LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias
Midterm Submission 2007

Amy Braselton

June 18, 2007

The Utopian Evolution

            The word Utopia has come to have a variety of definitions – a condition or place of perfection, an ideal place that does not exist in reality, an imagined perfect place or state of things, or for this course, an experimental community intended to improve or perfect human society. The origin of the word itself is non-committal: according to Webster’s Dictionary of Word Origins, “Utopia, which literally means ‘no place’, from Greek ou, ‘not, no’, plus topos, ‘place’” There is also reference to the origin stemming from the Greek eutopos, meaning “good place”. Overall, there is a vague meaning and development to the entire genre, allowing it to grow and develop according to the times and traditions of the society in which a utopian novel was produced. The lack of rigid standards applied to the creation of these novels allows for the formation of a somewhat black and white concept of utopia and dystopia. A dystopian society is degenerate and horrific; it is often depicted as the utopian concept gone too far. This essay will look at the generation of the utopian novel with More’s Utopia, and follow the progression and evolution of the genre with Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, and Ayn Rand’s Anthem.

            The formation of a utopian ideal comes from Thomas More’s Utopia. More’s novel created the phrase that would be applied to the genre: mentioned in Webster’s Word Origins is the fact that “in modern English utopia has become, through influence of More’s classic, a generic term for any place of ideal perfection, especially in laws, government, and social conditions. Less optimistically utopia has also come to mean an impractical scheme for social improvement” (487).  More’s creation of Utopia, a land in the New World that is governed by equality and fellowship came about during the Renaissance and Reformation of Europe. Protestantism, which converged upon Europe due to the corruption of the Catholic church, was dividing much of the continent, and within England, King Henry VIII was in power. There were extreme class divisions, and wealth ruled. The poor were overlooked and dismissed from thought; most policies put through the government catered to the higher class citizens. More criticized all of this within Book I of Utopia and the community of Utopia itself idealizes the opposite of the society in which More lived. Citizens of the lower classes were forced to participate in thievery and prostitution in order to survive, and the system of punishment did not give any allowance for their situation. In essence, the social system of England first made thieves, and then punished them. More addresses these matters in Book I, and then presents a solution in Book II. Utopia is the ideal city; every matter, both social and political, thinks upon the common good and strives to provide for each citizen. More maps out in great detail the perfect balance Utopia has shaped, and how the application of fraternity and education has resulted in the ultimate perfect place. The bitter irony of the novel was that this perfect place could never exist; the greed and tyranny of the time took too much precedence. Thomas More himself fell victim to it when he was beheaded for not supporting Henry VIII in his quest to overturn the authority of the Catholic church in 1535.

More’s novel set up the genre of utopian literature, and subsequently more utopian novels were written by authors such as Edward Bellamy and H.G. Wells. Bellamy’s novel, Looking Backward, viewed the future (the year 2000) as a utopia. The time period of the beginning of the novel, 1887, was a towards the end of the Industrial Revolution. Industry had caused rapid urbanization and large population of cities. Crime, poverty, and disease had accompanied the flood of people who flocked from the rural countryside into the cities looking for work. The narrator of Looking Backward, Julian West, describes the great poverty and uneducated state of those belonging to the lower class, and how the upper class clung to their riches and status, thus causing a great divide between the two social groups. When Julian is transported to the future through a hypnotic sleep that protects him from the fire that destroys his home, he awakes to find himself in a world that is the complete opposite of his familiar society. The world he awakes to values education and equality, and poverty and hunger is prevented. Labor is governed by fairness and political corruption has been eliminated. Bellamy’s work revolved around the idea of “nationalism”, which viewed the importance of the government in distributing and maintaining the wealth and property of the nation.

In Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gillman presents the idea of the feminine utopia; this utopia views feminine qualities as the way to a perfect society. Gillman’s concept shows a lost civilization that idealizes motherhood and maternal behavior. Children are the most valuable treasure of this society, and the children are not left to individual raising, but communal. She contrasts this lost civilization by presenting it through male eyes. The narrator of the story, Van, has accompanied his two friends Jeff and Terry in an exploration of finding this lost civilization. Unable to believe that a society could flourish under female control, the men constantly look for male influence. They are eventually captured and then tutored by the female community. Jeff and Van begin to see the benefits and success of Herland, though Terry cannot seem to accept the idea of female leadership and the lack of necessity for male interference. Inevitably each man will have to make the decision of whether or not the Herland society is the right place for them. Gillman’s novel presents the idea that women are not bound by the decisions of men; the female mind is a complete and providing unit that can function on its own.

The last novel, Anthem by Ayn Rand, completes the evolution of the utopian novel. This work shows a society that has gone too far with the utopian ideal. Instead of a perfect world, the novel shows a society that has lost the idea of identity and uniqueness. The concept of “I” has been replaced with “We” in an effort to enforce equality and community. The novel’s hero begins a journey that starts with the recognition of himself and others; this culminates into love for a woman he terms “the Golden One”. This establishment of identity transforms the narrator and prompts his leaving of the community along with the Golden One and the creation of his own family. Towards the end of the novel, he begins to lose the concept of “We” and adopt the usage of “I”. Furthermore, he names himself Prometheus and names the Golden One Gaea. The end of the novel shows the utopia to be the home, where identity is still sacred, but community and care for one another stems from the bonds of marriage and blood. Unlike Herland, Prometheus values the raising of his children with his wife, and not to a community. Rand’s novel stems from the uprising and establishment of communism within her own country of Russia. She feared and fought against the concept of losing one’s identity in search of a perfect society that allowed everyone to become the same. Anthem shows what Russia could have become if allowed to go to far with communistic ideals.

All together, these novels present the utopian concept as it changed with time. Objective 3g asks “What is utopia’s relation to time and history? Does a utopia stop time, as with the millennial rapture or an idea of perfection? Or can utopias change, evolve, and adapt to the changes of history?” Each utopian novel answers this question; each presents a reaction or solution to the social atmosphere of each respective time. Each author saw the negative in their world: poverty, hunger, disease, sexism, or control. In response, they created an alternative world, a utopia, which showed how life could be. They formed a civilization which in turn taught a lesson. More showed how equality and labor could be beneficial, Bellamy in turn created an answer to poverty and hunger, Gilman transformed the male perception into one that accepted feminine guidance, and Rand demonstrated what could happen when the world was stripped of individuality and family. Utopias continually evolve and change with time, though the outcome usually remains unchanged. Though societies read and dissect these texts, there never seems to be a quick resolution. Time alters perception and in the end, the lessons are discarded.