Literature of Space & Exploration UHCL 2002 sample student research project

John Granahan

Exploring Romantic Themes in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars is essentially a Utopian novel. It is not Utopian in the traditional sense that it envisions a social order under which all peoples will live in harmony. Rather, the author seeks to increase the reader’s awareness of how we arrive at knowledge of the world around us as well as of ourselves and of each other, and how the lack of such awareness may have profoundly negative and tragic effects on the course of development of society. Robinson does not envision a harmonious society, and even seems to believe that such a society is neither possible nor healthy. He opposes Capitalism, at least in its present form. He asserts that it has produced a post-modernist “fragmentation, anomie, apoliticism, stupidity, quietism and capitulationism.” (Foote, Conversation, p. 54). In this environment, the concept of Utopia has lost respect. It is regarded as impractical, as “Pie in the sky.” He seeks to rescue the concept of Utopia, not to mean a simplistic solution for peace and harmony, but to mean a striving for a more egalitarian and global society. He suggests the word “Optopia,” originally coined by Science Fiction writer, Joanna Russ, may more accurately describe such a society. (Foote, Conversation, p. 59). Such a society would value individuality and diversity and would respect nature and other cultures. It would be a reasonably just society, but there would still be unhappiness and tragedy, as well as some discord and disharmony, “because of the nature of biology and of the cosmos………. it wouldn’t just be war, famine and meaningless death, but it would be unrequited love, and death at the end of a fairly meaningful life.” (Foote, Conversation, p. 59).

In Red Mars, the first settlers on Mars, and the immigrants, who follow them, bring with them their individual internal values and the conflicts of their Earth-bound origins. Their values are largely unexamined and unrecognized and result, not surprisingly, in political and philosophical differences and discord among the settlers, particularly regarding whether, and how, to “terraform” Mars. These differences are amplified by Earth’s population and resource problems as well as by the social impact of the longevity “treatment” developed on Mars. Combined, these factors lead to conflict and revolution with tragic consequences. Kim Stanley Robinson’s achievement in Red Mars is the development of a narrative approach, which illustrates how the lack of awareness of these subjective values has led to the tragedy of the Mars revolution as well as the painful alienation of many of the “First 100” settlers from each other. Conversely, his narrative approach also suggests how awareness of our subjective values may help recover from the effects of the revolution and form the basis for his “more egalitarian society.” Underlying his approach, however, is his embrace of the philosophical values of the Romantic Movement and his use of Romantic themes throughout the novel. While Red Mars is not a work of Romantic literature, the values, which motivate it, are rooted in Romanticism.

Romantic literature is, in general, not Utopian. In fact, with its emphasis on individual creativity and freedom as opposed to social structure, it may be thought of as anti-utopian. It is also generally regarded as anti-science and anti-technology. Science Fiction is, of course, centrally concerned with science and technology and is often Utopian in theme. It is ironic, therefore, that the Science Fiction genre owes much to the Romantic tradition. This is certainly true of Red Mars. This paper will explore the ways in which the themes and values of the Romantic Era are embodied in Red Mars and how these themes are used by the author to elucidate his utopian vision. Before we do this, however, we will briefly review two background topics, which will help put Red Mars into perspective. The first of these is the historical roots of the Romantic Movement and how these affected the values and themes found in Romantic literature.¹ The second is the influence of Romantic literature on the Science Fiction genre.

By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, advances in science and technology, particularly the development of the steam engine, had fueled the Industrial Revolution, which was at the peak of its growth. The huge increases in productive capacity brought about by the Industrial Revolution promised an abundance of goods and products for an ever-wider base of consumers. It gave rise to a middle class with money and influence. Unfortunately, it also brought about a massive migration of rural people to the cities and mill towns to work in the new factories. In so doing, it created a new landless class, who lived under conditions of extreme poverty and misery. The new factories cast a pall of soot and smoke over their communities. Overcrowding and lack of sanitation in the towns led to outbreaks of diseases, such as cholera, and caused pollution of the streams and waterways by raw sewage. Since the workers had no vote and were prohibited by law from unionizing, their only recourse was protest and agitation, which in turn spurred the ruling class to even more repressive measures.

In roughly this same time frame, the American and French Revolutions, both products of the Enlightenment, had raised hopes for the perfectibility of society through democracy, law and reason. The American Revolution, while on the whole successful, failed to deal with the injustice of slavery. The even more radical French Revolution, after an initial period of euphoria following the Declaration of the Rights of Man, pursued an increasingly grim and violent course through the Reign of Terror, during which thousands of people were guillotined, the subsequent execution of those responsible for the Terror, the emergence of Napoleon as dictator and emperor of France, and a new era of war and destruction. It is little wonder, then, that many writers of the time became disillusioned with utopian visions of society based on science and reason and even with society, itself. For the writers, who later became known as Romantics, “Hope lay in the individual’s separation from, not participation in, society.“ (Mack, pp. 449-450).

Writers of the Romantic Era were greatly influenced by the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. In counterpoint to the Enlightenment, Kant believed that reason alone would not lead to the most significant knowledge, and that “Feeling, on the other hand, might offer a guide. The individual will must engage itself in ethical struggle to locate and experience the good.” (Mack, p. 445). The individual self then, took on a greater importance, and this new emphasis on the individual implied greater emphasis on internal as opposed to external experience. Individual imagination, particularly the imagination of gifted people, came to be regarded as the visionary tool through which new truth was ascertained. Originality and genius were respected to an extent not seen before. Nature itself took on a new meaning and was revered, as it had not been before. In the eighteenth century, Nature and nature’s laws were seen as the embodiment of the rationally ordered universe. In the nineteenth century, however, Nature came to embody not just the physical detail of the universe, but also its totality. It was a vast and unifying spirit, a link to the infinite, a source of beauty and inspiration.

The increased emphasis on feeling over reason as a path to truth and on the value of the individual as opposed to social structures led to Romantic literature with deeply emotional themes. These themes included romantic love, especially unrequited love, the pain of separation and loss, and the beauty and power of nature and the awe or terror it may generate (the Sublime). They also included what came to be called Gothic themes, which utilized dark and confined settings to exploit irrational fears of the unknown and the supernatural.

Although Romantic literature does not envision a social utopia, much of it may be considered “literature of purpose.” (Abrams, pp.1309 – 1310). Such works combined gothic themes with didactic intention. For example, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein utilizes the story of the man-made monster to illustrate the moral distortion caused in an individual, who is rejected by society because he deviates from the accepted norm. (Abrams, p. 1310).

While the Romantic Movement was in part a reaction against the Industrial Revolution and the increased power it gave to large institutions such as the state, Science Fiction is a by-product of the success of that revolution. It is ironic, therefore, that Science Fiction has borrowed so heavily from the Romantic Movement. Indeed, it can be argued that Science Fiction owes its existence to the Romantic Movement, or at least could not have occurred until after the Romantic Movement. The Romantic Movement developed forms of imaginative projection, which are the basis of Science Fiction. Science Fiction combined Romantic forms with the romanticization of the machine. It has been called the “Romantic literature of the machine.” (Purdy, p. 56).

All Science Fiction involves some form of imaginative projection, so it is probably unnecessary to cite examples. Nonetheless, one, which merits mention here, is Arthur C. Clarke’s concept of the space elevator as an economical means of access to space in his 1979 novel, Fountains of Paradise. The space elevator plays a key role in Red Mars, and Kim Stanley Robinson pays homage to Clarke in his naming of the asteroid, which “anchors” the space end of the elevator.

A major Romantic theme is that of the profound pain caused by separation or loss. In traditional Romantic literature, this is normally used in the context of unrequited love or grief over a lost love, such as in Poe’s classic poem, The Raven. Separation and loss are major themes in Science Fiction, too, although in a somewhat different sense. In Arthur C. Clarke’s short story, If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth…, a father and son living in a colony on the Moon look back longingly at the Earth, which has been destroyed by war and to which they can never return.

Gothic themes also abound in Science Fiction. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which may be the first true work of Science Fiction and a rare example of a work that fits both the category of traditional Romantic literature and that of Science Fiction, has already been mentioned. Gothic themes may also occur in modern, more scientifically plausible Science Fiction. Ben Bova, in his novel, Mars, makes use of this with excellent effect. Several of the crew of the first mission to Mars become infected with a strange illness, which they cannot diagnose or explain, despite their best efforts and consultation with medical experts back on Earth. The fear is that it some sort of Mars virus related to the microscopic organisms they had previously isolated. The mystery of the illness plays out over a period of time during which the sense of strange foreboding increases. The mystery is ultimately explained, but it becomes clear to everyone that despite our scientific understanding of the universe, we are not fully in control of our fate. Our awareness of this unknowable and uncontrollable nature of things is our modern way of addressing what was considered in the Romantic Era the supernatural.

The notion of the Sublime, the experience of profound fear or transcendent emotion at the beauty and power of nature is a major theme in both Romantic literature and Science Fiction. Edgar Allen Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym provides an example of the experience of the Sublime when Pym and his companions survive a hurricane on the crippled ship, Grampus.

Red Mars is basically “literature of purpose” in much the same way that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is. It embraces, as a core value, the Romantic notion that reason and science alone are not sufficient to provide a full and complete knowledge of ourselves and of the world around us. Our feelings and emotions, as well as beauty and nature, must be valued as a source of truth and must inform our decisions. Societies, which ignore this and make decisions based on reason and science alone, will experience negative and tragic consequences. This underlying value is the most significant contribution of the Romantic tradition to Red Mars. All of the above themes, the Sublime, the Gothic and the pain of separation and loss, are utilized in Red Mars, and serve to illustrate the importance of non-rational or emotional values to a healthy society and how the lack of such values harms society.

Before looking into the use of Romantic themes in Red Mars, it will be helpful to examine some of the problems with the use of so-called rational and scientific values. William Dynes, in his review of Robinson’s Mars trilogy postulates that the basic problem with this approach is due to “the intermingling of the objective (we suppose) act of seeing and the subjective construction of knowledge.” (Dynes, p. 153). The subjective construction of knowledge is a function of our feelings, experience, preconceptions, and expectations. He further points out, “Current studies in social psychology suggest that our most basic cognitive functions are shaped at an unconscious level by social knowledge. What we see, in other words, may often be a function of what we already believe.” (Dynes, p. 151). With this in mind, the vision of the scientist, and by extension all those who would assert that their particular world view is independent of socialized values is seen to be flawed. Kim Stanley Robinson, himself, articulates this. He refers to it as the “fact-value problem” and suggests that Science Fiction may be called, somewhat awkwardly perhaps, fact-value literature. (Foote, Conversation, p. 53). The world of science is the world of facts. The world of fiction is a repository of our values. Good Science Fiction is an “enjambment of facts and values in a way that our culture desperately needs right now. The fact-value problem is specifically relevant to today’s world, because we have a culture that is making changes without much regard for the underlying values that are going to be thereby expressed.” (Foote, Conversation, p. 53).

The great conflict of Red Mars, which is the direct result of people’s inability or unwillingness to recognize how, and how much, subjective values affect their world views, is the conflict between those who want to terraform Mars and those who want to leave it in its primal state. The characters, who best represent the extremes of these positions, are Ann Clayborne and Sax Russell. Both are scientists, yet they come into conflict because they each construct their world views based on values they have not identified, much less analyzed and understood. Ann, who sees an inherent value and beauty in Mars, wants to leave the planet undisturbed, beautiful, but lifeless. Sax, without regard for the alien uniqueness of Mars, wants to develop life forms, which will give Mars an Earth-like atmosphere in which liquid water can exist on the surface, essentially making Mars more temperate and Earth-like. The issue is complicated, of course, by the Earth-based trans-national companies and governments, which want to exploit the resources of Mars to the fullest extent, and by the “Reds,” the Martian colonists, who see the uniqueness of Mars and want to develop a lifestyle compatible with the planet’s limitations and natural features. One of the ironies of this conflict, which is described by Bud Foote in his “Notes on Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars,” is that those who, on Earth would enhance and preserve life – the environmentalists, artists, humanists – wish to keep Mars as it is, stark, and lifeless. On the other hand, those, who show the least regard for life and nature on Earth –the technologists and the multi-national corporations –, want to bring life to Mars. (Foote, Notes, p. 61)

Robinson does not attempt to oversimplify these conflicts or to reduce them to a few issues as many other writers have done. Rather, it is the complexity of how individual people construct their knowledge of the world and how that knowledge drives decisions affecting the development of society that he is trying to illustrate. A society, whose people are alienated from their emotions, their history, traditions, and natural environment and who filter their objective knowledge through the prism of scientific rationality only, will produce a very dehumanizing society. On the other hand a society, whose people act on solely on emotional considerations, or environmental preservation, or who are rigidly traditional, will forego much of the technological progress, which can create a more abundant life. Most modern societies seem to be heavily tilted toward the former mind-set. Hence, the problem seems to be how to convince people that a better society will result if a balance is struck between the objective values of science and rationality, and those subjective values, which in a more subtle manner, benefit society by nourishing the hearts and souls of its citizens. In a world in which knowledge is increasingly specialized and peoples’ lives are increasingly compartmentalized, this is a very difficult task. Fortunately, the Romantic tradition has been concerned with the nourishment of the heart and soul and provides us with many examples of how this may be done.

Kim Stanley Robinson makes extensive use of Romantic themes in Red Mars to illustrate how our non-rational side must play an essential part in shaping our understanding of the world. Human society is so complex and the range of individual human emotions and experiences so varied, that it becomes daunting to contemplate, much less write about. Robinson tackles this challenge by utilizing a technique of allowing different chapters of Red Mars to be narrated by different characters. This allows us to “inhabit” several of the story’s major characters. The result is that we have the time to develop an appreciation of the emotional and intellectual makeup of each character and how the interaction of this makeup with his or her past experiences shapes each of them. Thus, we have an opportunity to understand that Frank is driven by a kind of free-floating, unfocused, irrational and, most importantly, unrestrained anger, which explains his Machiavellian deeds. We learn to appreciate that Ann’s love for Mars in its undisturbed state blinds her to the fact that keeping the planet in this state is directly at odds with the objective of their mission, which is to settle Mars. She is thus doomed to frustration and unhappiness. We experience Michel Duval’s homesickness and melancholy, and wonder, along with him, why he worked so hard to get himself to Mars. This is especially intriguing in light of the fact that he recognized long before the launch of the mission the inherent unhealthiness of wanting to leave the Earth and family behind forever. We come to understand how Nadia’s work ethic was shaped by her years in Siberia. Robinson, himself, has described this technique as a “polyphonic narrative structure” (Dynes, p. 153). With this approach of attempting to convey the internal reality of each of several major characters, Robinson allows the “thematic truth of the novel to emerge from the conflicting music of all these different voices.” (Dynes, p. 153). Insofar as this “polyphonic narrative structure” allows us to get inside each of the key characters and “feel” what they feel, it enhances greatly the impact of the Romantic themes in the novel.

Perhaps the most pervasive, and effective, Romantic theme in Red Mars is that of separation and loss. The pain of separation and loss is often expressed in Traditional Romantic literature as unrequited love or the grief of loss through the death of or physical separation from, a dearly loved one. A parallel and somewhat complementary element of Romantic literature is its fascination with strange, exotic and far-away places. Mars is certainly strange, exotic and far away. The “First 100” settlers know before they leave for Mars, that return to Earth is extremely unlikely. This is so because of the extreme distance between Mars and Earth, and because of physical de-conditioning, which they will experience due to Mars’ low gravity. It is inevitable, therefore, that they will experience a profound homesickness. The settlers also know that because of the lack of a significant atmosphere on Mars, they will be living almost all of their lives indoors. Even when outside, they must wear suits, “Walkers” in Robinson’s terminology, to maintain pressure on their bodies, and to provide a breathable atmosphere. So, even when outside, they are, in effect, inside. Someday, humans may “terraform” Mars to provide a breathable atmosphere and livable climate, but that is a long way off. The first settlers will never again in their lifetimes, feel the sun on their faces, enjoy a swim in the ocean or hear the leaves rustle in the breeze – at least not outdoors. It is hard to imagine the degree of pain this would cause. Probably, the best analogy here on Earth would be the pain of being imprisoned for life in some place far from home and family.

The pain of separation that the Mars settlers will inevitably face is foreshadowed early in the book, when the psychologist, Michel Duval, who is tasked with helping select the “First 100” to go to Mars, muses on the “double binds” imposed by the selection committee on the candidates. He observes that, “…they were crazy enough to want to leave Earth forever, but sane enough to disguise this fundamental madness, in fact defend it as pure rationality…..and so, naturally they claimed to be the most scientifically curious people in history! But of course there had to be more to it than that. They had to be alienated somehow, alienated and solitary enough not to care about leaving everyone they had known behind forever…” (Pp. 27-28)². Ironically, even though he is well aware, at least on an intellectual level, of the magnitude of the emotional pain that permanent separation from Earth will cause, Michel himself, is working to be among the “First 100” and ultimately is selected.

Michel is one of the most interesting characters in Red Mars. He is perhaps the character, who comes closest to the traditional Romantic melancholic personality, and there is no other character in Red Mars, who feels the pain of homesickness to the extent he does. Robinson, in fact, devotes a very interesting chapter to Michel’s homesickness. In this chapter, Michel tries to understand why he chose to come to Mars, even when he knew in advance that he would leave Earth behind forever. The episode begins with Michel daydreaming of home and of floating in the warm Mediterranean waters off the south of France. One can feel his pain as he remembers the sunset, rising and falling with the waves, pelicans diving for fish, salt water in his eyes – all the things he will never experience again. His depression is deepened when he is interrupted to counsel Maya, who is again despondent over her relationships with John and Frank. Michel finds it difficult to care about her problems and finds himself unable to shake his own despondency. Later he muses on why he chose to come to Mars and is unable to remember. He remembers, however, that during the great solar radiation storm on the Ares en route to Mars, when all of the “First 100” experienced their first real danger of the mission. At that time, they all realized how much lying they had to do to satisfy all of the conflicting requirements (the “double binds”) of the selection process. Michel remembers that they all stared at him with pent up fury as if he represented all of psychology and had concocted the selection criteria himself. He remembers that he had lied, too, perhaps more than any of them. What he cannot remember and what confounds him is that he cannot remember why he lied. He realizes that “He shouldn’t have been chosen to go, and now he could not remember why he had fought so passionately to be chosen. The memory had gone away, overwhelmed perhaps by the poignant, aching, fragmented images of the life he had lived in the interstices of his desire to go to Mars. So miniscule and so precious; the evenings on the plazas, the summer days on the beaches, the nights in women’s beds. The olive trees of Avignon. The green flame cypress.” (p. 222).

Robinson uses the theme of loss elsewhere in Red Mars, although with not quite so profound an effect. Ann Clayborne provides the most obvious example of a character, who throughout the novel suffers profoundly from loss. Her sense of loss is different from Michel’s, though. Ann suffers because she sees the Mars she loves, the pristine, undisturbed, pre-human, lifeless Mars being destroyed by the terraformers. Ann’s sense of loss is based on an unusual combination of her emotional attachment to Mars in its original state and her orientation as a “pure” scientist, one for whom knowledge and understanding is an end in itself. Most of our notions of natural beauty have always been associated with life or at least the nearby presence of life. Hence, it’s somewhat a leap of imagination for us to comprehend the beauty of a lifeless planet, as Ann does. Because of this and because most of us are not “pure” scientists, as she is, it is a little more difficult for us to identify with Ann. Nonetheless, Ann’s character is real and her suffering is real. Unlike with Michel, however, Ann’s suffering is not the result of some decision she made as a result of alienation from her feelings. Ann becomes alienated, profoundly, and her personality distorted, by the suffering she experiences as a result of the loss of the Mars she desires to preserve. The extent of this alienation and distortion is made evident at the end of her discussion with John Boone in the mountains south of the Argyre Basin. John has come there to visit her to ask if she is involved in the acts of sabotage that are beginning to disrupt the terraforming effort. Ann denies involvement, but in her anger tells him, “If you left the planet alone, it would save lives. That’s what I want. I’d kill you if I thought it would help.” (p. 250).

Even Frank Chalmers, perhaps the most unsympathetic of the major Red Mars characters, suffers from loss. Frank’s loss is again closer to the traditional loss of separation experienced by Michel, although Frank experiences this differently from Michel. The emotion we associate most of all with Frank is anger. In fact, except for his anger, Frank seems detached from his emotions and unable to recognize or deal with them. This does not mean that a sense of loss does not affect Frank, however. Much the opposite, it affects him very deeply, but in a very subtle manner. Where the passing of time and the physical separation from the people and the familiar environment of his home on Earth would cause sadness in most people, it only seems to increase Frank’s anger and hostility. Asleep in a rover on Mars, Frank dreams of the day he learned of his selection to lead the “First 100.” In his dream, Frank walks off into the forest and sits down. He remembers, “He felt so odd….. could he really leave this world behind? …..he wished he could slide down a crack like a changeling and reemerge something else, something better, something mighty, something noble, long-lived – something like a tree. But nothing happened, of course; he lay on the ground, cut off from it already. A Martian already.” (Pp. 413 – 414). Frank’s mood becomes increasingly foul and he ends the day in a bar getting drunk. On his way home, he shoves and curses at some homeless beggars in the street. Then, he wakes up alone in his rover on the Great Escarpment.

In another episode, Frank, who has had the new anti-aging treatment developed on Mars is about to speak to a new group of American immigrants to Mars. In a moment of insight just before his speech, it occurs to him that he is, to them, a character out of history. He realizes that, “…..he had been on Mars ten years before most of the people in the room were born, and his memories of Earth were of their grandparents’ time, on the other side of a vast and shadowy chasm of years.” (p. 459). In his speech, he begins to exhort them not to go off into the Martian wilderness and join one of the hidden colonies, but to remain with the mainstream of settlers and help build a new Mars. He then remembers Hiroko, and “Pain lanced through him. He was astonished to feel it.” (p. 459). He begins to speak fondly of his memories of her but cannot remember her face. He appears to reverse his position on the hidden colonies and, when he realizes that he has become incoherent and confused his audience, he finds his old anger has welled up within him again. He gives up trying to talk to them and leaves.

Frank’s experience of loss is certainly not the traditional Romantic treatment of this theme. The losses, which Frank experiences, are, however, the type of losses that people in Romantic literature experience. The difference here is that Frank does not react to them in the traditional Romantic manner. That is, he is not made melancholy by them, but rather somehow, they feed his anger. Frank’s anger impels him to action, in many cases to evil and destructive acts. It is tempting to regard Frank, himself, as evil, however, he is much too complex a character to be regarded as totally so. Certainly, a person capable of premeditated murder must be a severely disordered personality, and Frank clearly is this.

Red Mars cannot be considered a Gothic novel. It does not have the dark settings or the sense of supernatural evil common to Gothic literature. The Gothic tradition in Romantic literature, however, opened up for later exploration, “the dark, irrational side of human nature – the savage egoism, the perverse impulses, and the nightmarish terrors that lie beneath the controlled and ordered surface of the conscious mind.” (Abrams, p. 1309). The darkness of Frank’s inner life lends a Gothic quality to the events of Red Mars. The serpentine meandering of Frank’s thoughts and emotions, his guilt, his fears, his contempt for those who oppose him, his inability to develop an effective conscience and ultimately the fact that all of this feeds his insatiable anger, give the reader a sense of unease and a foreboding of evil. This feeling is produced gradually by the accumulation of many episodes involving Frank, especially those in which his inner thoughts and emotions are revealed. Perhaps the most telling moment in the novel occurs when it is revealed conclusively that Frank is guilty of the murder of John Boone. This is hinted at previously, but one cannot be sure whether Frank is blaming himself for something beyond his control or is truly guilty of John’s murder. The moment of revelation (to the reader) occurs when Maya angrily confronts Frank in a café in Burroughs. Frank fears that Maya knows that he has killed John and is accosting him about it. Frank’s “heart beat inside him like a child trying to escape. His lungs were cold. She was still talking, but he hadn’t caught it. Did she know? Did she know what he had done in Nicosia? It was impossible or she would not have been here (would she?); but she ought to have known.” (p. 462). The moment passes soon thereafter, when it becomes clear that Maya is referring to the convoluted love triangle involving John, Maya and Frank and does not suspect Frank of murder. Nonetheless, we are now certain of what we could only previously suspect. The enormity of Frank’s guilt, and the additional distortion of his personality by that guilt, is now clear. The feeling of unease that we have sensed when Frank is present has been validated.

Writers of the Romantic era developed the theme of the Sublime to evoke intense emotion. In the traditional Romantic usage, the Sublime refers to the awesome power of Nature to induce the most powerful of emotions (terror). The notion of the Sublime also implies that one be far enough from the natural event to survive it, but close enough to be at some risk and to sense its power. At a distance, a sublime event may be beautiful. The power of a hurricane or a volcano erupting may be referred to as Sublime, so long as one is not so close as to be consumed by it. The beauty of Nature itself is not, in the traditional sense, Sublime, because it does not induce fear or terror. Nonetheless, the intense feeling that the beauty of a mountain range or a spectacular sunset may arouse, derives from a Romantic sense of appreciation of Nature, and has often been referred to as Sublime. There are examples of both interpretations of the Sublime in Red Mars.

Perhaps the best example of the more traditional (i.e., terror-inducing) power of the Sublime occurs near the end of Red Mars. Ann Clayborne’s son, Peter, is in an elevator car to the asteroid, Clarke, which serves as the terminal at the space-end of the Space Elevator, when the rebels sever the elevator cable connection to the asteroid. The entire Space Elevator cable and elevator cars begin their long and inevitably deadly fall toward the surface of Mars. The only hope for the elevator car passengers is to don space suits and abandon the elevator in the hope that some spacecraft will happen by to rescue them before they burn up in the atmosphere of Mars. The passengers suit up in an orderly manner. “This steadiness amazed Peter Clayborne, whose own blood was hammering through his body in great adrenal shocks; he wasn’t sure he could have spoken if he had to.” (p. 536). Later, after abandoning the elevator, and drifting down toward Mars for a while, Peter noted that he “wasn’t as frightened as he had been in the locker [room of the elevator car], but he was angry and sad: he didn’t want to die. A spasm of grief for his lost future shook through him and he cried aloud, and wept. After a while, his physical manifestations went away, even though he felt just as miserable as before.” (p. 537). While the catastrophe was not natural, but man-made, it was a disaster on a massive scale and the terror and grief Peter experienced was Sublime in its intensity.

Another example of the Sublime occurs during a rover trek to explore the Martian North Pole. Near the Martian Arctic Circle, Ann and Nadia are outside the rover at sunset. The others have gone inside. Ann cajoles Nadia into climbing to the top of a sand dune to witness a spectacular sunset. Nadia, who has been one of the chief builders among the early Mars settlers, has been so consumed with her work that she has never considered the natural beauty of their new home. She reluctantly trudges up to the top of the dune and witnesses, for the first time, the spectacular shifting colors of the sunset.
”Suddenly Nadia felt a breeze swirl through her nervous system, running up her spine and out into her skin; her cheeks tingled, and she could feel her spinal cord thrum. Beauty could make you shiver! It was a shock to feel such a physical response to beauty, a thrill like some kind of sex. And this beauty was so strange, so alien.” (p. 141). This sort of intense emotional experience is at the core of Romantic values. Having experienced such a moment one is inspired to see the world differently, to realize that there is more than just the objective, rational reality, but also an emotional and perhaps even a divine reality. Nadia realizes that, up to this moment, she has been viewing Mars as if it were an extension of her Siberian past and has been oblivious to the unique beauty of Mars. Now, she appreciates Mars for itself and is beginning to see herself as an integral part of this new landscape.

The need for this sense of oneness with Mars is Hiroko’s great insight early on in the colonization of Mars. She realizes that living on Mars will not just be an extension of living on Earth. She realizes that the terraforming of Mars will not be successful unless the settlers also allow themselves to be “areoformed” by Mars. They must develop a respect, and even a love for, their new planet. They must create a life style in harmony with the natural environment of Mars. She and her followers, who set out to form “hidden colonies,” call this new philosophy (or perhaps, religion) Areophany. It is Hiroko and her followers, who return to Underhill, during Michel Duval’s period of deep homesickness and depression, and invite him to start a new life with them. Hiroko tells Michel, “This is your initiation into the areophany, the celebration of the body of Mars. Welcome to it. We worship this world. We intend to make a place for ourselves here, a place that is beautiful in a new Martian way, a way never seen on Earth. We have built a hidden refuge in the south, and now we are leaving for it.” (p. 230). Hiroko invites Michel to come with them. He accepts.

Robinson uses Romantic themes to further his objective of bringing respectability back to the idea of a dialog on Utopian visions. In today’s rational, technological, capital-driven societies, the concept of Utopia and of even bothering to have a discussion of Utopian alternatives has fallen from grace.
”Utopian fiction typically aims to have a double effect on readers – getting us to see the constructed alienation and idiocy of much business as usual, and then to affirm, perhaps even to convert to, a better social arrangement that implicitly offers a ready-made sense of ‘we.’” (Franko, p. 58). The emotional content of Romantic themes reveals truths about life that cannot be discerned by rational means alone. Hence, they are powerful tools, and perhaps the only effective tools, for revealing the “idiocy of much business as usual.” Because they reveal truths, which are essentially rooted in respect for Nature, life and beauty, they suggest that these values must be a part of any healthy society. Furthermore, because of the complexity and diversity of life and of the human experience, Romantic values suggest that there is no “one size fits all” type of Utopia. Indeed, Robinson envisions an “argumentative and interdependent configuration of diverse communities. This utopia would entail a humanized Mars and a Mars-transformed humanity, flourishing through a dialogical general will and in a perpetually readjusting syncretism…. “ (Franko, p. 57). This is not a new concept. John Huntington, in his book, The Logic of Fantasy, on the works of H. G. Wells, reveals that Wells had a similar vision. Unfortunately, Huntington refers to this concept as “Anti-utopianism.” He states, “The Time Machine is a guide, which leads us away from a delusive utopian vision of pastoral simplicity towards a much more complex vision of antithetical balances; guilt and innocence, labor and ease, decline and triumph, change and stasis. This first major work represents anti-utopianism at its purest.” (Huntington, p. 143).

The characters in Red Mars reflect the range of values found in society today. They also reflect the gross predominance in our society of rational and technological values over emotional and, what may be called spiritual, values. Red Mars illustrates that institutions driven solely by rational and technological values cannot achieve a just and egalitarian society. It suggests that, to have a healthier society, emotional and spiritual values must be balanced against rational and technological values. Regardless of whether one refers to the type of society that Kim Stanley Robinson is suggesting as Utopian, “Optopian” or Anti-utopian, it will be an improvement. There will still be conflict, unhappiness, and tragedy, but war, and gross injustice and inequity will be greatly reduced and possibly eliminated. The success of Red Mars in capturing the complexity of the human emotional and intellectual experience, and the forces, which shape society, ensure that it will occupy a high place in the history of Utopian Science Fiction. This success is due, in no small part, to the author’s deft use of Romantic themes.