at Ellador is a bit of a stretch, but the point is well taken. Gilman could have looked around for names that would enhance the depth of the characters she was using for her story. Ayn Rand’s names are like sledgehammers on the brain. Her essay “Anthem” has names such as Liberty, Equality, Prometheus, and Gaea, which leave no room for interpretation. In addressing Oryx and Crake, Luna says that they are simply the names of animals. I agree that Atwood plays around with codes with the nicknames of her characters. However, Luna claims that “there does not appear to be any depth involved.” I would heartily disagree with that assertion; however the overall theme of the post is interesting.

When I write, I choose names that are given to me. I know that sounds strange, but the main characters name themselves. The minor characters are the real challenges because they do not exist long enough to name themselves, therefore their names are more difficult. What names do for the reader is to give the character real presence in the mind while reading. Names also place the action in a civilization. The name ‘William Weston’ tells the reader that the character is most probably an English-speaking westerner. The reader then reads on in order to find out if the aforesaid Weston is on the moon, or a flat in Liverpool, or exactly where. When a name is made up, like Le Guin’s Shevek, the reader knows that something different is expected in the understanding of that character and the place the character inhabits. Offred is another example of naming. Atwood tells us with that fictional construction that the Handmaids are the property of the commanders.

What these three posts share is the art of storytelling. Literary utopias are described in literature with the four dimensions of Atwood’s literary cartography, plus story arc, and appropriate names. The utopia/dystopia/ustopia can be described in the story in a variety of ways as Hauerland and Shanks propose. However, the story must be compelling enough to keep the reader interested. And as Luna points out, the names of the characters should be questioned for alternative meanings, which may give additional insight into the mind of the author or the author’s intent with the character. I now have a better idea of how I can stretch my writing so that my story better pulls the reader along.

Patrick, J. Max. “Iconoclasm: the Complement of Utopianism.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 3 no. 2 (July 1976), pp. 157-161.