LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias
Midterm Submission 2007

Donny L. Leveston

Utopia and Its Limitations: Hard to Define

             Utopia’s historical significance originates from religions like Pagan, Hindu, Christian, and Islam. Each of these religious sects established some sort of commune for their members. Each group has its on set of rules, guidelines, and other principals, which its members must follow. Sports and businesses are also bases for historical utopias, for example, the Olympiad and the New York Stock Exchange. From these, certain cliques or circles emerge where the members tend to lookout for each other.   

            The avant-garde of literary utopias emerged from Plato’s Republic. That is, the proponents of society like equality, pacifism, and harmony all work in unison for the betterment of the whole society. Another influential utopian text is Thomas More’s Utopia (More’s text is considered the blueprint for authors writing utopian novels), which depicts Utopia as an imaginary island with a perfect social, political, and legal system. In addition, the evils of society like hunger, homelessness, suffering, sloth, greed, and selfishness are removed from society. Other literary utopian texts include Johann Valentine Andreæ’s Christianopolis, Miguel Leon-Portilla’s The Broken Spears (a utopian-dystopian historical account of the fall of the Aztecs), H.G. Wells’s A Modern Utopia, B. F. Skinner’s Walden Two, Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: 2000-1887, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland. All of these texts have some elements of all of the utopian definitions. However, those definitions of historical and literary utopias are still limited, even though those meanings appear broadly in their scope.  

            The concept of utopia is a very broad idea. The term tends to take on many meanings for varying people depending on the term’s usage. For example, graduate Keri Welborn in the seminar’s 2005 class defines utopia as, “Utopia can be defined as a place of idea perfection.” Welborn’s generic definition seems to be inline with most scholars’ idea of utopia. However, one’s definition of utopia may very well be another’s interpretation of a dystopia, which is a term that will be addressed later in this essay. However, as for the term utopia, without going into its etymological history, the following is a provisional definition for utopia: utopia is defined as a near perfect place where the inhabitants live in a system of equality and perfect social order. A utopian society functions first as a homogenous and static system. Change in this system is very slow, if at all. Eventually, a utopian system extends its ends to reach a heterogeneous and dynamic (changing/evolving) state that involves a larger society.

            Practical applications of the above mentioned definitions of utopia can be seen in some of the seminar’s texts. For example, in More’s Utopia the narrator speaks of the Persians as a happy nation that has no wars:

Thus they have no wars among them; they live rather conveniently than with splendor, and may be rather called a happy nation, than either eminent or famous; for I do not think that they are known so much as by name to any but their neighbours. (12)

The idea of a happy nation that More’s narrator depicts is a recurring trope in many utopian texts. To continue with the idea of a happy nation, in Bellamy’s novel Looking Backward: 2000-1887, Bellamy echoes More’s ideas of a utopian society. For instance, Mr. Leete, one of Bellamy’s characters states, “We have no wars now, and our governments no war powers, but in order to protect every citizen against hunger, cold, nakedness, and provide for all his physical and mental needs, the function is assumed of directing his industry for a term of service” (55-56). In our 2007 seminar, the idea of a perfect society is also echoed in Liz Davis’s historical presentation on Christianopolis. Davis states, “Christianopolis illustrated a unique idea for the political and social aspect of society.” The examples cited only begin to show how utopian communities emerge. Other elements contribute to the fostering of utopias that are embedded within the various definitions of utopia; these will be discussed shortly.

            This text has drawn a synthesis between the three definitions of utopia presented herein. It follows that a closer look at those definitions and the pitfalls associated with them are in order. Based on the three definitions of utopia, all three emphasize the importance of society. For example, More’s Utopia focuses on the state, the nation—and not the individual. In Gilman’s text, emphasis is placed on the women, child rearing, and educating the young and the old. Welborn sums up this point perfectly when she states, “To the women of Herland, raising a child and educating a child were seen as equal.” The idea of collectivism is also at the heart of Bellamy’s text. That is, the people worked together for the good of the society in a capacity of equality that was headed by a central governing body.

            A major issue with these so-called utopias is one’s utopia may very well be another’s dystopia (anti-utopian). Dystopias are totalitarian and repressive worlds. Example texts of dystopias include Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, and Lois Lowry’s The Giver. Utopian novels often espouse dystopian elements. For instance, to return to Welborn—she states, “Herland: the society ceased to be a utopia and began to be a dystopia.” Dystopian elements also appear in the text Christianopolis. For example, Davis reports that, “The men do not work long, rough hours so that they do not create rough men.” Traditionally in America, working long hard hours have been the standard for which men’s worth was weighed.

            Since the beginning of the seminar, utopian ideas have been weighed and characterized by the course’s objectives. One objective in particular that this essay focuses on is objective 4c.: “Is utopia too simple and singular a word or concept for the variety of phenomena it describes?” To answer this question, the seminar’s consensus is “yes.” This answer is based largely on the course’s texts. In addition, the definitions of utopia prove the point, too. All of those definitions exclude the idea of the “individual” within a given society.

            For the most part, Gilman’s text is a utopian novel with dystopian elements, which Welborn noted in her 2005 midterm. The women of Herland live in a place that is perfect for them, but they live without men. Their land is like a garden paradise. The narrator refers to Herland as both a park and a garden:

…a land in a state of perfect cultivation, where even the forests looked as if they were cared for; a land that looked like an enormous park, only it was even more evidently an enormous garden…I confess that we paid small attention to the clean, well-built roads, to the attractive architecture, to the ordered beauty of the little town. (11)  

The idea that Herland was made so beautiful without the help of men may be read as a sort of dystopian element against men. The narrator constantly reiterates Herland’s beauty and perfection by stating, “Everything was beauty, order, perfect cleanness, and the pleasantest sense of home over it all” (19). Undoubtedly, from the narrator’s perspective Herland is depicted as a utopia that combines all three definitions of utopia. However, the dystopian elements keep reappearing, which reminds the reader of the limitations the word utopia and its various meanings ignore.

            Dystopian elements appear when the three male travelers realize that there are no other men in Herland. The idea of no men in Herland is a concept that the male companions find hard to believe. Initially, the men cannot conceive a world so perfect without the support of men. Another dystopian element that appears within the text is the interest that Ellador, Alima, and Somel, three Herland women, show towards the three male companions.  This raises the question, if Herland is such a “perfect place,” why have these women accepted the men, at least for Ellador and Somel?  

            This essay has shown consistently how various meanings of utopia are incorporated in developing utopian ideas and novels. That being the case, utopia is just too simple a word to describe the various concepts it entails. Thus far, all of the texts reviewed have shown some elements of those various meanings of utopia to some degree or another. However, it would be a fair assumption to claim that utopian and dystopian elements parallel each other, regardless if the text is a “true” utopia or dystopia.

            Ayn Rand’s novel Anthem is a dystopian text by classification. However, based on the various definitions of utopia Rand’s book starts out as a utopian text. For example, all of the characters are dehumanized by not having surnames, but by having names designated to them as qualities or attributes and numbers like “Equality 7-2521, Union 5-3992, and International 4-8818.” This naming system is part of Anthem’s socio-economic system, which everyone at this time is conforming to because it is working for society as a whole. The point is that Rand’s text is a utopian text, at least at this point in the novel based on the definitions of utopia that this text posits.

            Just as Gilman’s text tuned from a utopian text to a dystopian text, at least in part, one can find a similar pattern in Rand’s text. For example, all of the members accepted their dehumanizing names and the jobs that were chosen for them, even the dissenter, Equality 7-2521. The idea of individualism, like in Herland, was not a part of this society. This near perfect society begins to take a turn for the worse, from the collective perspective; however, it takes a turn for the better, from the individualistic perspective.

            When Equality 7-2521 decides to think for himself, take initiative, and realizes that he is an individual—Anthem becomes a dystopian novel that focus on the individual. As noted earlier, the definitions of utopia does not include the individual. Rand probably knew this as well. Therefore, she probably allowed Equality 7-2521 to break from the norms of society to start living for himself. When he fled the city and entered the forest, the Golden One, female companion, followed him into the forest. The Golden One’s move is a dystopian element as well because it was not something that Anthem’s people do. The Golden One and Equality 7-2521 were, in effect, individuals. They wished to be together regardless of the consequences. The Golden One sums up her feelings for Equality 7-2521 when the narrator states, “‘We have followed you,’ they said, ‘and we shall follow you wherever you go. If danger threatens you, we shall face it also. If it be death, we shall die with you. You are damned, and we wish to share your damnation’” (82). Here, the loyalty of individuals to each other is utopian for them, but it is dystopian to the society.

            A major concept that utopias lack is the idea of freedom, individual freedom. Prometheus, Equality 7-2521, recognizes this towards the end of the novel:

It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else. (101)

All of the aforementioned utopian definitions undermine the concept of individual freedom. At some point, these definitions need to be revised in order to account for the individual. Even if it is possible to revise those definitions to include the individual and his or her freedom, the fact remains that utopias and dystopias are shared concepts.      

Works Cited

Bellamy, Edward. Looking Backward: 2000-1887. Signet Classic Books: New York, New York.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Herland. Pantheon Books: New York

More, Thomas. Utopia. Dover Publications, Inc.: Mineola, New York, 1997.

Rand, Ayn. Anthem. Signet Books: New York, New York, 1961.