57 pages • 1 hour read
Edward BellamyLooking Backward
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1888A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: The novel harbors offensive ideas about gender and race. It uses dated language to describe people of color and assumes bio-essential differences between men and women in its description of a utopian society. It describes a utopian society in which men hold all major leadership positions, reinforcing a patriarchal view of society. It also suggests that women are romantically interchangeable. It presents a utopian society that has a specific religious leaning and does not favor religious pluralism. It advocates for a utopian society that is patriarchal, misogynistic, trans-exclusive, racist, ableist, imperialistic, heteronormative and implicitly anti-gay, and classist. The novel advocates for a brand of nationalism. It contains references to death by suicide.
The novel opens with a direct address to the reader. Julian West introduces himself as a young man born in 1857 and living in the year 2000, and the reader is presumed to be living in the year 2000, too. West explains he grew up in a time when people could be born wealthy, become educated, and not offer anything in return to society. He lived “on the income of his investments” while others suffered (6). West uses an analogy to describe what life was like in the 1880s. He describes a coach in which the select few are comfortable on top, while everyone else struggles to pull its weight across difficult terrain. West repeatedly refers to the fact that he was once one of those metaphorical passengers as proof of his authority to speak on the subject. He explains to the 21st-century reader that, despite how inhumane the 19th century sounds, at the time it was believed that no other system would work.
In 1887, West is engaged to Edith Bartlett, a beautiful woman who is also wealthy. Their marriage waits on the completion of their new house, but construction continues to be delayed because the workers keep going on strike. West notes striking is very common; known as “the labor troubles” (10), the working classes sacrifice their livelihoods to demand higher pay, shorter hours, and better living situations. Those in power believe the workers will never achieve what they are fighting for. Most think they will eventually give up the fight, but others, frightened by some men calling themselves anarchists, fear disaster is coming. West, because he is frustrated by the slow construction of his house, resents the working class.
Chapter 2 Summary
On May 30, 1887, West celebrates Decoration Day with Edith Bartlett’s family. They visit the grave of Edith’s brother, then have dinner. During dinner, they discuss recent labor strikes and agree things are getting worse. They resent the workers and discuss contingency plans to leave the United States if it comes to anarchy, and Mr. Bartlett suggests the Chinese Empire was smart not to let in western civilization because it is “nothing but dynamite in disguise” (12). West is so angry that strikes are again delaying his new house that he thinks of Caligula wanting to kill all of the people of Rome. After dinner, West tells his fiancé that they should marry before their house is finished, and they say goodbye for the night.
West is trying to sell his current house because the neighborhood is being overrun with tenement houses and factories. Because he has insomnia, West built a chamber underground that is reinforced with soundproofed steel, cement, and asbestos, with only one pipe leading to the surface for air. On this night, West sends his servant, a Black man named Sawyer, to enlist the services of Dr. Pillsbury. Pillsbury is a mesmerist who uses hypnotism to force West into a deep slumber, and West has not told his fiancé about this yet, because mesmerism can lead to death if nobody ever wakes him. West asks Sawyer to wake him at nine o’clock the next morning.
Chapter 3 Summary
West wakes up to find a kind-looking stranger looking down at him. West feels disoriented, especially after the man explains to West that he is a guest in the stranger’s home. West demands his new host explain what happened. He asks West when he first went to sleep, and West responds May 30, 1887. Then he explains the date is now September 10, 2000. He slept for 113 years. Before West can respond, the man gives him a broth to drink that puts him back to sleep.
West wakes up again, and at first, he believes he is the victim of a practical joke. However, upon reflection, he believes Sawyer would have never betrayed him and that the stranger does not seem the sort to play tricks. The stranger comments the trance he was in preserved his body perfectly and that it is the longest such trance on record. While excavating a piece of land to build a new laboratory, the man’s masons unearthed a vault decorated like a 19th-century bedroom. They found West there, and because the stranger is familiar with the dangers of mesmerism, he fashioned a way to resuscitate West without having to employ doctors.
Suddenly, West becomes skeptical again. He spots himself in the mirror and sees that he looks exactly the same as he did the day before. The stranger brings West upstairs to the roof and asks him if what he sees is the Boston of his time. West beholds an idyllic city full of giant buildings but still beautiful squares full of statues, fountains, and many trees. He believes it is the year 2000.
Chapter 4 Summary
The stranger apologizes to West for so abruptly exposing him to the truth, admitting he did so for fear that West would hurt him. West, again light-headed, observes that Boston appears to have progressed far beyond only 100 years, and the stranger agrees more changed in the last century than many millennia of human history. The man introduces himself as Dr. Leete and formally invites West to make himself at home. Addressing the reader directly, West compares his experience to someone being dropped into heaven or hell; he had entirely stopped thinking about his former life and began thinking only of his new surroundings. West asks Dr. Leete many questions about the new Boston, and he explains the most surprising thing about the view from the rooftop is the lack of chimneys and smoke. Dr. Leete suggests Boston could not have improved in the 19th century because everyone at the time cared more about private luxury than measures to improve public spaces for all.
Dr. Leete introduces West to his wife and daughter. West is immediately enthralled by the daughter’s beauty, who by coincidence is named Edith. The talk through the evening, and though there is very little common ground due to the circumstances, the Leetes discuss West’s predicament with sensitivity and interest. As a group, they hypothesize what happened in 1887: That night, West’s house caught fire, killing Sawyer, the only person who knew West was underground besides Dr. Pillsbury, who was planning to leave for New Orleans that night. The Bartletts and West’s other acquaintances likely believed West died in the fire, too. By chance, in 100 years nobody else tried to build on the same location.
Chapter 5 Summary
Late that evening, after the ladies retire, West and Dr. Leete talk alone. West says he has more questions about Boston. His first question is how society solved “the labor question” that plagued his time (28). Dr. Leete explains the labor question solved itself; industry evolved, and society evolved with it. Where West and his contemporaries believed that disaster was at hand in 1887—so much so that West would have guessed Boston to be destroyed by the year 2000—what actually happened was a change for the better.
Dr. Leete lectures West extensively on the history of labor since 1887. Before industry was consolidated into fewer corporations, there were fewer workers to every employer, and so each worker was valued. However, when corporations began hiring large numbers of workers, employers could afford to treat them more and more tyrannically. By the 20th century, very few small businesses remained; large corporations monopolized entire sectors of industry, fixing prices and swallowing the smaller businesses. This made the rich richer and the poor poorer; though everyone agreed the previous conditions were more equitable, even the government could not stop the momentum toward monopolies.
In the early 20th century, the entire system of commerce in the United States was so consolidated by so few corporations that all industries also became simplified. As such, the government itself was able to absorb all of the remaining corporations into one, representing the people. The government become the last remaining capitalist and the sole employer of all citizens: “The epoch of trusts had ended in The Great Trust” (33). By the time this consolidation happened, public opinion was in such favor of the change that no violence was necessary. Everyone recognized the terrible monopolies of the 19th century were a necessary phase in human history in order to achieve the next phase.
Chapter 6 Summary
West tries to poke holes in the utopian system. When West exclaims the government is too powerful in the year 2000, Dr. Leete explains the government was more powerful in the 19th century, when it was using most of its resources to fight wars rather than “hunger, cold, and nakedness” (35). When West objects that politicians are too self-serving to be trusted with public concerns, Dr. Leete explains there are no parties or politicians in the year 2000 because there is no way to profit from the misuse of power any longer.
The new labor system, West observes, applies “the principle of universal military service” (36); every citizen is required to serve their quota of labor in their lives. The requirement is considered natural to the citizens because it is the only way to participate in the social order. Every October 15—which is known as Muster Day—everyone who has turned 21 years old is “mustered” into a professional service, and everyone who is over 45 years old is able to retire from work.
Chapter 7 Summary
Dr. Leete continues to explain how mustering works. He explains that each person is mustered first into an unskilled labor position for three years and then into the profession that best suits their abilities and their interests. Every child is observed from their early years to determine the best career fit; students choose which profession to join within the range of their abilities. When someone changes their mind, it is possible to transfer to a different industry. The government tracks which professions are less popular than others and adjusts how long the work days are to compensate, so that every job is desirable.
After the three years of common labor, those interested can receive additional training, until the age of 30, if they are interested in becoming doctors, scientists, or philosophers. Admission into these programs is based on passing entrance exams. Dr. Leete points out that, in contrast to the 19th century, people do not need to decide their profession at an early age, because it has been recognized that some people develop more slowly. West is especially interested in how wages work and what happens when one person makes more money than another. But Dr. Leete tells him to rest first and gives West a drink that puts him to sleep immediately.
Chapters 1-7 Analysis
Looking Backward is more a work of social commentary—at times even an essay—than it is a novel. However, Bellamy invents the character of Julian West as way to strategically deliver his social commentary to the reader. Rather than be lectured on the ills of the 19th century, the reader can observe as West is lectured in their stead. At the same time, West is a well-educated person, like much of Bellamy’s reading public; as such, those readers can also identify with West. When Dr. Leete explains life in the year 2000, West interjects with the same questions and concerns that any other educated 19th-century person might feel when encountering the same information. Bellamy uses West as a way to bring all of his readers into the future with someone from their own time as a guide, someone who can demonstrate an ability to look back at his own time critically. The author speaks here to Utopian Concepts as a Way to Motivate Change. By envisioning a purportedly perfect society, Bellamy can encourage his readers to change society for the better, as they can see the end product through his novel rather than the individual steps that may not have immediate tangible results.
The novel starts with a prologue in which West, having already experienced the events of the novel forthcoming, speaks to a 21st-century readership. Bellamy frames the novel as a story of West’s education, and West assumes a position of authority in regard to the 19th century because, having now seen the 21st century, he can speak to both eras. He also establishes authority by recognizing his own ignorance at the start of the novel; from the point of view of Bellamy’s reader, West has earned the right to criticize the 19th century because he had to first break free of that ignorance himself. In other words, from the beginning, Bellamy positions Looking Backward as a text aiming to educate; the gimmick of West’s time travel is a way to shine a light on the ills of the century from a position that is both identifiable to Bellamy’s readers and fantastical in its perspective. This again speaks to the benefits of Utopian Concepts as a Way to Motivate Change.
Bellamy critiques the 19th century in three ways: first, by comparing the social order of the century to a “coach”; then, by painting West as a typically ignorant member of the aristocracy (in the first couple of chapters); and finally, by comparing the century to Bellamy’s invented utopia. The most famous of the three is the analogy of the coach, which Bellamy introduces in the Prologue. With the image of the coach, Bellamy critiques the systems of inheritance and interest income that allow wealthy families to stay wealthy—profiting off of the labor of others—without ever having to work; Bellamy suggests that there cannot be social mobility if those on top fight to stay on top. The coach metaphor also accuses the wealthy—like West—of investing so much care into their status that they believe they are superior to the working classes. This is why they fail to empathize with the working class, refuse to back the workers’ demands for social reform, and offer only meager philanthropy in the face of inhumane conditions. The metaphor very clearly presents the social order of century as one deserving the readers’ moral outrage. However, it is telling that Bellamy’s vision of “utopia” is still alarmingly racist, patriarchal, sexist, ableist, and classist. This then speaks to A Vision of Utopia That Is Racist and Patriarchal. He critiques members of the 19th century but offers a vision of the future that is a utopia only for straight, white, cis-gender men. Even though he critiques the century in which he writes, the social mores and expectations of middle-class 19th century life are evident in Bellamy’s implicit biases.
The majority of the novel presents its critique through comparison. Even the title, Looking Backward, describes the act of remembering past events from a specific present. This literary device, known as “analepsis,” allows Bellamy to comment on his present with the perspective of a historian. This strategy is necessary to counter the 1887 opinion that, while the wealth gap illustrated by the coach metaphor is terrible, it was the only possible system. By jumping his story forward in time, Bellamy presents an alternative system. Where the 1887 social order is based in the idea that every individual cares only about their own private luxury, the Bostonians of the year 2000 have found a system that prioritizes the collective good. Even the Leete family becomes a comparison point to the Bartlett family; at dinner with the Bartletts, West discusses the evils of the working class, and at dinner with the Leetes, West discusses the prosperity of the times. This is one of the main functions of the literary utopia; the perfectness of a future society becomes evidence of the flaws of the current society. “Looking Backward” encapsulates Bellamy’s core argumentative technique of comparison as he builds his vision of utopia.
Bellamy knew that his readers would be resistant to radical social reform; between the increase in violence from workers and the notion that communism, as described by Karl Marx, required a revolution, people in 1887 believed that significant social reform required a total upheaval of their lives. The wealthy and well-educated especially feared that any violent revolution would result in them losing their wealth or their lives. Cleverly, Bellamy’s novel proposes a social reform that is completely bloodless. In fact, Bellamy’s reform goes so far as to suggest that nothing has to change, because the economic order will evolve on its own to perfection. Nobody would have to make any sacrifices at all. He presents his socialist utopia not as a counterpoint to a capitalist system but as its pinnacle; a publicly owned industry will be more efficient and lead to greater wealth for all. By doing so, Bellamy presents a version of social reform that would be attractive to 19th-century readers afraid of the idea. He also highlights Ideology of Solidarity as a Driving Force here. Rather than criticizing his readership so outright or suggesting they will have to change for this utopia to be achieved, he argues that there needs to be an ideology, a belief system, of unity to create this society. He tries not, in his mind, to divide but sets the goal as one of solidarity and not critique. By insisting that little needs to change in people’s outlooks or the structures of day-to-day life, Bellamy implicitly endorses many biases of the status quo, such as the oppression of women and 19th-century racism. Bellamy’s focus on solidarity largely starts and ends with his intended audience of people able to afford and read books during his time: middle-class white men.
