LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias
Midterm Submission 2007
Jo Lynn Sallee
18 June 2007
Utopia: the perfect dream or nightmare
The term “utopia” automatically brings “Garden of Eden” thoughts dancing through this reader’s mind. Foremost, utopian mental visions include abundant vegetation, naked children romping in flower filled meadows, and fat animals peacefully grazing nearby. It would be a perfect place with no worries, crimes, class issues, or money problems. However, further study reveals a more complicated portrayal of a perfect “utopia.” The term comes from the Greek and literally means “no place” or a “place that does not exist.” Visions of what a utopia actually means and entails can vary from one person to the next one. Proof of this variety becomes obvious in the utopias depicted through class texts studied thus far including Utopia, Looking Backward, Herland and Anthem.
Often, utopian stories are told by a narrator who mentally embarks on a journey as a listener. Some stories may appear to be simple question and answer sessions led by the narrator and answered by a guide in a Socratic style. Depicted utopian perfection is often initiated after a catastrophic or millennial event has occurred that pushes inhabitants to create a new and perfect society. In a utopia, residents work for the common good of their “brothers and sisters” instead of individual capitalism with the emphasis on wealth for “me.” For reasons of continuing perfection, the utopian society may appear to be frozen in time, with no big apparent change. After all, change would ultimately alter the perfect vision.
Exploration of the studied texts and how they relate to the following class objectives shed light and understanding to utopian beginnings and resultant status quo as related in the narratives:
2d. How essential is “millennialism” to the utopian narrative?
3g. What is utopia’s relation to time and history? Does a utopia stop in time, as with the millennial rapture or an idea of perfection? Or can utopias change, evolve, and adapt to the changes of history?
An apocalypse, or millennial event, is a recurring theme in many utopian stories. Something must happen to push society over the edge for radical change. Instead of an apocalyptic occurrence, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia explores the millennial ideal through sublime extremism. Raphael, the narrative guide, explains that the island of Utopus was forcibly created by digging a fifteen mile channel. The desire to escape the present world and prevailing lifestyle resulted in an island that was separated from the mainland by sheer human muscle and determination. Capitalism, crime, and greed would be replaced in the new land by equality, harmony, and group prosperity. The undertaking was laughed at by neighbors, but as soon as they witnessed the new perfect land and what it stood for they were “struck with admiration and terror” (29). The sublime millennial transformation was accomplished and socialist utopian ideals would begin to complete the utopian picture.
The residents of Utopus eschew money and everyone seems to be happy with the lack of competition for material goods. Education was seen as being necessary for all, not just a select few. The cities were monitored and limited to fifty-four in number. Furthermore, rural based “families” consisted of twenty male and twenty female workers. Every year twenty people returned to the cities and those are replaced by twenty more. It seems that More’s utopia did have some movement to look forward to by the general population. While inhabitants were allowed some room to change by moving to different locations, non-changing rules such as asking for permission to travel would prove stifling in a way that may be comparable to an eternal adolescence. Raphael imparts that “[b]oth dinner and supper are begun with some lecture of morality that is read to them”(40). Being lectured to daily, or brainwashed, and bowing to an authority for every aspect of life would be tiresome to say the least. Consequently, the years would begin to stretch out in an endless and yawning fashion. Being “stuck in time” would surely prove fatal to the community on a long-term basis as the eternal boredom leaves no room for personal growth or discovery.
Edward Bellamy’s utopian novel, Looking Backward, depicts an escape from problems related to the author’s own time in history. His imagination created a world where social ills would simply disappear in a new community based on equality. Similar to More’s Utopia, residents have given up individual wants and have adopted a “we,” instead of “I,” mentality. Individual wants have been abandoned and residents strive for the good of the community. With no accompanying explanation, the narrator relates how “incredible does it seem that so prodigious a moral and material transformation has taken place . . . in so brief an interval!”(1). Instead of a millennium defining moment, the main character, Julian West, wakes up in a new and perfect world in the year 2000 after over one hundred years of sleep. Whatever obstacles had to be overcome must be imagined as there is no mention of wars waged, people conquered, or islands made. As an explanation Dr. Leete says, “[o]nly a century has passed . . . but many a millennium in the world’s history has seen changes less extraordinary”(26). He extrapolates by relating “the world now is heaven compared with what it was in your day, that the only feeling you will have after a little while will be one of thankfulness to God that your life in that age was so strangely cut off, to be returned to you in this”(55). Apparently the defining millennial concept centers on a “post-millennial” idea that is not about an apocalyptic moment, but all about looking to the future and establishing a perfect Kingdom of God on Earth, and consisting of a sublime and perfect existence in life before entering the after-life.
Bellamy’s community will strive for such perfection with the notion of equality for all in the work place as well as in education. Although it is not obvious in Dr. Leete’s male dominated household, the community espouses equality and “women, as well as men, are members of the industrial army . . .”(167). In spite of this, the story seems a bit stalled in time with no real advancement, adventure, or passion to look forward to. Even the music has not evolved in one-hundred years. The only acknowledged improvement is being able to listen to music at home via the “telephone.” In his mid-term from 2005, Byron Smith observes the following:
In this vision of America, People listen to the music of previous centuries, apparently without having developed any new music of their own . . . No new inventions, however, appear to have been created, with the possible exception of the mysterious tubes that propel slips of paper across the country. (3) It is also quite noticeable that no modern vehicles fill the busy city streets. People are only portrayed traipsing along wide, covered, and communal sidewalks. The “sameness” portrayed by the frozen in time aspect of this utopian community may seem just plain boring, idealistic, and implausible to some modern readers.
In contrast to the rather dull communities described in Utopia and Looking Backward, Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is an ecotopian society (minus men) that promotes education as well as the freedom for children to frolic in the beautiful countryside. Female inhabitants are allowed to explore and create their own adventures in a community free from crime and illness. However, unlike inhabitants of Utopia and Looking Backward, the women did not choose to create their own utopian culture. Similar to More’s Utopus, Gilman’s society is cut off from the world; however, the Herland community is completely hidden from other societies in a secret valley. They were forced into a new way of life by “a succession of historic misfortunes” and a clear defining millennial moment. After fighting to defend their home in the mountains and building a fortress to defend their mountain pathway “there occurred a volcanic outburst, with some local tremors, and the result was the complete filling up of the pass – their only outlet”(54). Few men were left and after a hostile slave uprising “infuriated virgins . . . rose in desperation and slew their brutal conquerors”(55). The utopian story will take place almost two-thousand years later and after the miracle of asexual reproduction by “parthenogenetic” means.
Thanks to parthenogenesis, the community created in Herland is successful complete with beautifully tended wild gardens and careful attention to the education of the children from birth. But, parthenogenesis in itself could lead to a stuck in time element for the residents of Herland. The women “set to work to improve that population in quality – since they were restricted in quantity . . . they had been at work on [this] for some fifteen hundred years”(71). If one was deemed worthy, she would set out to have her perfect baby without the help of a sexual relationship or a specific partner in life. All women loved all the children, even if they were not allowed to have one of their own “pink bundles.” There is no post-partum depression or infanticide in this society. Yet, the poor women are stuck in a boring rut by procreation with no courtship, no sexual love, no jealousy, no sparks, and frankly, no fun. The arrival of men may educate the women as to what is missing in their lives; therefore, literally altering the future for the next generations, and sparing them from the dreary asexual “sameness” in Herland.
The fourth novel read, and possibly the most enlightening, was Anthem by Ayn Rand. Like the first three stories, Anthem is written about a utopian community based on equality for all and concentration on the “we” instead of the “I.” However, unlike the other stories, the society portrayed in Anthem has gone awry and has somehow passed over the line of what is considered a perfect “utopia” into a dysfunctional community, or “dystopia.” The reader is not given details as to what events transpired allowing the society to form. However, the millennial moment for this story comes when Prometheus rejects the socialist society he has been raised in from birth and leaves it all behind to create his own version of utopian reality.
In her presentation on June 12, 2007, Tish Wallace found resemblances to the Adam and Eve story and made the following interesting observations concerning the Anthem millennial event:
Adam and Eve did not realize that they were naked until they ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge. The main characters in this text went through a similar experience: acquisition of knowledge opened their eyes to true corruption in their community. When these characters first begin learning and retaining information they hid (like Adam did from God) because they knew what they had discovered was considered a “sin” in their community. Eventually their discovery led to their voluntary exile from the community. The dawning knowledge of life being managed for residents without any personal input became too much for the re-named Prometheus and Gaea to continue.
Like the first three novels, Anthem portrays a society run on the basis of “sameness.” Even sexual reproduction is reduced to a yearly “Time of Mating” that Prometheus finds very distasteful. From these yearly sessions children are born that will “never know their parents” (41). As in Herland, the satisfaction of a life partner to raise a family with is denied. Generations pass and parents are not even allowed to know and love their children. All emotions seem to be taken away from the residents and life is reduced to a one devoid of love, affection, and intellectual stimulation, and is more than Prometheus can bear. The society appears totally stopped in time and completely unreceptive to any type of growth or advancement (as evidenced by the light bulb).
After completing his escape and re-uniting with Gaea, Prometheus feels “frightened that we had lived for twenty-one years and had never known what joy is possible to men”(83). He goes to such extremes in security to establish his own perfect home with Gaea and their future child that one must wonder if the restriction and “sameness” of his former life pushed him over the edge into a slight form of obsessive insanity. Nevertheless, experiencing the joy of newfound freedom and love gave the couple the courage to build a new life of their own with no lingering regrets.
Arguably, the idea of a utopian society is a fantasy that most human beings have wistfully considered. A perfect life with all of your needs efficiently taken care of can be seductive even on a good day. However, after reading the above mentioned stories, troubling questions remain. Must one give up all sense of personal freedom for socialistic equal opportunity? What about the “hangover” capitalists? Surely one will crop up here and there, even out of an improved gene pool. Will he or she be hunted down and un-ceremoniously shot upon discovery?
Also, there are major considerations such as human passion, sex, and love that have been strong enough to literally change history throughout the ages. Could future generations be brain-washed into living lives of unchanging “sameness” without such life defining pleasures and emotions? Through class study of the four texts, it seems obvious that such a community would follow a spiraling path to eventual doom. The inhabitants of any given society are no more, or no less, than flawed human beings. Yes, the community could hypothetically be created with equality and happiness for all. However, human nature dictates that, at the very least, someone would eventually overstep his or her bounds of authority and power. The dream of a heavenly “utopia” as depicted in the historically placed Utopia, Looking Backward and Herland would eventually transform into a hellish nightmare or “dystopia,” as portrayed in the futuristic and terrifying world of Anthem.