LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias
Final Exam Submission 2005

Keri Welborn

June 30, 2004

Utopias: Ecology and Story Development

Topic 3

            Ernest Callenbach’s utopian novel Ecotopia has many similarities and differences with the novels previously read.  The similarities between Ecotopia and Parable of the Sower are few, but still very prevalent.  Ecotopia also parallels the creation story in Genesis in the sense that in some cases in Ecotopia the people appear to be trying to recreate the Garden of Eden within the country. 

            Ecotopia focuses on the “back to land” philosophy that many modern utopias have, such as the hippie communes of the 1960’s.  The government [in Ecotopia] functions on many levels, but mainly to protect, preserve, and revere the environment. The communes of the 1960’s focused on these same principles.  Like Ecotopia, the 60’s communes not only focused on the ecological aspects, but also on the community aspects.  They built a community with strong friendships and emotional support for all within it.  The communes also set themselves apart from the larger society, preferring to live in a secluded area within nature.

Although these ideals are not continually found in the other class texts, the ideal of preservation, and in a small case reverence, can be seen in Parable of the Sower.  Despite the fact that the text is more of a dystopia than a utopia, the main character, Lauren Olamina, recognizes the importance of respecting and preserving the land.  Throughout her life, before she was forced to live outside the walls of her neighborhood, Lauren and the people within the walls lived primarily off the land.  At the end of the text Lauren and her followers begin to create a kind of ecotopia.  They begin planting seeds to grow trees, and other plants that they can live off of.  Although this idea if not a dominant one in Ecotopia, the preservation of land is, and Lauren, although she is living off the land, she is preserving it at that same time.  She and her followers need to preserve the land in order to survive.  It is in this sense that they also revere it.  They can not live without the land.  They lack the funds to buy all the necessities that they’ll need, so taking care of the land, and understanding its place in their dysfunctional world is pertinent for their survival.

            Parallels can be seen between Ecotopia and Genesis’s Garden of Eden story as well.  In the Garden of Eden story God put man in the garden, “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed.  And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow ever tree that is pleasant to the sight…” (King James 1:8-9).  It appears that the Ecotopians were trying to recreate Eden in a sense.  Callenbach states:

But the true love of the Ecotopians is their forests, which they tend with so much care and manage in the prescribed stable state manner.  There they can claim much success in their campaign to return nature to a natural condition. (Callenbach 63-4)

The natural condition that the Ecotopians seem to want to return to is that of Eden, and the purpose of man, which in Genesis says to tend to nature.  The seriousness in which the Ecotopians take this can be seen through Marissa, especially as she selects trees to be torn down:

She walks slowly through the trees, looking at them all very carefully.  Then she’ll sit or stand for a while, meditatively.  In time she will walk to this tree and that, attach to each a red ribbon marking its doom, and murmur a phrase…Her expression at these moments is sorrowful yet determined.  Then she relaxes and we walk on to another tract of forest.  This is a major part of her work—but it might as well be a ritual of some kind; there is a holiness to it.  (Callenbach 103-4)

Marissa took great pleasure in her work, the work God originally created for man.  Tending to the forests was a religious experience, a way of getting closer to God, or Mother Nature.  This can be seen in the phrases she is murmuring while making her decisions, these murmuring can be seen as a prayer to the goddess of Mother Nature thanking her for the tree and its uses.

            At the same time a number of differences can be found within the class texts, such as Parable of the Sower and Anthem.  Even though Parable of the Sower is similar in a few ways, it still has come differences.  Anthem, on the other hand, is completely opposite from Ecotopia. 

            In Ecotopia the citizens have a very high regard for nature, especially the trees.  However, this is not the case in Parable of the Sower.  Unlike Lauren, who acknowledges and values the trees significance, many people, particularly those on the outside of neighborhoods walls and those on the drug pyro, do not.  One particular passage shows Lauren and her company fleeing a forest fire:

We followed her gaze and saw fire creeping over the hills behind us—far behind us, but not far enough.  This was some new fire, whipping along in the dry evening breeze…We went on, moving faster, trying to see where we could go to be safe.  On either side of the highway, there was dry grass, there were trees, living and dead.  So far, the fire was only on the north side…We had about an hour’s rest before the fire made up too nervous to stay where ere were…By then, at some point behind us, the fire had already jumped the road.  (Butler 274)

The group was surrounded by fire that was literally chasing them down the road.  The Pyro addicts desire and revere the fire, wanting only for it to grow.  In Ecotopia the citizens, especially those who lived in the forests like Marissa, would have been working to put the fire out, and mourning the loss of the trees.  The Ecotopians would also be working hard after the fire had been put out to replace the lost trees and re-establish the forest areas.  No one in Parable of the Sower worked to put the fire out.

            A text, which shows a larger difference from Ecotopian values, is Ayn Rand’s Anthem.  The citizens Anthem live and work within the cities.  The women work in the fields, but they do not love the Earth in the same ways that the Ecotopians do.  The people in Anthem are also very scared of the forests, which they call the Uncharted Forest.  The people do not only avoid going into the forest, but also do nothing to take care them or preserve them.  They regarded the forest as a part of the past and wanted nothing to do with it.  It’s not until Prometheus flees into the Uncharted Forest that he understands that is nothing to be afraid of.  He finds a way to survive and to use the forest as a means of his survival.  However, even at this point, Prometheus does not regard the land and forests in the same way as the Ecotopians.  He uses it to his advantage, but pays no attention to the land otherwise.

Topic 4

            The literary considerations that are foremost in the study of utopias are the lack of plot and character development.  In a novel, the author uses these literary elements to propel the storyline.  In cases where the plot becomes stagnant, the character development carries the story and vice versa.  It is because of these two considerations and the objective 1 and 2, Genre and Narrative, that the utopian ideals are hard to pin down and hard to define within a literary context.  Ultimately, it is the lack of plot and character development that take the “true” utopian text into the genres and narrative structure of How-To, Informational, and/or Travel.

            Thomas More’s Utopia would fit into the classification of the “true” utopian novel.  More’s characters, one undeniable More himself, have little to do with the actual island of Utopos.  Even the character of Raphael, who visits the island, is set apart from the story in many ways.  He acts more as the “travel agent” throughout the text.  He describes the island, its history, its inhabitants, and its politics as if he were trying to sell someone (More) into visiting it.  He leads the reader through Utopia like a true guide, explaining all the elements that make it “perfect” and answering any questions the reader may have.  It is also in this way that Raphael explains how such a “prefect” system could have been established, turning the text into a How-To, as well as a travel and informational text.

            Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia is another text that can be considered a “true” utopian text.  Like Utopia, Ecotopia lacks both plot and character development.  However, unlike Utopia, Callenbach appears to have tried to add these elements into the text.  The newspaper articles gave the text a completely different aesthetic look than the other novels, but it essentially acted in the same manner, which was to act as an informational article about Ecotopia.  It actually formed a travel guide for Ecotopia because it told the people outside of Ecotopia all the information about a country that they had absolutely no access to.  The interesting aspect about Ecotopia was the journal article by Will Weston.  It showed that Callenbach tried to add some depth to the story by adding the conflicts that Weston was faced with.  However, even the journal entries lacked the depth to pull the story through to the end. Even though his technique was interesting and very different from the other utopian texts, it was not enough to save it.  In the end the text still acted as an informational How-To and travel guide for the reader.

            The story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis acts as a How-To because it was essentially written to be just that.  God made the Earth. God made man.  Man followed God’s rules and lived within the first, and some could day only, true utopia.  It wasn’t until Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge that God’s utopia became a dystopia.  However, the creation story and Garden of Eden story continue to act as a How-To for modern day Christians.  It shows them what God did for us, and how we fell from His grace.  It also shows what people can do to get back into His good graces (follow His rules) and how to stay out of his good graces.   In this way, the Genesis story is not just a story of how God created the world and its people, but how to live.