Essay on Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward

“I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.” This is a quote by Ray Bradbury, an author who wrote many books and stories about the future of society. He often sets his books in a dystopian society. Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, and his short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” both display this dystopian theme in which he thinks will be modern day society. Oddly enough, these stories are set around today’s time which is around the years 2020 to 2050. Bradbury uses imagery, conflict and setting in both Fahrenheit 451 and “There Will Come Soft Rains” to imagine the future where the stories take place, that relate to contemporary life. However, Fahrenheit 451 relates more to contemporary life than “There Will Come Soft Rains”.

The absolute understanding of the “American dream” is lost by the characters in The Great Gatsby, and by this Fitzgerald illustrates that there is no need for a dream like this. It is a dream with the same name, but with a stark contrast. True happiness is not guaranteed by having a

Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall Evelyn Waugh was born in 1903. He is not considered to be a distinguished novelist but his writing is notable because they satirise much that was bizarre in English society. His father was a publisher and his first novel, Decline and fall, was published in 1928. It is a satire on the preparatory school industry. It is in the style and humour of Charles Dickens.

For decades, Looking Backward has been an influential novel since it focuses on the idea of social reform. The novel’s publication was in 1888 during an era when most Americans were afraid of violence associated with the working class. Another relevant aspect that disgusted a majority of individuals in public was the idea that conspicuous consumption is only for the privileged minorities in the American society. Intense demonstrations commenced following the emergence of labor unions, as well as large trusts that became a central factor in the nation’s economy. Arguably, the author managed to make the novel extraordinarily popular among the middle-class by painting a portrait of Americans who behold the possibilities of a desirable future.

In the latter chapters, Julian gains a love interest. He falls in love with Edith Leete, the daughter, who turns out to be Edith Bartlet's great-granddaughter. Edith Bartlet was his former fiancèe.

Have you ever wondered what a perfect world would be like? To you it could mean no more war, no more poverty, every person of every race and gender being treated exactly the same. However, to someone else their idea of a perfect world could be the complete opposite of what you would want. In Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury the idea of a perfect world is not just an idea anymore, it becomes reality. Nevertheless, both books “perfect world” are completely different from one another. The theme of both books is to try and find that perfect world, and maintain it. While there are many may differences between the two, the underlying truth still remains the same.

The American Dream was a prodigious and fascinating objective, in which everyone wished to accomplish in the 1920’s. Money, social status and happiness was the ideal image. Everyone desired and craved to achieve this dream in hope to have the opportunity to acquire success and the image of a perfect life. But this dream was corrupt. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby shows us that the so called “American Dream” is in fact just an illusion everyone had but could not obtain, because everyone alway seemed to be missing something to their picture perfect life.

The book Looking Backward was written by Edward Bellamy and published in the year 1888. Bellamy started off his career as a journalist but then married and decided to devote his efforts to writing fiction novels. Looking Backward was published and Bellamy was famous. The book stirred around the country and had people imagining a world like the one Bellamy created in his book. The idea of a utopia as the one he describes is unbelievable. His book is what people, of even now in the twenty first century, wish the world could possible be like. However, Bellamy's world of reasoning and judging of people based on the inner beliefs was not what people of then or now do. Bellamy's book showed a world of rationality being

The novel Looking Backward, written by Edward Bellamy, is about a young man, Julian West, who gets put into a hypnotic sleep in the late nineteenth century but awakens in the twenty-first century. In 2000, the year that West woke up in, the society had significantly changed from 1857 and Bellamy addresses the changes throughout the novel. Bellamy essentially created a utopian society extremely different from the society that he was in. Woman had equal rights as men. Social class did not exist. Everybody, does not matter on your occupation, received the same payment that was on credit. Fighting was not seen or heard off. William G. Sumner, an American academic, and Andrew Carnegie, an American industrialist, would both have extremely negative views about a book whose society supports equal pay and does not have a social class. William G. Sumner and Andrew Carnegie would have both opposed Looking Backward because of its unfair economic and social system.

Since the beginning, America has been a symbol of freedom, a symbol of liberty, a symbol of hope. The American dream is that no matter one’s background, he/she can work his/her way up to become wealthy and successful. However, in The Great Gatsby, Gatsby himself is failed by the American dream because of money. No matter what he does, he is unable to have Daisy because he cannot get away from the fact that he did not come from old money. This goes to show that wealth has the ability to corrupt the American dream. On top of that, when people constantly strive for wealth and rest so much of their worth in how much money they have, no one is ever satisfied, as is seen through people in West Egg. Overall, the negative effects of wealth to the American dream and to any society are clearly seen in The Great

G. Wells was writing The Time Machine, England was in the fin de siècle. This time was described as ‘an epoch of endings and beginnings’ (Ledger and Luckhurst pg xiii). The Victorian era ended and the Modern era began creating ‘a time fraught with anxiety and with an exhilarating sense of possibility’ (Ledger and Luckhurst pg xiii). The fin de siècle sparked debate regarding civilization’s future questioning if humanity would advance or ultimately decline. Cultural degeneration grew to become a fear in the people of Victorian England. It is evident that Wells used this fear in his description of the Eloi, the degenerative upper class. This species of human was a product of years of luxury; beautiful yet useless. The Time Traveller told his guests, ‘Man had been content to live in ease and delight upon the labours of his fellow man, had taken Necessity as his watchword and excuse, and in the fullness of time Necessity had come home to him’ (Wells 62). Here, Wells is presenting the fact that this futurological world was exactly what society received. Being one of the first practitioners of the science fiction genre, Wells wrote a novella that was a political commentary on a dystopia. With the statement ‘Even now, does not an East-end worker live in such artificial conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural surface of the earth’ (Wells 48) he connected the present to a pessimistic view of the future. The purpose of this novella is not to give the reader a

In the stories,”The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury and “Long Way Home” by Charles Waugh, predict what the future will be like. Many authors of science fiction create stories that represent their opinion on how the future will turn out. Some authors may make the future seem miserable to live in and some make the future a desireable place to live in. “The Pedestrian” presents a society where people are not allowed to make decisions for themselves and technology takes over their lives while ,”Long Way Home” presents a story of a father and son with a relationship that represents a quote, “Home is where the heart is.” It is evident that the future will most likely be like the story,”The Pedestrian.”

Any American is taught a dream that is purged of all truth. The American Dream is shown to the world as a belief that anyone can do anything; when in reality, life is filled with impossible boundaries. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald gives us a glimpse into the life of the upper class during the roaring twenties through the eyes of a moralistic young man named Nick Carraway. It is through the narrator's dealings with the upper class that the reader is shown how modern values have transformed the American Dream's pure ideals into a scheme for materialistic power, and how the world of the upper class lacks any sense of morals or consequence. In order to support Fitzgerald's message

In 1895 H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine was published and dealt with the issues that were prevalent during 1890s Britain, such as social inequality, which similarly affects society today. In this short story, Wells

great prosperity in Great Britain's literature. The Victorian Age produced a variety of changes. Political and social reform produced a variety of reading among all classes. The lower-class became more self-conscious, the middle class more powerful and the rich became more vulnerable. The novels of Charles Dickens, the poems of Alfred,