LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias
Final Exam Submission 2005

Daniel Robison

30 June 2005

Millennialism:  A New or Reworked Vision?

            When discussing millennialism, one must first define the terms of the discussion since there is so much variety in the ideas.  For this essay, millennialism is defined as an extended time (could be 1000 years, could be indefinite) of peace, prosperity, utopia, that is preceded by a time of great turmoil and trouble and destruction.  As I discussed in my “Heaven as Utopia” presentation and as seen in the book of Revelation, there are several views of how this millennium will occur.  Pre-millennialists believe that following the tribulation Christ will return and reign for a thousand years on earth before the final judgment.   Post-millennialists believe that Christians will work to create a paradise on earth and rule for a thousand years prior to the return of Christ.  Amillennialists simply believe that the time prior to Christ’s return, no matter how long it is, is the millennium.  All of the novels but one studied in class seem to take the pre-millennialism view, but since none of these works are Christian in design, none of them are working to or waiting on the return of Christ, so that idea will not be discussed further.

            Having decided what is meant by millennialism, the question then becomes—how does the injection of millennialism into the utopian narrative change the concept or dynamics of utopia (topic 2)?  This question takes it for granted that millennialism and apocalyptic literature are new concepts and so are only seen in later novels, but the argument can be made that all of these writers, thought not necessarily Christian, are working in the Christian tradition and are well aware of the millennial/apocalyptic view of Revelation, and so this tradition can be found in all of the books, but that it does evolve and get reworked.  To discuss this point of view, I have broken the texts into three divisions.  The first group consists of Looking Backward, Herland, and Ecotopia.  These novels are united in the fact that their apocalypses have already occurred previous to the novel, so the author spends time on the millennium.  The second division is Anthem, which is different in that two apocalypses and two millenniums can be seen.  The final set is Parable of the Sower; this book is unique in that we do not see the millennium but only the apocalypse.

            The first group of novels contains apocalypses that lead to their millenniums although they are brief in description.  In Looking Backward, the narrator points out that the readers of his book will “recognize in these disturbances of industry the first and incoherent phase of the great movement which ended in the establishment of the modern industrial system with all its social consequences” (42).  Later at a dinner party, Mrs. Bartlett says that “’the working classes all over the world seem to be going crazy at once.  In Europe it is far worse even than here’” and that she fears “’all the terrible things…which those socialists threaten’” (45).  As these passages make clear, the seeds had been sown for a major cataclysmic occurrence.  The narrator even expects that this is what happened once he awakened in Boston of 2000, but he discovers that “’there was absolutely no violence’” (66).  Even though, unrealistically, there was no great upheaval, there was enough of an apocalypse, enough of a hell that the world was living in at the time (as shown in the metaphor of the carriage) that the way was prepared for the millennium.

            Gilman continues this group of books with Herland.  The women have been living for centuries in uninterrupted peace and growth, but what allowed this, or caused this, to occur was their own apocalypse.  Van discovers that Herland at one time “had a free passage to the sea,” but over time, and through a “succession of historic misfortunes” (56), the people became nearly completely isolated.  A further “’act of God’” finished the job.  While all of the men, except for a few slaves, were at the bottom of the last remaining passage, a volcano erupted, killing the men and sealing off the women.  Without this event, Herland would never have developed.  These people would have probably continued to develop as other Aryan nations had.

            Ecotopia rounds out this group of texts.  Like the previous two texts, this one takes place in the period of the millennium following the apocalypse, which for the ecotopians comprises an environmental disaster.  While visiting a whaling museum, Ben makes it clear to Weston that “Americans and their technology had been in the forefront of this tragic and irreversible process” (76).  In this scene, Ben is talking specifically about whales, but one can extrapolate this into demonstrating the Ecotopian view of America and the environment as a whole.  The comprehensive recklessness with, carelessness for, and destruction of the environment precipitated the secession of Ecotopia and the creation of their enviro-centric millennium.   These three books comprise the clearest picture of a pre-millennial world, but Anthem plays with this paradigm.

            In Anthem, Rand does provide an apocalypse as the precursor to the world of her novel.  Prometheus tells us:

We have heard of the legends of the great fighting, in which many men fought on one side and only a few on the other.  These few were the Evil Ones and they were conquered.  Then great fires raged over the land.  And in these fires the Evil Ones were burned.  And the fire which is called Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned, and with them all the words of the Evil Ones.  Great mountains of flame stood in the squares of the Cities for three months.  Then came the Great Rebirth. (48-9)

This is the clearest picture in all of the books of a Revelation like apocalypse with the four horseman bringing war and death to the earth.  In this one, we also get a name for and realization of the greatness of their millennium (even though it can be greatly argued whether or not the world of Anthem is a “millennium”).  Rand does something quite different from the previous books though; she creates a false millennium and prepares to destroy that one with a second apocalypse.  At the end of the book, Prometheus vows that “a day will come when [he] shall break all the chains of earth, and raze the cities of the enslaved, and [his] home will become the capital of a world where each man will be free to exist for his own sake” (104).  Here, Prometheus clearly sees himself as a Christ figure that will bring both destruction and salvation to the world, making his home the New Jerusalem.  This book is the last of the texts that show some sort of millennium.

            Butler’s novel stands alone from the other texts by presenting less of a pre-millennial view than a post-millennial view.  She clearly gives us an apocalypse.  Like Ecotopia, this world had destroyed itself because they “’have changed the climate of the world’” (50).  This climate change has resulted in turmoil in the world where they “’just get batted around by crazy people, desperate people, thugs, and leaders who don’t know what they’re doing!’” (48).  Lauren’s dad knows that people don’t want to look “’into the abyss’” where they “’have been balancing at the edge’” for years (58).  The Biblical allusions to the destruction of Jericho and to Noah further this idea that the world is being destroyed.  We do see, however, “mini-millenniums” or paradises within the apocalypse:  the pocket Eden of Lauren’s cul-de-sac, the hope of Olivar, and the dream of Acorn, but none of these serve as the millennium.  The cul-de-sac is destroyed, Olivar turns out to be a fake, and Acorn will not last.  Lauren accepts the failures because she understands that “In order to rise / From its own ashes / A Phoenix / First / Must / Burn” (137).  She also realizes that none of these are the millennium that she is working toward; Lauren is working toward heaven, to the stars.  She says that the astronaut Godinez had made space “her own chosen heaven” and that Mars, even though dead, is “heaven in a way” (18).  Later, she says that Godinez had been expelled from heaven, clearly making the comparison that paradise is out there and not here on earth (21).  Finally, she prophecies that “The Destiny of Earthseed / Is to take root among the stars” (74).  We can see here that her millennium, her heaven, her utopia is something that she has to work to, to achieve, and not be given.

            All of these texts somehow work in the Revelation tradition of an apocalypse and a millennium.  What separates Butler’s work from the others is that she shows us the apocalypse and not the millennium, which I think makes for a more interesting work.  Some might argue that the point of the others is to demonstrate the a new world is possible and so would discount Parable as unutopian, but even though Butler does not create some pseudo-mythical, and unbelievable, utopian world, she does make her point very clear—that we are destroying our world, and if we are not careful, we soon will have created “a hell of life here on earth”(19).  And by reworking millennialism, the text becomes much more interesting and exciting and, thus, accessible.

Ecotopia as a Universal Utopian Ideal

            In his novel Ecotopia, Ernest Callenbach coins the term “ecotopia,” which is a derivative of “utopia” and “ecology,” creating a new sense of what a utopia can be.  In the nation of Ecotopia, the environment becomes the key issue instead of the role of autocratic governments, industries’ effects on the poor, and the role of women in society.  Looking at Ecotopia, there are two distinct ideas that should be explored in comparison to other utopias:  the form of the novel and the ecotopian concept (topic 3).

            As I discussed in my mid-term, the basic pattern of a utopian novel consists of:  a narrator has somehow encountered a seemingly perfect civilization, he learns all he can, and then reports it back to his own people.  This narrator learns about this utopia through Socratic discussions he has with a guide(s) in which they compare and contrast the two places.  At the end of his travels, the narrator always comes to the conclusion that this brave new world is superior to his own and so must return and spread the gospel of the utopia.  Ecotopia does not fail to follow this pattern.  William Weston (or man who will move on west) goes to the separatist nation of Ecotopia to learn about their practices.  While there, he has many guides through whom he learns all he can and regularly reports this information back to his superiors at the newspaper.  Like Looking Backward, the narrator returns home in a dream, but he also returns home at the end of the book via his reports and notebook, still able to share the gospel of Ecotopia.  Even though this book shares these similarities, it does have its differences.

            Again, as I discussed in my midterm, utopian novels have progressed and changed over time.  In Ecotopia, Callenbach allows much more of the Novel into the novel.  There is more emphasis on character and conflict, making it more like Herland.  But another great change that Callenbach makes is to show that not all is peaceful in paradise.  He incorporates for the first time internal dissidence through several men who would like help from America to overthrow the government.  He finds the “admission that the races [black and white] cannot live in harmony is surely one the most disheartening developments in all of Ecotopia” (110).  He has lost some faith because Ecotopia is still plagued with becoming a “balkanized continent” in a way that still threatens our own country (164).  He fears that Ecotopia is too ready to give up on the world and that the world will revert backwards to “two-bit principalities of medieval Europe, or perhaps even the tribalism of the jungle” (164-5).  Now, the fact that Ecotopia is not perfect might simply be because it is only twenty years old and not the one-hundred of Looking Backward or the two-thousand of Herland, but still, it is nice to see this conflict and judgment added to the pattern. 

            The second area of discussion in Ecotopia is the ecotopian concept.  Obviously, this book abounds with the theme of protection for the environment.  It permeates every decision that they make from the type of energy that they use (solar, wind, thermal) to their transportation (magnetic trains, free bikes, electric vehicles, narrow roads), to their housing (biodegradable plastic, wood frames, small minicities), to their wastes disposal (recycled toilet paper, septic tanks, recycled methane, compost fertilizer), to their food (synthetic meat, livestock roaming freely, no herbicides or insecticides).  They live in a very much “back to nature” style, even to the point of worshipping trees and nature in pagan or druid fashion.  Now these ideas are abundant because it speaks to the central theme underlying this particular utopia, but other utopian novels also express ecotopian ideas.

            In Looking Backward, when Julian West gets his first look at Boston in 2000, he finds streets “shaded by trees and lined with fine building…. Every quarter contained large open squares filled with trees” (55).  He later comments that he is impressed by “’the complete absence of chimneys and their smoke’” only to discover that America has moved beyond that “’crude method of combustion.’”  Obviously we do not see an explicit ecotopian plan, but this society has clearly placed an emphasis on the natural and getting rid of the smoke that had already begun to destroy the beauty and health of turn-of-the-century cities. 

            Gilman continues this idea in much the same way, not out right, but implied.  The women of Herland live in a jungle garden oasis that they farm rather than let grow wild.  As an advanced civilization with electric cars, they use natural dyes to protect the environment.  In their reactions to how meat is processed, they come across contemporary vegans.  They live at one with nature, in peace and harmony.

            The greatest lesson for environmentalism that comes across in Parable of the Sower is the fact that the hell of a world that they live in was caused by man’s destruction of the environment resulting in a cataclysmic climate change.  Butler furthers her view of nature by using the acorn.  The acorn is a symbol of youth and immortality, and the tree that grows from it, the oak, is a symbol for strength (http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/A/ acorn.html).  The use of these as motifs through out the novel, reinforce her view that strength is found in the natural world, not the man made one.

            Even though the environment continues to be a major point for growth and progress in our world, these texts aptly demonstrate that it is not a new concern.  More importantly, though, they make it clear that grave consequences await us if changes are not made, changes that are possible and pleasurable.