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Loopholes from Dystopia

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Loopholes from Dystopia Loopholes from Dystopia: Concepts of Anarchy and Social Exclusion in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood (with cross-references to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World) D i p l o m a r b e i t zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Magisters der Philosophie an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz vorgelegt von Patrick SPREITZ am Institut für Anglistik Begutachter: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr.phil. Martin Löschnigg Graz, 2011 Table of Contents 1 Introduction......................................................................................................................................3 2 From Ideology to Fiction – Anarchism, Dystopia and the Artist...................................................6 2.1 The Brave New Flood...........................................................................................................................6 2.1.1 The Year of the Flood and Oryx and Crake – A Summary................................................................................6 Oryx and Crake......................................................................................................................................................6 The Year of the Flood.............................................................................................................................................7 2.1.2 Brave New World – A Summary........................................................................................................................7 2.2 Utopia vs. Dystopia or Artist's Imagination-lands?...........................................................................9 2.3 While you were sleeping – Doers and Dreamers..............................................................................13 2.4 Good Anarchists, Bad Anarchists?....................................................................................................17 2.4.1 From Words to Ideas – The Core Values..........................................................................................................17 2.4.2 Together and not Against – Anarchic Communities........................................................................................24 3 Until We Are Dead..........................................................................................................................27 3.1 Big Brother and his Sisters................................................................................................................28 3.2 The Forbidden Fruit...........................................................................................................................42 3.3 I and I..................................................................................................................................................64 4 Judgement Day ..............................................................................................................................70 5 Conclusion......................................................................................................................................77 Bibliography .....................................................................................................................................79 1 Introduction “Perfect storms” occur when a number of different forces coincide. So is it with the storms of human history. (Atwood, Moving Targets 2004: 330) Men and women have always sought to describe the circumstances which led to the “perfect storms” of their individual history, and the history of civilization in general. A variety of medial devices were developed to do so, be it fictional or documentary. In literature especially, fiction allows us to deal with the inadmissibilities, but also the positive achievements of humanity, without referring to a real event or person in particular. In Utopian fiction it is the perfect society its creators desire. Everyone dreams of a life without suffering – of a life in freedom and peace. Those writers who share a more optimistic vision developed a genre which, since its beginnings, has served as a basis for those who do not entirely share such positive future diagnoses for our beloved mother Earth and its offspring. Utopia becomes Dystopia. Optimism yields to a rather realistic approach towards the path our civilization was, and is, going to take. Add a little imagination and combine it with dark forces, which always seem to accompany human achievements, and you might have found the description of our future society – or at least have slightly exaggerated the current situation. The aim of this Diploma Thesis is to analyse the representation of Dystopia in Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood and Oryx and Crake. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is going to serve as a reference work, which allows for a discussion of the topic in a broader historical context. The main focus will be on social exclusion and anarchy. As a potential substitute for existing social structures and as a consequence of increasing social and political discontent, anarchy and its supporters long for a society without any authority. The struggle of an entire community is often expressed by the attempt at change of a single individual. And it is the individual characters in the books who contribute to such changes and which are going to be analysed in this paper. Characters such as John the Savage and Crake realize what many others in these societies can only dream of - their actions have a crucial effect on society, its inhabitants, and on themselves as well. In the case of 3 John, this influence is kept a secret to the majority; Crake's action, in contrast, inevitably affects every person of Atwood's fictional world. The first part of the thesis will deal with the ideological background and basic terms which are essential for further discussion. This section will describe the development of Utopian and Dystopian fiction as a genre and proceed to construct a framework of how social exclusion and social and political dissatisfaction are expressed by members of a society. In this context, the beliefs and background of the authors are also important. The quest for alternative social and political structures is not straight forward but ambiguous. Thus no explicit definitions exist. Every person has a different approach to the basic ideologies of such developments. In the last few decades scientists and philosophers such as Kropotkin, Chomsky and Gordon have intensively explored the possibilities of and urges for such a reconstruction of society. Their works are going to be the groundwork for the frame in which social exclusion and anarchic movements can be set. The subsequent section deals more closely with the primary works by Atwood and Huxley. It examines social structures and hierarchy, from the state - as a complex mechanism of, at least in a fictional context, arbitrary oppression – right down to the individual. It is not only characters such as Snowman/Jimmy, Oryx and Crake/Glenn, but also Marx, Helmholtz and John, whose interaction with governmental institutions significantly stresses social dilemmas and the need for, from their point of view, change. Both Atwood and Huxley use powerful imagery to describe the impulses for a revolt against existing structures. The consequences they describe are even more significant – in one way or another, as Atwood and Huxley draw their conclusions from completely different (historical but also social) approaches. To what extent can the societies represented in Huxley and Atwood be considered as being authoritarian and totalitarian? What are the main characteristics of such a society? Where and in which form does critique of the establishment come from? Which characters and concepts deliver critique? Anarchism, as a philosophical and socio-cultural movement, refuses any ruling establishment. Do the alternative ways of living represented by Huxley and Atwood reflect anarchistic tendencies? Which, if any, characters are anarchists? What conclusions can be drawn from the representation of the rebelling individuals and does Dystopia accept individuality at all? 4 The questions above will serve as a guideline for the analysis and have to be understood as an interacting body, which, as a whole, comprises the two final sections. By applying the fictional worlds created by Atwood and Huxley to scientific and philosophical ideologies and the individual’s attempt at change, including contemporary and actual movements in modern society, the complexity and importance of this will become more evident 5 2 From Ideology to Fiction – Anarchism, Dystopia and the Artist 2.1 The Brave New Flood 2.1.1 The Year of the Flood and Oryx and Crake – A Summary Oryx and Crake In Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood Margaret Atwood created a world which is severely destroyed by humans. Not only are most of the natural resources, which are needed for the maintenance of living standards, exhausted, but the balance and order of nature itself have also been irreversibly interfered with. Genetic codes of animals and plants, and humans, are manipulated in order to create new species of each. Efficiency and beauty is the main motivation – aspects which not only guide Atwood's society, but in the end also lead to its decline. In Oryx and Crake, published in 2003, the story of Jimmy is told. After the downfall of society, which was caused by a virus exposed to the world on purpose, he is one of the last survivors of humankind. In this new world, which seems to be entirely hostile at first, Jimmy has adopted the name
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