The Problem of Isolation

It is typical of utopia novels/tracts to start with "I met a man who told me about..." similar to Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

More's Utopia, for instance, is described by a traveler, Raphael, who claims the island was already populated when a group of Romans and Egyptians arrived there in a shipwreck. The resulting perfection is a combination of those cultures. James Hilton's Shangri-la is described by one man to another man based on the first man's encounter with Conway (the Ronald Colman character in the 1937 movie). Shangri-la is in the mountains and only reached by Conway and his companions when their plane is hijacked. 

All versions of His in Herland have struggled with this problem. In one version, I created trade between Herland, an island, and the mainland over a bridge. 

In the current version, I place Herland in a far more isolated position, even more isolated than in Gilman's book. In the book, the young men hear stories about the country (about the size of Holland) from guides plus they discover woven cloth in a river. Stuff leaks out.

The problem, of course, is that in reality, people also tend to leak out. Why wouldn't Utopia's fisherman keep going? Why wouldn't Herland's citizens up and leave? George Mallory isn't the only one who wanted to climb a mountain because it was there.

In fairness, Gilman's women are infinitely practical, which is a welcome change from rampaging idealism, but human nature is not infinitely practical, male or female. Road trips and rituals like Rumspringa exist for a reason. Good grief, Gilman got a divorce and hauled herself and a child all the way across the country to California--why wouldn't her women do the same? For that matter, at age 25, I drove cross-country in a non-air-conditioned Dodge Colt (stick shift) in the summer with a cat by myself. I would never do that now! (People get more risk-adverse as they age.) 

Even during Japan's most extreme isolationist period, people still knew it was there and eventually showed up in a "here we are; what are you going to do now?" way. (And, yes, people did leave, even if they did so partly unintentionally. Courtesy of Eugene, see John Manjiro, "whose biography would barely be believable as fiction.")

In addition, one of the most fascinating revelations of archeological digs is how much people in the past got around. Goods from Asia show up in medieval England. Folks from England show up in the Mediterranean world.

Not to forget, during the nineteenth century, that time of no-holds-barred nationalism, the attempt by antiquarians to discover the "pure" past of a nation ended in failure. German fairy tales weren't German--for one, a lot of them were French. 

And so on.

Isolation is necessary to utopias. Mobile people undermine utopias since (1) restless people indicate that people care about more than "needs" (sorry, Marx); (2) if mobile people can leave, other mobile people can arrive, and there goes the perfectly structured society. 

Star Trek tackled this problem in several ways (setting aside the utopian ideals of the show itself). TOS tackled it philosophically: How can you thrive if you are too happy? TNG tackled it, to my mind, somewhat more realistically. In "Masterpiece Society," the engineers on the planet are too excited about Enterprise technology to give it up. Now we see the cost of not being part of a space-faring community! No, thanks!

Welcome to human nature. 

To avoid the plot issues created by constantly mobile people (hard to write a critique of a utopia if the upshot is, "Yeah, well, it lasted about ten minutes"), the current version of His in Herland is extremely isolated--though Terry suggests that even this state of affairs can't last. 

People are always going to come.

Chapter 2

His in Herland or Astyanax in Hiding 

The Problem of How to Get Out

Utopias are not automatically closed environments. However, leaving a utopia is almost always difficult. In Lost Horizon, despite continual warnings, Lo-Tsen (book)/Maria (movie) leaves Shangri-la, whereupon she immediately dies from old age--after a tremendous number of people are killed in an avalanche (movie).

Even when the risk isn't physical, the communal pressure to remain can be tremendous. The underlying justification of all utopias postulates that it's so exactly what humanity needs, anyone who wishes to leave must be damaged in some way. The damaged person either needs to be fixed or expelled. 

The practical problem--and one explanation for the knee jerk negativity--is that a loss of citizens requires restructuring of the remaining social order. 

I propose a still older explanation. Utopias often bleed into the fairy realm, and leaving the fairy realm always requires payment: 

Tam Lin transforms into various animals, Rip Van Winkle--and others--lose time. Eurydice can only leave the Underworld if her lover performs a task. 

Tasks often involve sacrifice. As Terry says in Chapter 18, "I was here in the tunnels to take risks."

I support this particular trope. A change in life brings along costs. It requires that the protagonist delivers up something of the self. Alim, a citizen of Troas in His in Herland, accepts that he may never be able to return. He "acts on the world," choosing to leave rather than simply follow Terry's lead (Terry sacrifices his reputation--such as it is--for the ability to leave).

Writing problems arise when writers don't want their protagonists to take this risk. 

The writing problem doesn't appear to be attached to suffering. Suffering delivers cache. Rather, writers come across as reluctant to force their protagonists to live with a choice. Perhaps writers fear having their protagonists make the wrong choices. Perhaps writers don't want their characters to have to choose. 

Nevertheless, it must happen. Keeping one's options open is hardly the point. The protagonist accepting responsibility is the point. 

I recently read a disappointing Christmas story. In the story, the protagonist--who went into a series of foster homes when his mother died--learns that his father is a substitute Father Christmas, an elf who filled in for Santa one night. 

Not a bad premise. (I'm not troubled by overdone premises.)

Unfortunately, however, the writer wanted the foster situations that the protagonist suffered to be horrible. Look at all that suffering! 

Except then, the writer wanted to let the substitute Santa off the hook. The biological dad couldn't check in on his son because...ah...he was afraid he wouldn't be able to get back to Santa's world...except people can...so...he was afraid Santa would be mad...except Santa is a really swell guy...but it's nobody's fault and nobody's responsibility because the substitute Santa lives in another world...except the protagonist can visit...only the substitute Santa can't leave...except people do leave all the time...and by the way, the protagonist is about thirty, so the substitute Santa had three decades to overcome all the waffling. 

And the telephone system blew too--

amazingly enough.

It reminded me of Tom Hanks' character in You've Got Mail trying to invent reasons for his supposed no-show. 

I was disgusted. The protagonist's father abandoned his son and had no good narrative reason not to check in on him for thirty years. 

If a protagonist is going to abandon responsibility, the reason had better be a good one ("God" or "my clique" or "the social order told me too" or "I must for the sake of a perfect future" is not an acceptable reason). Otherwise, the protagonist needs to step up. 

In a sense, I've come back to where I started with these posts: to keep people in (isolated), there has to be a reason--and it has to be believable. If people determine to leave, they must bargain with the world's rules or--in the case of Terry & Alim--the Fates. 

As one of my Greek gods tells Terry, “Everyone’s story has to be checked.”

Terry arrived through the tunnel--Alim and Terry leave through the tunnel after paying a toll: Fantasy Writing 101. 

Chapter 18 & Chapter 19

His in Herland or Astyanax in Hiding