The Life Histories of Eutopia in Animal Farm and A Utopian Dream
By definition, all utopias are products of imagination and cannot be located on the spatial or temporal dimensions of human history. As products of human imagination, however, utopias are inevitably closely related to human history. According to Darko Suvin, eutopia represents an alternative history and can be defined as a
verbal construction [ of society] whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence of a particular quasi-human community where socio-political institutions, norms and individual relationships are organized on a more perfect principle than in the authors community, this construction being based on estrangement arising out of an alternative historical hypothesis. (Suvin Defining the Literary Genre, " 132; " The River-side Trees, " 110 The Alternate Islands. " 242
Suvin's definition immediately connects the eutopian imaginary world with the real world. Although eutopia is imaginary and therefore ahistorical, it is yet " historical " in the sense that it unfolds an alternative history that could be made possible by implementing a eutopian plan. It follows that a eutopia stands for what its utopist optimistically imagines human history should have worked out under a eutopian plan.
If an eutopia describes an imaginary and better alternative history of mankind, a dystopia depicts the other side of this better alternative history. That is to say, a dystopia provides a pessimistic but perhaps more realistic version of a eutopian alternative history. In the dystopist’s depiction, this alternative history is not necessarily feasible; and even if eutopia is realizable at first, the final product may not necessarily be desirable. In other words, the dystopist questions the feasibility and desirability of eutopia by providing an alternative historical hypothesis of eutopia itself. George Orwell and Mo Yingfeng are, in this sense, dystopian "historians.”
Many eutopian stories begin in the middle of the history of a eutopia. That is to say, the authors do not show us how their particular eutopian societies have come into being. The history of the eutopia in such stories is therefore incomplete. Animal Farm (1945) by Orwell and A Utopian
Dream (TaoYuan Meng, literally, The dream of Peach Blossom Spring1987) by Mo, however, give a complete life history of a eu/dystopia. including its rise and fall. It is my aim in this article to compare the two versions of the utopian alternative history in Animal Farm and A Utopian Dream, which incidentally can be seen as ramifications of the dystopian hypotheses of eutopia.
There is no question that Animal Farm contains historical elements. As Orwell himself confessed in the Preface to the Ukrainian edition of the novel, “Various episodes are taken from the actual history of the Russian Revolution " (Orwell, CE L, 3:406). Matthew Hodgart even asserted that the story has a "point-to-point correspondence with the events of Russian history from 1917-1943 (138).
The story of Animal Farm is perhaps too well known to deserve a plot summary here. We may easily sum up the story in Orwell’s own words, that it dramatizes a " history [ of a swindle ], in which the ( animals ) are first lured into revolt by the promise of Utopia, and then when they have done their job, enslaved over again by new masters" (CEJL, 4 : 177). In an nutshell, Animal Farm is a history of a eutopian revolution gone sour, so that everything in the end goes back to its historical origin. Thus, Manor Farm in the beginning becomes Manor Farm again at the end of the story. The only difference is that the human masters are replaced by the pigs. In such a way, Orwell seemed to suggest a cyclical concept of history, that history simply revolves round and round without any real progress despite changes that can be made from time to time.
A Utopian Dream can be read as a dystopian parody of the two sacred Chinese eutopian prototypes, namely, the World of Grand Union and Peach Blossom Spring. The novel contains a complete history of the rise and fall of a eutopian community known as the Community of Benevolence. In the novel, Mo simply put a community embodying the eutopian ideals of the World of Grand Union and residing in an environment similar to that of the Peach Blossom Spring into a thought experiment. I
The novel shows that such a eutopian experiment is neither feasible nor
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historiography. Both the words ji (in shiji zhichu) and (lie) zhuan (in qirenliezhuan) are found in the titles. The connection is further enhanced by the facts that the first part of the novel is actually the history of the foundation of the eutopian community as seen in the biography of the leader of the community and that this founder is also enshrined with the mythological elements that are commonly ascribed to founders of a dynasty. As such, this part highly resembles a benji. Moreover, as the title of the second part indicates, this part contains a series of biographies of some important members of the community and is actually called liezhuan. It is submitted that the narrator intends to adopt the generic form of official Chinese history, with a view to inducing readers to compare the history of the eutopian community with the history of the Peoples Republic of China (to be elaborated).
Both Orwell and Mo described the birth of their utopias as spontaneous and impulsive instead of carefully planned. In Animal Farm although the eutopian blueprint has been vaguely outlined by Old Major and then developed by the three leading pigs into a system of though known as Animalism, the revolution itself springs not from theory but from natural need and impulse ( Lee, 562 ; Myer, 58 ) and " the revolution was successfully carried through " " almost before [ the animals ] knew what was happening " ( Animal Farm, 19 )
Likewise, the eutopian community in A Utopian Dream is not a direct product of ideological formulation but a result of a contingent move of the utopians. They retreat to Heaven beyond Heaven not because they wish to build a eutopia there but because they wish to escape from a gang of bandits who have constantly persecuted them. Although the leader of the community, Dragon (Lung Juzheng, literally a dragon living at the centre of the universe), does all along have a primitive eutopian vision in mind, he has never thought about turning it into reality.
His eutopian vision was inspired by a primer entitled Trimetrical Classic (Sanziji, literally, Three-character book), formerly the first text -book given to children for the purposes of teaching them basic Chinese characters in the traditional Chinese education system. The first two lines of the classic read like this: " In the beginning of human history man was born with a benevolent nature. " Dragons eutopian theory is based on an interpretation of these two lines and its elaboration. When he was eighteen years old, he " made a prophecy that the principle of benevolence would one day prevail in the world. Then, society would return to the beginning of human history when men were all of benevolent nature " (A Utopian Dream, 4). The eutopian world that Dragon prophesies is a reminiscence of the classical Chinese eutopian prototype, namely, the World of Grand Union.
It is interesting to note that, while Old Majors eutopian vision comes from a dream, Dragon's eutopian vision is inspired by a preschool primer. Such origins suggest that they do not deserve to be taken seriously. It seems that Orwell and Mo wanted to make the point that all eutopia are ultimately untested, historical hypotheses of their authors.
While Animal Farm is born after a blood-shedding revolution, the eutopian community at Heaven beyond Heaven also goes through a baptism of fire and blood. The utopians, consisting of four families and twenty-one members, retreat to Heaven beyond Heaven in order to avoid fight and to kill for the purpose of self-defense. After they decide to settle down at Heaven beyond Heaven, the families start to fight among themselves for the best land available for farming. The internal hostilities cease only when Dragon loses his arm in trying to stop one member from attacking another with an axe. The bloody scenes that precede the birth of these two utopias suggest that the eutopian stage must inevitably be achieved by means that are contrary to the ideals that the eutopia them -selves uphold. In A Utopian Dream, the transition is more of a dramatic irony because the eventual eutopian community calls itself the Community of Benevolence and upholds a principle of benevolence that is extended even to the level of animals so that they all become vegetarians in order not to kill any life.
A eutopian revolution may be led by impulse and accomplished by a temporary period of violence, whereas maintaining a eutopia relies upon long-term planning and efficient solutions to practical problems. It is through the maintenance of the utopias that the two societies gradually turn into dystopias
At the inception of Animal Farm, in the allocation of duties, the pigs have already assumed the roles of leader and supervisor, those who manage and direct but do not actually participate in the work. An aristocratic class arises immediately and spontaneously from the originally class less animal society. In order to defend Animal Farm, Snowball has to learn the tricks and vices of his human enemies so as to counteract them. After the expulsion of Snowball, the animals find that they need materials that cannot be produced on the farm, leading Napoleon to order trade relations with their former enemies. In the process of maintaining their eutopia, the pigs betray the ideals of Old Major. at first surrendering their principles to the practical needs of their society and then to their own selfish ends
A similar gradual betrayal of eutopian ideals takes place in the history of the Community of Benevolence. As time passes and the population grows, the principle of benevolence that Dragon preaches is soon proven
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