SELÇUK ÜNİVERSİTESİ
SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ
İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI ANABİLİM DALI
İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI BİLİM DALI
FROM MAN-DOMINATED CLASSICAL UTOPIAS TO
FEMINIST UTOPIAS: GENDER POLITICS IN
UTOPIAN WRITING
Burçak Tuba TAYHAN GÜZEL
YÜKSEK LİSANS TEZİ
Danışman
DR. ÖĞR. ÜYESİ SEMA ZAFER SÜMER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my deepest and sincere gratitude to my thesis advisor, Assist. Prof. Dr. Sema Zafer SÜMER for her guidance and valuable contributions to both my academic and personal life.
I would like to express my gratitude to all women who have inspired me to study feminism and women studies.
I also owe special thanks to my family members, who have never lost their faith in me, for their support and love.
ÖZET
ERKEK EGEMEN KLASİK ÜTOPYALARDAN FEMİNİST ÜTOPYALARA: ÜTOPYA YAZIMINDA CİNSİYET POLİTİKALARI
Bu çalışmada öncelikle, edebi bir tür olarak “ütopya” kavramını geleneksel açıdan tanımlamaya çalıştık. 1900’lerin başına kadar erkek egemenliğinde kalmış bir tür olan ütopya, feminizm hareketleriyle birlikte yepyeni bir kimliğe bürünmüş ve feminist ütopya, klasik ütopya yazımına karşıt bir tür olarak yerini almıştır. Klasik ütopya yazımında devlet, vatandaşlık, din, sanat, ekonomi, hiyerarşi ve eşitlik gibi kavramlar tartışılıp ideal bir devlet düzeni oluşturmaya çalışılırken bu yeni düzenler içinde kadının varlığı, cinsiyetçi söylemlerinin arkasında unutulmuştur. Bu noktada, özellikle Amerika’daki feminizm hareketleriyle güç kazanan kadın yazarlar yeni bir edebi türün sinyallerini vermişlerdir; kadını ve rollerini kurguladıkları bu feminist ütopyalar içinde tartışmaktan ve sorgulamaktan çekinmemişlerdir. Bu çalışmada, Mary E. Bradley Lane’den Mizora, Marge Piercy’den Woman on the Edge of Time ve Sally Miller Gearhart’tan Wanderground’ı feminist ütopyalar olarak, tartıştığı cinsiyet rolleri bağlamında tartışacağız.
Anahtar kelimeler: ütopya, cinsiyet, feminist ütopya, Mizora, Woman on the Edge of Time, Wanderground
SUMMARY
FROM MAN-DOMINATED CLASSICAL UTOPIAS TO FEMINIST UTOPIAS: GENDER POLITICS IN UTOPIAN WRITING
In this study, first we have tried to define “utopia” as a genre in terms of traditional concept. Utopia, as a genre dominated by male writers until the very beginning of the twentieth century, has been redefined after feminist movements; feminist utopia has become an anti-traditional utopian writing. In traditional man-dominated utopian writing, the concepts such as state, citizenship, religion, art, economy, hierarchy, and equality have been discussed and an ideal world order has been tried to be established. However, existence of woman as a being has been forgotten behind their sexist expressions. At this point, women writers who have gained power especially after feminist movements in America have never hesitated from discussing and questioning woman and her roles in society. In this study, we will discuss Mizora by Mary E. Bradley Lane, Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy and Wanderground by Sally Miller Gearhart in terms of gender roles discussed within these feminist utopian works.
Keywords: utopia, gender, feminist utopia, Mizora, Woman on the Edge of Time, Wanderground
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BİLİMSEL ETİK SAYFASI ……….………..………...………..ii
YÜKSEK LİSANS TEZİ KABUL FORMU……….……….…...………..iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………...………..iv
ÖZET ... v
SUMMARY ... vi
INTRODUCTION ... 1
CHAPTER ONE: THE SEARCH OF A BETTER WORLD AND PERFECT SOCIETIES TO LIVE IN: UTOPIA ... 6
1.1What is a Utopia? ... 6
1.2History of Utopia ... 14
CHAPTER TWO: THE HYPOCRISY OF CLASSICAL UTOPIAS: GENDER ... 33
2.1 Western Ideology of Gender ... 33
2.2 Man-Dominated Utopian Writing: Classical Utopias ... 42
2.2.1 Plato’s The Republic ... 44
2.2.2 Thomas More’s Utopia ... 48
2.2.3 H. G. Wells’ A Modern Utopia ... 52
CHAPTER THREE: THE REMEDY FOR THE POSSIBLE NON-SEXIST FUTURE: FEMINIST UTOPIAS ... 57
3.1 Feminist Ideology………57
3.2 New Horizons for the Language of Sisterhood: Feminist Utopias………….…82
3.2.1 Mary E. Bradley Lane's Mizora: A World of Women……….………....106
3.2.2 Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time……….…….126
3.2.3. Sally Miller Gearhart's Wanderground: Stories of Hill Women……….…150
CONCLUSION ... 178
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 184
INTRODUCTION
Utopia, the land of nowhere and good, has been the hope of Western ideology for centuries. As a literary term, utopia was first used by Sir Thomas More in his 1516 book, Utopia which describes a fictional ideal society on an imaginary island. This word has an intentional double meaning. It is a pun on “ou” (the Greek word for no) and “eu” (the Greek word for good); and topus means “place” in Greek. Thus, outopia is the imagined “no place” and eutopia is the idealized “good place”. This idealized good and no places have one characteristic in common; the dissatisfaction with the present world order.
From the very first examples of literary utopias such as Plato’s Republic (381 BC) to the latest examples such as H. G. Wells’ A Modern Utopia, there is a quest for a better world to live on. This literary genre has been defined repeatedly as a process of becoming better and more perfect from different point of views. Utopian writing offers writers what they want to preserve about the present society and what they want to discard from the social ills of the present. Essentially human societies are living and changing organizations which strive for perfection. However, these both past and contemporary societies have been unable to reach this perfection, so these lands of dreams have deluded their writers and readers with the voyages to possible idealized lands. In their ideal states, utopian writings question what it means a society, democracy, hierarchy, equality, education, parenting, family, religion which are the main constituents of the patriarchal capitalism. However, as a product of Western mentality and its philosophical traditions, man-dominated utopian writing is extremely narrow in terms of gender issues.
Utopian writers, intentionally or unintentionally, have been stayed aloof the problem of gender for thousands of years. Gender in human society is a burden especially for women. While satirizing and criticizing the contemporary societies, male utopian writers have hesitated to present possible solutions for patriarchal tyranny. Instead, they have strengthened the existing roles given to both men and women. The gender roles, man as the bread-winner and woman as the angel of the
house, lived happily ever after in this perfect societies “till feminist ideology and feminist utopias do them part”.
Utopian writing has been man-dominant throughout the history of Western utopian literature until feminist movements and utopian writing (no place and good place) itself have given a voice to feminist utopian writers. Feminist movements have always dealt with the “present” and “future”; the position of women in the contemporary patriarchal society and remedies for the possible non-sexist future. This is why utopian writing itself has made it possible for women writers to criticize the present and also draw such sketchy possible futures which they can idealize. The rise of second wave feminism of the 1960s and 1970s is also a fresh wave of utopian writing. Especially Civil Rights Movement of 1960s in the United States led Women’s Liberation Movement which is also called as second wave feminism. Although women of emancipation movement in the United Stated gained suffrage in 1920, this country experienced many incidents such as Great Depression, World War II and Vietnam War that affected country’s economic, political, legal, sociological and psychological structure.
Every single incident and war have taken women’s sociological place one step back during the time. So, women’s suffrage was nothing more than arising women’s appetite. The liberal women of the 1960s and 1970s looked for a room in social and economic life. The oppressed women spilled out into the streets for an equal life. Equal pay for equal work, reproduction rights, abortion, active role in political life were the primary subjects shouted out loud. In this man-dominated world, sisterhood became more meaningful as their motto. As the objects of the patriarchal capitalist tyranny, women looked for their natural-born right: to be the subject of their own life. Women of liberal movement realized that they have to speak the same language if they want to demolish their oppression in social sphere.
At this point utopian writing has presented new horizons for the language of sisterhood. Feminist utopias have taken the issue of gender and gender roles as their main problematic point. When we compare classical utopias with feminist utopias, we come to the point that feminist utopias have dealt with what has been forgotten by
classical utopian writers. Both utopian writing and feminist ideology have presented possible solutions to the existing order. The central criticism in feminist utopias is the exploitation and subjugation of women, and the hypocritical attitude rooted in all human relationships. Within this context feminist writers have shown the hypocrisy of classical utopias which preach for freedom, equality and order for the good of whole community but practice oppression, discrimination and racism against their female counterparts.
Within this context, in this thesis, we will discuss the development of utopian writing by comparison of man-dominated classical utopias and feminist utopias in terms of gender politics that has been discussed in our six utopian novels and there will be two chapters which discuss the gender politics in utopian writing itself and in utopian novels which are Plato’s Republic (380 BC), Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), H.G. Wells’ A Modern Utopia (1905) as man-dominated classical utopias and Mary E. Bradley Lane’s Mizora (1880), Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) and Sally Miller Gearhart’s Wanderground (1979) as feminist utopias.
The first chapter will discuss the literary utopias in general. The first section of the chapter one will define utopia as a genre. Different utopia definitions will be conveyed from several points of views. At this point, we will try to classify utopian writing. The primary subjects, which are education, state, economy, religion, power relations, class, family and socio-political institutions, will be dealt according to these classifications. The second section of the first chapter will give a historical development of utopian writing. As a result, we will come to the point that man-dominated classical utopias, intentionally or not, have not discussed the issue of gender and to strengthen this point, we will discuss Western ideology of gender.
The second chapter will discuss the gender roles in man-dominated classical utopias to understand Western ideology better and to show hypocrisy of man-dominated classical utopias in discussing “gender” as a primary issue. Gender roles will be discussed in terms of family, motherhood, education and economy (labour). Each supporting idea will be a starting point for our classical utopias, The Republic, Utopia and A Modern Utopia. The second section of this chapter will discuss
man-dominated classical utopian writing in terms of these three classical utopias. In Plato’s distinguishing utopian book, The Republic, Book V will discuss the active role of women in their ideal state. In his book, Plato supports women’s active and equal participation in education. However, women of The Republic cannot break their chains of status quo roles. Eugenics is important to construct an ideal society and so, motherhood and reproduction abilities of the female will be used for the good of the society. Another recognisable utopian work, More’s Utopia, which also named utopia as a genre, will draw an ideal state on an imagined island. This state has purified its community from private property. This communal-like society looks like ideal for the active founders of itself, not for the passive participants of it. The male citizens of this ideal community are at work; they are the head of the family, religion and all social institutions. However, women’s hands are tied with obligations of the family institution; they are the angels of the house who kneel in front of their husbands. In this context, gender politics in Utopia will be discussed in terms of family. And our last utopia, H. G. Wells’ A Modern Utopia will be a modern utopia according to points (especially the use of technology) discussed. However, this utopia will remain as a classical one in terms of the way that gender issue is dealt. In the chapter entitled “Women in Modern Utopia”, gender roles will be discussed extensively in A Modern Utopia. Eugenics will be in question for the good of the state as it is in The Republic, but the difference is that mothers in A Modern Utopia will be paid for their services. From this point of view, we will discuss gender politics in this book in terms of motherhood and economy (labour). The supporting ideas of family, motherhood, education and economy (labour) in these utopias will confirm that classical utopias are insufficient to draw attention to the gender problem in this section and this conclusion will be a starting point for chapter three.
The chapter three will discuss interconnectedness of feminist ideology and utopian writing in general, and will also present an anthology of feminist writers in terms of the feminist ideologies of their time. The second section of the chapter three will portray a survey on the development of feminist utopias. Historical development of feminist utopias within feminist movements will show us in what terms classical utopias and feminist utopias differ. The subjects dealt in feminist utopias in terms of
gender politics will be discussed in terms of education, sexuality, motherhood, science, reproduction, lesbianism, family, economy, sisterhood, eco-feminism and language. These supporting ideas will be studied in terms of feminist utopias, Mizora, Woman on the Edge of Time and Wanderground in the following sub-sections.
Following sub-sections will pay a particular attention to three feminist utopia writers, Mary E. Bradley Lane, Marge Piercy and Sally Miller Gearhart. These feminist writers and feminist utopias will be discussed in terms of both literally and in their historical context. Literally because each utopia will be an answer to “what makes this book a feminist utopia?” question and in historical context because each utopia will be associated with a feminist movement. First wave feminist product, Lane’s Mizora (1880), will draw a clear picture of New Woman of emancipation movement. Mizora as an imagined all-female society is distinguishing for its free education services and scientific elements. As the active citizens of the society, Lane will portray women in a society which sexual roles and their requirements disappeared. Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) is an ideal portrayal of second wave feminism’s soul. Piercy deals with reproduction as the main obstacle of women’s liberation and creates an androgynous society. The last feminist utopia is Wanderground: The Story of Hill Women (1979) by Sally Miller Gearhart is an outcome of third wave feminism. As a radical lesbian feminist, Gearhart imagines an all-female society in which ecofeminism, lesbianism and sisterhood embrace each other in the wilderness.
In conclusion, we will discuss the gender politics in utopian writing by comparing man-dominated classical utopias with feminist utopias in this thesis as it is sectioned here. This study will be a portrayal of utopian writing in its historical development which is in the search of an ideal equal society for all beings.
CHAPTER ONE: THE SEARCH OF A BETTER WORLD AND PERFECT SOCIETIES TO LIVE IN: UTOPIA
1.1 What is a Utopia?
“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is landing. And when Humanity lands there it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias” (Wilde, 1910: 27). Oscar Wilde defines utopia as an inseparable part of a world map. Even though there are not utopias shown on world maps literally, Wilde implies that the present world orders are always in need for a better world. The progress for the perfection is the “genesis” of utopian writing.
Progress as the starting point of utopian writing refers both to criticize the present ills of a society in which its author lives and to offer alternatives to what is going wrong. Utopian writing takes action and tries not be didactic. This kind of a progress in utopias always takes place in an imaginary land and it is the dream of all humanity looking for what is missing in the societies they live. “For Sargent, utopianism is a social dreaming and Ruth Levitas uses the word utopia in the same umbrella sense; for her it refers to the expression of desire for different (and better) ways of being” (Sargisson, 1996:1). Lucy Sargisson goes beyond and defines literal utopia in the following lines:
“1. An imaginary island, depicted by Sir Thomas More, as enjoying a perfect social, legal and political system. 2. Any imaginary indefinitely remote region, country or locality. 3. A place, state, or condition ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws, customs and conditions. 4. An impossibly ideal scheme, especially for social improvement” (9).
So, we can understand from these lines that utopia as a literary term is a place or a state which establishes its moral and material institutions in the search of perfection. It is an idealization of social life in action. The utopia is imaginary so it makes utopias impossible at the same time. Etymological background of the word “utopia” itself proves this conflict, too.
The word “utopia” as a literary genre comes from Thomas More’s eponymous book Utopia published in 1516. Although we come across with the word “utopia” in the sixteenth century, this genre had had its place in literature for centuries before More. Utopia has an intentional meaning in itself and a pun on words. “More used the word utopia both to name the unknown island described by the Portuguese sailor Raphael Hythloday, and also as a title for his book” (Vieira, 2010: 4). This word alludes to both an imaginary island and also as a genre of a literary narrative. “The word is a pun on ou (the Greek word for not or no) and eu (the Greek word for good and beautiful). Thus eutopia is the ideal “no place” of the imagination, the possible good place, better than the author’s current society” (Kessler, 1995: 7). Kessler also defines utopia as “a fictionalized society in the process of becoming better” (7). Utopia as a literary genre is an imaginary society in progress. The imagination, in other words writing about the possibilities and also impossibilities at the same time, makes it more likely for utopian writers to criticize the ongoing life and to find a way out in a possible remote future. As Roemer points out that “the utopian speculation allows an author to preserve what he likes about the present- thus offering a sense of continuity-while discarding what confuses or frightens him- thus offering a hopeful introduction to a new world” (1976: 6). From that point of view, Darko Suvin also defines utopia as:
“The verbal construction of a particular quasi-human community where socio-political institutions, norms and individual relationships are organized according to a more perfect principle than the author’s community, this construction being based on estrangement arising out of an alternative historical hypothesis” (1973: 132).
As an alternative hypothesis about a perfect construction in the future, utopia gives its readers some clues about what can be succeeded here and now. The sketch of a well-organized society also has its criticism on the contemporary society. As Alexander and Gill indicate that:
“Utopian constructions may take the form either of a picture of an unrealizably ideal society order criticizing an existing order,
teaching us lessons about organization and promoting understanding of the concepts involved, or, alternatively, of a blueprint intended to guide the actual reorganization of a society” (1984: introduction xi). Shurter draws attention to that “one characteristic all utopias have in common – a sense of dissatisfaction with the present order…Whenever men feel dissatisfied with contemporary conditions, they seek change. When men of culture and intelligence sense maladjustment about them, they sometimes try to construct a blueprint of an ideal social state” (1936: 7). Imagination of a better world is a human need. Societies or citizens always feel themselves inferior to a more perfect another. There are always more democratic countries, higher-standard lives, less sexist expressions, more developed economies and even better fathers and mothers from a child’s point of view. At this point, the advancement of the civilization becomes an inseparable part of life and utopia for sure as August Comte has said “there is no utopia so wild as not to offer some incontestable advantages” (2009: 422). So, the key role of utopian writers in social evolution is undeniable.
If we talk about utopias as a social development overall, we can also emphasise that utopias by definition contradicts the dominant systems: as Darko Suvin, in his Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, points it out that utopia is an idealized place “where socio-political institutions, norms and individual relationships are organized according to a more perfect principle than in the author’s community” (1979: 49). We can reread and visualize the contradiction of the dominant systems and the idealized ones in utopian writing with the speeches of Gonzalo in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest play in the following lines:
“I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things. For no kind of traffic Would I admit. No name of magistrate. Letters should not be known. Riches, poverty, And use of service—none. Contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard—none. No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil.
No occupation. All men idle, all. And women too, but innocent and pure. No sovereignty—
…All things in common nature should produce Without sweat or endeavor. Treason, felony, Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, Would I not have. But nature should bring forth Of its own kind all foison, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people” (Act ii, Scene I 123-139).
Gonzalo idealizes his perfect city, his commonwealth, as a contradiction between the already established Old World and the potential New World.
“The exploration of the New World in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, draws on the idea of a perfect society that More had established in that century. Gonzalo is the chief spokesman for a new world order. While Sebastian and Antonio bait him and mock him, he survives the island that becomes his inspiration for a commonwealth in which there is equality among all people, innocence, purity, and an abundance of food and goods supplied by nature with no toil or labour” (Nostbakken 2004: 28).
Gonzalo creates an ideal city which is not like the Old World he lives in. The Old World has failed in bringing equality, justice, abundance and happiness to its society. In this context, we can state that utopias are in a search of what is missing or corrupted in writer’s society.
Social and moral institutions such as religion, education, society, economic structure, politics, states, gender politics, family and etc. constitute a society and as a result the whole humanity. All these components of a social construction have failed and will fail to bring equality, happiness and a perfect order to civilizations. As a result, it means that these civilizations are about to be exterminated physically or figuratively by their participants and societies in the pursuit of re-establishment of a more perfect one. So, utopias “visibly shape needs and match them with accessible satisfactions, moulding the individual to the system” (Levitas, 1990: 184-185) again. Patrick Parrinder also confirms that:
“Utopia, the good place which is no place, is also the place at the end of the traditional fairy tale, where “they all lived happily ever after…The fundamental purpose of utopias is to remake the world in the image of desire, but the image of desire in each case is very different. In the end, utopia portrays a collective, not individual, reward for suffering humanity as a whole” (2010: 154).
As a common starting point of utopias, pursuit of change for a better world has become the lodestone of not only humanity but also authors, too. W. H. Hudson states that utopias “are born of a very common feeling, a sense of dissatisfaction with the existing order of things, combined with a vague faith in or hope for a better one to come” (1907: introduction v). Shurter also comments on Hudson’s statement and draws attention to the role of writers in utopian writing and states utopias are a must as a social construction. “Writers from the time of Plato to Bellamy have stressed the state as a method of giving men proper environment and opportunity for advancement. In this respect they prepared the way for modern philosophies of government” (Shurter, 1936: 5). Every crisis, war or rough time have whipped communities up to look for an escape route. Communities have always dreamt of a well-organized state where they can live equally and happily. Even people have had a hope to achieve their afterlife utopias, heavens, by being pious and obedient. People, from the very first man, have been longing for a better life generally described with “heaven”. They have prayed and they have become more and more innocent in the eyes of their Gods and Goddesses to achieve “prize of heaven”. You are promised. You will be rewarded with abundance in every respect; in food, in partners, in peace, in joy and in justice. So, nothing has changed and from these ancient times to today people are in the pursuit of their archaic dreams; abundance, peace, joy and order. In this respect, writers have written their sketchy possible no lands to wake them up, to make them think and take an action in their real life in a way. Roemer explains that “during such periods of cultural crisis, authors might be expected to turn to a form of expression that not only offered escape but also supplied reassuring guidelines for adapting to the future, guidelines that the traditional sources of socialization- parents, school teachers and ministers- might be able to provide” (1976: 5).
Utopian writers as guides of their readers have had a chance to visualize their social theories to make these ideal societies more realistic and more possible in a way instead of just theorizing complicated social theories which their readers are unable to understand. According to Louis Marin and Frederic Jameson, “to write utopia is to project a rational model of the social totality onto a metaphorical space so that it may visualized” (Burwell, 1997: 54). And also, Indian sociologist Krishan Kumar states that “utopias have always aspired to be both critical and constructive. The alien forms of distant cultures enabled the utopian writer to establish the crucial “critical distance” from his own society, while often suggesting something of the constructive alternative that his utopia aimed to present” (1987: 23). This critical distance makes it possible for the utopian writer to construct his utopian ideology more objective, to criticize more harshly and to offer possible hopeful trends for the good of the whole community.
Criticism and new possibilities are important in utopian writing. Utopian writers criticize political and social systems. They satirize the ongoing problems in the possible present societies or in an imaginary society in the remote future. There must be a conflict between the criticized and the critic. Utopian writers are keen “to maximize harmony and contentment and to minimize conflict and misery (and) to produce a perfected society where social cohesion and the common good are not imperilled by individual appetite” (Davis, 1981: 19). However, these utopian writers (although they are common in the subjects dealt) differ in the way that they represent their ideal societies.
At this point the classification of utopian writing becomes crucial. This classification is formed according to the development of utopian history. Although all these utopian novels of Western ideology are in common at base and they are as a respond to the desires of people for a perfect civilization, they differ in the way they are conveyed to the reader. J.C. Davis and Krishan Kumar both identify four different types of ideal society under the name of “utopia”. The first type of utopias is called “Arcadia” and also “The Golden Age” and “Paradise. This type of utopia emphasizes the accord of human with the nature as an inseparable part of him/her. Sargisson defines Arcadia as “a pastoral setting of natural abundance to which are added morally
and aesthetically motivated humans. Appetites in Arcadia are temperately satisfied” (1996: 15). The inhabitants of Arcadia live after the manners of Golden Age. They are not under the effect of the ills of civilization and try to be in harmony with nature itself. They devote themselves to culture and learning and since they are in harmony with nature, they stay aloof to war and crime in a way.
The second type derives its name from medieval poem, “The Land of Cockaygne” (the fourteenth century) which is making fun of the noble and tradesmen of his time and this type is characterized as “Cockaygne”. Cockaygne is a mythical and imaginary land of abundance. This utopic land is a portrayal of spiritual emptiness and physical abundance. There are not any means of restrictions, instead this idealized land is like a picture of deadly seven sins. Sargisson identified Cockaygne land in the following lines:
“In Cockaygne, desires are instantly gratified, it is a world containing self-roasting birds, rivers of wine, fountains of youth, wishing trees, and ever-available and desirable sexual partners. It is a hedonistic paradise. Cockaygne privileges material and sensual satisfaction and assumes natural abundance. Its inhabitants symbolize satiated desire” (15).
The principle occupations of the participants of Cockaygne are idleness, gluttony, over-sexual desires. Actually, this type of utopia is a satire of the excessiveness that can be found in any century. Kumar emphasizes this ever-lasting issue of the centuries and defines Cockaygne utopia as follows:
“The ‘Cockaygne utopia’, the popular or folk utopia and the happy Land of Cockaygne, a land of abundance, idleness and instant and unrestrained gratification, is to be found in practically in all folk cultures. It is probably pre-classical as well as pre-Christian. Of all the components of utopia, it contains the strongest element of pure fantasy and wish-fulfilment. This is a fair reflection of the fact that it is the ‘poor man’s heaven’, the dream of the labour classes of all ages to be freed from toil and drudgery” (1987: 7).
Cockaygne utopias go one step further than Arcadia “in being a utopia of excess and superabundance rather than one of moderation and restraint” (8). Arcadia is the land of the inhabitants who are contended with the modest needs in relation to nature. However, Cockaygne utopia is beyond the necessities of nature and full of inhabitants who are looking forward to the grilled pigeon on the air or walking eggs to fall into their laps. “Addressing similar issues to More’s preoccupation in Book I with rural poverty, land migration and agrarian capitalism, The Land of Cockaygne tells of a prelapsarian land of plenty where peaceful peasants once lived in abundance and well-being with no restrictions of private property or laws, juxtaposing the ideal plenty with the reality of feudal serfdom and rural poverty” (Pohl, 2010: 56).
The third type of utopia is called “The Millennium”. This type of utopia strictly concerns with religion. Religion, they mean Christianity, will not save just the souls of individuals but actually will save the whole community as a collectivist tendency. Catherine Wessinger defines Millennialism with the formulations of Norman Cohn and Yonina Talmon as follows:
“Millennialists expect a salvation that is
(a) collective, in the sense that is to be enjoyed by the faithful; (b) terrestrial, in the sense that is to be realized on this earth and
not in some otherworldly heavens;
(c) imminent, in the sense that is to come both soon and suddenly;
(d) total, in the sense that is utterly to transform the life on earth, (e) accomplished by the agencies which are consciously
regarded as supernatural. So, it refers to groups and movements that expect imminent, total, ultimate, this worldly, collective salvation” (2011: 4).
In this sense, the followers of the Millennium Utopias expect to be living as monks until the Judgement Day will come. On this day, the lasting battle between good and evil will end and salvation will be the rewards of the communities who are faithful on this earth.
The fourth and the last type is “ideal city”. It is the utopia in which both men and women as the inhabitants and citizens of the ideal city are transformed for the better. They are the utopias “in which there is no invocation of a dues ex machine, nor any wishing away of the deficiencies of man or nature” (Sargisson, 1996: 16). Rather, as Davis states, they are the systems which are defined as pertaining to the modern states as we understand in the present. Davis says that “such systems are inevitably bureaucratic, institutional, legal and educational, artificial and organizational. Utopia, says Davis, idealizes organization” (16). As a result, we can say that all types of utopias share one basic topic: the search of a better and perfect society to live in. As the definitions and classifications show us that although all the literary utopias are in common according to the subjects dealt in it, they are also different in the way that they are discussed. Actually, historical and social development plays a crucial role in stylistic terms. At this point, we should make a general overview of the development of classical utopias in the historical process.
1.2 History of Utopia
From Plato to George Orwell, we mean that from Antiquity to the twentieth and also the twenty-first centuries, utopian writing has been a device for authors to convey their solutions about the problems of the societies in need and as a result to create more perfect ones. Authors of all these centuries have exploited (in good terms) utopian writing as a literary genre to share their social theories literally. We have said that these authors have exploited this genre because criticism and satire within the boundaries of imagination enable them to be more objective and these societies more possible. Utopian writing is not just “science-fiction” or “fantastic novel”. Although utopias are no lands - imagined ones, they are one step further than all these fictions in terms of the social criticism they convey. So, utopia must always be ahead of its time to criticize the society that the author leaves behind in a way. Utopias are the remedies of the corruptions of the times that their authors experience in person. For example, we cannot ignore the role of actual historical events while we are reading The Republic by Plato. Plato wrote his utopian book The Republic around 380 B.C. As a severe criticism
on aristocracy, the problem of justice and the corruption of political systems, this utopian novel criticizes the aftermath outcomes of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Spartans (431-404 B.C.). The war between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta resulted in high economic costs of war, poverty and radical changes in international relations of the state. “He must indeed have felt that something was radically wrong in a state that could be wrecked by war” (Shurter, 1936: 14). Democracy was suspended and civil war broke out in Athens. This war reshaped Ancient Greek world and also motivated Plato to write his own ideal city. He questioned justice, just statesman, just society and order in his book. He reacted to wrong attitudes of aristocracy and imagined a republic in limited communitarian terms. The readers, from the very first times that the book was written to today, have taken lessons from the past and adapted his criticisms on the corruption of political systems to their own time.
Reading a utopia in its historical context is crucial to acknowledge the criticisms and satires. So, it is not a coincidence that Utopia by Thomas More was written in 1516, in Renaissance. As an influential figure of Renaissance, Thomas More took advantages of his time. The rebirth of ancient Roman and Greek works, decline of Catholic Church, an interest to reason and science and discoveries of new worlds, especially of America at the end of the fifteenth century became the keywords of the time. These historical developments of the time give us some clues about More’s choices. The Portuguese sailor, Raphael Hytholoday, discovers an unknown island which is constructed with Catholic doctrines and collective social structure. While precious materials such as gold are nonsense, reason comes to the fore. So, we can support the idea that historical timeline of the utopias written is a must to understand the criticism in these works. In this sense, to know the crucial historical events and personalities of the twentieth century will help us to understand why Aldous Huxley named his characters in Brave New World (1931) after outstanding characters of the century. For example, Mustapha Mond, Resident World Controller of Western Europe, was named after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who is the founder of Turkish Republic after World War I and Sir Alfred Mond who is an industrialist. We come across other well-known names such as Bernard Shaw, Henry Ford, Lenin, Trotsky, Mussolini, Engels,
Rudolf Diesel, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Darwin. Huxley was living in an England which was dealing with mass unemployment, economic depression, Industrial Revolution and World War I. So, it is no surprise to read a utopian England based on “Fordism”, mass production and also reproductive technologies which resemble that babies are reproduced as a new model Ford car, classical conditioning and sleep-learning. From that point of view, we can say that development of utopian writing closely interrelates with the time that they are written. Within this context, we will study the development of utopias within its historical context to understand the interrelation of actual history and utopian writing in the following paragraphs. History has shown us that every civilization has improved itself positively or negatively in their own terms and inspired authors to have a role in criticizing the negative parts and imagine more positive idealized lands. As a result, the utopian writing, as an active and developing organism has been closely affected by the corruptions around it.
“Historically, the concept of utopia has been defined with regard to the content which is identification of the society with the idea of good place and based on a subjective conception of what is or not desirable and envisages utopia as being essentially in opposition to the prevailing ideology” and the function of the imagined society which “is an impact that causes on its readers and urging him/her to take action” (Vieira, 2010: 6).
In order to understand the rebirth of utopian writing with a different unique stylistic change in every century, we must “aware of the social and intellectual constructions of human nature” (Roemer, 2010: 79). At this point we will have a detailed look at the development of utopian writing in its historical context.
The very first examples of utopian themes have its traces in Ancient Greece. Utopia as a literary genre which is named after Thomas More’s 1516 Utopia is as early as Western civilizations. Ancient Greeks who have the early examples of the genre were not conscious of that the concept of utopia as a literary genre and also did not invent this genre intentionally. While the birth of utopian literature in ancient times
was a break out of human needs, the rebirth of utopian works in every century is to follow the characteristics of genre and to adapt them to author’s chronological time. Lauriola comments on this and states that:
“Although the term is a modern creation, which means that the concept itself of utopia was stranger to ancient Greeks; although, in his first usage, the term specifically refers to the politics and to a specific literary genre, i.e., the so-called “literary utopia” utopian thought and utopian motifs are identifiable in ancient Greek literature and culture since its very beginning. The modern utopia itself with its political implications, as first theorized by More, traces back to an ancient Greek tradition of searching for the so-called aristai politeiai (the best constitutions) whose first model is the Res Publica by Plato” (2009: 110).
The most famous of classical utopias of ancient world other than The Republic are Works and Days (eighth century B.C.) by Hesiod, City of God (fifth century B.C.) by St. Augustine and Sacred History (fourth century B.C.) by Euhemerus. “In these famous myths, man’s longing for perfection is expressed. For instance, in Hesiod’s Works and Days of the eighth century B.C., the characteristics of the Golden Age and the long-lasting yearnings of man such as peace, freedom, abundance and immortality are narrated” (Kumar, 1987: 17).
At this point we will have a look at Hesiod’s Works and Days to understand how this genre has developed in its historical context, in the first place in the Antiquity. Hesiod’s Works and Days is an early example of utopian themes even before Plato. This poem is a farmer’s diary in which Hesiod instructs his brother Perses about the agricultural facts, morality and everyday life. We can say that Hesiod dealt with all the morals that concern humanity; justice, law, society, family, work ethic, religion, peace and war. This poem is “the canonical depiction of the Golden Age, the bitterly-lamented vanished age of Kronos’ reign: when men lived as if they were gods, their hearts free from all sorrow, and without any hard work or pain; when the fruitful earth yielded its abundant harvest to them of its own accord, and they lived in case and peace
upon their lands with many good things” (3). According to Hesiod there are five ages of human existence; Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Heroic Age and Iron Age. Each age symbolizes a different stage of human existence on the Earth. “The ages that Hesiod wrote about seem to correspond precisely with what happened to Adam and Eve, and their descendants” (Choice, 2006: 117). The Golden Age is the age when Adam and Eve were in Eden. The Earth was reigned by Kronos. Humanity enjoyed eternal youth, joy and abundance. In Silver Age, the predecessor of Kronos, Zeus, brought humanity only grief. Mankind met with sin, rebelled their gods and goddesses, they lived one hundred years at most although they were immortal in the Golden Age. Every other age becomes more and more inferior to Golden Age, the ideal one to live in. So, this poem becomes a lament for the perfect age. Within this context poem consists utopic elements; the ideal world is defined with Golden Age, and so Hesiod’s doctrines refer to the ones in the Golden Age. We can state that the very first examples of utopian writing have only utopic elements in it. Compared to the works of this genre, there is a longing for the past, not for the possible futures. An experienced and established world is safer than unknown remote future in this poem.
In the historical development of utopian writing, the sixteenth century is a crucial moment for the genre itself. It is certain that although utopianism “which has at its core the desire for a better life” was invented centuries before Thomas More, he invented the word ‘utopia’ and he “certainly changed the way this desire was to be expressed” (Vieira, 2010: 7). What More made actually was to relate classic genre with the Christian tradition of his time. More wrote his spectacular book Utopia in 1516. The sixteenth century was influential not only in England but also in whole Europe in terms of language, art, literature, new discoveries and new movements. This century was remarkable because of the rebirth of literature and arts, which is Renaissance. Norton Anthology of English Literature summarizes this century as follows:
“During the fifteenth century a few English clerics and government officials had journeyed to Italy and had seen something of the extraordinary cultural and intellectual movement flourishing in the city-states there. That movement, generally known as the Renaissance, involved a rebirth of letters and arts stimulated by the
recovery of texts and artifacts from classical antiquity and the creation of powerful new aesthetic practices based on classical models. It also unleashed new ideas and new social, political, and economic forces that gradually displaced the spiritual and communal values of the Middle Ages. In the brilliant, intensely competitive, and vital world of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, the submission of the human spirit to penitential discipline gave way to unleashed curiosity, individual self-assertion, and a powerful conviction that man was the measure of all things (which contradicts to medieval Christian theologies). Yet the superb human figure placed at the centre of the Renaissance world-view was also seen as remarkably malleable…This flowering… came rather in the spiritual and intellectual orientation known as humanism. More's Utopia (1516), with its dream of human existence entirely transformed by a radical change in institutional arrangements, and is an extreme instance of a general humanist interest in education” (2006: 488).
Renaissance enabled the sixteenth-century nobles and literates to vision a world which purged itself from the boundaries of dark medieval times and Catholic doctrines. Political, social and literal advancements rooted in Ancient Greece and Rome showed that there was a wealthy world in terms of arts and literature. Humanism changed the point of views of scholars in good terms and prompted them to rediscover the already existing world and to establish new ones. The sixteenth century is also crucial because the discovery of New World, America in 1492 showed humanity that the possibility and mystery of the new unknown worlds were out of there. Rebirth of letters and arts also introduced masterpieces of our time from their dusty shelves and showed new ways to writers and scientists of the sixteenth century. Within this context Pohl gives an example from Plutarch’s The Face on the Moon and states that:
“Medieval and Renaissance maps (mappae mundi) inserted the speculative geographies of Eden, the Island of the Blessed, St Brendan’s Isle and the mythical island of Brazil (Hy-Brazil) into their navigational charts, destabilizing the boundaries of the world.
The lunar voyage challenged the boundaries of the cosmos. The tradition of the lunar voyages popular since Lucian and Plutarch’s The Face of the Moon was reignited both by the geographical discoveries of the age of Columbus and by the heliocentric discourse of the Copernican revolution. In that sense, imagining a world on the moon was perhaps a response to the Renaissance world in which systems of hierarchy, authority, religion, as well as planetary revolutions, were called into question” (2010: 53).
Within this context, we can come to the point that the sixteenth century was influential especially for the nobles and the literate ones in terms of arts, literature, education and new discoveries. As one of the first works of the Renaissance, Utopia not only named a genre but also enabled the rebirth of utopianism due to Humanism of Renaissance. Discoveries of new lands, decline of Catholic Church and as a result its doctrines, acceptance of Protestant Church in the reign of Henry VIII and the corruption of Tudors’ reign, the War of Roses at the second half of the fifteenth century and its destruction in England, an interest in science, and ancient Greek and Roman art and literature, played a great role for More to write his utopia. “More, with his imagination fired by some of the voyages of discovery pictured a utopia in terrestrial terms. In following the adventures of Raphael Hythloday, the reader sees again and again the vices of England of More’s day- the rich thriving on the labours of the poor, the corruption and flattery of the court, the servility of those in politics” (Shurter, 1936: 10). In these terms, More designed an unknown island discovered by a Portuguese sailor, where private property has been abolished, the governors of the state work for the good of people, intellect and soul are much more important than earthly wealth. A classless community which is indifferent to the crown-obsessed governors is the only arbiter of their own communal state.
When we come to the seventeenth century, we see an appreciable rise in utopias. The rise in utopias was not only in number but also in contextual terms, too. The sixteenth-century Renaissance and as an outstanding example, Utopia led other writers to focus on utopian genre. Religion, language, science, travel literature and education took an important place in the seventeenth century utopias contextually. Especially the
contradiction of science with theology and scepticism created an unfillable gap between the two poles. And utopian writing fed on this gap. When we look at the seventeenth century, we see that the Restoration was an age of economic crisis inherited by Queen Elizabeth I, new military innovations, the rise of manufacture in North and South of England and as John Donne stated in his poem An Anatomy of the World, it was an age of “a new philosophy calls in doubt” (cited in Norton Anthology of English Literature, 2010: 1243). When we look at the seventeenth century-England, we can emphasize the events that are closely and contextually related with utopian writing in its historical development. Norton Anthology of English Literature gives us some clues about Restoration of England:
“In James's reign, the most pressing difficulties were apparently financial. 1604 peace treaty with England's old enemy, Spain, made the Atlantic safe for English ships, a prerequisite for the colonization of the New World. In the south and north domestic industries began manufacturing goods and newly developed coal mines provided fuel for England's growing cities. These endeavours gave rise to a new respect for the practical arts, a faith in technology as a means of improving human life, and a conviction that the future might be better than the past: all important influences upon the scientific theories of Francis Bacon and his seventeenth-century followers” (1242).
Within this context, the striking work of its time, New Atlantis: A Worke Unfinished Written by the Right Honourable Francis Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban (1627) by Francis Bacon motivates readers in a new faith in science. As an outstanding figure of literature, Francis Bacon establishes a relationship between nature and human, and as a result reaches the knowledge; science. Although Bensalem society is established according to Christian doctrines, they are segregated in social terms. His book New Atlantis “offers a world in which scientific knowledge structures society, as opposed to More’s vision of a society structured by humanist ethics” (Salzman, 2002:28). Bacon does not deal with state intimately as it is in Utopia and The Republic instead
he brings a new impulse and uses science and experiment as the new contexts of the utopia.
Bensalem of New Atlantis is a society of knowledge and science and also in a close relationship with nature. Inhabitants of Bensalem which is a “happy and holy ground” (Bacon, 2000: 10) are “full of piety and Humanity” (8). This utopia describes the accidental discovery of Bensalem society by explorers who have sailed from Peru to China and Japan. These explorers are astonished by the abundance, dignity and generosity of the society, and try to discover the mysteries of this unknown land located in Pacific Ocean. “It unites a scientific community composed of different disciplines with a defined hierarchical structure of fellows, novices and apprentices” and also family and Solomon House which is a scientific institution dealing with applied and pure sciences “institutes faith and social order through scientific knowledge” (Pohl, 2010:60). Solomon House is “dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God” (Bacon, 2000: 20). As a society of discovery and knowledge they have “two galleries for the exhibition of inventions and inventors”, have “spacious houses where they imitate and demonstrate meteors”, “chambers of health”; they also have “means to make divers plants rise by mixtures of earth without seed; they have “produced new kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes of putrefaction, whereof some are advanced to be perfect creatures like beasts and birds”; they have “divers mechanical arts which you (the explorers in the book; Europeans and other civilizations) have not”; they have “heats, in imitation of the Sun’s and heavenly bodies’ heats”; they have “the experiments of all mechanical arts, and also of liberal sciences, and also of practices which are not brought into art” (32-38). Within this context, we can say that Francis Bacon urged readers and his followers the exercise of experiments and scientific truths. Although he did not follow the classical contexts of utopian writing, he innovated to this genre contextually and affected the utopian writing of the twentieth century nearly three centuries after his unfinished utopia had been published.
The confidence in experiments, inventions and science over dogmas continued its effect in the eighteenth century. Enlightenment of the eighteenth century can be defined as the superiority of human ration to the dogmas and traditions of the time.
Scientific developments, inventions and experiments changed the way of people to understand the world. Norton Anthology emphasizes the crucial thoughts and trends in the Enlightenment period of Britain in the following lines:
“Many philosophers, scientists, and divines began to embrace a mitigated scepticism, which argued that human beings could readily achieve a sufficient degree of necessary knowledge (sometimes called "moral certainty") but also contended that the pursuit of absolute certainty was vain, mad, and socially calamitous… The distrust of old dogmas inspired new theories, projects, and explorations… Scientific discovery and exploration also affected religious attitudes… Newly discovered natural laws, such as Newton's laws of optics and celestial mechanics, seemed evidence of a universal order in creation, which implied God's hand in the design of the universe, as a watch implies a watchmaker” (2006: 2062-63).
Within this context the literary manner showed a shift in context in the eighteenth century. And this inevitable change also developed the context and style of the utopian writing. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as Mumford conveys, “a new world comes to existence-a world in which energy derived from coal and running water takes the place of human energy; in which goods manipulated by machinery take the place of the goods woven or sawed or hammered by hand. Within a hundred years the actual world and the idola were transformed” (1992: 114). Besides its manufacturing developments “the discoveries of Enlightenment were stimulated by another revolution that took place in the field of science. In fact, it was the “development of science (in the fields of geology and biology) that prepared man to outline new perspectives of the world and of himself” and “the eighteenth century was characterized by an unusual trust in man’s capacities” (Vieira, 2010: 9-15). And this trust in man’s own ration gave a way to satirical utopias literally. “If utopia is hope, satirical utopia is about distrust” (16). The tradition of satirical utopias of the eighteenth century aimed at diminishing the social and political structure by making them ridiculous and also evoking amusement, despise and disgust at the same time in
readers’ eyes. As a result, the satirical utopia was “governed by a form of utopia in which the goal of liberation from hierarchy, oppression and poverty and the political struggle to achieve a just and egalitarian society” (Pohl, 2010: 72). These satirical images can urge their readers to despair. However, this attitude is the main drive of the utopian writer to show the readers that both the problem and the solution are not far away. The problems constructed in their societies can be solved only by realizing them instead of looking for the re-establishment of a better one. The utopian writer “wants to frighten to reader and to make him/her realize that things may go either right or wrong, depending on the moral, social and civic responsibilities of the citizens” (Vieira, 2010: 17).
The most outstanding satirical utopia of the eighteenth century is Gulliver’s Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift. Gulliver’s Travels “raises questions about the faultiness that developed during the eighteenth century on the ideas of language, history, perfectibility and, indeed, utopianism itself” (Pohl, 2010: 67). Although Swift satirized the current events and problems of his time, this book is still actual even today in terms of the topics discussed. Swift adopts an imaginary journey to remote lands as it is in classical utopias. An imaginary journey to unknown lands is the characteristic of classical utopian narrative structure. They picture “the journey of a man (it is always a man in classical utopias) or a woman to an unknown place (an island, a country or a continent” (Vieira, 2010: 7). Lemuel Gulliver, the protagonist and the narrator, is a well-educated man. He undertakes four journeys during the book. Each voyage is a different metaphor that Swift satirizes in his current society. For example, his first voyage to Lilliput as a shipwrecked sailor is a political satire on “our likeness to them, especially in the disproportion between our natural pettiness and our boundless and destructive passions” (Norton Anthology II, 2006: 2323). First attracted by their pretty appearance as Lilliputians, then he discovers the cruelty in their nature. His second journey is a satire on the comparison of moral and representative man. His journey is to Brobdingnag, the land of giants. In this journey, he prejudges the appearance of Brobdingnagian and thinks that they must be cruel but then it appears vice versa. In this journey Gulliver is forced to make a comparison between his own land England and Brobdingnag, and he reveals the corruptions of his society and presents some
solutions. However, in the end he realizes that representation can be an illusion in the very eyes of humanity. The most important thing is being moral. When he first encounters to Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians, he thinks the former ones are lovely and the latter ones are cruel. The morally perfect society shows itself in Brobdingnag. The third journey to Laputa is a satire on bureaucracy and the experiments of Britain. British intellectuals devoted themselves to science and ration not to morality. However, they could not use them in practical ways. The fourth and the last journey is to Houyhnhnms. It is the land of the rational race of horses. They symbolize perfection. Yahoos in this land are deficient human beings who are passionate. This journey is a satire on human depravity because ration brought emotional bareness to humanity and become inferior to other creatures on earth. It is no surprise for the readers that “when Gulliver's Travels first appeared, everyone read it—children for the story and politicians for the satire of current affairs. In Gulliver's Travels, things are seldom what they seem; irony, probing or corrosive, underlies almost every word” (Norton Anthology I, 2006: 2324).
When we come to the nineteenth century, we realize an observable rise in utopian writing. Especially a new subgenre of utopia attracts attention of the readers, dystopia. “Enlightenment optimism respecting the progress of reason and science was now displaced by a sense of the incapacity of humanity to restrain its newly created destructive powers. From that time ideal societies have accordingly been more commonly portrayed negatively in dystopian rather than utopian form” (Claeys, 2010: 107). The primary social drive for writers to canalise on dystopia was industrialism in the nineteenth century. Although there were developments in industry like mass production and machinery, it did not bring happiness to humanity but poverty, overpopulation in the big cities, pollution and unemployment. Utopian writers disclaimed the idealization of their Eden-like perfect societies and prepared their readers and followers for the worst. “If utopia was commonly seen as too good to be practicable, then dystopia was too bad to be practicable” (Vieira, 2010: 16). Actually, etymologically the word dystopia derives the same attitude as the word “utopia”. Etymology dictionary defines the word dystopia as “an imaginary bad place, 1868, apparently coined by John Stuart Mill from the Greek word ‘dys’- bad, abnormal,
difficult” (2001). Samuel Butler’s Erewhon (1872) and The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895) are some outstanding and best-known examples of the dystopian writing of the nineteenth century. Both these two dystopias deal with the technology as a weakness of human beings. Humanity, the inventor, is dominated by the technology, the invention. The success of humanity in science and technology becomes a weapon in the very hands of their creators. For example, Erewhon chooses to diminish technology because it has begun to control the society. And in The Time Machine, the creator of this machine travels in time and when he takes a journey to a remote future, he sees a civilization and nature ruined by technology, indeed humanity itself. So, this subgenre, dystopia, provided a perfect platform for the writers who criticize the corruption of society in terms of industrial revolution.
Within this context in order to understand the rebirth of the utopian writing in the nineteenth century especially not only in Britain but also in Europe and America, too, we will have a look at the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; more than two hundred utopias were published only in America. So, in terms of its historical development Roemer emphasizes the role of industrial revolution in utopian writing in the following lines:
“The primary socio-economic evidence for the perception of progress was the industrial revolution. Finally, it seemed as if the basic goals of traditional utopias could be met: science, technology, mass production and improved distribution systems ensured that all humanity could be fed, clothed and sheltered. The industrial revolution did indeed create great wealth – and great poverty. In fiction and non-fiction, from Charles Dickens’s early nineteenth-century novels to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) to Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1879), influential works decried the suffering, especially of the urban poor. The use of Gatling guns by Union soldiers in the American Civil War also demonstrated how science, technology and industry could combine to destroy human life on a scale rarely witnessed thus far in human history… The positive elements of
recent late eighteenth-century history-altering revolutions combined with great scientific, technological and industrial progress seemed to demonstrate that it was reasonable, ethical, possible, even natural to create the ‘good time’ of democracy and an equality of abundance in ‘real places’” (2010: 82).
Besides the progress in science, technology and industry, the women’s role in society became a matter of debate. Mary Wollstonecraft, in her A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1972), questions the role of women especially in terms of education and politics. She objects the idealization of the women who “are to be considered either as moral beings or as so weak that they must be entirely subjected to the superior faculties of men” and also urges women to be freed from their tradition roles and states that “connected with man as daughters, wives, and mothers, the moral character of women may be judged by how they fulfil those simple duties; but the great end of their exertions should be to develop their own faculties and acquire the dignity of conscious virtue” (1999: 91). In the end of the eighteenth century, women are “encouraged to exist the prescribed orbit in order to expand their experience, understanding and agency” (Steiner, 2014: introduction xii). The realization of woman as an existing being in her social sphere inspired the utopian writers to discuss the topic of “gender” in their utopias and dystopias.
Male-dominated utopian writing contextually has left aside gender issue in their works. In the idealized perfect societies, women have been ignored intentionally or unintentionally. In most of utopian works, women have continued their traditional roles as the pious angels of the houses. As Kolmerten states that:
“Utopian thinkers until the late eighteenth century had primarily been of two moulds: either visionary writers of philosophy or fiction such as Plato or Sir Thomas More, or religious patriots/patriarchs who sought a concrete heaven on earth, and who correctly perceived that a sect had a better chance of survival by separating itself from a hostile world. At best, as in Plato’s Republic, women’s needs were expected to be the same as men’s, their liberation presumed to occur
in relation to men’s. At worst, as in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, or in most religious communities, women were expected to exist in a pervasively regulated state serving men’s needs” (1998: 9)
The literary destiny of women has not changed as their “God-given” destiny in actual life. However, in 1825, social reformer Robert Owen accomplished to bring into action a utopia whose motto is equality to all humans, both men and women. He came to America and established a real utopia on earth called New Harmony in Indiana. Kolmerten states the main aims of Owenite communities especially of egalitarianism and gender issues in the following lines:
“Although the Owenite communities established in the United States in the mid-1820s all stressed the importance of women’s rights and promised equality for both men and women, and all of them limited women’s participation in some way. New Harmony and other American Owenite communities claimed to have ‘equal educational opportunities’ for both sexes, but employed gender-based training, because ‘useful education’ meant training children for their future roles in life. Although women were expected to work ‘equally’ with the men, the ideology of gender translated the notion of ‘equality’ into more work for women (at home and outside the home) … Being a woman in utopia meant performing endless ‘women’s’ work so that the makers and doers of utopia could get on with their attempts to change the world-without altering in any way the politics of a patriarchal system” (Kolmerten, 1998: 101).
And in many other literary utopias the role of women in the society is stable in the nineteenth century. Women are the mothers and wives who raise their children; motherhood is always honoured and rarely paid. Although they are given some opportunities and rights in these utopias, they are left to be trapped within the limits of “buts”. So, the utopias of the nineteenth century are not the idealized good places for female sex. They do not go beyond being a fantasy of bachelor’s paradise and an Hawaiian dream, as it is in Herman Melville’s utopia, Typee (1846), “which is an
