Looking backward Study Essay Questions Flashcards
What role does plot play in Looking Backward?
he plot of Looking Backward is minimal and simple, because Bellamy’s main purpose is to “educate” his nineteenth-century audience about what he perceived to be the evils of their social and economic systems. The plot is thus a thinly-disguised vehicle for Bellamy’s ideas about social and economic reform. The love story is only a means to hold the reader’s interest, so that Bellamy can lay out the blueprint of his idea of the perfect society.
How does Bellamy use Julian West and Doctor Leete to win his readers over to his point of view?
As a representative of the nineteenth century transported to the twentieth century, Julian is capable of criticizing nineteenth-century society. He clearly speaks as an enthusiastic supporter of the social and economic structure in Bellamy’s imagined twentieth-century utopia. Bellamy well knows that his reading audience is likely to be hostile and incredulous regarding many of his ideas for social reform, so he persuades his readers to consider his radical vision of the perfect society by using a narrator with whom they can identify. Julian is a well-educated aristocrat, like much of the nineteenth-century reading public. He thus functions as a guide to Bellamy’s strange, late-twentieth-century society. The long discussions between Julian and Doctor Leete are a symbolic representation of the dialogue between Bellamy and his audience. Julian, as a product of the nineteenth-century society, represents Bellamy’s readers. Doctor Leete, as the mouthpiece for Bellamy’s ideas, represents Bellamy himself. Through Julian, Bellamy anticipates the questions and concerns of his audience about his proposals for social reform. He rationally and systematically responds to these questions and concerns through Doctor Leete.
Bellamy harshly criticizes the social conditions of the nineteenth century. This criticism is an implied criticism of his readers and their beliefs. How does he soften the blow of this critical attitude toward his audience and their beliefs?
Julian characterizes the conditions of the nineteenth century as a moral outrage. Bellamy softens his harsh critique of his audience’s most cherished beliefs by asserting that ignorance largely accounts for the existence of this outrage. Moreover, Julian asserts that the utopia he describes is the logical outcome of the nineteenth century’s rapid industrialization. Contrary to his contemporaries’ beliefs, the nineteenth century is not the apex of human civilization, but only one stop along the way. By placing his strange, unfamiliar, somewhat threatening vision of the future with the context of rational and logical progress, Bellamy attempts to persuade his incredulous and reluctant readers to give serious thought to his proposals for social reform.
Discuss and critique the role of women in Bellamy’s imagined utopia.
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How does Bellamy build a case for his assertion that an economy based on private capital would be more efficient than one based on private capital?
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cuss and critique the political system in Bellamy’s imagined utopia.
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Julian West
Julian West - Julian West, the narrator of Looking Backward, was born into an aristocratic nineteenth-century family. A sufferer of insomnia, he built a sleeping chamber under his house to shield himself from the street noises in Boston. One night, Julian falls asleep with the aid of Doctor Pillsbury a skilled mesmerist. His house burns down during the night, but Julian is protected by his underground chamber. Julian is assumed dead, but, a hundred years later, Doctor Leete discovers the chamber while preparing the site for the construction of a laboratory. Julian has not aged a day, because his body was in a state of suspended animation. Julian awakes to an entirely different world–a world without war and poverty. Through Doctor Leete, Julian learns how these problems have been solved by basing the economy on public rather than private capital. Compared to the nineteenth century, the new world is an astonishing utopia. Every citizen is accorded a high standard of living, and the new economy is vastly more efficient than the old one.
Dr. Leete
Doctor Leete - Doctor Leete is a representative of the twentieth century. When preparing a site for the construction of a laboratory, he discovers an underground sleeping chamber from the nineteenth century. Inside the chamber, he finds Julian West in a state of suspended animation. Doctor Leete helps Julian to understand the vast changes that have overcome the nation in the last century.
Edith Leete
Edith Leete - Edith Leete is the intelligent, attractive daughter of Doctor Leete and his wife. She offers Julian a great deal of emotional support during the bewildering and difficult process of adjusting to twentieth-century society. Over time, she and Julian fall in love and become engaged, at which point Edith reveals that she is the great-granddaughter of Edith Bartlett Julian’s fiancée from the nineteenth century.
Mrs. Leete
Mrs. Leete - Mrs. Leete is Doctor Leete kind, compassionate wife. She is the granddaughter of Edith Bartlett Julian’s nineteenth-century fiancée.
Edith Bartlett
Edith Bartlett - Edith Bartlett was Julian’s nineteenth-century aristocratic fiancée. Like Julian, she considered the wide gap between the rich and poor in her day a natural, irremediable condition of human society.
Sawyer
Sawyer - Sawyer was Julian’s African-American servant in the nineteenth century.
Dr. Pillsbury
Doctor Pillsbury - Because he suffered from insomnia, Julian enlisted the help of Doctor Pillsbury a skilled mesmerist. Doctor Pillsbury never failed to put Julian into a deep sleep. Pillsbury trained Sawyer, Julian’s servant, to bring Julian out of a mesmerized sleep.
Mr. Barton
Mr. Barton - Mr. Barton is a twentieth-century preacher. After Julian is discovered in his underground sleeping chamber, Mr. Barton is inspired to deliver a sermon about the vast improvements of twentieth-century society over that of the nineteenth century. After hearing the sermon, Julian becomes depressed, because he realizes that he contributed to the barbaric and inhumane nature of nineteenth-century society.
