Kaitlin’s post on Looking Backward
Looking Backwards is about wealthy Bostonian Julian West traveling forward in time from the 1800s to 2000 after taking some insomnia medication in an isolation chamber that later protects him from a house fire. In his literal past life he was engaged to a woman named Edith. In the future, he is awakened by Dr. Leete. Edith has a descendant, also named Edith, in 2000. Julian becomes romantically involved with her. There is no money. People begin working at 21 and retire at 45. They are assigned jobs based on their aptitudes. Although women are judged by a different system, they also are freed from domestic work. They are also free to marry whomever they choose. Without the economic burdens of marriage choices, women don’t have to marry for money. It is a society that focuses on the individual far more than the dehumanized industrial 1800s. Over the course of the novel Julian changes his mind about his own society. At the beginning of the novel, he and Edith condemn some strikers. Julian is frequently incredulous that society works without the fear of poverty and hunger to motivate people to work. The completely disabled are not required to work. Julian doesn’t seem to think it is fair that they would be allowed to have the same resources as able bodied people who do work.
I think one of the reasons Victorians liked the novel is that from the beginning, there is a clear sense of history as a story of progress. The first chapter seems to allude to Roman and Greek models of civilization, which was certainly a fascination of the Victorians. There is also the idea that Victorians have the ability to be better as a society. For contemporary readers, the novel must have seemed to place their own society at an important turning point in history. They represent advancements in technology but also horrors of industrialization; they are the descendants of the great models of civilization (Greek and Roman) and are the precursors to the great society of the novel. While Julian, is not from Victorian Britain, there is still the same fascinating contradictions that Ganges has about the Victorians. There is an idea of self importance but also an idea that society can improve with history and development. Dehumanization is not the only outcome.
Looking Backward explores technology in some ways that are similar to the other novels we have read. Medicine is improving. Technology doesn’t take away anyone’s humanity, except perhaps for those working in the industrialized factories. The discussions that Julian and Edith have early on in the novel condemn workers who are striking. This relates to the larger concerns with technology of the time. Does humankind become part of the machinery? How do workers in the industrial system still remain human?
As a side note, I really like the musical telephone that Julian uses to cure his insomnia. It reminds me of the sounds of the rainforest or blue whale noises that people listen to now to help them sleep.
Although it is clear Bellamy doesn’t quite seem to believe that women are equal human beings—they have their own legal judges for female court cases—he does recognize the ways that women’s lives were full of suffering in the 1800s. That was actually rather refreshing (although, like I said, still problematic in some ways).
An excellent analysis! I agree that Bellamy’s treatment of women is ambivalent – he seems to want them to be independent (or at least remove restrictions that make them dependent) but still be distinct and not step all the way outside of their role.
I thought his imagination was much broader when it came to the technologies. What sorts of problems does Bellamy see technology solving?
How is Bellamy using Julian as a foil to discuss these social issues? You hinted at it in his view of strikers and poverty.
What a wonderful summary, Kaitlin. I did not read Looking Backward, but I feel like I gained a really good sense of the book from reading your post. How interesting! I am fascinated by the idea that in book people with disabilities do not have to work. Did such a program exist in Victorian times?
I think this alternate reality/ utopian future is very different than in Victorian times when people injured in factory jobs were left impoverished and to fend for themselves. Reading your summary I see a lot of parallels between the book you read and News from Nowhere. In News from Nowhere, children only have to study what they have a natural love or aptitude for. I think both authors were inspired to create these alternate realities where people could subsist doing what they love because many, many Victorians did not have a choice in the matter.