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individual: “[t]otalitarian domination […] aims at abolishing freedom, even at eliminating human spontaneity in general” (405; cf. also Voigts, “Totalitarian” 54). In order to condemn totalitarian societies, the great majority of dystopian novels advertises libertarian socialist ideas,4 that is to say, ideals informed by a militant anti-totalitarianism, in the form of humanistic maxims such as individuality, creativity, and freedom as expressed by both negative and positive freedom rights (cf. Jacoby, Imperfect xiii).5 As Terry Eagleton argues, alternative universes “have been largely the product of the left” (“Utopias”) and Ken Macleod even states that “the political philosophy of sf [and dystopia] is essentially liberal” (231). Darko Suvin, one of the most renowned science fiction scholars of all time, calls these works of fiction “Jeffersonian” (“Bust”), meaning that they demand the right to life, liberty, and happiness. Indeed, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Zamyatin’s We clearly champion a libertarian perspective in the face of totalitarianism and state control and demand the introduction of a more liberal ideology based on humanist notions. External criticism here equals the substitution of totalitarianism (object of critique) by democracy (externally imposed standard).

      Dystopia’s means of libertarian criticism are of a narrative nature; showcasing the most despicable features of totalitarianism, these novels and their critique are often wrapped up in a didactic set-up that leaves little if any room for ambiguity. Classical dystopian texts resort to a handful of genre characteristics that have proven to work well in a didactic context: the character structure of both main character and antagonist, the distribution of sympathy, a plot structure based on hegemony and resistance, and the location of hope (usually) outside of the text.

      Usually, dystopian fiction employs an easily recognisable template in terms of character constellations. These novels usually include two (usually male) characters embodying the contradictory systems, thus using protagonist and antagonist as mouthpieces for certain abstract ideas and principles, personifying concepts and mental attitudes and not realistic people (cf. Zeißler 32).6 Orwell’s O’Brien, Huxley’s Mustapha Mond, and Zamyatin’s Benefactor are ciphers for totalitarianism employed to make the abstract system tangible. In We, the Benefactor rules the One State with the tyranny of the community over autonomy and individual choice. In Brave New World, Mustapha Mond explains to the reader a world grounded in “eugenic engineering, behavioral manipulation, and the subordination of all humanity to the machine and the firm belief in science” (K. Schmidt 238); and Nineteen Eighty-Four is unmistakeably marked as a commentary on the reality of the year 1948, through the exchange of the last two digits (cf. Firchow 115), exemplifying what happens if the state’s ideology infiltrates every aspect of private life: constant surveillance through telescreens, arranged marriages for the sole purpose of producing party members and the annihilation of memories, emotions and frankly, common sense, as best exemplified by O’Brien’s absurd claim that two and two make five (cf. Nineteen Eighty-Four 286f.).

      Just as the antagonists are placeholders for certain totalitarian ideologies and beliefs, so are the protagonists. Winston Smith, whose name, a combination of a common British last name (Smith) and the first name of Britain’s war hero Winston Churchill, marks him a modern everyman (cf. Voigts, “Totalitarian” 48), pleads for universal human rights:

      The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. […] And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to O’Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote:

      Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. (Nineteen Eighty-Four 92f., my emphasis)

      In this section, Winston clearly functions as an alternative to the system, personifying a decidedly liberal, Jeffersonian approach to human life coupled with reason and science. He is stylised as the Party’s antonym, not only by his use of pronouns (“I” versus “them”), which clearly mark him as a rebellious outsider, but also on a metaphysical level. Exclaiming “they were wrong and he was right,” Winston opposes the ruling elite, viewing himself as a supporter of truth that had “to be defended.” His form of life is equated to the unchangeable laws of physics, “stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre,” and therefore defined as infinitely more natural and thus more just than the Party and its proposed way of life. In this excerpt, Winston clearly works within the methods of external criticism. He first identifies the object of his critique, the Party, constructs an alternative to their way of life, and then invests all his energy into making his vision of human life a reality. Consequently, the larger part of the novel is dedicated to the depiction of Winston’s revolution, as he grows ever more suspicious of the Party until he eventually joins a resistance movement, ready to destroy the Party with the help of guerrilla tactics.

      Similarly, Huxley’s Savage functions as mouthpiece for a more libertarian perspective (cf. Troschitz 47). It is he who demands in a speech (not unlike the liberal, humanist appeal of Shylock in William Shakespeare’s drama The Merchant of Venice, 1605) the right to live a life undaunted by ideological deliberations and scientific modifications:

      ‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.’

      ‘In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.’

      ‘All right, then,’ said the Savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.’

      (Brave New World 211f.)

      Demanding “the right to be unhappy,” the Savage, too, functions as mouthpiece for an alternative way of life that stands diametrically opposed to what the leaders of the totalitarian One State have to offer (cf. Tripp 40f.). The readers are presented with a clear dichotomy between the two approaches: God, i.e. spirituality, poetry, i.e. literature and arts, as well as freedom, goodness, and sin, i.e. emotions and consciousness – a cornucopia of positively connotated terms, which could be complemented by further associations such as beauty, passion, or friendship – are channelled into a libertarian form of life that stands opposed to an ideology that has robbed humans of their emotions, and thus of the quality that makes them human in the first place. The inner workings of this scene are similar to those in the paragraph quoted above from Nineteen Eighty-Four. Again, the dystopian dissident describes the totalitarian system in all its gory detail (cf. Brave New World 211), before sketching an alternative way of life ultimately declared to be superior.

      Given the two options, an educated reader should of course identify with the Savage and his ideas about moral integrity, humanism, and the good life. Mustapha Mond and his apparent rejection of seemingly all that is good offers no platform for sympathy – a narrative trick with which classical dystopian fiction ensures the propagation of its libertarian message. While dystopia usually asks “readers [to] judge the projected society by the standards of their own” (Ferns 109), those immersed in the text are seldom left on their own to decipher the ‘message’ or ‘lesson’ of the text. Dystopian fiction places enormous emphasis on the distribution of sympathy, guaranteeing that readers arrive at the desired conclusion. Condemnable practices are introduced by the state and its personifications (cf. Zeißler 76; also Hug 39); the antagonists are usually defined by their inhuman, almost fanatic belief in the totalitarian system and their ruthless endeavour to stabilise it (including murder, brain surgery, torture, war atrocities, etc.). As Ferns maintains, “the horrors of dystopia guarantee a sympathetic reaction on the reader’s part” (118). O’Brien, for instance, tortures Winston by tapping into his childhood trauma (rats), crushing him mentally and physically. Contrarily, acceptable behaviour is usually attributed to the protagonist, to whom readers are drawn. Sympathetic protagonists are defined by their intelligence, both intellectually and emotionally. D-503’s position, for instance, is unique within the totalitarian system due to his love interest with I-330 and her positive influence on him.

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