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 8-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
West wakes up disoriented, at first remembering only 1887 and becoming angry again at the workers who were on strike. Then he realizes he is not in his old bedroom and feels unsure about his own identity. He remembers the events of the previous day, and everything so overwhelms him that he gets dressed and goes for a walk in the new, future Boston. For two hours he walks while reflecting on how different it looks. He returns to the Leetes’ house feeling so helpless and confused that he feels nauseous.
Edith Leete finds West and takes his hands to comfort him. Her presence soothes him, and she apologizes for the Leetes leaving him alone; they expected him to sleep in. West tells her of his experience walking through the city in the early morning. She is confident that West will soon be content in his new time period, because it is so much better than the world he grew up in.
Chapter 9 Summary
West discusses his experience walking through town with Dr. and Mrs. Leete. He asks them what happened to all the banks and retail shops. They explain that there is no such thing as money anymore, and “the distribution of goods” is very different now (50). Dr. Leete explains that every citizen has a cardboard “credit card” with a designated amount of credit per year (corresponding to their share of the nation’s profit) (51). Individuals use this card to acquire goods directly from the government only, because no citizens have anything to sell to each other. Though friends do exchange gifts, credit cannot be transferred between people. Few people spend all their credit in a year, and at the end of the year, that credit returns to the common fund. People can take an advance on the following year’s credit when necessary, and in the rare case that someone forms a habit of spending too much, their credit allowance is distributed monthly instead of annually.
West again asks about wages, stating he cannot imagine a world where wages are not set by an antagonistic relationship between employer and employee. If the government is the only employer, there is no market price for labor, so wages must be set arbitrarily. Dr. Leete notes there is no such thing as wages, as the credit allotted each citizen is not based on their profession or title, but by “his humanity” (54). Some people have different capacities than others, but everyone can give the same amount of “effort” (55), and the effort is what is measured, not the output.
West asks Dr. Leete how it is ensured that everyone puts in their best effort at work. Dr. Leete repeats that human nature has not changed over the past century, but that because nobody needs to worry about their livelihood anymore, the kind of incentives have changed. Instead of fear of poverty, love of luxury, or desire for power or social position, now people are motivated by feelings of patriotism/nationalism and a “passion for humanity” (57). Their conversation is then interrupted by Edith, and Dr. Leete suggests Edith take West to the distribution center with her.
Chapter 10 Summary
As they walk, West explains to Edith how women shopped in 1887. He calls the necessity of having to browse at many different shops both an inconvenience and a luxury: “a device to kill time” (59). Edith introduces West to the distribution center for their ward. There is one such store per ward, each exactly the same, and everyone lives nearby one. This one does not have any goods displayed in the window. Inside, there are electric lights and a fountain that keeps the area cool. Rather than a clerk selling items, everything is labeled with informative cards that are completely accurate about their quality. Edith places her order with a clerk, who writes down the order in duplicate, gives her one as a receipt, and submits the other into a “transmitting tube” (62).
Because there is no division between producer and seller, each ward store is merely for ordering; the orders are sent to the “central warehouse” (63), where a clerk receives the order and arranges for the goods to be delivered via a pneumonic tube to the person’s home. On their walk back, West points out that people have different style and size houses; to this Edith responds that while everyone has the same income, everyone has different tastes, and they are free to spend less or more of their credit allowance on that which they value more.
Chapter 11 Summary
When they arrive home, Edith offers to play West some music. In their music room, Edith turns a couple knobs, and the music fills the room. Edith explains that professional musicians play the music in various concert venues in the city, and their sound is carried to each home by telephone wire. There are such concerts ongoing 24 hours a day, and each bedroom is equipped with speakers. That evening, West asks Dr. Leete about the question of inheritance. It still exists in the year 2000. Dr. Leete explains that having solved the question of labor, all other aspects of personal liberty remain safe to practice. Though a person’s credit allowance ceases upon their death, each person is allowed to pass on whatever they had acquired with credit during their lifetime to whomever they wish. However, few people want to accumulate great amounts of belongings because affording the space to store it all would eat into their annual credit allowance.
West then asks about domestic service. Dr. Leete explains that there are service workers, but they are not considered of lesser social status than anyone else. He explains that he can hire domestic service from the nation, but he chooses not to because there is no work for them to do. All cooking is done at public kitchens, all sewing is done at garment centers, and electricity has replaced fires and oil lighting. Dr. Leete notes that these advancements were possible in 1887 if not for the fact that nobody bothered trying to lighten the workload of the poor people hired to perform the tasks. West responds that the world must be a “paradise for womankind” now (70), for in 1887 even wealthy women had to spend most of their time with housework. Dr. Leete repeats again that the 19th-century’s obsession with individualism is what prevented West’s contemporaries from achieving the more efficient world that exists in the year 2000.
Chapter 12 Summary
West and Dr. Leete stay up late after the women go to sleep. West asks Dr. Leete again about the incentives that a worker would have to give full effort in their profession. Dr. Leete explains that during their first three years of common labor, young citizens are trained to follow orders, and records are kept of their performance. Records continue to be kept during each citizen’s ensuing apprenticeship within their profession, and these records help determine whether the worker earns a first, second, or third grade rank within their field. Workers are promoted or demoted as necessary, and demotion might lead to a worker being forced to leave their elected profession and return to common labor. The higher the rank, the more likely the citizen joins their first choice of profession, while lower ranks often get their second or third choice.
Those who are promoted to higher ranks are marked by a small metal badge in iron, silver, or gold—depending on their grade. While promotion is determined based on one’s career record, there are also prizes awarded for short-term excellence. Once a citizen turns 30, they have the chance to be promoted to lieutenant or assistant foreman. Once they become an officer, their record ceases to be about their individual performance and instead is based on the performance of the citizens under their command. Because these ranks never affect one’s livelihood or change the amount of effort required of them, they cause little anxiety among the workers, and Dr. Leete insists the incentive is no less influential to “weaker workers” (76). Those who receive promotion are mentioned in the newspaper, and anyone who refuses to work is sentenced to solitary confinement until they change their mind.
Dr. Leete explains that the system also accounts for disabilities. Everyone who has a physical or intellectual disability belongs to the “invalid corps” (76), and their labor is lessened to account for their capabilities—only to the extent such that their labor is equally as demanding as everyone else’s. West calls this “charity,” which Dr. Leete rejects (78). Dr. Leete explains that the “brotherhood of man” is such that everyone cares for those who need it.
As they talk, Dr. Leete becomes increasingly outraged at the unfairness of the 19th century, especially how they treated people with illnesses and disabilities. He argues that the advancements of society are the birthright of everyone.
Chapter 13 Summary
Dr. Leete shows West how to set up the music in his bedroom and explains that he will use the telephone system to set an alarm to go off at eight o’clock the next morning. This night, West is able to fall asleep without the aid of a tonic.
At breakfast, West asks his hosts about Europe. Dr. Leete explains that while the United States was the pioneer of the new social order, now all of Europe and most of the Americas have made similar progress. An international council regulates commerce and works to help develop the rest of the world to adopt a similar government. Because each nation is a single “merchant” (82), so to speak, regulating trade is simple. The cost of goods is determined by how much it costs each government to supply that good to their own citizens. Since nations do not use money, all trade is based on credit that is balanced at the end of each year.
Next he learns that emigration is unrestricted and that each nation compensates the other to account for the lost or gained labor. When a citizen merely wants to visit another country, they can use their credit card, just as someone can visit the United States and use a credit card provided by their own nation. Edith suggests they dine at the Elephant. Dr. Leete explains that while all cooking is done at public kitchens, the food is best when eaten at the public dining house. Before they go to dinner, Edith shows West their library, where he finds authors that he is familiar with. He begins reading works by Charles Dickens, and he is struck by the difference between Dickens’s time and his current time.
Chapter 14 Summary
They leave for dinner in the rain and walk to the dining house by sidewalk with continuous waterproof covering. Edith is astounded to learn that weather once affected “the social movements of the people” (89). The dining house is a grand building full of many smaller rooms, and one of the rooms is marked for the Leetes. Dr. Leete describes the room as part of their house, explaining that every family has a separate room in the dining house. There is a separate dining room for individuals passing through. Orders are placed ahead of time, and the menu can be as fancy or as common as the diner wishes. West observes that the waiter seems content despite the “menial position” of being a waiter (91). Edith had never heard the word “menial” before because the word and its meaning has since become obsolete.
Dr. Leete proclaims that anything different “weakens the sense of a common humanity” (92). He explains he was a waiter at the very same dining hall when he was fulfilling his three years of common labor. After dinner, they walk around the dining house, and West observes the grandeur of the place. Dr. Leete tells him that while their private lives are modest, all of their public and social establishes are grand.
Chapters 8-14 Analysis
With Looking Backward being a work of utopian fiction, Boston in the year 2000 is perfect in Bellamy’s mind. Everyone shares the nation’s wealth equally, regardless of merit, and the government designs each person’s job to make it as desirable as every other. The nation now “guarantees the nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave” (52). Coming from the 19th century, West struggles to comprehend what he observes to be a fundamental change in human nature. He believes what Bellamy’s contemporaries would’ve believed: that a system can only be as good as the behavior of the human masses. However, Dr. Leete argues that because no one worries for their livelihood, things like wealth and social status are no longer considered virtuous. The novel’s leap of faith is that, without these anxieties, humans are fully capable of putting the common good before their own private luxury. Another way to define this leap of faith, of course, is to call it a utopian vision, speaking to Utopian Concepts as a Way to Motivate Change. Bellamy hopes to portray this society as a utopia in order to fuel his readership to work toward it; he sets a concrete goal, in a way, that readers can focus on. He believes that all problems of human existence will be solved by this utopian system, and thus his portrayal of seemingly perfect humans encourages readers to attempt to achieve such a system. Bellamy uses the concept of utopia as an argumentative technique to spur his contemporaries to action through the leap of faith from 1887 to 2000.
To rally citizens to work for the public good, the government turns its workforce into an “army” that behaves like a military army. Bellamy borrows many ideas from the military, including the “mustering” of workers into the workforce, the use of “grades” and “ranks” to incentivize the workers to perform their best, and the promotion of officers who encourage the workers under their command. They even punish individuals unwilling to work with solitary confinement. Bellamy chooses the army for good reason: even in the 19th century, people joined the army for things like honor, duty, and a sense of civil service rather than money; the army, in some ways, is based on socialist principles, with a centralized hierarchy, standardization across units, and an expectation for the state to feed and clothe those who serve. Further, Bellamy’s audience of middle-class white people would be susceptible to arguments around nationalism. This speaks to Ideology of Solidarity as a Driving Force as Bellamy hopes to associate the military, nationalism, and duty with socialism. Bellamy wants to explicitly give a direction to readers that is based on solidarity; this will encourage them to serve as they might in an army, allowing the group itself to be the ideological focus of that group. It is telling, however, that this solidarity is nationalistic; Bellamy does not want people to unite around class, as Karl Marx would, but around the nation and race, improving the quality of life in the United States without regard to the larger global community.
By structuring the novel as an ongoing dialogue between Dr. Leete and West, Bellamy is able to bring up the skepticism of readers through West and respond to those doubts through Dr. Leete, who stands in as Bellamy’s avatar. Their dialogue thus stands in as a dialogue between the reader and the author. In these chapters, West continues to raise objections with an earnest attempt to understand despite his 19th-century biases. As Dr. Leete responds, he often fails to hide his anger at the 19th-century mindset. He denounces West’s beliefs that humans do not have a basic right to sustenance, and he is disgusted by West’s lack of sympathy for anyone who needs the state’s protection. He calls the 19th-century treatment of the “dependent classes” “repugnant” (79), and he repeatedly ridicules the age of individualism. In other words, through Dr. Leete, Bellamy performs his own outrage toward the circumstances of his own time and social order. This again attempts to deflect blame from the middle-class readership consuming his novel. By deflecting this blame, Bellamy positions himself to be more convincing to a middle-class readership for his view of socialism.
While he ridicules his contemporary world, Bellamy also constructs his utopia as one that would be attractive to his readers. He does this in three main ways: he explains that a socialist system is actually more efficient than a capitalist system, arguing that competition rather than cooperation leads to wasted effort; he invents conveniences such as public and expert music over telephone wires, public services, and spaces as “ornate and luxurious” as the grandest 19th-century homes (93); and he insists, at every turn, that nobody has sacrificed their personal freedoms. They can spend their credit allowance on whatever they want, enter any profession, and pass on their belongings after their death. Bellamy also alleviates his criticism of the century by characterizing it as a necessary step along the way to a perfect civilization to come. By centering the values of the middle-class—their own comfort, the desire for efficiency and productivity, and the notion of consumerism as personal freedom—Bellamy constructs a socialism that centers the comforts of his audience.
As Bellamy describes his utopia through Dr. Leete, some problems begin to appear, however, especially for a reader in the 21st century. For one, Bellamy always describes the worker as a man. So far there is almost no discussion of women despite West’s interactions with Edith. The only mention of women’s labor so far is West’s comment that women must have it easier now that housework is mostly eliminated. West and Dr. Leete do their more serious talking after the women go to bed, and Edith has a reputation as being a good shopper. At the same time, since West’s Black servant Sawyer died in the fire, there has been no mention of people of color in the United States. The only other mention of race is Dr. Leete’s description of “the more backward races” who have yet to achieve utopias in their nations and are thus not yet “civilized” (82). Despite his radical vision, Bellamy’s utopia inherits his culture’s racist and gendered biases. This speaks to A Vision of Utopia That Is Racist and Patriarchal. Bellamy envisions a perfect future that is only perfect for straight, white, cis-gender men. Bellamy’s insistence that utopia requires very little change in the comfort of middle-class Americans requires that difficult issues that would require serious change—such as racism and misogyny—be swept away and ignored as if they do not exist. Bellamy’s rhetorical aims of comfort cannot be achieved while acknowledging these deep societal issues.
Bellamy invents three things in his utopia that predict real inventions in the 20th century. He coins the term “credit cards,” which function like debit cards that withdraw funds from a virtual tally of an individual’s credit allowance; Dr. Leete describes a translation of real money into an “algebraical symbol” (51), something that is very common today. Bellamy also describes the use of telephone wire to broadcast music to homes, something that was theoretically possible but not commercialized until 1890 in France. And even the distribution centers—described as a one-stop shop for anything someone needs—predict the rise of megastores like Costco or Walmart. Bellamy’s vision of a future socialist society predicts a number of capitalist inventions that are ubiquitous under global capitalism and have often facilitated the growth of capitalism, like the credit card.
