Utopias That Self-Destruct

U to p ia s T h a t S e lf-D e stru c t P H IL IP S T E W A R T onmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA If, as Louis Marin postulates, a utopia always situates itself in the m idstof a historical contradiciton, com biningantagonistic tenden­ cies without synthesizing or resolving them,1 then every utopia bears within itself its own negation, and therefore the non-dialectic poten­ tial for self-destruction. There might then be an interest in looking particularly closely at those infrequent examples of utopias whose social and theoretical structure actually comes unraveled before our very eyes. For this reason I want to return here to three utopian episodes in Prevost’s novel C levela n d , two of which furnish clear in­ stances of this phenomenon—although oddly enough readers do not always seem to have perceived that this is so. In fact, although Utopias I and II have frequently been mentioned in discussions of this subject, almost no one has ever invoked the third, the only one which remains intact. The purpose of the following remarks is to see whether we can identify the seeds of the demise as elements inherent in the initial structure of the utopia, rather than just as dramatically effective peripeteia serving the thematic interests of the main nar­ rative. Utopia I is the island colony where Cleveland’s brother Bridge and his five companions play out their personal romantic tragedy. Every15 16 / ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA P H I L I P S T E W A R T thing about its site and fictional history bears out Marin’s assertion that utopia is an in-between construct, neutral, neither this nor that. It is both real and unreal, both historical and unhistorical: being in the Atlantic, it belongs neither to the Old nor to the New World; yet being “really” an undiscovered part of St. Helena, it is annexed to authentic geography. Curiously enough, despite this unlikely loca­ tion, it is the crossroads where numerous characters in the novel often pass en route from Europe to North America and vice versa. It is neither French nor English but some of both, binational and bi­ lingual, but cut off from both countries by religious dissention. The preface pretends to corroborate its historical existence by citing an English historian who alone among those so invoked proves to be fic­ titious if one really tries to look him up in the library. Its otherness is emphasized through the forbidding cliffs which cut it off from the rest of the world, and the fact that Bridge is brought there blindfolded— thus symbolizing the nature of his leap into the ideal world. It does not turn out to be, however, a place where happiness flour­ ishes, in spite of the euphoric rhetoric which long sustains such an il­ lusion. The inner tensions which surface in time are not merely, as most interpretations would have it, the unhappy result of genera­ tional struggle, or even the symbolic confrontation of individual freedom and collective order, of self versus system. Instead they are inherent in its political and ideological structure. The problem could be put in terms of the contradiction between a political ideology of equality and a religious ideology tending to ty­ ranny; but in fact the two orders overlap, and both are corrupt from the start. Although the inhabitants of this “new world” depict the fe­ cund collaboration of bountiful nature and dedicated labor, nature and labor are equally flawed. The “perfect equality” in which the col­ onists live disguises first of all the economic selection of the original immigrants: only those who could afford to pay their passage came to build this society, bringing with them their serva n ts in preference to their less fortunate peers. In consequence, a second fallacy: the ser­ vants provide the labor, and the masters remain masters. Only the distribution of food is equitable, and the servants still sit at separate tables. They are socially ranked, it is explained, immediately after the U to p ia s T h a t S elf-D estru ct /onmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPO 17 children, which is to say last of alb All of...