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LITR 5431 Literary & Historical Utopias |
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Patrick Graham
Part 1
In 2015, Jessica Myers wrote an essay that
praised utopian literature for being a “literature of ideas.” Just last month,
Liz Haden wrote a piece that examined the intersection of utopian literature
with the genre of fantasy fiction. At the same time, Clark Omo criticized
utopian literature’s motif of suppressing individuality among members of
societies. When put into conversation with each other, these works synthesize a
unique criticism of utopian literature’s practicality: the genre of utopian
fiction bears ambitious goals of improving life for all, but the fact that its
ideas come from individual authors keep it from yielding any real progress.
The strongest aspect of utopian fiction is its
overall aim to promote ideas of how to make society better. As Myers writes in
her midterm essay, “the genre allows for the exploration of possibilities and
their potential effects on society” (Myers 2015). An author takes ideas, puts
them into action using fictional places and characters, and lets them play out.
This is a way of testing ideas before putting them into practice in real life.
In other words, works of utopian fiction are thought experiments that read like
stories. When people read utopian stories, they witness the author’s ideas as
played out in the narrative, and then they form their own opinions of them. This
resembles public deliberation, except the readers of the story cannot talk back.
However, this can be a benefit: Myers opines that utopian fiction “creates the
opportunity to have controversial conversations without sparks flying” (Myers
2015). Discussion of ideas and issues always includes disagreement, and
disagreement can lead to emotional conflict. This is why some people choose not
to engage in such an activity. The passive and indirect nature of utopian
fiction allows for these people to have a voice in the conversation. If they are
so inclined, they can put their ideas into a story and share them with the world
that way.
A work of utopian fiction conveys the ideas of
only one person, however, and that limits its efficacy. “The concept of utopia,”
writes Haden in her research post, “is a fantasy of the individual for the
collective” (Haden 2019). While the stories that utopian authors write may draw
inspiration from various sources, the final product is the result of one
individual’s ideas. As utopia is a term for a society, the ideas are intended to
be applied on a scale of many people. But, how can one author know what is best
for hundreds of people? This takes
away from utopian fiction’s validity as a medium of realistic ideas.
For a genre that grants an author the
opportunity to indulge in his own ideas, works of utopian literature certainly
do not assign such a priority to individuality in the societies they describe.
As Omo says in his research post, “Utopias possess a somewhat disturbing
tendency to sideline and ultimately bury the concept of individuality in their
constructed societies” (Omo 2019). Many works of utopian fiction glamorize
societies in which collectivism holds more priority than individualism. For
instance, Gilman’s Herland tells of a society in which a woman’s baby
does not belong to her but to a wide network of familial connections. This
convention makes one wonder if the author would even be able to write his story
if he lived in his own utopia. To express one’s ideas in such a creative and
personal manner requires a great degree of individuality. Yet, that degree of
individuality is rarely granted to anyone in such a utopia. It is a paradox.
Utopian fiction allows for unlikely people to
share ideas with wide audiences. The ideas expressed therein draw from eclectic
sources, but they get refined and expressed by a single author’s point of view.
This fact may prevent utopian ideas from being practical or accessible enough to
warrant implementation. However, the thesis of this essay went through a similar
process: three model assignments were studied, and ideas were synthesized from
them by a single author. Does that make this essay less poignant?
Part 2
Section 1
The term “utopia” takes a specific meaning in
the context of literature, as that is where it was first coined. Such a literary
utopia can be defined as a work of fiction that describes, through narrative,
one person’s idea of a society in which conditions maximize the wellbeing of all
inhabitants. In other words, it is a story about an ideal society. The term
comes from the novel Utopia, written by Thomas More in the 1500s.
Utopia is about a fictitious society whose conditions were far better than
those of Europe in More’s time. Many similar stories followed this one, and a
new genre was born. More’s work bore the most influence on the genre, so it was
named “utopian fiction.”
When ideas expressed in utopian fiction get put
into practice, the term “utopia” takes on a different meaning. Known as a
“historical utopia,” it then means an attempt to create a community that will
maximize the well-being of its members, in hopes that the ideas and methods will
spread. For example, Joseph Smith and his Church of Latter Day Saints in the
1800s was a historical utopia. Believing he was guided by God, Smith led a group
of followers across the United States in a search for a place where they could
establish their ideal community. Historical utopia has a connotation of existing
in the past, but groups of people are still trying to create utopias in the
present. The term for such a utopia is “intentional community.” An intentional
community is one governed by strict rules that the members volunteer to abide
by, as they all subscribe to the overall values and ideals. For example, Twin
Oaks is a group of people that live together in Virginia in a collectivist
community. The set of agreed-upon rules and values that they live by creates a
small utopia for them.
A desire for
progress underlies both definitions of “utopia,” and that is what keeps the
subject so attractive. In science, the term “entropy” describes the idea of
chaos—things
being out of order and lacking predictability. There is a theory that entropy
increases constantly in all systems. In other words, things are always getting
more and more chaotic. Is this the case for human societies? Maybe. But humans
do not seem to be satisfied with that conclusion. Humans are always trying to
make things better. That is why scientists are always making discoveries,
activists are always fighting for what they believe in, and scholars are always
developing new ideas. Also, this is why the concept of utopia remains an
interesting topic: people want to make society better, and utopian studies is
one of the many avenues through which they can develop and share ideas for doing
so.
Section 2
A common convention in the genre of utopian
fiction is the narrator as a character in the story. One can see this convention
used in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, Ayn Rand’s Anthem and
Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia. Herland tells the story of three men
that travel to an exotic community of women to experience its way of life. One
of those three men narrates the story, using the first-person past tense. He
gives a personal recollection of his time in the utopia, and that creates an
intimate experience for the reader. In Ecotopia, a man travels to an area
that separated itself from the United States and became an independent country
of like-minded people. The man narrates the story in the first-person present
tense. Like Herland, this creates an intimate experience for the reader,
but the present tense takes it further. This way, readers feel like they are
experiencing the story as it happens. This convention shows up in Anthem
as well. However, that story is a dystopia rather than a utopia. Also, it is
told in the first-person plural voice. Anthem argues for the negativity
of collectivist societies as it tells the story of a person who yearns from
freedom and individuality in a totalitarian world. Collectivism has gotten so
extreme in Rand’s dystopia that no individual may speak in the first-person
singular voice.
Thomas More’s Utopia deviates slightly from the convention of
narrator-as-character. The narrator is a character in the story, but the story
does not tell of his adventures in the utopian community. Instead, it tells of a
group of men talking to a representative from the utopian community. So, the
story is more like a dialogue.
The most effective utopian titles use the basic
story format. A utopian work, told as a basic story, presents its ideas in a
simple narrative form that many readers can access. As described earlier,
Herland and Anthem tell stories of characters in strange lands. The
stories have clear beginnings, middles and ends, and the characters must
overcome obstacles, conflicts and complications. These are characteristics of
the romance narrative, which is accessible to wide audiences.
Sometimes, a utopian work will augment the
story by using other conventions from the novel. Ecotopia is a romance
narrative, but the story is told through a series of journal entries and news
reports. This way, it maintains the romantic excitement of a hero on a journey,
but it becomes even more imaginative and engaging for the reader. Since a
utopian story aims to present progressive ideas, these exciting conventions
prime the reader to accept those ideas.
However, the story format of utopian works is a
recent development, as the earliest works use more abstract forms that predate
the novel. Utopia is more of a dialogue than a story. It was influenced
by Plato’s Republic, which presents ideas that would now be considered
utopian and is a dialogue. Perhaps More realized the importance of Republic
and wanted to mimic its format. Utopia certainly gained a similar level
of recognition, but it also gained a reputation of being dry, dense and
difficult to read. Authors of later utopian works may have realized this and
gone with the story format instead.
Section 3
The genre of utopia appeals to me because it
allows for a conversation about ideas in a more passive, less confrontational
way. A counterexample would be a group of people gathered for public
deliberation. In such a context, people present their ideas, and others express
their criticism of those ideas. So, people have to be prepared to defend their
ideas. This can cause stress on the presenter as criticism is direct and
sometimes emotional. Some people may not function well in this sort of
environment: they may be introverted, shy or sensitive. Utopian literature takes
this sort of stress out of the pursuit of ideas. It is asynchronous, impersonal
and inclusive of all personalities.
There are no heated debates, and critics can ignore the ideas if they do not
like them. As an introvert, I feel more comfortable sharing my ideas in this
manner.
I enjoy the discipline of philosophy, and
utopian fiction shares philosophy’s domain of the development and refinement of
ideas. Like utopian fiction, philosophical works present one person’s ideas of
how people should live. Political philosophy goes further: it present ideas of
how societies should be run. However, much of philosophy suffers from the
weakness of a dialogue: it is dry, dense and difficult to read, and wide
audiences might not be willing to read any of it. Also, there are no characters,
plots or complications in philosophical works. Utopian literature puts these
elements into philosophy and gives it a better chance at widespread acceptance.
Personally, I have a high tolerance for dry and dense literature. So, I tend not
to struggle when reading philosophy. In fact, I prefer it over fiction. However,
I now see utopian literature as philosophy that is told through the lens of
fiction. Now, I have a whole new genre that I am eager to read.
I enjoy the
discipline of sociology because it is a science dedicated to making utopia a
reality. Sociologists study the ways that human beings behave in groups, and
they look for patterns so that human behavior can become predictable. With this
knowledge, they can contribute objective data to the marketplace of ideas. All
sociologists do what they do because they want to make society better. This goal
is the same in utopian literature. While the work of a sociologist and that of a
utopian author vary at the operational level, they have similar strategies. They
both observe human behavior, analyze their observations and offer solutions.
While their solutions take different forms—a
sociologist produces a scholarly article, and utopian author produces a work of
fiction—they both aim to achieve the betterment of society. With knowledge of
this common agenda, I now appreciate both fields more than before.
Works Cited
Callenbach, Ernest. Ecotopia.
Berkeley: Banyan Tree Books. 1975.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Herland.
1915. LITR 5431 American Literature. Craig White. Web. 5
March 2019.
Haden, Liz. “Utopia: An Individual’s Fantasy?” 2019. LITR 5431 American
Literature. Craig White.
Web. 5 March 2019.
More, Thomas. Utopia. Trans. Rayphe
Robinson, 1516. LITR 5431 American Literature. Craig White.
Web. 17 February 2019.
Myers, Jessica. “A Literature of Ideas & Utopian Paradox.” 2015. LITR 5431
American Literature.
Craig White. Web. 5 March 2019.
Omo, Clark. “Burying the Self: Restraining Individuality in Utopia.” 2019. LITR
5431 American Literature. Craig White.
Web. 5 March 2019.
Rand, Ayn. Anthem. 1938. LITR 5431
American Literature. Craig White. Web. 5 March 2019.
