Utopias and Dystopias: Does Size Matter?

Dystopian literature often portrays larger societies, such as Oceania in 1984, or the Empire in Star Wars, but what of the works that portray smaller communities? Is there a reason that smaller communities are used to reveal certain aspects of humanity? Often writers portray small utopian or dystopian societies that censor knowledge in order to maintain social norms as well as insure isolation. These types of societies would be considered dystopian societies in that isolation and the limiting of knowledge eventually leads to one or more individuals challenging the norms of that society, usually out of curiosity or stimulated by passions that were brought about by the discovery of secret, forbidden knowledge and unhappiness and the inability to return to the previous blissful state the society promoted, though others show a more utopian theme, returning to nature and the innocence larger societies have abandoned. These themes go back to some of the earliest literary works.

In Eden, God wanted to limit knowledge of right and wrong. He forbade his utopians, Adam and Eve, from eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. A common theme that persists in these types of tales is that curiosity eventually will bring down the Utopian system. Eve succumbed to it when Satan, through a snake, spoke with Eve, appealing to her curiosity. Eventually, he got her to eat the fruit of knowledge. Once Eve ate of the fruit, she gained knowledge and shared it with her husband Adam. God removed the two from the Garden, but had he not, would Eve and Adam have been happy living in the simplistic life the Garden of Eden provided? Was there any other option once knowledge has been attained? The Genesis account does not provide an example of how one complex social institution or political ideology failed and why another is better, rather it provides insight into the human need to know, the human need to ask why and the often tragic results of such action (New World Translation, Gen. chap. 3).

The Giver is a coming of age story about a boy on the verge of puberty who is assigned to bear the memories of his community, a small perfectly balanced place where there are not strong emotions and everyone has his or role. The community entrusts Jonas to take over the position of receiver of memory from the previous receiver. The purpose of the receiver is to prevent the strong, emotional memories of the past from disrupting the tranquil balance the community maintains.

When Jonas receives memories of the past, memories of war, love, fear and anger and many others, he suddenly is unhappy living in what was once his safe, comfortable world. Jonas quits taking a pill designed to suppress the "stirrings" otherwise known as sexual desire (Lowry 34-39). The desire for affection and love from his parents develops, but love is far too strong of an emotion to experience and his parents inform him that they "like" him very much, but do not love him (Lowry 127). He also developed a love for a female friend and brotherly love for a male friend, but these people are not able to return any of these feelings having lived and adapted to a passionless world. Returning to his previous naïve serenity is impossible. Lowry writes, "His childhood, his friendships, his carefree sense of security --- all of these things seemed to be slipping away. With his new, heightened feelings, he is overwhelmed by sadness at the way the others laughed and shouted, "playing at war" (135). Terrible secrets are also discovered, when something or someone is unable to fit into the society. They are "released," which is a euphemism for murdered by lethal injection. It is revealed to Jonas that Gabrielle a toddler who came to live with Jonas and his family is to be released. This is eventually what spurs Jonas's decision to flee.

He desires the passions that the memories stirred in him; he wants to make his own memories, not just receive those from the past, but doing such things is incompatible with the social norms of the community. Jonas is eventually forced to flee. His venture from the plain, dull landscape of the community into the fantastic forests and hills and even snow of the elsewhere is symbolic of Jonas leaving a dull, humdrum life of the community and entering a world of passion and emotions. Eventually, he finds a house where singing and laugher are heard emanating from its walls. He views the firelight in the windows, and he knows he is home. His flight from a community that in many ways provided all of his needs shows us that physical needs alone are not enough to quench all of humanities needs. The Giver enlightens the reader of the need for passion in life.

Though the community has many aspects of Communism, the purpose of the story is not to promote one economic or political system over another as is the case with dystopian novels dealing with larger societies; rather its purpose concerns more innate human desires such as the desire to feel emotions.

The Village is a film about once-modern people who, fearing the crime and corruption of the modern world and dealing with the pain caused by these conditions, escaped society to live in a protected refuge, to live in a manner consistent with older 19th century modes of living. The village is run by older adults called elders who use fear and isolation to maintain control over the village and prevent their younger people in the village from leaving and thus ending the project. The means of creating fear comes from promoting a belief that vicious, supernatural creatures inhabit the woods surrounding the village, creatures that kill anyone venturing into the surrounding forest. This tactic is also the means by which the community leaders isolate the members of the village from the corrupt modern world.

This seemingly utopian society was established when the founding member fled the corruption and fear of the violence so common in "the towns" or the modern world outside the realm of the village. Ironically though, the village itself becomes the scene of crime as a young man angered because he was rejected by a young woman he loved, commits an attempted murder. The founders had not escaped the evil they perceived in the modern world; instead, it followed them to their seemingly perfect home in the forest. The tale gives the viewer a sense that pain, corruption and fear cannot be avoided by physical isolation, and in some cases, isolation causes it. The young man who attempted the murder was mentally unstable and had not had access to modern doctors and medicine. His victim needed medicine from the modern world to be saved. The great irony of the tale is that a society that tried to escape fear, crime and pain, becomes a society of fear, crime and pain, and conversely, the society they had escaped is the society that presents the solution to the problem by providing medicine and assistance with the problem (The Village).

A reoccurring theme in many works of literature is the idea of returning to a previous idyllic state, a state in which man was free of the corruptions of large society, where man was more connected with the cycles of nature, rather than being a slave of the artificial man-made life of the city. The idea that smaller communities retained much of this utopian connection to nature is portrayed in many works of literature. Often utopian society is portrayed as a rustic, old fashioned, rural farming community. Elements of this archetype are seen in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and The Great Gatsby.

In The Lord of the Rings, the hobbits are portrayed as being highly connected with nature. The Shire, the home of the hobbits, is portrayed as a jovial place. The hobbits eat several meals a day and spend their time fishing, dancing and feasting. Sam and Frodo are shaped by their home (McMahon and Csaki 182). Mordor is everything that the Shire is not: industrial, crowded, and full of ugliness and violence. The buildings are stark, and there are no gardens, no trees and no animals except those driven into submission. Tolkien plays into the idea that remaining connected to nature is imperative for a society's happiness and indulging in industrial power and wealth will create a dystopian nightmare similar to Mordor (Tolkien).

The Great Gatsby also provides commentary on the need to connect with nature. Nick Carraway, the narrator, describes both the idyllic rural Midwest and the corrupted urban East. The picture he paints of the Midwest is reminiscent of a Thomas Kincaid painting, "That's my Midwest, not the wheat, or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow" (Fitzgerald 176). Carraway describes the returning trains, possibly symbolic of returning to nature from the corruption of society. Consider the way he describes the East:

I see it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lusterless moon. In the foreground four solemn men in dress suits are walking along the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lays a drunken woman in a white evening dress. Her hand, which dangles over the side, sparkles cold with jewels. Gravely the men turn in at a house – the wrong house. But no one knows the woman's name, and no cares. (176)

Though Fitzgerald claims the natural aspects of the Midwest are not what make his home special to him, he does use the images of nature to create a picture of an idyllic society, however, describing the wheat fields and prairies, as well as holly wreaths hung on lighted windows. The lighted windows, a feature of the mid-western houses at Christmas time, are strongly contrasted with the "grotesque and conventional" homes he describes in the East.

Smaller communal settings can be used to describe the certain aspects of utopias and dystopias. The commentary is not directly solely at the functions of society, but also at the needs of individuals, such as the need to experience strong emotions, or safety in a dangerous world, and the desire to return to the innocence and bliss of a garden-like community still connected with the patterns of the Earth.

© 2008 Bryan Lower

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