Looking Forward Analysis Flashcards
Looking Backward belongs to the centuries-old tradition of utopian fiction, fiction that attempts to portray a perfect human society. The plot is simple and minimal, merely a vehicle for Bellamy’s ideas for social reform. Bellamy knew that his nineteenth-century audience was extremely hostile to the idea of
an economy based on public capital, a premier tenet of socialism, a reviled political movement in the nineteenth century.
. Therefore, Bellamy had a difficult task in persuading his readers to consider his proposal for an ideal society. He distances himself from the more radical political theories of the socialists and the anarchists. In his ideal society, the separation between the genders remains
intact, and marriage remains an important institution.
The government remains a respected, powerful means to maintain social order. Personal freedom is not threatened, but enhanced. An individual worker’s merit is recognized and valued through a
complex ranking system based on the army.
Consumer choice is enhanced because every consumer demand is met, and every citizen has easy access to the full range of the nation’s products. Citizens are encouraged to choose the careers that
best suit them.
Bellamy’s audience identifies with what character
Julian because he is like them
Through Julian, Bellamy anticipates the questions and reservations of his audience. Through Doctor Leete, he rationally and systematically responds to these concerns. Doctor Leete, the kindly retired father, functions as an appealing mouthpiece for Bellamy’s ideas on social reform. The relationship between Leete and Julian mirrors the relationship between
Bellamy and his readers. He hopes that Julian’s difficult and confusing conversion to Leete’s philosophy will be mirrored in his readers.
. However, the wealth produced was concentrated firmly in the hands of the privileged few. Bellamy attempts to persuade his readers to his point of view by arguing that an economy based on publicly-owned capital would enhance the characteristics that nineteenth-century society admired most about their industrial system. He argues that his ideal society would be
vastly more efficient; labor would never be idle, and supply would far more closely match demand. He argues that the frequent gluts, shortages, strikes, and business failures under an economic system run on competition are immense wastes that would be eliminated under a system based on communal cooperation
Although many members of nineteenth-century society were sensitive to the wide gap between the rich and the poor, many felt that there was no way to remove it. Others were insensitive, because they felt that the poor were inferior to the rich. Bellamy characterizes the rigid class stratification of the nineteenth century as a
a moral outrage, but he is aware of the danger that his readers will be alienated and insulted by the implied criticism directed at them
Therefore, he softens the blow by attributing this moral outrage to ignorance. Hence, Bellamy interweaves the appeals of rational logic and moral imperatives to draw his readers to
his point of view. Although his ideal society still has yet to come into existence–and though the brutal, failed career of twentieth-century socialism may make it seem naive or obsolete– Bellamy’s novel was, in its own way, a success.
