John Sissons

Can Science Fiction Effectively Use a Classic Utopia Story Within Its Story Arc?

My research interest in the LITR-MA program is the art of story-telling. I am a science fiction author and I want to explore a wide range of literature to understand other writers' story building. My specific objective is to sample genres that I have never heard about or encountered. Before I took this class, I had not spent a great deal of time thinking about the genre of utopias. In fact, I could not have given an effective definition of the genre. However, I have been forced to admit to myself that I have indeed written a utopia in my book Marilyn Carter. I have selected the following midterm posts because they seem to define and criticize utopia fiction and they also share criticism of the genre, sometimes pointedly. They are also from three separate summer classes, which I decided would give breadth to the idea of utopia as expressed by the authors.

James Seth (2011) begins his analysis with a general definition of the word ‘utopia.’ He ends his definition with an observation that just as the definition of the word can be interpreted differently by each author the ideas presented to form a literary utopia can be different based on the author’s background. The first condition Seth mentions for a literary utopia is that the society must be isolated. The example he gives is Gilman’s Herland, but Rand’s Anthem also fits the idea of an isolated community that is willingly isolated. This common attribute of utopias make the job of the science fiction writer much easier because there is only the fear of the outside to describe within the overall narrative. The other attributes Seth mentions are all of some egalitarian form or other. That is everyone is equal, everyone shares resources, everyone cooperates with each other and the state. This is also amenable to a science fiction novel. The writer can concentrate on developing characters and scenarios without having to contend with pesky human behaviors such as greed or lust.

Seth also points out that one benefit of a tightly controlled economy, which is also common in utopias, is the lessening of conflict. If everyone has what they need, there is less motivation to cheat, steal, or manipulate the economy to gather more resources than is needed. This attribute of utopias allows an author of science fiction to introduce characters in a controlled manner. Seth points that out as well. However, Seth also uses another classmate’s observation that dystopian novels are popular because they introduce conflict, which in turn allows the writer to fill out the characters with more varied behaviors. This trait of dystopian novels is also ascribed to the popularity of science-fiction novels and romances.

The traits of peaceful coexistence that are a utopian mainstay of the four novels we have read for this exam easily illustrate the points Seth makes. For example, child rearing is typically taken over by the state. Resources, such as food and housing, are shared in common. In More’s book the inhabitants are even required to change habitation every ten years and are forbidden to lock their doors. These broad traits of utopian fiction make character description very easy and thus one- or two-dimensional. An interesting character in a novel must have opinions, a physical description, a language that can be understood by the reader, and some predictable way of interacting with existing and new characters. With the exception of the three men in Herland and the reporter and his girlfriend in Ecotopia the characters in these novels are fairly mundane. Seth has done a good job in bringing up serious issues with utopian fiction story lines and scenarios.

Daniel Stuart (2013) compares utopian fiction with wanderlust. A person looks for something special in an idea of a perfect society knowing full well that it does not exist. Stuart condemns utopian fiction with the words, “And yet many, also like myself, have come to the [conclusion] that utopia, no matter how elaborately configured, no matter how pragmatically envisioned, can never meet up with the ideal; more to that, it can never sustain even the initiation of such a superlative vision.” Stuart also, like Seth, tells of a classmate who points out that the society of a utopia is almost painfully contrived. The example is Herland where there are not only no men, but the women learn to make girl babies without the necessary DNA from a human male. Callenbach expects the reader to believe that the entire society of the American Northwest changed so dramatically in twenty years that the denizens of Ecotopia have abandoned sports like soccer in favor of skewering themselves with spears as if that is more violent than a soccer game. The utopias we have read have all twisted the human protagonists and the background characters in ways that can easily unravel if pressed hard by a writer.

Stuart continues with the observations of another classmate who points out that people want to determine their leisure themselves and not have restrictions by the state telling them that the proposed leisure activity is wrong. History agrees with that observation. Romans murdered people in public, bear baiting was popular until the late seventeenth century, and hangings of people were seen as entertainment until the twentieth century. The public changed all that, not the state. Utopian fiction in the novels we have read all limit money in one form or another, which would seriously limit the access to entertainment.

The classmate Stuart uses to illustrate his point that utopias are strained and unworkable also points out, like the Seth midterm post, that dystopias are much more interesting because dystopias allow for “self-interest and human ambition.” With the addition of these two native human traits, a science fiction author has a lot more latitude to develop a character. Part of a good character is predictable behavior and self interest is a great characteristic to use to paint a complete portrait of a novel’s protagonist. Stuart’s observations of the unworkable nature of utopias are well taken. It seems that for the successful utopia, there should be some elements of the dystopia in order to make the story believable and, critically, enjoyable.

Melissa Hodgkins (2015) begins with the observation that what “authors of utopian literature continually do is question the world around them.” This is very important for science fiction writers who present scenarios that are presented as close to the time of writing. Scenarios that concern the far future are more easily stretched concerning plot development. However, Hodgkins uses a classmate’s essay to ask, “Why bother?” If what an author is trying to write cannot be real anyway, why not give up the ideal of the perfect society and just create a story parallel to the present, but set in the future?

The answer Hodgkins arrives at is that each writer of utopias has a unique set of life experiences. The example Hodgkins gives is Callenbach’s book. In the 1970s, when Ecotopia was written, there was a great deal of interest in the inner-cities of the major metropolises like Los Angeles and San Francisco. These areas were predominately poor and populated by people of color. So when Callenbach wrote his utopia, he slipped in a community called “Soul City.” We have discussed in our current class how this seems contrived. However, to Hodgkins this illustrates the time in which Callenbach lived and wrote.

Hodgkins reflects my earlier research essay by pointing out that each writer of utopias we have studied so far has had an easily discernible point of view. Hodgkins points to More’s Book One before the description of Utopia. Gilman was obviously contrasting her three male characters with the women in the tale. Rand was reacting to the take-over of the Russian State by the communists with their collectivization of the economy. Callenbach saw the destruction of Earth in the wanton pollution of our seas, land, and air. Each author brings a particular point of view to bear when describing the perfect society. Each author was seeking to point out and to attempt to change behaviors each saw as destructive in the society in which each lived. Each of these authors seek to break accepted sacred truisms, such as the primacy of landed aristocrats over their tenants, or the primacy of men in the workplace over women, or the primacy of the state over its citizens, or the primacy of man over the earth.

Hodgkins uses these authors to illustrate the tendency of utopian authors to critique their individual milieu. “However, one of the hallmarks of utopian literature is social critique and a proposal for the author’s version of a more ideal society.” This point is well taken. Hodgkins also points out that dystopian literature is taught in schools along with utopian literature in order to strengthen the effect of both in the classroom.

The conclusion I have drawn is that for my science fiction writing, I should not entirely rely on building either a straight utopian society or a straight dystopian society. I should use the elements of dystopian fiction to develop the characters, but use utopian elements to show that these flawed characters thus developed mean to improve themselves and their society. Simple constructions of society, such as taking away child care from the parents or making everyone share resources, may make the writing simple, but ultimately uninteresting. I do see how the judicious use of the ideal scenarios that exist in literary utopias would benefit a science fiction story by having the characters constantly striving for perfection; however that striving for perfection would work best in a mildly dystopian society.

Literary and Historical Utopias: Entertaining and Instructive?

Literary Utopia as Science Fiction

My thesis for the completion of the LITR MA program will be a typical science fiction book. The book will have no utopia written inside the story arc. However, I have come to the realization that my sixth science fiction book, Marilyn Carter, is also a utopian novel. I have arrived at that conclusion based on my study of utopian fiction this semester. I want to find a place for the book inside the science fiction space I occupy, so I will attempt to compare my book with the four books we have studied to see if my book generally fits the utopian genre. The first characteristic that I noticed about utopian novels is that the author seeks to point out the faults of the society in which the author lives and to present possible solutions, which is what my book does. To that point the authors of our four utopias generally construct a very simple background story before launching into the real meat of the book. The real meat of the utopian book I have observed is the author’s literary concern for the fate of his or her society as it is expressed in the utopian novel. To achieve this story the four authors simplify the social atmosphere of their constructed communities a great deal by making the minor characters behave in the same way and tightly controlling the minor characters' behavior with the state. The difference here is that my background story is far more complicated than any of the four books we have read in class and my characters, major and minor, live in a much more complicated political and social community because my utopia exists within a much larger story. Does this disqualify my book as a work of literary utopian fiction? And there are other departures from the four books, which I will explore.

In this class we have read two men and two women authors of utopias. The men constructed simple backgrounds to their stories that include some sort of origin story and contains conflict resolution. More has his Utopians making war for expansion or survival and Callenbach has his male Ecotopians puncturing each other with spears to the cheers of the women Ecotopians. Both men see conflict in a somewhat benign light, as it were. That is, violence is not to be avoided and conflict is inevitable. There is no detailed description of why there are still wars in Utopia or why the Ecotopians easily accepted the war games. The women authors, on the other hand, do not highlight conflict in their background stories. Gilman constructs a simple background where the women are hidden in some mountains and they observe the visiting men as Gilman’s three male protagonists explore Herland. Rand creates a simple background that has no explanation, but her story illustrates the futility of state control over its constituents’ lives. Prometheus and Gaea end Rand’s story with a lot of promise for reform, but little action. The common theme here is that there is no depth to the origin explanations to tell the reader why these events occurred. These four stories are also very short as science fiction books go, really essays or novellas.

My book has a very complicated background and my protagonist, Marilyn Carter, works her way up in the ranks of the state police. She behaves as a normal woman who goes to school, marries, has children, fights for promotion, and generally succeeds. This is the background for my utopian novel. She brings up important questions about the functioning of her society as she rises through the police ranks. She questions capital punishment, drug use, and juvenile crime to name a few. She proposes solutions to these issues that are gradually implemented as she becomes politically powerful over her fifty year police career.

So, my question for this exam is, “Where does my story fit?” I believe that my story fits the utopian genre because it uses the typical set of conditions for the four utopias we have studied. My story is set in a totally isolated community that has an irrational fear of outsiders, i.e. society-wide xenophobia. The people are all genetically modified so that they can survive living in a hostile environment and they all look alike because of this genetic modification. (This is science fiction, after all.) Their schools are centralized, however adults must have a state license in order to have children and generally the state restricts successful applicants to one child.  No one is allowed to be unemployed, sick, hungry, or without shelter because the unrest that would be caused by the deprivation of basic staples for life would be intolerable for the state and for the twenty million people living in such a cramped area. The people are simply required to work by the state. Where my utopia differs from More and Callenbach is that although I am a male author, there is no external or internal physical conflict. These people are totally isolated and, unlike Gilman, More, or Callenbach, no one can get inside my utopia. And, like Rand’s vision of her dystopia, the state Marilyn Carter serves does have total control over every aspect of its constituents through a mixture of custom and law. That makes the people in my utopia behave similarly, much like the characters inhabiting the other four books behave similarly.

I believe that the definition of utopian literature can be flexible in such a way that novels that do not strictly adhere to one element, such as having a complicated and lengthy background story, can exist inside the genre. The other way of looking at the books we have read is that they all adhere strictly to one outline. More’s island background story is a vague accounting of an ancient past which tells how the Utopians were isolated, Callenbach has nuclear weapons buried in major US cities to keep the US government and Americans out, Gilman has a distant calamity seal the self-replicating women off from the rest of the world, and Rand simply says that this type of insulated society exists surrounded by a forest that terrifies the inhabitants. This type of simplistic background story becomes like a character in the story instead of a history of the origin of the subject utopia.

Marilyn Carter’s character behaves as a real woman designing a career that will help her correct what she observes as incorrect state policy. Such a background is necessarily complicated and becomes part of the overall science fiction story narrative because of its length. She is well aware of the history of her people, but it does not concern her in her present circumstance because the background story only concerns her character, not the entire community, which is a major departure from the four books we have read. She struggles to make her society better now. The past is gone for her, even if it is also somewhat interesting. Marilyn Carter comfortably fits within utopian fiction by telling a story of the way the state should work inside a longer futuristic science fiction story. Again, my story has a significant departure from the pattern set by the four stories we have studied, but I do not believe that it is disqualified from the utopian genre.

Historical Utopias Compared to Literary Utopias

Historical utopias have generally been confined to a small group of people with like interests or commitments. Examples of historical utopias would be nineteenth century religious communities and modern communities concerned with resource conservation. The people who work at modern communities are volunteers and no adult is held against their will without breaking state and federal law. The religious communities, and I include seminaries and convents in this definition, require adherence to a central theme that takes the place of secular law within the bounds of the community. For example, the Shakers’ community (The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing) awaited the end of the world in the early nineteenth century. Their religious belief shaped their behavior down to personal sexual relationships and sharing of material staple items. I imagine that some of the adults who joined at first realized that the end of the world was not near and left to return to the general secular world and law. The remaining members would be the true believers in Christ’s second appearing. Communal Conservation utopias popular in the 1970s, like Twin Oaks, consistently have to find new members to keep their vision of a simple, environmentally friendly, community alive because of the turnover in population. The numbers of members according to the website we saw in class are quite small with few children involved and in the case of the Shaker community, no children involved.

Literary and historical utopias have several characteristics in common. First of all, they both involve like minded members. Secondly they control the numbers of children. Thirdly, work and the fruits of the labor are shared. Fourthly, all housing and meals are communal. And the last commonality between literary and historical utopias is that everyone must agree to the rules governing the community. Otherwise, the member must leave in the case of historical utopias. In the case of literary utopias, escape is prevented, including mine.

The turnover in members of modern historical utopias exists because the effort to establish and continue to run a communal organization has several drawbacks. The most serious is a lack of long-term income (e.g. retirement income and Social Security/Medicare) for all participants as they age. Participants have to either leave to find work or find something to sell outside their communities to earn money for not only themselves, but aging members who can no longer actively contribute. Another drawback to modern historical utopias is catastrophic healthcare, which can bankrupt even large organizations and catastrophe happens to all ages.

Historical utopias seek to be real models of what the literary utopias could be if the vision of the utopian community was generally accepted by the wider society. Some, like Twin Oaks, have found a steady state, as Callenbach would say, and have endured with a steady turnover of members. The main point, though, is that the former members learn something from their experiences much like the readers of literary utopias hopefully learn something from their reading.

Utopias, both historical and fiction, serve an important purpose in modern society and literature. Utopian fiction points out the improvements that can be made in the author’s society. The background history of the literary utopia is really unimportant to the author’s central message. The back cover of the Callenbach book as printed by Bantam Books has a quote from Ralph Nader that illustrates the effect of Ecotopia. “None of the happy conditions in Ecotopia are beyond the technical or resource reach of our society.”

Today, we Americans are beginning to recycle and reuse items instead of throwing them away in a landfill. We are also trying to clean up the emissions from cars, trucks, airplanes, buses, and trains just as envisioned by Callenbach. This message is reinforced by the very real men and women who try to put the fictional ideas into very real practice within insulated modern conservation communities. The people who leave religious communities and conservation communities, hopefully, spread the word that being kind to each other and our environment is the way to live.