Looking Backward

“It was no doubt the common opinion of thoughtful men that society was approaching a critical period which might result in real changes. The labor troubles, their causes, course, and cure, took lead of all other topics in the public prints, and in serious conversation.”

Bellamy establishes the premise that the labor troubles of the late 19th century were so severe, and escalating so quickly, that something “real” was going to happen soon. This both foreshadows Bellamy’s fictional national party and invites his reader to agree with him about the importance of this issue. It sets the 19th century against the coming 20th century.

“Although you are a century older than when you lay down to sleep in that underground chamber, your appearance is unchanged. That should not amaze you. It is by virtue of the total arrest of the vital functions that you have survived this great period of time. If your body could have undergone any change during your trance, it would long ago have suffered dissolution.”

While there is plenty imagination in the design of Bellamy’s utopia, much of the technology described in the year 2000—with the exception of the pneumatic tubes—would have seemed reasonable to 19th-century readers. The biggest element of science fiction in the novel, however, is the notion that mesmerism could preserve a human being perfectly for 113 years without sustenance.

“No doubt, as you imply, the cities of that period were rather shabby affairs. If you had the taste to make them splendid, which I would not be so rude as to question, the general poverty resulting from your extraordinary industrial system would not have given you the means. Moreover, the excessive individualism which then prevailed was inconsistent with much public spirit. What little wealth you had seems almost wholly to have been lavished in private luxury.”

Dr. Leete emphasizes the grandeur of the public spaces of Boston in the year 2000, which is later contrasted with the ugliness of 1887 Boston in West’s nightmare. However, Bellamy through Dr. Leete makes it clear that 1887 Boston’s ugliness has nothing to do with the taste of the people who lived then but with the lack of public funding due to capitalism. The future will have much public funding poured into public spaces.