Essay on Visions of Utopia in Bellamy's Looking Backward

In his book Utopia, Thomas More examines a society that seems to be the ideal living situation for human beings. The main thesis of Utopia is his solution to many of the problems that are being faced in English society in the early 16th century.

H. G. Wells’ book, A Modern Utopia was published in 1905. This book seems to be unique for two reasons. As Wells tells us, it is told from the point of view of "a whitish plump man" that he calls the "Voice" (1). This allows the book to be what Wells calls, "a sort of shot-silk texture between philosophical discussion on the one hand and imaginative narrative on the other" because the Utopia that we visit in the story is the one inside the mind of the "Voice" or the narrator (ix). He (the Voice) is talking to a friend, a botanist that continues with him on his journeys, about utopian thought when suddenly these two men have been transported past Sirius to Utopia, the Voice’s ideal planet

The sloth of governments abroad have led Utopians to pursue lives of group work rather than personal property. In Book I, Hythloday confronts the wealthy as "rapacious, wicked, and useless, while the poor are unassuming, modest

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.

The next day as I walk through the school doors, I see Hunter glaring at me. Remembering what my mom said, I continue walking to class. I go to my first two periods and I read the book Utopia by Thomas Moore through both my classes. When the lunch bell rings, I jump up from my seat and head to the cafeteria where I sit down at my usual table alone. I start eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich as Hunter and a bunch of his friends enter the cafeteria. I freeze in fear and I start to become enraged. My hands start to shake and my face turns bright red with anger. Without thinking about it, I stand up towering over Hunter. Hunter’s friends begin to laugh at my idiotic decision. I become even more enraged as I hold my hands up in front

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.

It is astounding how two pieces of literature can be similar but different at the same time, just by how the authors choose to use different literary devices. Two novels, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Road by Cormac McCarthy, portray these differentiated attributes because of the way the two authors vary in these literary techniques. Brave New World portrays a futuristic society in which people are artificially made and their jobs are pre-selected before they are created. All of the emotions and desires of man have been inhibited in these beings to create a so-called “utopian society” in which everyone lives and works harmoniously. The

In Looking Backward, Bellamy outlined one proposal for protecting the freedom and welfare of all citizens through equal access to education, job opportunities, and wealth. Furthermore, he expanded the term citizen to include women and imagined a system in which men and women contribute equally to industry and home 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

Thomas More’s Utopia is a work of ambiguous dualities that forces the reader to question More’s real view on the concept of a utopian society. However, evidence throughout the novel suggests that More did intend Utopia to be the “best state of the commonwealth.” The detailed description of Utopia acts as Mores mode of expressing his humanistic views, commenting on the fundamentals of human nature and the importance of reason and natural law while gracefully combining the two seemingly conflicting ideals of communism and liberalism.

People have always wondered what the future will be like. Certainly Edward Bellamy did when he wrote the novel, Looking Backward (1888). Bellamy uses a man named Mr. West as the main character in this novel. He opens by telling who he is and what his social standing is. West is a young man, around the age of 30, and is fairly wealthy. At the beginning, he tells us about his fiancé, Edith, and the house he is having trouble building for her. The trouble comes from the fact that the workers keep going on strike due to financial reasons, which prolongs the completion of the house. The biggest hint to the end of the novel comes from when he tells the reader that he suffers from insomnia. West must be put

In Bellamy`s Looking Backward, Julian West falls into a hypnosis induced sleep for one-hundred and thirteen years. He wakes up in the twentieth century in the same place but a completely different century. In this essay I will analyze some of the literary genre discourses Bellamy uses in chapters nineteen through twenty-four. Bellamy discusses how crime was considered an illness and that the people that committed a crime needed medical attention.

utopian society. Fahrenheit 451 had an interesting take on what would work to make them a utopian society. Their main objective, while trying to accomplish utopia, was eliminating books so that no one had any real educational values, and so that everyone was on the same educational level. The goal for doing this was to try and make everyone happy. In which on their path of trying to accomplish this, they had lost many values they once held close to them. In Station Eleven, the world had undergone a flu epidemic, which killed millions of people and caused them to lose everything. Their utopia was based off of trying to keep the past alive and finding ways to make people happy. The contributions to this were finding ways to preserve items that meant something to them in the past. The symphony who tried to bring happiness by traveling the world playing music and performing plays was also an attempt at utopia. Then Divergent’s utopia was based off of dividing their community into different “factions”, based off of how they scored on a test.

such horribly bad form to go on and on like this with one man" (40).  In

   Although Edward Bellamy's twentieth century society in Looking Backward appears to be the perfect utopia, it could never exist. The very factors that Bellamy claimed contributed to the society's establishment and success are, in reality, what would lead to its failure. The twentieth century society lacked the possibility for advancements in technology while at the same time lacking competition and appropriate incentives. Even if we ignore these faults, we observe that when Bellamy created his society for Looking Backward, he made several false assumptions about human behavior and failed to realize that the only way his society could be imposed would be involuntarily.