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¶ … Bellamy's own assumptions or presuppositions about human nature, social institutions, history, and ideal social relationships. Analyze his assumptions in some or all of these areas."
Introduction to the Book
Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (1945/1888) by Edward Bellamy filled the empty space felt by the Americans of that era, desiring the utopian substance of society without the presence of "Associationism." Though the book is not predominantly notable as the writer's invention, it addresses the longings of the people struck by socio-economic frights and breakdown through the proposal of a Paradise-like society wherein warfare, starvation, and hatred were removed from the community. The story embodies the amazement of Julian West, a person who wakes up after sleeping for 113 years in Boston, 2000 A.D. The book revolves around the author's portrayal of a society formed after a revolution that liberated the people from the terrors of capitalism. In this idealized version of the future, individuals and nations had abandoned the separate groupings and wishes of the former frenzied era in order to establish a communitarian utopia characterized by a singular party for the nation.
The Author's Background
Edward Bellamy was brought up in a home that was accustomed to nonconformity and this trait was unhesitatingly embraced by him in his childhood. In addition to nonconformity, Edward's close family associates...
It has been this philosophy that imparted Bellamy with an open partiality, evident throughout the novel. Edward Bellamy's assumptions or presuppositions are not only clearly visible in the book, but facts of that era also point to the same. A typical affluent person of the 19th century could never offer a writing in sympathy with the destitute; more to say, not a writing that supported the toppling of this elite class. What made the compilation of Looking Backward possible for Edward Bellamy was the predisposition that he had been nurtured with in childhood.
Analysis of Edward Bellamy's assumptions through his work
Edward Bellamy's perception of the equilibrium between individuality and community is apparently ambiguous. The ideals of proliferated and centralized warehouses, public kitchens and communal laundries offer substantial remembrance of Bellamy's socialistic presuppositions that allow the autonomy to benefit from private empowerment on individual basis.
On the other hand, individuals were secluded and observed by an ingenious and concealed mechanism of the government. Edward Bellamy confirmed the power of controlled observation presented by the mechanism to note the actions and activities of people when he stated, "it is easier for a general up in a balloon, with perfect survey of the field, to…
Works Cited
Abrash, M. (1991). Looking backward: Marxism Americanized: In M.S. Cummings & N.D. Smith (Eds.)., Utopian Studies IV (pp. 6-9). Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Bellamy, E. (1945/1888). Looking backward: 2000-1887. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company.
Rhodes, H.V. (1967). Utopia: In American political thought. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press.
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