Dystopian Societies in the Twentieth-Century British Panorama: Two Case-Studies.

Por Sandra Hidalgo Sánchez, en junio de 2013.

ABSTRACT. The present dissertation analyzes two dystopian societies, highlighting the need of a revolution of the people in order to change the nightmarish situation they are obliged to face by oppressive and ruthless totalitarian regimes. On the one hand, this study will explore Zoë Fairbairns’ Benefits (1979), a novel that denounces the dangers of a male-oriented political regime that systematically overlooks women’s concerns and requests, treats them as machines to procreate and forces them to stay at home taking care of the children. On the other, Robert Harris’ Fatherland (1992), traces back to the atrocities committed by the Nazis in an alternative history narration that dissects the worst side of the terrifying question “what if Hitler had won the Second World War?” Both novels depict the devastating effects of dystopian systems that succeed through terrorizing the masses in order to raise their authority and control over the powerless citizens. Ultimately, these tyrannical governments fail because of the heroic actions of one individual or group that are not afraid of struggling for the truth and the freedom of the whole community, even though this implies their own personal sacrifice.

Key words: Dystopia, feminism, alternative history, fear, revolution.

SÍNTESIS. El presente Trabajo de Fin de Grado analiza dos sociedades distópicas, en las que se destaca la necesidad de una revolución de sus habitantes para poder cambiar la infernal situación que están obligados a vivir por parte de sistemas totalitarios opresivos e implacables. Por un lado, este estudio explorará Benefits (1979) de Zoë Fairbairns, una novela que denuncia los daños que causa un régimen político exclusivamente masculino que ignora sistemáticamente las preocupaciones y peticiones de las mujeres, tratándolas como máquinas para procrear y obligándolas a quedarse en casa a cuidar de los niños. Por otro lado, Fatherland (1992) de Robert Harris, revive las atrocidades cometidas por los Nazis en una narración de historia alternativa que plantea la peor cara de la terrible pregunta “¿Qué hubiera pasado si Hitler hubiera ganado la Segunda Guerra Mundial?” Ambas novelas presentan los efectos devastadores de sistemas distópicos que tuvieron éxito porque atemorizaron a las masas para aumentar su poder y para controlar a los impotentes ciudadanos. Finalmente, estos gobiernos tiránicos no triunfan, gracias a las heroicas acciones de un individuo o grupo que no tienen miedo de luchar por la verdad y por la libertad de toda la comunidad, incluso si ello supone su sacrificio personal.

Palabras clave: Distopía, feminismo, historia alternativa, miedo, revolución.

The power of dictatorships has been very recurrently represented in literature through dystopia. This kind of narratives portrays decadent and degenerated societies, which usually gravitate around totalitarian governments that inflict pain, fear and oppression on the population. A dystopian society is ruled by a group of people who actually epitomize the so-called system. This group is commanded by a leader, who is the regime’s central figure, an icon that needs to be worshiped unreservedly by all the citizens. However, the leader is just a symbol that appears in posters and propaganda, since those who in charge of implementing all the policies are the members of the ruling power. They assure that every individual follows and accepts their model of State, usually based on lies, violence and coercion. Despite this fact, dystopian fiction is characterized by the presence of a martyr character –or group– who decides to challenge the regime in order to condemn the atrocities that are committed on a daily basis. The aim of this paper is to analyze Benefits and Fatherland following the general dystopian framework.

But what could be the reason why dystopian writers offered such a negative and pessimistic view of society and politics? Was it a type of fiction merely produced by their imagination? Unfortunately, it was not. Dystopian fiction was born as the ultimate consequence of utopia, due to a real political and social failure in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Europe went through substantial changes that generated a generalized pessimistic mood in most citizens. It was definitely not the time for utopia, as it was almost impossible to imagine a perfect world full of harmony and goodness, when people were living through an age of totalitarianism, World Wars and suffocating technological oppression. As Krishan Kumar expressed: “For literary intellectuals and humanists … World War I, the rise of Fascism, the descent of Soviet communism into Stalinism, the failure of Western capitalism in the 1930s: all these were mocking commentaries on utopian hopes” (5). Besides, other devastating events such as the Nazi genocide, the communist gulags or the atomic bombs also contributed to enhance this nightmarish scenario. Citizens were living in a real dystopian world.

As Erliana Tanzil points out: “Dystopian societies demoralize the individual and strip away any free will that he or she may desire in both thought and action, leaving personal desires and decisions up to authoritarian control” (2). In order to achieve these goals, dystopian fiction usually follows the same patterns, which become major themes for the genre. These are: the system versus the individual, the education of the masses, the importance of technology and the symbolism of the leader. Firstly, it is important to highlight that, in every dystopian work, the protagonist –who is usually the character that defies the regime’s impositions- embodies the individual interest in a society characterized by collectivism. People are seen as tools and manpower for the system’s purposes, and most of the times they cannot even choose a career by themselves because they have to comply with the needs of the State before satisfying their own personal necessities. These masses just represent a part of the whole, as “people were not meant to function outside of community” (Ferris 5-6). On the other hand, the protagonist acts as an individual, carrying out illicit actions in order to demonstrate that the system is wrong and to shed some light upon a world full of darkness.

Secondly, the manipulation of the people by the ruling group is a very important component to uphold the concept of collectivism. The masses are educated mainly through the ideas and slogans conveyed in propaganda, the media and the manipulated version of History, as well as through the prohibition of certain books whose content escaped from the basic doctrine of the regime. Education was, as a consequence, a euphemism of brainwash. Thirdly, technology plays out an extremely remarkable role in dystopian fiction. There is a significant lack of references to nature in these societies, as it is often associated to feelings of freedom and escapism that are strictly forbidden in static dystopian governments. Moreover, what authors usually want to reveal is the failure of science and technology, since they are used for wrong purposes and “for controlling the population, and show us how important the phrase ‘properly used’ is with regard to science and technology” (Tower Sargent 369). Ultimately, religion is not usually present in this genre, since the leader assumes a kind of god-like role that everybody has to venerate and praise, becoming, thus, the State’s utmost authority. Thus, in the end, this figure is the effective personification of the whole regime and the identity that people publically adore and privately fear or hate.

Nevertheless, although most novels that belong to this genre share these major themes, there are also different types of dystopian narratives. Bellow this umbrella category, we find feminist dystopia and alternate history. On the one hand, dystopian feminism “tends to take the form of an intensification and projection of currently existing patterns” (Kumar 12). In other words, what feminist dystopia attempts to do is to rewrite the existing history in order to re-found it as what some critics categorize as herstory, which is an account that takes into consideration the women’s points of view and experiences at certain periods of time. In addition, “the difficulties that women have to come to terms to within a movement that obliges them to transform their personal lives into a political issue or their political ideas into their personal lives.” (Domínguez 155). On the other hand, alternate history novels portray what might have happened if particular historical events would have been different1. A lot of alternate history fiction has been written in relation to the Second World War and the Nazi regime, “but the reluctance is also rooted in the fact that alternate history –as a form of entertainment– has been seen as too lighthearted a genre for representing such a serious subject as Nazism” (Rosenfeld 185).

The twentieth-century socio-political scenario provoked that some writers condemned and expressed their fears about the future in some of their works. Although the most important and representative of that period was George Orwell with his novel Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), there were many other books that also form part of the dystopian genre. Some of the most significant authors and their dystopian novels are: Richard Jefferie’s After London; or, Wild England (1885), H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine: An Invention (1931), Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), Anthony Burgess’ novella A Clockwork Orange (1962), Otto Basil’s alternate history Wenn das der Führer wüßte (1966) and Margaret Atwood’s feminist dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). Although these are all very outstanding contributions, Nineteen Eighty-four marked a turning point in literary history. Orwell genuinely added to our vocabulary concepts such as doublethink, Big Brother or telescreen and slogans like “WAR IS PEACE / FREEDOM IS SLAVERY/ IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” or “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”.

Nineteen Eighty-four also truly influenced and inspired the two novels that are going to be the object of analysis in this dissertation: Zoë Fairbairns’ Benefits (1979) and Robert Harris’s Fatherland (1992). In the case of the former, her author openly admitted this influence in a paper she delivered in the course of a conference held at the University of Alcalá on the work of George Orwell, by stating: “1984 was a famous date, and I couldn’t ignore it. I didn’t want to ignore it, I want to acknowledge it, build on it and move on from it” (129-30). Fatherland keeps a close relationship with Orwell’s novel as well, as Juan F. Elices shows in his paper “The Satiric and Dystopic Legacy of George Orwell in Robert Harris’s Fatherland” by saying: “The visionary viewpoints Orwell poses in Nineteen Eighty-four … can also be perceived in Harris’s Fatherland.... Harris amplifies the range of his satiric attack against the very nature of dictatorships” (202). Nonetheless, both novels also challenge Orwell’s foundations and go further, being even more provocative and politicized than their predecessor.

Benefits, as described by her author, “was a political novel in which the important struggles were about gender. All other issues (class, party, race, international affairs) were treated as peripheral” (ii). This novel is a feminist dystopia that claimed for the rights of women at a time when the British government was not materializing the measures that have been promised to those mothers who had children and who were supposed to get a subsidy as an aid with the baby’s care. On the contrary, men were given tax perks by the State, a fact that only encouraged the perpetuation of a patriarchal society in the twentieth century. It was also a difficult period for the working class, since the government approved of considerable cuts in many public services, and the inflation rate was very high. In spite of these circumstances, it is important to bear in mind that Benefits is just fiction, and it creates a society ruled by a male-controlled government based on traditional values which in none of the cases represented women or people outside their definition of good citizen.

Fatherland, on the other hand, demonstrates that one of the “paradoxical advantages of historical fiction is that it does not date. Fatherland in particular –set in an imagined past that is also a conjectured future– is doubly insulated against changes in fashion” (Harris xv). This masterpiece of alternate history shows what could have happened if Hitler had won the Second World War in an “embracing new method of representing the Nazi era” (Rosenfeld 186). Although the Third Reich that Harris delineates is invented, some of the events and characters mentioned were real and lived in the heyday of the National Socialist Party. In the novel, one policeman -Xavier March- is in charge of an investigation to find out more about the death of an unknown male who appeared lifeless by a lake, and he actually ends up discovering and uncovering the atrocities and genocidal practices that the Nazi regime had committed years earlier. The paradoxical subject raised in this story is how a truthful and honest man is obliged to work for a mischievous government, even though he did not share its political view.

With regard to the turbulent and terrifying background that characterizes these narratives, it is impossible not to analyze the organization of the system, the leading political parties and their evolution throughout time. In the case of Benefits, the dystopia begins with the foundation of a new party, the so-called FAMILY. They believed that “the true liberation of women will never come about until proper respect and value is placed upon their role as nurturers” (39). This party introduced the Benefit, a tribute that was paid to those mothers who lived mainstream and conservative lives, which once again reinforced the huge gap between men and women. It also obliged the latter to stay home taking care of the children while men worked outside in order to compensate the unemployment rate3. At the beginning of the novel, all mothers who had children received this subsidy, but as time went by the payment was just provided to increasingly reduced groups of women, arbitrarily selected according to their lifestyle. Despite this fact, the worst times arrived when FAMILY started being controlled by the group Europea –the leaders of a supercontinent-, who believed that unsuitable mothers had to be unnaturally sterilized so that they were disabled to overcrowd the world with unnecessary people.

FAMILY is the example that betters shows that “the force of the text springs from a conviction about human nature itself, whose corruptions and lust of power are inevitable” (Jameson 198). The main representatives of the party were ordinary people with very strong conservative beliefs, but their evolution and radicalization was directly proportional to a raise in the amount of supporters they managed to breed. In fact, this political group was even more powerful than Monarchy, which is active in the novel but lacks any importance, because all the relevance in dystopian regimes lies on the system. However, in Benefits, the small FAMILY system is inevitably put down by Europea, due to a reorganization of nations, a series of underlying economic interests, and consequently, a change in the process of decision-making. Europea wanted to make a rational use of their “human stock” and thought about “eliminating hereditary defects – maintaining the strong and the healthy” in order to create “a rational welfare state, based on a sufficient ratio of workers” (111-12) All in all, Benefits is a highly politicized novel full of legislation and political discourse, which contributes to reinforce the story’s credibility.

In Fatherland, on the other hand, the party in power truly existed in the past. The National Socialist Party was an extremely regimented organization that gravitated around the figure of its main leader, the Führer, Adolf Hitler. The reason why religion was officially discouraged in Germany at that time was because it was considered dangerous, as it could distract people’s attention from the true god: the leader of the party. Religious prayers were substituted by laudatory chants to the Führer: “Why do we believe in Germany and the Führer? / Because we believe in God, we believe in Germany which He created in His world, and in the Führer, Adolf Hitler, whom He has sent us. / Whom must we primarily serve? / Our people and our Führer, Adolf Hitler. / Why do we obey? / From inner conviction, from belief in Germany, in the Führer, in the Movement and the SS, and from loyalty” (Harris 96).4 The Führer’s lackeys had to fulfill certain demanding tasks that proved the purity of their Aryan race and ethnicity if they wanted to be members of the Party or work in one of its divisions (the Orpo, the Sipo, the Kripo and the Gestapo).

The Nazi system was also characterized by having a very compartmentalized organization of society, where people were forbidden to act by themselves as individuals, but as a part of the whole. As Elices suggests: “Manipulation is commanded and implemented from positions of outstanding political responsibility” (205), since the members of the Nazi Party were the ones who repressed the population through systematic abuses of power: “Klara stood there in the uniform of the NS – Frauenschaft. Lurking behind her, March glimpsed the brown-clad figure of Helfferich. The dog, a young German shepherd, came running out and leapt up at Pili…. March kept thinking about that dog. It was the only living creature in the house, he realized, which was not wearing a uniform” (Harris 41). The uniform was, indeed, a euphemism for power and unreserved commitment to the regime, and it usually raised distress and rejection among the population, although they were unable to show these feelings if they did not want to be in serious trouble. The onslaught of political corruption also led to the submission of the defenseless German population in this dystopian Third Reich.

But which are exactly the key issues that enhanced the success of these systems? In both of cases, the tools used in the achievement of absolute power are not in the least legitimate. The adulteration of history and bureaucracy, the dark messages hidden behind propaganda and slogans, the exacerbated iconography, the exaltation of ornamentation, the manipulation of the media, the use of fear, the influencing of societies and the need to make up a common enemy are some of the ways through which these regimes abused their power and established their perfect societies. Both Benefits and Fatherland deal with these subjects in depth, usually under the influence of Nineteen Eighty-four, where the interrelation between these issues can be perfectly appreciated. The effects of living in such a setting are mutually shocking and overwhelming in each novel, because of the constrictions placed by the State on the individuals’ free will. However, in spite of this, “in these dystopian communities … it is the perpetuation of fear which keeps the citizen looking to the leader to determine what is best for the community” (Ferris 12).

A key element for any dictatorial regime to be completely effective is the distortion of truth. Probably the most usual way individuals keep themselves together is by concealing their personal ignorance. The party in power fears that learning the truth about history –usually all the atrocities provoked by them- would lead to a revolution of the masses. The manipulation of history and bureaucracy is one of the central themes in Fatherland, since the whole plot deals with how the protagonist investigates and discovers the truth about the Jewish Holocaust, while the Nazi Party is capable of anything in order to keep that horror hidden: “We have won the war against you; none of you will be left to bear witness, but even if some were to survive, the world would not believe him. There will perhaps be suspicious, discussions, research by historians, but there will be no certainties, because we will destroy the evidence together with you” (433). In Benefits, however, this characteristic cannot be appreciated, since FAMILY always applied their measures in an open way through advertisements in the media and speeches in Congress. This dystopian feature comes directly from Orwell’s influence, since he created the Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-four, whose main aim was to implement “brainwashing techniques to remove ‘unpleasant’ memories while casting the Party in a positive light” (Tanzil 2).

The use of propaganda and slogans containing subliminal messages is a common device employed to reinforce the authority and to hit the masses with certain information in dystopian systems. In Propaganda & the Ethics of Persuasion (2002), Marlin defends that propaganda is a “systematic, motivated attempt to influence the thinking and behavior of others through means that impede or circumvent a propagandee’s ability to appreciate the nature of his influence” (95). The effective realization of this definition can be observed in Benefits, when the Government wants to convince men –the only group they are interested in- about certain issues: “It was far better to use propaganda to remind men that the twin bounties of pellets plus Benefits could relive them finally of any anxiety concerning the consequences of sexual intercourse, and to hint that concern with family planning was rather unmasculine” (177). In the case of Fatherland, propaganda was so important for the Party that they even had a Ministry in charge of deciding when it was better to make important announcements and what was the best way to organize campaigns to raise public awareness towards key issues for the party.

There are some other mechanisms similar to propaganda that are also implemented by dictatorships as a way to disseminate their ideology and doctrinal standpoints. Frequent iconography and an excessively exaggerated ornamentation are the ways in which Harris depicts the overwhelming magnitude of the Nazi regime. The symbolism around the figure of the Führer, who raises people’s fear and respect, creates a halo of incredulity around his existence, as expressed in the novel when Hitler’s birthday was coming: “Nine is the hour when the beloved Father of the German People leaves the Reich Chancellery to travel to the Great Hall. It’s months since he’s been seen – their way of building excitement” (438-39). Moreover, houses in Berlin were usually decorated with portraits of the Führer, and the whole city was adorned with the Party colors and Hitler’s pictures to commemorate his birthday. The description of monuments and political buildings is also very significant in Fatherland, as their greatness is a metaphor of the Party’s almighty power: “The Great Hall of the Reich is the largest building in the world. It rises to a height of more than a quarter of a kilometre” (36). Fairbairns shows FAMILY’s power portraying the members of the party as “film-stars or monarchs” in a street procession that showed a more than theatrical vision on how society had to be like according to their standards (41).

The manipulation of the media is another crucial mechanism to control and regiment the masses. They broadcast the information they founded relevant and suppressed the one that threatened the Party’s image, in order to indoctrinate the citizens that they were entailed and legitimized to be on top of the socio-political hierarchy. This can be seen in both Benefits and Fatherland, where newspapers and the media were at the disposal of a system that “mechanized individuals leading to a dehumanized world” (Dima-Laza 42). In Fairbairns’ novel, the extract that better illustrates this idea is a conversation between Posy and Marsha, who lived in a different country and wanted to know about the Feminist resistance in the British patriarchal regime: “What have we got on the feminist response to Benefit over the past four years? ... ‘According to the British newspapers there hasn’t been one and everyone thinks Benefit is wonderful’” (59). The evidence is that FAMILY had controlled the newspapers so that they did not publish complaints against their policy. In Fatherland, the approach to newspapers is extremely satirical: the protagonist “had a routine for reading the paper. He started at the back, with the truth. If Leipzig was said to have beaten Cologne four-nil at football, the chances were it was true: even the Party had yet to devise a means of rewriting the sports results” (50).

Besides, the indoctrination of the masses can also be achieved through the censorship of certain types of music and literature and the invention of a common, external enemy. In Harris’s novel, “listening to American radio stations” and “circulating printed copies of proscribed books – Günter Grass and Graham Greene, George Orwell and J.D. Salinger” were solid reasons to get caught and tortured (23). According to Elices: “The authors Harris mentions in this excerpt are highly symbolical, since all of them were famous for their tumultuous relationship with the establishment and for the powerful satirical component of their works” (207). Besides, the Nazi regime used propaganda and the media to shock their citizens with detailed descriptions of the horrors of Stalin’s communist holocaust, justifying, thus, his role as the nation’s worst threat. This device was earlier used by Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-four, with campaigns like the Hate Week, designed as a mechanism to raise feelings of rejection and disgust against the enemies –real or invented– of the Party. In Benefits, “feminist pamphlets were impounded as sexist” and feminist and unfit women and mothers were the ones who had to be repudiated by the rest of the citizens, since they were considered dangerous for the interests of FAMILY and Europea (147).5 By using these common procedures, totalitarian regimes were able to keep on perpetuating their “perfect” societies.

It was stated above that these totalitarian states drew on different strategies in or order to keep the population under control. In this sense, it is indispensable to analyze the way in which they use fear to obtain their purposes. People are forced not to think independently or complain, because they assume the Party will know it thanks to the resources they use to control the citizens. In Fairbairns’ dystopia, the most effective method was the squeal. This creates an awkward atmosphere of distrust amongst individuals, as they prefer betraying rather than running the risk of being caught. In the novel, one of the mothers was considered unfit to obtain the Benefit, because her husband, who harassed her, accused her of doing things wrong when she was just trying to escape from him, since “anyone wishing to make a complaint against a specific mother could do so anonymously” (93). In Fatherland, Harris uses such Orwellian devices as the CCTV recording and the squeal. There are two moments in the novel when the protagonist feels there is no privacy, since the Party installs cameras everywhere: “They wire everything.” (179) and “There is no privacy here. That’s the point” (97). Family ties do not mean anything when it comes to fear and bigotry. Even the protagonist is denounced by his own son to the authorities for not being devoted to the Nazi regime.

The consequences of these reports and recordings are extremely dramatic, since those who are accused ultimately end up being tortured or murdered in prison or in concentration camps. When psychological manipulation does not work, it is the turn of physical control and pain, because those who actually manage to defy the system are toughly punished and re-educated through beastliness and torture. Both Benefits and Fatherland show episodes of agony where their characters suffer the party’s rage because they want them to confess certain information that would cause a benefit or make them hide the horrible truth.6 In the feminist dystopia, Marsha –one of the protagonists- is tortured, and Fairbairns depicts it as: “Sometimes they pretended they would let her sleep but when her eyelids met, electricity made her stomach heave” (170). Harris is not less descriptive in the way he comments how the Nazi Party drew out information from the rebellious protagonist: “A jackboot stamped on his fingers, twisted, ground them into the stone” (465). Both characters believe, at some point, that they are going crazy and they even have hallucinations provoked by the unbearable pain they are suffering.

In spite of all the above mentioned issues, dystopian fiction centers on a nonconformist individual or mass in a society that is apparently flawless, a character that dares to show his/her will to change and improve the situation. This is the case of Xavier March, who questions the Nazi Regime but, at the same time, feels trapped in it, until he ultimately struggles and dies to uncover the truth and release the population. His hatred towards the system grows quickly, as he discovers the atrocities the Nazis had committed, but his disgust can be observed early in the novel when he was expected to sing the national anthem: “His own lips moved in conformity with the rest, but no sound emerged” (115). Also, when he avoided wearing the SS uniform, or refused to greet people with the typical Heil Hitler salutation. Under such circumstances, March would not have been able to succeed without the help of his lover, an American journalist called Charlie Maguire. This fact is significant, since women do not usually play out important roles in dystopian fiction. However, “the protagonist has at least one helper…. This proves the idea that people were not meant to function outside of community” (Ferris 5-6).

In Fairbairns’ dystopia, there are three especially outstanding characters within the rebellious feminist group: Posy, Lynn and Marsha. Posy epitomizes the most radical position in the novel. She tries to become the leader of the women’s revolution when she delivers the most encouraging speech about the male chauvinist government in power, since she believes that people do not do anything against the injustices because they think it is the duty of the Social Services. However, the masses are not prepared to put up with such a radical view and she turns out to be rather unpopular amongst the public, even her feminist comrades. Lynn, on the other hand, becomes the heart of the women’s revolution thanks to her capacity to be critical and efficient. Her speech at the end of the novel, at the Women’s Conference is able to move the feminists and encourage them to organize themselves in order to fight for their rights and begin a new era after the fall of Europea. Nonetheless, without Marsha, the triumph of women would not have arrived. She supports Posy and Lynn at all times in the novel, and offers them different perspectives from the ones they used to have: “Our women are going to be the first to find a style of life that isn’t defined by men having power over us because we have children” (213).

Furthermore, it is also important to recognize the efforts of some groups within these totalitarian regimes to disturb the party in power and to change the situation they are living through. In Harris’s novel there was a student resistance movement called “The White Rose”, which “listened to banned music, circulated seditious magazines, were harassed by the Gestapo” (204). Even though they did not use weapons or belonged to any military organization, they were important enough to rattle the Nazi Party. Similarly, in Benefits the Women’s Liberation Movement was global, but the story gravitates around its resistance in London. The tower that the women squattered to plan their actions and to live secluded as victims of the male chauvinist government, was a symbol of their utopian views and wills. Likewise, they organized demonstrations to demand their rights, used posters and slogans to express their marginalization, organized a housewives’ strike and helped each other. At the end, the association is banned and they think they failed because “individual women were taking the stands. There was no organization” (187). A revolution cannot succeed if the rebellious group does not head in the same direction.

Unfortunately, not all the pressure of these dystopian regimes ended up in revolts and rejection from the citizens. In fact, children and youngsters were usually the most bigoted followers of the tyrannical parties, since their juvenile minds were the easiest to manipulate and influence through indoctrination. As Pine rightly suggests: “Hitler believed that education and training had to be so ordered as to give the young German ‘national comrade’ the conviction of ‘absolute superiority’ to others. Hitler spoke of the need for self-confidence and national pride to be inculcated in German youth” (13). In Harris’s novel, for instance, children had to learn the Party’s special grace in order to recite it before and after their meals. This issue raises a problem in both Benefits and Fatherland, since the protagonists’ children have radical views whereas the parents are those who struggle to overthrow the oppressive regime, consequently leading to very tense parental relationships. Pili, Xavier March’s ten-year old son, is so fanatic that he is ashamed of his father and does not hesitate to help the Gestapo catch him after having told him: “You don’t give the Führer-salute and you make jokes about the Party ... I hate you” (40-41).

In Benefits, the reaction of Jane, Lynn’s daughter, is a bit different from Pili’s. She joins the Young Families of Tomorrow, which is an organization of uniformed, model young people inside the FAMILY party, just to rebel against her feminist mother in a teenage huff, because “whatever Lynn might think, the FAMILY message was always that a child’s duty to love and respect his parents was secondly only to a mother’s duty to nurture her children” (148). She falls in love with a young patriarch, leaves home and gets fully involved in many FAMILY’s campaigns. However, she ultimately realizes that she had been an appalling daughter when her maternal instinct awakens. At a particular moment, she feels like having a baby but she takes for granted that the Party would not allow her to give birth. This was due to the strict birth control policies to prevent unfit mothers from having babies. It is not until she is affected by the Party’s procedures that she finds out that FAMILY’s methods of control are increasingly savage. All in all, “the difficulties that women have to come to terms to within a movement that obliges them to transform their personal lives into a political issue or their personal ideas into their personal lives” is what puts Lynn and Jane together in the end (Domínguez 155).

Presumably, the reasons that triggered the outbursts of the population against the systems could also be placed upon the wrong use of science and technology. Dystopian fiction is characterized by the totalitarian regimes creating an “overall paralysis of any aesthetic sense … everything is machine-made, mass-produced, and sterile” (Whissen 53). According to Kumar, this will to present a rather negative view of technology and science might trace back to the Technocracy Movement of the Second World War (8). Human individualism is annihilated through the control of information thanks to technological advances –as Fatherland portrays- and through the repression of the individual’s humanity caused by medication –as seen in Benefits. Harris’s dystopia is totally based on the evil use of technology by the Nazi Party as a way to obtain information and to punish those found guilty of indignity. The utilization of surveillance cameras, the tapping of telephone lines to eavesdrop conversations, the use of television and radio to indoctrinate the citizens, the prohibition of photocopiers to stop subversives from producing illegal literature, using trains to transport Jews as a commodity, killing Jews in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Birkenau or burning corpses and useless objects in incineration rooms are some of the ways in which technology harms the people and helps the National Socialists.

On the other hand, Fairbairns is mostly concerned with showing the atrocities that an abusive use of science can bring about. According to Ferris, “some societies promote rampant sexual activity, while others entirely repress it, often through medication. In either case, the end result is to squash the longing for any particular person” (8). In Benefits, both FAMILY and Europea control women’s fertility through

the fitting of pellets, so that women could not get pregnant unless the Party considered they were suitable. Later on in the novel, pellets were substituted by a contraceptive chemical that could be annulled by some antidote tablets provided by the Government –when they considered that women were fit enough to have children- that turned out to be poisonous and killed a lot of babies and foeti, as can be observed in the following lines: “Throughout the country, babies were being born with deformities so gross as to make some of them unrecognizable as human. The best of them lived eight hours…. Panic turned to fury with the realization” (196). In this case, what was meant to help the system build its elitist society was actually the reason why the people revolted against it, giving the feminists a chance to change their fate.

According to Milner, “for this is what dystopian future fictions recount: what would have happened if their empirical and implied readerships had not been moved to prevent it” (354). The development of the stories is directly influenced by three agents: time, setting and memories. Fatherland was published for the first time in 1992, although the action is set in 1964, which means that the author already lived those years by the time of writing the novel and decided to make up a narrative of alternate history.7 In the case of Benefits, the novel was published in 1979, but the story goes from the summer of 1976 –the moment when Fairbairns started writing the story– until the year 2000. A parallelism can be therefore established with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four, since the feminist author is also anticipating the future, portraying it in a very dark way in order to achieve a rebellious reaction on the present society. Nevertheless, even though the nature of time has been transformed in these novels, there is a desperate will of moving forward and progressing. The fact that readers are placed in a different framework of time from the one in the narrative, just gives them more time to reflect on how this relationship to time is actually different and how they can influence on it.

The settings used in these dystopian narratives are also very effective. Dystopian writers usually set their nightmarish accounts in imaginary locations, but in both Fatherland and Benefits the cities chosen to situate the action are real, Berlin and London, respectively. This circumstance makes the stories more credible for their readers, who can easily identify with the situation if they already knew the setting. In the case of Harris’s Fatherland, the sense of repetition of a horrific event in history creates a feeling of déjà vu mixed with a refusal of certainty provoked by trauma, since the author is able to locate the real into the fictional in order to achieve a shocking impact on his readers. As exposed by Don De Lillo in his novel White Noise (1985): “The more we rehearse disaster, the safer we’ll be from the real thing” (205). Xavier March experiences this feeling as a character as, at some point, he is unable to distinguish fiction and reality when he discovers the truth about the Nazi Party and the Jewish Holocaust. Memories are, therefore, very important as a way to encourage the characters to search those motivations that push them to fight for freedom.

As a matter of fact, these brave actions end up providing a happy ending to these dystopian societies, something that could not be seen in their Orwellian predecessor -where there is no hope for either the protagonist or the society he lives in. In Fatherland, “it becomes irrelevant in the story whether the person lives or dies in the process. The determinant of their success is whether or not they improved the situation of those to follow” (Ferris 24), whereas in Benefits, Fairbairns wanted to suggest that “although bad things have happened, good things have happened too, and as long as there is somebody who still wants to make things better, things can improve” (134). In Harris’s alternate History, the hero has to sacrifice himself to change his surrounding society, but he stays true until his last sigh standing in Auschwitz’s ashes. The reader assumes this act will lead to disclose the Nazi genocide in the American media and to the eventual fall of the Third Reich. On the other hand, in Benefits, the rising of a new government that takes into account women’s voices can be felt. So, in the end, the reader witnesses the process of change after the fall of the totalitarian regime of FAMILY and Europea.

This study has focused on explaining and analyzing the relationship between two very different dystopias produced in the same century. Fatherland and Benefits are very similar in the way they are conceived, but the parameters used on each of the novels are quite different, as it has been demonstrated in this study. On the one hand, they share some aspects in the way the totalitarian powers organize and control their societies -although the inner organization of the parties is not the same due to their features. The mechanisms these regimes use to reach the enforcement of their doctrines is also pretty similar in both novels, being fear, propaganda, iconography, the manipulation of the media and the influencing of societies their favorite tools to achieve success. On the other hand, these systems are different when they deal with legislation, sexuality, religion, or the manipulation of history and bureaucracy. Similarities can be found in the treatment of technology and science as well, as none of the parties know how to use these devices in an appropriate way. In any case, the most important thing they share is the achievement of success through a persistent revolution against the government.

In conclusion, what are Fairbairns and Harris truly criticizing? Their novels are not just mere fiction used to entertain the reading public, “here the relevant political purpose is not the inspiration, but the warning” (Milner 344). The truth is that these authors want to show their readers the dangers of totalitarian dictatorships and the importance of the citizens in their prevention or destruction, avoiding passivity and encouraging revolutions. Turning to contemporary reality, the awkward political and social situation could be perfectly identified with a dystopian episode of any of the novels already presented. The Welfare State is being removed in many countries through social cuts provoked by a mixture of the world’s financial crisis and a shameful political management. A lot of families have unavoidably been pushed into a state of poverty, being victims of these seemingly harmless regimes. Predictions are not much better for women, since they still need to fight for equality and to be able to make decisions dealing with maternity. To finish with, it is difficult to be optimistic these days, but complains and conformity will lead us to a much worse dystopian future if we do not take the reins of our lives and fight for our future. The people have a voice that never has to be silenced, because the power of democracy lies on each individual’s right to choose.

Works cited

De Lillo, D. 1985. White Noise. London: Picador, 2011.

Dima-Laza, S.R. A Dystopian Society or the Moral Decay of Humanity [online]. Arad: Western University of Arad, 2011. Available at: http://www.uvvg.ro/socpol/images/stories/2011-1/4.pdf. Accessed 25 February 2013.

Domínguez, B. “The Retelling of History Through Her Story”. The Road from George Orwell: His Achievement and Legacy. Ed. Alberto Lázaro. Bern: Peter Lang, 2001. 139-56.

Elices, J. “The Satiric and Dystopic Legacy of George Orwell in Robert Harris’s Fatherland”. The Road from George Orwell: His Achievement and Legacy. Ed. Alberto Lázaro. Bern: Peter Lang, 2001. 199-224.

Fairbairns, Z. 1979. Benefits. Nottingham: Five Leaves, 1998.

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Lázaro. Bern: Peter Lang, 2001. 123-38.

Ferris, H. A Study in Dystopian Fiction [online]. Florida: Jacksonville University, 2012. Available at: http://findpdf.net/reader/A-STUDY-IN-DYSTOPIAN-FICTION-by-Harley-Ferris-ENGL-487.html. Accessed 10 February 2013.

Harris, R. 1992. Fatherland. London: Arrow Books, 2012.

Jameson, F. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso, 2005.

Kumar, K. Utopia & Anti-Utopia in Modern Times [online]. United States: University of Missouri-Kansas City's College of Arts, 1987. Available at: http://cas.umkc.edu/econ/economics/faculty/Lee/courses/488/reading/utopia7.pdf. Accessed 4 March 2013.

Marlin, R. Propaganda & the Ethics of Persuasion. Canada: Broadview P, 2002.

Milner, A. “Framing Catastrophe: The Problem of Ending in Dystopian Fiction.” Imagining the Future: Utopia and Dystopia. Eds..A. Milner et al. Australia: Arena Publications Association, 2006. 333-57.

Orwell, G. 1949. Nineteen Eighty-four. London: Penguin Books, 2000.

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Resumen

“Dystopian Societies in the Twentieth-Century British Panorama: Two Case-Studies” analiza las novelas Benefits (de Zoë Fairbairns) y Fatherland (de Robert Harris) desde el marco teórico general de la literatura distópica. Dicho marco recoge las principales características de este tipo de género literario, que se basan en la naturaleza totalitaria de un régimen político tiránico que centra su modelo de estado en el control sobre los individuos por parte de un grupo de personas que están en el poder bajo el mandato de un sujeto considerado superior. La existencia de un personaje (o grupo) dispuesto a desafiar este régimen y rebelarse contra él hace posible el punto de inflexión en la narración. No obstante, la naturaleza de este género no es puramente ficticia, puesto que tuvo su auge en los siglos XIX y XX a partir de una gran decadencia política y social en Europa y como consecuencia de eventos históricos desafortunados que marcaron notablemente a autores como George Orwell.

Toda novela distópica sigue los siguientes patrones: la diferenciación entre el sistema y cada individuo, el adoctrinamiento de las masas, la importancia de la tecnología y la ciencia, y el simbolismo que gira alrededor de la figura del líder. En el caso de Benefits y Fatherland, el género presenta dos variantes distintas. Por un lado, Benefits es una novela de distopía feminista que refleja una sociedad caótica capitaneada por un gobierno puramente masculino que ignora, reprime y hiere a la mujer de manera indiscriminada. Por otro lado, Fatherland es una novela de historia alternativa que muestra de manera zozobrante lo que podría haber pasado si Hitler hubiera ganado la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Asimismo, ambas novelas se ven influenciadas por su precursora 1984 (de George Orwell). A pesar de presentar parámetros diferentes, las dos distopías comparten muchos elementos similares y este estudio se centra en explicar y analizar la relación entre ambas novelas.

Dos de los elementos que Benefits y Fatherland tienen en común son la descripción de la organización del sistema político vigente y el desarrollo de los partidos políticos que están en el poder y su evolución a lo largo del tiempo. Algunos de los elementos distópicos que aseguraban la victoria de dichos partidos son: la adulteración de la Historia y la burocracia, los mensajes subliminales ocultos tras la propaganda y los eslóganes, la iconografía exagerada, la exaltación de la ornamentación, la manipulación de los medios de comunicación, la inducción del miedo de forma física y psicológica, las sociedades influenciadas y la creación de un enemigo al que todo el mundo debe odiar como antítesis del Partido.

La resistencia a estos partidos es llevada a cabo en ambas novelas por individuos que resultan ser los personajes principales, y cuyas esperanzas de lograr un mundo mejor no desaparecen a lo largo de la narración. En el caso de Benefits, las protagonistas son tres mujeres muy distintas que tienen un objetivo común: lograr la igualdad entre hombres y mujeres. En Fatherland el protagonista trabaja para el régimen que tanto odia, pero le supone una ventaja a la hora de lograr destapar las atrocidades llevadas a cabo por el mismo. La hostilidad creciente hacia estos sistemas también se ve influenciada por el fracaso en el uso de la ciencia y la tecnología, utilizados para el control de la información y los individuos. No obstante, también hay grupos de personas a favor de los partidos, como es el caso de niños y jóvenes, cuyas mentes son fácilmente influenciables por el discurso de FAMILY y el Partido Nazi.

Por último, elementos como el momento y el lugar en los que se desarrollan las novelas también son importantes para lograr un alto grado de efectividad sobre sus lectores. Éstos se solidarizan con los héroes mártires que han de sufrir y luchar por la búsqueda de un mundo más justo para todos los ciudadanos. En Benefits, el alzamiento de un nuevo gobierno da luz verde a las mujeres para poder tener una voz en el gobierno. En Fatherland el protagonista se sacrifica para que la verdad sobre los Nazis pueda ser destapada. Para concluir, la novela distópica es un género literario que critica y advierte de los daños que un gobierno totalitario puede llegar a causar en la sociedad. A pesar de su naturaleza ficticia, lo que se aprecia en las novelas es un reflejo de la situación política real de la época, generando una crítica y un llamamiento a los lectores para que no sean conformistas y luchen por un mundo mejor.