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Yoriko Moichi Phd in Comparative Literature a Thesis Presented to The Losing Utopia? A Study of British and Japanese Utopian Novels in the Face of Postmodern Consciousness Yoriko Moichi PhD in Comparative Literature A Thesis Presented to the University of Edinburgh 2006 I declare that the thesis is the result of my own work, has been composedby myself, and has not been submittedfor any degreeor professional qualification other than the degreefor which I am now a candidate. A Date. P Signature.. !:ý. 49/1. v .7.. .......... Abstract A reflection upon the historical eventsin the twentieth century provides a crisis about the raison Xgtre of utopian thought as well as utopian literature. Since Plato's Republic, utopianists have aimed to describehow the best stateof a commonwealth actually works in practice. Sincethe era of the Enlightenment the intellectual and spiritual dreamsfor both the best pattern of life and an ideal framework of community have been endorsedthrough the notions of human perfectibility, rationality, universality and progress.Yet, the historical events of the twentieth century marked a scepticismtowards utopia insofar as a society based on the values of unity and totalised systemrather than individual freedom was deemedas lesshumane and, at worst a model of totalitarian regime. This critical view of conventional utopia is strengthenedin postmodernsocial and cultural debates.Postmodemists' "incredulity toward metanarratives"(Lyotard) and their political philosophies about difference and diversity endangerthe "end of utopia7',challenging the teleology of utopian discourseitself which provides a blueprint of a perfectly constructed,ahistorical community. However, contemporarywriters do not ceaseto createboth utopian and dystopian novels. This thesis analysessix novels of British and Japaneseutopian literature and considershow the.writers explore forms and themesin the face of postmodernconsciousness. (In this thesis "utopian literature" embraces"dystopian literature" as its subgenre.) The novels discussedin this thesis are: GeorgeOrwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Anthony Burgess'sA Clockwork Orange (1962), Alasdair Gray's Lanark (198 1), Abe Kobo's Inter ke Age 4 (1959), Inoue Hisashi's Kirikiryin (198 1), and Murakami Haruki's Hard-boiled Wonderlandand the End ofthe World (1985). Undoubtedly, Orwell's text is one of the most important dystopian novels in the twentieth century. Yet the "paradox" of his novel reveals vulnerability in the sensethat the author, although he is critical of totalitarianism and aware of its affinity with traditional utopia's conceptsof totality and universality, ultimately relies on the ideas of totality and transcendentalmeta-language in the pursuit of his intellectual mission. Burgess attemptsto negatethe "optimism" seenin previous major utopian and dystopian narratives.He also particularly questionsthe degreeof universality, wondering where to find the consensusin order to build up a society that satisfies everybody. In Gray's novel dystopia is no longer illustrated as a warning; dystopia is now depicted as reality. Additionally, the novel highlights a "process" towards utopia rather than the final image of ideal place, thereby suggestingthat the achievementof utopia is always deferred. Abe's novel brings the conceptof the everyday into utopian literature. His deconstructednotion of the everyday offers a future far removed from our expectation and imagination. Inoue's novel manifests the possibility of creating a downsized,egalitarian utopia. This small utopian community is envisagedfor those who have been marginalisedin the processof Japan'seconomical development.Murakami's novel explores utopia in the cultural styles of advancedcapitalism. In his fiction, utopia is associatedwith a spiritual fortress located in the mind; yet this doesnot mean the preferencefor a private world but rather implies a new viewpoint about the relationship betweenthe individual and society. The juxtaposition of thesenovels in this comparative study aims to construethe signs which the six novels show in their direction for the future of utopian literature. The world process has not yet been won anywhere, but it has not been thwarted anywhere, and human beings can be on earth the indicators of their decisive way toward salvation that has not yet come or toward damnation that has also not yet come. The world remains in its entirety the same highly labouring laboratory Hercules 'Whoever does possibilis salutis .... says: not hope for the unhoped-for will not find it". -Ernst Bloch This thesis is dedicatedto the memory of my father Masafumi Moichi and ProfessorDietrich F. G. Scheunemann Acknowledgments Completion of this thesis would not have been achievedwithout many people's encouragementand support, directly and indirectly. Firstly, I would like to expressmy sinceregratitude to the Rotary Foundation and the University of Edinburgh for their financial support,without which this thesis would not have possible. I would also like to give particular thanks for accessto their reading and other materials to the National Library of Scotlandin Edinburgh, the British Library, and the Library of SOAS (the School of Oriental and Affican Studies),London. Also, my researchon the reviews and articles on Murakami Haruki owes a lot to the generoussupport of the librarians at the National Library of Scotland. I wish to expressmy sincere thanks to my principal supervisor,the late ProfessorDietrich F.G. Scheunemann,for giving me constantencouragement and - generoussupport throughout the developmentof this dissertation.I am also very grateftd to ProfessorJohn Frow of the University of Edinburgh for allowing me to join his inspiring classes.I also thank the following people for their support and encouragement:Professor Lyman T. Sargent,Professor Keiko lzubuchi, Dr John Lee, and ProfessorKohei Kawashima. Finally, I wish to give thanks to following people for their help in getting this thesis completedand for spiritual support through the time it has taken: my family and my friends-in particular, Ms SerenaField, Dr Jean-Louis Hudry, Dr David Prickett, Dr Marianne Czisnik, and Dr John McWilliams. All errors of fact and interpretation are the responsibility of the author. Abbreviations CEJL The CollectedEssays, Journalism and Letters CWGO Complete Worksof George Orwell HWEW Hard-hoiled Wonderlandand the End ofthe World M4 Inter ke Age 4 1984 NineteenEighty-Four 2004 A Clockwork Orange 2004 Contents INTRODUCTION 6 CHAPTER I THE PARADOX OF GEORGE ORWELLS NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR 15 1. Farwell to Utopia 16 2. Dystopia as a Negative Mirror of Utopia 25 3. The Remaining Sense of Totality 37 CHAPTER II ANTHONY BURGESS'S A CLOCKWORK ORANGE 55 DYSTOPIAS OF UNCERTAINTY 1. Towards a New Dystopia 56 2. Opposing Two Dystopias 65 3. Radicalised Uncertainty in Kubrick's Film 75 CHAPTER III "IT'SAN IMPOSSIBILITY I WANT": A SELF-REFLEXIVE UTOPIA IN ALASDAIR GRAY'S LANARK 85 1. The "Place" of Dystopia 86 2. The Power of Repetition 99 3. The "Death of the Author" and the Power of the Reader's Imagination 106 CHAPTER IV ABE KOBO'S rNTER ICE AGE 4 REFLECTION UPON EVERYDAY LIFE AS A CRITICAL MEASURE AGAINST TOTALISATION 116 1. The Point of View of the "Nomad" Author 117 2. A Deconstructed Concept of the Everyday 127 3. The Future through a Sense of Contingency 135 CHAPTER V EGALITARIAN, AGRARIAN UTOPIA IN INOUE HISHASHI'S KIRIKIRIJIN 146 1. The Carnivalesque, Parody, and the Comic Spirit Revived 147 2. "Small is Beautiful" 158 3. A Small I-fistory vis a vis the Grand Official History 169 CHAPTER VI MURAKAMI HARUKI'S HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD UTOPIA IN THE AGE OF LATE CAPITALISM 180 1. The "Murakan-d Haruki Phenomenon" 180 2. A Personalised Utopia 193 3. Murakan-d's Postniodern Political Consciousness 206 CONCLUSION 217 APPENDIX 224 BIBLIOGRAPHY 227 Introduction In the era of postmodemism,utopian thought, along with utopian novels, is radically called into question. Over centuries,people have dreamt of utopia for the sake of happiness;utopia is the ideal place in which human, social and political problems and predicamentsare solved. Since Plato's Republic, there have beenmany attempts to demonstratehow an ideal, perfect community works; and Thomas More coined the term "utopia", and his Utopia (1516) establishedthe literary genre for all writings that seek an ideal place. Since then, a number of utopian novels have beenproduced until now. Regardlessof its long history and tradition, the raison detre of this literary genre is now at stake.Indeed, postmodernism.challenges the project of constructing utopias. Krishan Kumar in Utopia andAnti-Utopia in Modern Times(1987) speaks of the "twilight" of utopia; and he wonders: "Can there be anything more commonplacethan the pronouncementthat, in the twentieth-century, utopia is dead-and deadbeyond any hope of resurrection?" (380) His statementimplies the decline of utopian literature, meaning that contemporaryutopian writings tend to confine themselvesto a "restricted" aim and "modesf 'ambition. Thus he reachesthe conclusion that today's utopian writers no longer visualise "a whole society ordered according to someprinciple of rightness or goodness"(420). The loss of vitality in contemporaryutopian literature, as discussedby Kumar, is to some extent connected to the current political and philosophical debatesabout the "end of ideology"! Russell Jacoby's The End of Utopia (1999) analysesthe decline of the utopian vision in terms of the historical eventsof the twentieth century, such as the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, which mark the
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