Early utopian visions
What does this word mean? UTOPIA Generally Utopia means an unreachable ideal of an idea, no matter if you’re talking about society, believes or an intention. Looking at it from a more philosophical point of view, Utopia means the ideal state of the human society, usually very peaceful. The name Utopia comes from the 1516 published novel “utopia” by Thomas More. Living under Henry the VIII he published his satirical novel “utopia” in which he portrayed a society based upon collective property, similar to the idea of communism. Though he only wanted to criticise the social standards in England at this time the king let More decapitate in 1535. The models for Moore’s work have been antique writing from Plato or from the middle ages Joachim von Fiore’s works. So the first real so called Utopian novels were written at the time of the Renaissance, not only by More, but also by Giovanni Domenico Campanella (The Sun Nation) or more famous Francis Bacon (Nova Atlantis). Basing on theses novels developed through out the 17th and 18th century in England and French a literary class that criticised the society compared to the possible ideal which often seemed to have a timeless character. Inseparable linked to the Utopian illusion was the ideal combination of the religious life and the worldly life in harmony with the gospel. Since the beginning of the 19th century many literary utopian vision have a direct link to real events of that time. Urged by a big optimism in a better future most of the utopian stories are now settled somewhere, far in the future, while they were settled only in a different country before. Because of technical and scientifically progress the people hoped for an end of all the lacks of food and wealth and for an end of the suppression. Writers like R. Owen or C. Fourier thought that the only possibility to take all advantages of the technical progress was to put an end to property of the single. At the same time the first non technical utopian visions came up, getting back to the roots, living very humble in harmony with the nature and return to our ancient ways of living. In the 20th century more and more negative utopian visions caused by the technical progression or totalitarian suppression came up. Just to list some of them: “Brave New World” by Aldeous Huxley, “1984” by George Orwell, “Us” by Jewgenij Iwanowitsch Samjatin Still Science Fiction is linked very tight to the theme of Utopia! 1984 – George Orwell (first published in 1949) About the author: The book Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell was written in 1948 and published in 1949. It is one of Orwell´s most famous books. George Orwell was born as Eric Arthur Blair in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). Several years of poverty followed. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles. “Down and Out in Paris and London” was published in 1933. In 1936 he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and “The Road to Wigan Pier” (1937) is a powerful description of the poverty he saw there. At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and he was wounded. “Homage to Catalonia” is his account of the civil war. He was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on he was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco and there he wrote “Coming Up for Air”. During the Second World War he served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC Eastern Service from 1941 to 1943. As literary editor of Tribune he contributed a regular page of political and literary commentary and he also wrote for the Observer and later for the Manchester Evening News. His unique political novel “Animal Farm” was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four, which brought him worldwide fame. George Orwell died in London in January 1950. The title 1984: 1984 means the year, when everything has changed. The world is divided into three countries: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Oceania compromises the Americas, the Atlantic islands including the British Isles, Australia and the southern portion of Afrika. Eurasia compromises the whole of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass. Eastasia, smaller than the others compromises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands and large parts of Manchuria, Mongolia and Tibet. Two of the three countries are allied and lead war against the third country. Who is allied and who is the enemy changes from time to time. The novel is set in the year 1984 in London (“Airstrip One”) in Oceania, a superpower controlled by the restrictive “Party” and led by the symbolic head Big Brother. Everywhere you can see large posters of him saying: “Big Brother Is Watching You”. These are the slogans of the party: WAR IS PEACE! FREEDOM IS SLAVERY! IGNORANCE IS STRENGHT! The entire apparatus of government in Oceania is divided in four Ministries: The Ministry of Truth, which concerns itself with news, entertainment, education and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerns itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintains law, order and the Ministry of Plenty, which is responsible for economic affairs. The regime has invented a new language, called Newspeak, the official language in Oceania. Newspeak should prevent everybody from thinking wrong, which is called crime think in Newspeak. The vocabulary is reduced, so that there is no way of thinking wrong, because you can’t express it. The Party controls the industry and the production of all goods. But the worst thing is, that it alters the past by rewriting or destroying all old documents. What was true yesterday can be wrong today. It is forbidden to think against the party, to say nothing on public demonstrations. To have an overlook over all the people the party has organized a secret organisation, the Thought Police, which uses modern telescreens to control each single person. The telescreen receives and transmits simultaneously. In almost every room a telescreen is fixed and everything that happens is transmitted to the Thought Police. Main Characters: 26825ule19yuv7c Winston Smith is a member of the Outer Party, thirty-nine years old and suffers from varicose ulcer. He works in the Ministry of Truth, where he has to rewrite old newspaper articles. He’s intelligent, sensible and recognizes the lies of the Party. He wonders how other people oversee the obvious lies and the daily cutbacks of consumer goods. His hope that the totalitarian regime will be overthrown one day lies on the proles. O’Brian: He also works in the Ministry of Truth and he’s member of the Inner Party and of the thought-police, but Winston doesn’t know that fact. At the beginning of the the story, Winston supposes that O’Brian is a member of the Brotherhood and so O’Brian deceives Winston. He’s also intelligent, understands everything and is able to explain everything and talk in a way that makes u want to listen to him. In the end he tortures Winston to destroy his resistance against the Party, and he has a counterargument for every argument of Winston when he interrogates him. Winston: Does “Big Brother exist?” “Of course he exists. The party exists. Big Brother exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party.” “Does he exist in the same way as I exist?” “You don’t exist,” said O’Brien. Julia becomes Winston’s girlfriend and she’s also member of the Outer Party. Winston really loves her, and so they meet secretly in a room which Winston met from an antique dealer in a proles-part of London. She seems to be a perfect Party-member, because she spends much time with organizing campaigns for the Party and screams the loudest during the hate-minutes. Emmanuel Goldstein is the leader of an underground organisation called “The Brotherhood”. Nobody knows if he and the organisation really exists. Goldstein is said to be the author of “The book” which is criticising the party’s politics and the structure of society. Party members have to hate him and his picture is shown on the telescreen during the hate-minutes. Winston Smith, Julia and O’Brian are round characters but all the others are stereotypes, all supporters of the Party who are fascinated by Big Brother. The story is told by a third person narrator but seems to stick to Winston’s point of view. Plot: Winston Smith was born before the revolution and is not really satisfied with the system but he doesn’t dare to protest. He buys a diary in a stationery one day that is owned by an old man. Winston wants to write a diary to keep at least some remembrances for the future. One day during the "Two Minutes Hate" he sees a girl in the Ministry of truth. He feels that he loves her but at the same time he hates her and is afraid of her because he thinks that she is from the Thought Police. But a few days later this girl hands Winston a paper where she tells him that she loves him. Winston and Julia decide to meet in the area around London because there is a smaller risk of being caught there than in town. Later they lend a room above the old man’s stationery because they think it is safe to meet there. They decide to do something against the party. But Julia isn’t the only one who gives some signs and so O’Brian comes up one day to Winston and asks him to visit him at home so Winston and Julia visit O’Brian a few weeks later because they think that he is also against the party. O’Brian tells them that he is a member of Goldstein’s Brotherhood. Winston and Julia also join this organisation and a few weeks later O’Brian sends them a book by Emmanuel Goldstein where he explains the political system of Oceania. While Winston is reading the book in their room, men of the Thought Police burst in and arrest them. The old man who owns this house turns out not to be an old man but a Thought Police member. Winston and Julia are separated and taken to the Ministry of love. There Winston is tortured by O’Brian, who is of course not a Brotherhood member. After some time in the Ministry of love Winston is totally changed and follows every order without thinking. The aim of his torture is that he loses every thought, every idea of getting the party down. They can’t kill him as long as he is against them because they don’t tolerate any doubts and different thoughts, they don’t want any martyrs so they punish him and go on and on with his brainwash. After his release he meets Julia again but he doesn’t love her any more, neither does she. So Winston sits everyday in a café, not able to feel anything. The Though Police hasn’t just stolen his thoughts; they have made him unable to feel anything, no real love, no hate, no doubts, nothing but love for the Big Brother. Interpretation:
George Orwell wrote this book in the years 1946 to 1949, just after the 2nd World War and the breakdown of the Third World. In "1984" he describes a communist system, but it could also be a fascist one - it is a general description of a totalitarian system. So many parallels to other systems, especially to Nazi-Germany can be drawn: one leader who is mystified; the Inner Party members, who have a lot of privileges; the Thought Police and as equality the GESTAPO. A very interesting fact is also the existence of one enemy who is blamed for everything. Orwell chose the name Goldstein for this enemy which is a Jewish name because of the fact that Jews were the ONE enemy in the Third World but were also prosecuted in the USSR. The Party has also created a new, sanitised language, called Newspeak to take the place of traditional English with its uncomfortable associations. It is based on short, clipped words which arouse the minimum of echoes in the speaker’s mind and which make it impossible to think of measures against the Party. There will be no possibility to commit thought crime as soon as everybody speaks Newspeak, because there will be no words to express it. The purpose of Newspeak is not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc (the Party’s ideology), but to make all other modes of thought impossible. When everybody will speak Newspeak, a heretical thought, diverging from the principles of Ingsoc will be unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to minimize the range of thought. Orwell gives real-world examples of Newspeak: “Nazi, Gestapo, Comintern” and there are many others. Ingsoc, Oceania’s political idea is based on the Socialism. But in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more abandoned. The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the century, Ingsoc in Oceania, New-Bolshevism in Eurasia, Death-Worship in Eastasia, had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality. The purpose of all of them is to arrest progress and freeze history at a chosen moment. Every new political theory leads back to hierarchy. Orwell also shows the different groups of people in such systems: One group is really convinced that this system is the best for the country, only a few people are against it but most of the people follow without thinking, even if they are not really satisfied. The system of Oceania is described as much more perfect than all systems that have ever existed in reality. This example should force us to do everything possible to avoid totalitarian systems and dictatorships in future. The Time Machine – H. G. Wells (first published in 1895) About the author: Herbert George Wells, novelist and sociologist, was born in Bromley, Kent in1866. He seemed to become a very intelligent boy which his later success would proof. The jobs he had before his career as a famous writer tell us about his versatility and self-righteousness. First he was educated at Midhurst Grammar School and after being apprenticed to a draper and then to a chemist, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Science where he studied under T. H. Huxley. He became a pupil-teacher at the University Correspondence College, Cambridge, and after obtaining a B Sc degree, became a science lecturer. His first marriage to a cousin ended in divorce and he subsequently married on of his pupils, Amy Catherine Robbins. He died in1946. His first successful book was The Time Machine and was followed up two years later by The Invisible Man. With his story The War of the Worlds Wells created the model for the same named radio play by Orson wells, which caused mass panics in the US. It was so realistic that the people believed in Wells visions of octopus like creatures attacking the world to take over the control of the world. Creating utopias was the passion of his life and this motivated his writing Mankind of the Making and A Modern Utopia. At least 7 of his books were famously filmed and nearly everybody knows at least one vision of H. G. Wells. In his final phase, Wells turned to socio-political writing with such books as The Outside History and The Shape of Things to Come. His account of his own life, Experience in Autobiography, was published in 1934. Main Characters: 26825ule19yuv7c The Time Traveller: you don’t get to know a lot about his background, only that he’s a well educated scientist who lives at the London of the out clinging 19th century. He is talented in learning new things and gifted with a sharp analytic mind. He holds weekly meetings for people who are interested in his scientific and philosophical discussions. He’s pushed onto new things by his urge to research. At his trip in the future he never sits still, always he’s looking for new discoveries and whatever he sees, he wants to know the background, the reason for a development and analyses the new very thoughtful. Weena: The Time Traveller rescues her on his trip to the future from drowning and from the very first moment she’s very considerate and somehow in love with the Time Traveller. Though the two aren’t able to converse properly, she sticks to him, never goes away and tries to comfort him. Weena also flatters him a lot, on the one hand, she’s like a child, on the other more like a dog that always comes back after you’ve beaten him. She’s the only character in the book we get to know a bit better, she’s got a name, a life, a home, not just a nameless figure like the time traveller himself or the young man. The young man: He visits the meetings of the Mr. X as one of the few constant visitors and listens with the fascination of a little child and he’s willing to believe in the things what he sees with his own eyes. Not like the others, he thinks that there are some mysteries left to explore. Though doesn’t participate a lot at the conversations, he listens very interested and takes notes, so he also writes down the whole report of the Time Traveller about the events in the future. Maybe it’s because of his youth, maybe it’s because he’s not as rich as the others, more open for new things, in the end, he’s the only one who believes the Time Traveller. Plot: At the beginning a young man tells about a meeting he joins. It’s at the house of the time traveller, who wants the other to call him Mr. X. The Time traveller starts right away a discussion about the four dimensions, the 3 in space and the timeline. He wants to introduce the others as soft as possible to the fact that he is possible to travel through the time and to proof to his guests that what he says is true, he shows a small device that can go through the time. But his guests don’t believe him and so he tells them to come again a week later. So when they arrive at his house, the time traveller comes around but he looks very dirty, used and tired. He tells them that he has done it, that he has travelled through time and gives a chronological order of the events he has experienced in the future: He starts of at the beginning of the 20th century and travels to what he calls the golden age, about 800.000 years in the future. What he finds there makes him think a lot, the people are friendly and small, without any fear and filled with a childlike trust. They welcome him very friendly, decorate him with flowers and give him something to eat. The first few days the time traveller explores the surroundings of the London of the future, still there can be some thins recognised like the shape of the land, the themse but he begins to wonder why the small people – they call themselves Eloi – aren’t able to any further thoughts. Soon he recognizes that this is the farce of the ideal society: fear, misery, illness and wore have been exterminated and so there was no more need for intelligence because intelligence always rises up from needs and danger. The Eloi aren’t able to do more than dance around, singing and talking in their very simple language, they don’t know science or any other interests no more. As one of the small creatures nearly drowns in the river while they play the time traveller is the only one who helps, the others only stare at the small women who drifts away. From this moment on the girl, she’s named Weena doesn’t leave the time traveller, not for any reason. He’s affected by her love and she makes him feel more comfortable and so he’s happy about her presence. Still the time traveller goes on with his explorations and now he concentrates on the strange towers that are everywhere. Soon he establishes a connection between theses towers and the many wells and after he sees strange hairy animals at night, disappearing in the wells, he gets down such a well. What he sees there makes him understand a lot and he recognises how wrong he has been with his theories about the degeneration of the Eloi. The creatures that live down there in the underground also have been human one day. What he sees is the pervert extreme of the class differences of today. The ones who live at the sunlight, the Eloi, they have a neat life, food, clothes, all they need but they aren’t able to produce what they need, so the Morlocks, the people of the underground do it for them, they live in the dark since thousands of years and their bodies have adjusted them for a life without light and fresh food. But after they weren’t able no more to get food down there, they started to take care of the Eloi and get them as food and so they come to the surface every night to get something to eat. That’s why the Eloi are so afraid of the dark. Shocked the time traveller escapes but on his flight Weena gets killed though he wanted to take her with him and so he gets to his time machine but he doesn’t return immediately to his time, first he wants to see how the end of the world looks like but everything he finds are some big crabs and plants so he has to confess that the mankind has failed and that in the end only the strongest remains. Back at the weekly meeting he tells his whole story. But none of his guests really believes him and so they all leave, somewhat disappointed. The only one who believes him, a young man returns to the house just to see the time traveller leave again for new adventures. The young man now knows that everything has been true and so he waits for the time traveller to return, but he won’t come back anymore. Interpretation: The Time Machine might be considered the first work of modern science-fiction, and it is still the classic statement of an important subgenre. But this novel about the Victorian future is more than a fantastical moan; it raises necessary questions about progress, social orders, so called civilisation and the ultimate fate of the world. Wells wrote this novel mainly because Charles Darwin published and proved his theory of evolution, which was the greatest scientific rumpus since the trial of Galileo. The concrete fictions in The Time Machine are as true as the fictions in Verne’s Book Travel to the Moon. Many critics compare Wells with Jules Verne, but while Verne refers his fictions to real scientific facts, Wells concentrates more on political and social future visions. Verne said about Wells that his stories didn‘t response on very scientific bases; Wells invented, but he was nevertheless aware of the latest developments in science. Wells sees the evolution of two races as an outgrowth of 19th century populations of capitalists and the working class. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury (first published in 1954)
About the Author Raymond Douglas Bradbury was born in Waukegan (Illinois) on 22nd of August 1920. This city was later also described in his stories under the name "Green Town". At the age of 14 years he moved to Arizona and later to Los Angeles where he finally finished school. His parents, who were book publishers, and his aunt Neva, a fan of fairytales, influenced Bradbury very much. As a child he liked comics, horror films and fantasy worlds. In 1934 he started writing short stories which mostly trade with science fiction, and published them in youth magazines or science-fiction-magazines. By writing stories and even selling newspapers he earned a little money; in 1947 he published his first book called "Dark Carnival", an anthology of his short stories. He finally made the breakthrough as a highly acclaimed author with "The Martian Chronicles", later he wrote works like "The Illustrated Man" and "Fahrenheit 451" and he got prices like the "Benjamin Franklin Award" or the "National Institute of Arts and letters Award in Literature". An interesting fact concerning the success of his books is that "The Illustrated Man" has been a highly praised work, whereas "Fahrenheit 451", his most famous book, was judged as a story beneath contempt (by reviewers) because of the missing description of for instance the political system, the very optimistic ending. Main characters: lu825u6219yuuv Guy Montag is the protagonist of the story. At the beginning he seems to be a "normal", dissatisfied and bored average guy. He earns his money by burning books because he's a fireman in a narrow-minded, partly dictatorial system. When he meets Clarisse, his character changes: he acquires self-knowledge; he undergoes a process of development and gets to know the other side of books and knowledge. By reading stories he starts to think and so there arises a dilemma between his job and his new attitude: both are inconsistent with each other. He makes up his mind, decides to fight for intellectual liberty what makes him happy but also completely left out by society. Mildred Montag is Guy's wife but has a totally different character. She's the typical member of society; she fits into the system very well, is only interested in money and material possession and represents shallowness and mediocrity. Mildred, an artificial and obviously isolated beauty, loves fun, which means e.g. watching TV, and because of her addiction to electricity, technology and the "modern way of life" she isn't even able to communicate. She doesn't show any emotions and she also betrays her husband in the end. Clarisse McClellan is the 17-year-old neighbour of Guy Montag and influences him very much. She's the exact opposite of Mildred: She's an outsider, she's everything but an average girl, she's even a living time bomb for society for various reasons. She's open-minded, she is able to think, she has her own opinion. She doesn't mind asking unusual or even dangerous questions. She's quite a human and curios person who's able to do something. Captain Beatty is the boss of Montag, his antagonist and q |