Jan Smith

The Space That Dreams Are Made Of

The definition of Utopia as “no place” was a bit too intangible for me at first. Much like Dorothy, from The Wizard of Oz, when she says, “Toto, I get the feeling we are not in Kansas anymore”; I felt myself grappling with this simplistic definition.  I understood Sir Thomas More’s concept of Utopia as a “good place”. A society where systems work in harmony to the betterment of all—That was easy. Yet the Greek interpretation of “no place” continued to escape me. So I began to research and found some interesting concepts for defining the “no place space” of Utopia.  After reading several pieces of research, the pieces began to fall into place. Utopia starts off as a concept or idea. The ideas then turn into a desire, and that desire becomes so strong that it drives the characters into action. With this purpose in mind, they construct a physical space based on that idea or desire. In this space the desires can come to fruition. This is the point where “no place” turn into a “good place”. The concrete place called Utopia is now a physical representation of the original idea. The physical space now serves the purpose of nurturing the desire and keeping the ideals alive. For this post I looked to my fellow Utopian writers to help explain how the concept of “no place” is represented in works of Utopian Literature.

Desire and Purpose

Some humans have a desire to create a better living space. This drive moves people towards the creation of a utopian concept. Haylie Unger describes this in her 2011 Research Post when she says that Utopia is “a product of human desire”. She gives several examples explaining how desires motivates: “Utopus builds Utopia and establishes laws, a clear expression of a desire to create (More 2.59-2.60); similarly, Gilman’s women of Herland conceive children purely through desire, an act which allows their society to survive (12.50). According to Naomi Jacobs in her Islandia: Plotting Utopian Desire, “Utopian fiction is the ultimate fiction of desire. .  . a conscious attempt to awaken or reawaken desire for a more perfect state of being” (1). That is to say, the founder/originator of a Utopian society often creates the society with a desire to better the state of humanity, improve some condition of living, provide for the whole community all the basic needs of life, et cetera” (Unger 2011). In all these instances, the creator has a burning desire to bring about a better way of life. While some desires come from the will to create, other desires for Utopia are the striving towards perfection. Regardless of the origin, the common thread is that desire seems to be embedded somewhere deep inside the consciousness.

Desire in Dystopia

Yearning for a better life can turn into a purpose for living.  Purposes are why characters create Utopias. And for every Utopia, there are different reasons for the people that want them. In the case of a dystopia, the space represents a desire for liberation from the former space and a yearning for a better life. James Seth give a few suggestions from a dystopian perspective. To do so he uses both fiction and real life to show how strongly a purpose can fuel the Utopian “no space” definition: “Utopian founding narratives are often narratives of freedom and liberation, which directly connects to themes in dystopian fiction, where the protagonist is freed from oppressive forces. In Ayn Rand’s Anthem, Prometheus and Gaea are liberated from totalitarian rule and free to establish their own community after settling in the house from the Unmentionable Times. The Declaration of Independence states that when ‘it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another’ that ‘a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation’” (Seth 2011). In both instances there is a strong desire to change their way of living. Once the change becomes real the Utopia follows.

Wanting More from What You Already Have                      

Keri Welborn shows how some Utopian desires stem from a regard for a space that already exists. In her 2004 midterm she discusses how Ecotopians , like the communes from the 60’s, demonstrate  a desire to preserve the beauty in nature when she says: “Ecotopia focuses on the “back to land” philosophy that many modern utopias have, such as the hippie communes of the 1960’s. The government [in Ecotopia] functions on many levels, but mainly to protect, preserve, and revere the environment. The communes of the 1960’s focused on these same principles. Like Ecotopia, the 60’s communes not only focused on the ecological aspects, but also on the community aspects”.  In both of these examples the desire for the Utopia stems from the respect that the dreamer has for a space that is already in existence. This is similar to the dystopian desire or conception surrounding “no place”. But instead of breaking away and starting a separate space, the Ecotopians have a desire to repair the land and live harmoniously in it. She also compares the Ecotopian desire to that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. “The natural condition that the Ecotopians seem to want to return to is that of Eden, and the purpose of man, which in Genesis says to tend to nature”( Welborn 2004). This comment makes me think how Ecotopians have a deep spiritual bond with the earth and it almost draws them into a relationship.

When you commit to reading a piece of Utopian literature, you initially encounter a space. What I mean by space is the physical representation, or the setting, given by the author representing the “no place”. Before the space comes into existence, it starts as a desire in the mind of a dreamer. As a lover of Utopian literature, I enjoy conceptualizing the perfect world apart from my current reality, shaping it with my own desires and love of nature.

Works Cited

Callenbach, Ernest. Ecotopia. New York: Bantam, 1975.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Herland. New York: Pantheon, 1979.

Jacobs, Naomi. "Islandia: Plotting Utopian Desires." Utopian Studies 6.2 (1995): 75-89. Print.

Jefferson, Thomas. The Declaration of Independence. Utopias Course Website. http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/UtopTexts/foundingutopias.htm

More, Thomas. Utopia. 1516.

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

Seth, James. “B5: Founding and Finding Utopia.” UHCL, June 2011. Web.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)

Unger, Haylie. “Desire: The Drive and Destruction of Utopia.” UHCL. 2011. Web. 17 June

Welborn, Keri. “Utopias: Ecology and Story Development.” UHCL, June 2005. Web