This thesis explores three dystopian novels that depict different forms of island societies: "The Island of Doctor Moreau" by H. G. Wells (1896), "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding (1954), and "The Wall" by John Lanchester (2019). The author splits his text into two parts: a theoretical framework and an analysis. The theoretical framework is again subdivided.
The first section lays the foundation for the analysis of dystopian island settings, and explains and discusses important concepts and key terms regarding dystopia and islands. Subsequently, the author provides an overview of functions that islands can fulfill for a society. The second section of the theoretical framework introduces and explains the tools necessary for the analysis of control mechanisms within societies. These tools make it possible to uncover how the respective fictional society organises and controls itself. For the analysis of control mechanisms and power structures in these societies this thesis draws on various concepts of power proposed by Michel Foucault.
In the analysis, which constitutes the second main part of this thesis, the author examines each novel separately, in chronological order. By systematically applying the guiding questions mentioned in the methodology, a detailed analysis of the insular societies depicted in the three novels is conducted.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Theoretical Background Part 1: Approaching (Dystopian) Island Structures
2.1 Definition of Key Terms
2.1.1 Utopia, Eutopia and Euchronia
2.1.2 Satire, Science Fiction and Dystopia
2.1.3 Conceptualising Islands: Insularity and Islomania
2.2 Islands and Society: An Overview
2.2.1 Islands of Exile
2.2.2 Islands of Refuge
2.2.2 Paradise Islands
2.2.3 Islands of Possession and Exploitation
2.2.5 Metaphorical Islands
3. Theoretical Background Part 2: Approaching and Identifying Social Structures on Islands
3.1 Universal Criteria for a Functional Community
3.2 Community Control Mechanisms
3.2.1 Discourse
3.2.2 Power Relations
3.2.2.1 Sovereign Power
3.2.2.2 New Politics of the Body
3.2.2.3 Disciplinary Power
3.2.2.4 Surveillance
3.2.2.5 Resistance
3.2.2.6 Biopower and Biopolitics
4. Methodology
5. Analysis
5.1 The Island of Doctor Moreau
5.2 Lord of the Flies
5.3 The Wall
6. Conclusion
Abstract
Die vorliegende Arbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Master of Education befasst sich mit dem Inselsetting und dessen Auswirkungen auf gesellschaftliche Machtstrukturen am Beispiel von drei dystopischen Romanen. Es wird untersucht, welche Kontrollmechanismen die jeweiligen Inselgesellschaften anwenden, um (vermeintlich) Ordnung herzustellen. Die Arbeit befasst sich zunächst mit dem Genre der Utopie und seinen Unterformen sowie den Konzepten ,Insularity‘ und ,Islomania‘. Danach wird herausgearbeitet, welche Funktionen Inseln für unsere Gesellschaft einnehmen können. Für die Analyse von Gesellschaftsstrukturen werden im Anschluss anhand von Nicholas Christakis‘ social suite Kriterien vorgestellt, mithilfe derer Gesellschaften aus evolutionstheoretischer Sicht betrachtet werden. Zusätzlich werden Michel Foucaults philosophisch-soziologische Konzepte zu Machstrukturen eingeführt, mit denen Kontrollmechanismen in den jeweiligen Inselgesellschaften aufgedeckt werden. Mithilfe von vier Leitfragen untersuche ich nacheinander die drei dystopischen Romane. Bei den Romanen handelt es sich um The Island of Doctor Moreau von H. G. Wells, Lord of the Flies von William Golding und The Wall von John Lanchester. Ziel der Analyse ist es, anhand der untersuchten Gesellschaftsstrukturen in den jeweiligen Romanen herauszufinden, wie das Inselsetting für das Genre der Dystopie genutzt wird.
Ich komme zu dem Ergebnis, dass das Inselsetting durch seine Isolation von der Außenwelt einen idealen Ort darstellt, um konventionelle Gesellschaftsstrukturen umzukehren, indem Macht in der zentralisierten Form eines Souveräns über die Inselbewohner ausgeübt wird. In den Romanen, in denen das Inselsetting eine Heterotopie darstellt, entpuppen sich dementsprechend einzelne Protagonisten als ,Islomanes‘ wohingegen das Inselsetting in der ,echten‘ Welt durch den Staat als Souverän gekennzeichnet ist. Zudem zeichnet sich die dystopische Insel dadurch aus, dass sie sowohl als Zufluchtsort als auch als materieller Ort, der besessen werden kann, dient. Diese Zweiteilung hat zur Folge, dass sie für den Souverän, der die Insel ,besitzt‘, zu einem statischen Ort wird, während sie für diejenigen Protagonisten, denen sie als Zufluchtsort dient, einen liminalen Ort zwischen zwei Gesellschaften darstellt. Das Inselsetting dient folglich als Mikrokosmos, der unterschiedliche Gesellschaftsstrukturen gegenüberstellt. Zuletzt zeigt sich, dass die dystopische Insel durch ihre topographischen Beschaffenheiten gesellschaftliche Strukturen anhand von Wäldern, Erhöhungen und Stränden beeinflussen und widerspiegeln kann. Auf meine Analyse folgt eine kurze Zusammenstellung der wichtigsten Ergebnisse aus den einzelnen Romanen, anhand derer ich die oben genannten Schlussfolgerungen erläutere, bevor ich einen Ausblick auf zukünftige Forschung in Bezug auf das literarische Inselsetting gebe.
“Islands are heirs to an ancient mythic legacy that depicts them as the natural home of wonders and feelings of freedom, however illusory these may be in fact.” (Meeker 202)
1. Introduction
Islands have always shaped people's imagination. Joseph Meeker's quote (see above) depicts islands as objects that are seen as distant and different, which is why they provide an ideal breeding ground for all kinds of fantasies that cannot be acted out on the mainland. Rod Edmond and Vanessa Smith suggest that “[t]he desire to perceive the island as a bounded and therefore controllable space seems to link writing on islands across the sciences and humanities, connecting the most fantastic of island utopias with the most careful of scientific treatises” (5). The remoteness of islands allows social conventions to be put to the test, renewed, or entirely recreated.
It is thus understandable that the island setting is a popular choice in literature, songs and movies. Thomas More's famous Utopia, that paved the way for a new genre, is set on an island. Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe projecting colonial thoughts on the island has become the prototype for a genre that exclusively deals with the island setting. But also other literary genres such as crime fiction, thriller, romance, and fantasy exploit the island theme manifold (cf. Crane and Fletcher xvii). The island setting is also a common theme in music. The band Weezer, for instance, sings of an “Island in the Sun”, “a place to call your own”, surrounded by “a golden sea”, making the speaker “feel so fine [he] can't control [his] brain”. TV reality shows such as Love Island or Survivor create artificial spaces on islands, in which contestants try to stay as long as possible by finding love or surviving in the wilderness. Rituals in these shows such as ‘Recoupling Ceremonies' or ‘Tribal Councils' allude to the island as a primitive place in which individuals can rediscover their very human nature. The majority of these ‘islands' imply ideas of adventure, self-reflection, and the effect of reentering society as a changed - mostly better - person.
But what happens if the supposed feeling of freedom on islands, mentioned by Meeker, suddenly turns into the opposite? What happens when the island as a “site of new beginnings” (McMahon, Islands 8) shifts from mythical paradise to a place in which social order is contested or even subverted? Events such as the collapse of the Moria Refugee Camp, which is situated on the island of Lesbos, illustrate that islands are certainly not always the beautiful places they are advertised as. The island's confinement can be considered both a curse and a blessing; it can thus provide the setting for (e)utopian as well as dystopian societies. In his quote, Meeker suggests that many people do not want to admit that injustice and misery occur on islands in our world, precisely because islands normally evoke positive and exotic associations. These negative occurrences, however, of which the incidents on Lesbos are only one example, need to be critically reflected on. Literature can serve as a means to uncover such issues and to comment on these. The genre of dystopia is particularly well suited to embed social criticism and to give insights into society structures on islands which contradict the common notion of a paradisiacal place.
According to Jill Franks, islands “exert a unique appeal because they are contained spaces, and therefore, theoretically at least, controllable” (7). The theoretical possibility to control islands leads to the question of how ‘controllable' islands and their societies really are. In this thesis I want to analyse exactly this dichotomy of islands, being objects of both insularity and islomania - of freedom, isolation, and controllability. I examine how and why the island works as an ideal setting for the dystopian genre. Therefore, I analyse how the supposed controllability of islands is reflected in dystopian island societies and how these societies organise themselves. I argue that the dystopian island setting functions as a place of isolation always implying a certain amount of freedom while at the same time confining and enclosing the society that lives in it. This dichotomy forms an ideal basis for the dystopian genre, allowing the author to creatively juxtapose the islanders' freedom with the imbalances of power that emerge from the island's enclosure. At the same time, the respective dystopian island serves as an ideal testing ground for social experiments which require isolation to be conducted. These social experiments challenge social stability both from an evolutionary and a sociological perspective. To answer this thesis, I explore three dystopian novels that depict different forms of island societies. The novels I examine are The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells (1896), Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954), and The Wall by John Lanchester (2019).
I structure this thesis by two main parts: a theoretical framework and an analysis. My theoretical framework is again subdivided into two parts. The first part lays the foundation for my analysis of dystopian island settings. In this part, I explain and discuss important concepts and key terms regarding dystopia and islands. Subsequently, I provide an overview of functions that islands can fulfil for society. The second part of my theoretical framework introduces and explains the tools necessary for my analysis of control mechanisms within societies. These tools make it possible to uncover how the respective fictional society organises and controls itself. In this part, I introduce Nicholas Christakis' social suite in order to determine whether societies can potentially exist from an evolutionary point of view. For the analysis of control mechanisms and power structures in these societies I draw on various concepts of power proposed by Michel Foucault. In my methodology, which then follows, I briefly outline the guiding questions I used for my analysis. In my analysis, which constitutes the second main part of this thesis, I examine each novel separately, beginning in chronological order according to the novel's date of release. By systematically applying the guiding questions mentioned in my methodology, I carry out a detailed analysis of the insular societies depicted in the three novels. In my conclusion, I briefly summarise my main findings, point out similarities, and indicate how these findings can be used for future research.
2. Theoretical Background Part 1: Approaching (Dystopian) Island Structures
2.1 Definition of Key Terms
Before social structures on islands can be uncovered, it is necessary to clarify the terms and concepts that form the framework for my analysis. These key terms and concepts will help to understand the respective island society in its context.
2.1.1 Utopia, Eutopia and Euchronia
In order to define the term ‘dystopia', it is essential to clarify its position within the broader field of ‘utopia'. Therefore, it is necessary to explain the term ‘utopia' and its features first. While utopian thinking can be traced back as far as to Plato's Politeia, in which he describes the ideal state, the term ‘utopia' has first been coined by Thomas More in 1516 (cf. Vieira 3). In his book Utopia, More describes a fictional island which represents an alternative world. This world, however, is only imaginary and therefore inaccessible from the real world. The term ‘utopia', consisting of the Greek words ouk (not) and topos (place) constitutes a place that is non-existing, a non-place. Its non-existence is thus “simultaneously constituted by a movement of affirmation and denial” (Vieira 4).
While More's fictional island denotes inaccessibility, its description of an alternative society also implies the idea of a good place, which More coined ‘eutopia'. Introducing these two terms, “More created a tension that has persisted over time and has been the basis for the perennial duality of meaning of utopia as the place that is simultaneously a non-place (utopia) and a good place (eutopia)” (Vieira 5). Although utopianism itself has existed long before More's literary work, the term ‘utopia' has become an element of classification for a “particular kind of narrative, which became known as utopian literature” (Vieira, 4). The fact, however, that utopian literature is very versatile in its contents and sometimes intertwines with other literary genres leads to the problem that this concept risks a loss of its own identity, which makes the formulation of a concise definition difficult. To Barbara Goodwin and Taylor Keith, utopia primarily “denotes an elaborate vision of ‘the good life' in a perfect society which is viewed as an integrated totality: such a vision transcends normal idealism, and is inevitably at variance with the imperfections of existing society and so, per se, constitutes a critique of social institutions” (4). Lyman Tower Sargent offers a broader definition in which he states that utopia is “a nonexistent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space” (9). Although definitions vary to some degree, they all incorporate the notion that utopias are thought experiments in which authors play with society structures that are different from their own society.
Utopias often contain specific features which consistently reoccur. According to Vieira, utopias usually include a person travelling by sea, land, or air to an unknown place (cf. 7). After the traveller's arrival, he or she is given a tour through the respective society and gets insights into the society's economy, politics, religion, and social life (cf. Vieira 7). At the end, the traveller returns to his or her own society, having experienced one or several alternative models of society (cf. Vieira 7). According to James Colin Davis, details of these societies vary in terms of how they organise themselves, but the measures by which they comprise deficiencies present in real society constantly remain in the realms of institutions, laws, education, and bureaucracy (cf. 5). While Vieira emphasises that utopias are not “ideas of perfection[,] one of [their] most recognizable traits is [their] speculative discourse on a non-existent social organization which is better than the real society” (7). It is important to mention that this description is only true for the “Morean” notion of utopia, which includes the idea of eutopia.
With the beginning of the Enlightenment and the emerging vision of using reason to improve society, utopian societies, which until then existed on remote islands or in unknown places, moved to real places (cf. Vieira 9). In order to still maintain distance to the real society while optimistically implying that these utopian society structures could in fact be achieved, utopian societies moved to the future, thereby shifting from ‘utopia' to ‘euchronia'1: “In this way, utopias became dynamic, and promoted the idea that man had a [political] role to fulfil” (Vieira 10). Political thinking and new inventions should pave the way towards a better future. This optimism, however, also gave room for criticism and opened the doors for new approaches towards utopian thinking.
2.1.2 Satire, Science Fiction and Dystopia
Although euchronia was supposed to depict ideas of an ideal future, it soon became apparent that these models of the future had significant flaws. Even though these futures represented apparently ideal societies, authors recognised that “[o]ne man's paradise is another's Inferno” (Goodwin and Keith 6). In British literature, the two authors who stand out in terms of dealing with these errors are Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. They did not use the utopian narrative to illustrate an ideal society but to criticise this idealism and to satirise the present (cf. Vieira 11). These narratives can be described as ‘satirical utopia', forming a sub-genre of utopia (Vieira 15). Eighteenth century utopias predominantly focused on the idea that “only law would ensure social order, thus conveying a negative vision of man” (Vieira 11). In contrast to utopia, satirical utopia highlights the values of the real world, discarding utopian ideals (cf. Vieira 16). Satirical utopias therefore played a crucial role in further developments of the dystopian narrative, since their distrust in utopianism made room for even more severe criticism of the future: “If utopia is about hope, and satirical utopia is about distrust, anti-utopia is clearly about total disbelief” (Vieira 16).
According to Gregory Claeys, ‘Dystopia', ‘Anti-utopia', or sometimes called ‘negative utopia' portrays a fictional society in which negative political or social developments lead to an undesirable future (cf. 107). Peter Fitter, in turn, argues that even anti-utopia and dystopia are two different narrative strategies. He proposes that anti-utopia is a “defence of the status quo” (141) while dystopia “implies the need for change” (141). It is important to mention that the perception of a society as utopian or dystopian is a matter of perspective and Claeys aptly compares this issue to “one person's terrorist [who] is another's freedom-fighter” (108). Ideals and their counterparts are hardly ever - if not never - universally true but are themselves results of specific ideas which not everybody agrees with. The depiction of eutopia and dystopia is very much an ethical question. Therefore, many apparently ideal societies subliminally contain elements of dystopia and vice versa (cf. Claeys 107).
Dystopias often use the principles of euchronia, meaning that they portray a society in a real place but in the future (cf. Vieira 17). Alternatively, dystopian societies are set in the same time but in a different place, forming a ‘heterotopia'. The word ‘heterotopia', itself a derivative of the word ‘utopia', signifies ‘other place' and can take on different meanings2. In terms of dystopian narratives, “heterotopias represent a kind of a haven for the protagonists, and are very often to be found in their memories, in their dreams, or in places which, for some reason, are out of the reach of the invigilation system which normally prevails in those societies” (Vieira 18).
Dystopian narratives have become especially popular in the 20th century. Along with people's hopes that arose from scientific and technological progress, many also started to fear the dangers that resulted from this progress and realised that totalitarian regimes could exploit science for the worse (Voigts 48). Their main target is didactic and moralistic, trying to warn the reader of these dangers (cf. Vieira 17). It is not surprising that the prevalence of technological and scientific progress in dystopias - but also in eutopias - has raised the question whether scientific utopias and dystopias are sub-genres of science fiction or vice versa or whether it is even possible to distinguish them (cf. Fitter 135). Scientific progress certainly had an impact on utopian narratives. Fitter suggests that especially the invention of euchronia has paved the way for utopia and science fiction to go hand in hand (cf. 138). Furthermore, technology often serves as a “tool for social transformation” (Fitter 139) in utopian and dystopian societies. In order to make a distinction, Fitter suggests that utopia offers ideas for an alternative present while science fiction is neutral and can either oppose or defend the status quo. According to him, especially contemporary science fiction seldom criticises the present (cf. 150). It is difficult to tell if this distinction is sufficient. Yet, what emerges from it is the genres' similarity in terms of technology and its impact on future societies.
2.1.3 Conceptualising Islands: Insularity and Islomania
Islands are dichotomous places. They are isolated places, often secluded from bigger societies. At the same time, it is precisely this isolation that makes them so attractive to generations of people, who have always desired islands. Before taking into regard the roles they fulfil for society, it is necessary to define the key terms ‘island', ‘insularity' and ‘islomania'. Etymologically, the term ‘island' comes from Old English ëgland, which is made up of the words ‘ieg’, meaning a formation on water, and ‘land' (cf. Onions 486). Islands in the classical sense are thus places which are floating on water. These places, are not necessarily situated in the sea but can also be watery meadows or pastures (cf. Onions 486). The errorneous connection between the word ‘island' and the term ‘isolation' is the result of a false association with the word ‘isle' (cf. Cresswell). ‘Isle' stems from French ‘ile' and accordingly from Latin ‘insula' which eventually lead to the addition of an ‘s' to the English term (cf. Cresswell).
It is worth noting that the Latin term itself is probably a derivative of Ancient Greek ev aXi ovoa (cf. Georges 335) (‘that which is in the sea'3 ). The term ‘insula' is thereby associated with isles as places connected to the sea from the very beginning. Interestingly, ‘insula' was also the name for dwellings without adjoining buildings and front courts, often separated from other houses like modern buildings, and housing people with lower income called ‘insularii' (cf. Georges 335). This is why the term ‘insula' has very early become a metaphor for islands being isolated places, while ‘ egland' kept its literal meaning until it mingled with the word ‘isle'. Taking a modern perspective, Gillian Beer suggests that in the “bio-geographical usage islands are enclosures within which intimate ecological relations prevail and from which their population cannot escape and survive (not fish in the wood, or tree-insects on the plain)” (33).
While people have always had the concept of ‘insularity' in their minds, a term for describing this concept has emerged only relatively late. The idea of islands as places of isolation gave birth to the terms ‘insular' and ‘insularity'. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary dates the first use of the adjective ‘insular' back to 1611 (cf. “Insular”). ‘Insular' can be defined as (1) “a characteristic of an isolated people especially being, having, or reflecting a narrow provincial viewpoint”, (2a) “of relating to, or constituting an island”, or (2b) “dwelling or situated on an island” (“Insular”). The noun insularity (consisting of the adjective insular and the suffix -ity, which implies having the quality or state of the respective adjective) consequently denotes the characteristic of being ‘insular'. What emerges from these definitions is the notion that being insular has a negative connotation, namely an implication of isolation.
Christy Constantakopoulou adds to the concept of insularity that besides isolation it also implies “uniqueness” (2). In a metaphorical sense, insularity is a restricted mindset, whereas geographically it constitutes a place that is off reach from others. Constantakopoulou, however, also shows that the concept of insularity can vary and that, e.g. in ancient Greece, islands took on both forms, isolation and connectivity through networks which they formed with other islands (cf. 4). Edmond and Smith accordingly argue that the depiction of an island as locked from the outside world is an image that has been created by Western countries (cf. 8) and that islands in the Pacific world were places of social networks which were in constant flux (cf. 9). The concept of insularity is thus dependent on the respective island's culture, politics, and location. Constantakopoulou argues that the concept of insularity is more suitable for oceanic islands which form their own environments without communication from the outside world (cf. 3).
The last key term that needs clarification is the word ‘islomania'. The OED defines ‘islomania' as “a passion or craze for islands” (“Islomania”). The suffix -mania expresses an excessive craze for something, in this case for islands. In contrast to the term ‘insularity', ‘islomania' is used more rarely and does for instance not even have an entry in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Depicting the island as a place of desire and attraction, it represents the antithesis to the term ‘insularity'. According to John Vinocur, the term has first been coined by Lawrence Durrell in his travel book Reflections on a Marine Venus: a Companion to the Landscape of Rhodes, which was first published in 1953 . The book's main character Gideon defines islomania as an “indescribable intoxication at the thought of being on an island” (Durrell, 15). He calls people who are afflicted by this intoxication “islomanes” (Durrell, 15), and values the remoteness of islands from authorities and their tendency towards freedom and solitude (cf. 15). If insularity is a way of portraying isolation in a negative way, islomania highlights its positive features. John R. Gillis points out that islomania in Europe - not as a term but as a way of thinking - was very prominent from 1400 to 1800, when the desire for islands was so strong that people gladly accepted America and Australia to be islands instead of continents (cf. 19). Islomania implies an objectification of islands, the idea that islands are places that one wants to possess and to get in control of while at the same time evading the norms of one's society. However, just like other ‘manias', for instance the ‘Balloonomania', the ‘Beatlemania' or the ‘Scribblemania', islomania is a mindset that can be preeminent for a while but eventually lose its appeal.
2.2 Islands and Society: An Overview
The definitions of islands, insularity and islomania show that islands imply isolation. From a geographic point of view, this is undoubtedly true. Yet, it would be insufficient to solely rest upon these definitions. Islands are discursive elements which - from a sociological point of view - get their meaning(s) from the way society perceives them. Philip E. Steinberg notes that “islands are also social constructions, rooted in specific historic contexts” (254). It is thus necessary to elaborate on the different functions islands fulfil for society.
2.2.1 Islands of Exile
Islands are ideal places to exclude people who do not conform to social conventions. Their remoteness allows societies to control people without being near them. Although island exiles are not exclusively the domain of the Roman Empire, it makes sense to start from there, since the term ‘exile'4 itself is of Latin origin and thus constitutes the relevance of this practice in Roman society. Sarah T. Cohen explains that with the beginning of the Roman Empire, exile on islands became a prominent punishment (cf. 207). Mary Braginton distinguishes between mild and severe types of banishments (cf. 392). Milder forms were banishments from Rome and Italy or from a province without the loss of civil rights (cf. Braginton 392). More severe types of banishment in contrast resulted most of the time in relegations or even deportations to islands (cf. Braginton 393). Therefore, the lives of people exiled on an island varied greatly. While relegated exiles kept the advantages they had in Rome, deported island exiles faced a life of misery. The most prominent exile islands of the early Roman Empire were “the Cyclades, Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearic Isles and certain small islands close to the Italian shore” (Braginton 394). These islands were all inhabited beforehand (cf. Braginton 400). It is interesting that the island exile was perceived as an especially undesirable punishment. In order to make sure that the exile went to the designated place by himself without the involvement of force, there had been penalties which ensured that nobody offered the exile a hiding place (cf. Braginton 394). The deportation of an exile to an island, in contrast, required a forcible removal (cf. Braginton 394). While it is not clear whether there were guards to monitor the exile, it is certain that in most of the cases, the exile could move freely on the island (cf. Braginton 395).
An exception to this was the banishment of members of the emperor's family, who had several guards and were kept on islands close to the Italian coast (cf. Braginton 395). The location of islands thus played an important role in terms of controlling exiled individuals. The further the island was away, the more it applied to the concept of insularity, and thereby exiles diverged in terms of freedom. Although island exiles meant an exclusion of society, it often happened that exiles could eventually return, when there was a new emperor (cf. Braginton 396). Elizabeth McMahon points out that besides the Roman exile tradition, from “medieval times, leprosy has confined thousands to island settings for isolation, including the famous leper colony on Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands” (McMahon, “Gilded Cage” 200).
Since exiles on islands are the results of banishment from society to a confined space, the question arises whether there is a distinction between exile islands and prisons. What they both share is that they serve as places to harbour people who failed to comply with the norms of society. Some of the most infamous prisons are on islands. Examples such as Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay or Devil's Island in French Guiana show that islands and prisons can effectively go hand in hand. These islands are small and have penitentiaries occupying the space of the entire island. Imprisonment thereby happens on a dual basis: naturally through the island, and additionally by the setup of the penitentiary. Generally, these prison islands were used to confine the most dangerous criminals. ‘Pure island exiles' differ in the fact that people have already lived on the island before the arrival of the exiled individual(s). The notion of exclusion does accordingly not apply to these preestablished island societies. The state of being or becoming excluded of something constitutes the ‘exile penalty', which leads to the fact that the same place does not symbolise exile to everyone.
Australia, initially serving as a penal colony for prisoners from the UK, occupied the role of a prison while not actually having institutionalised penitentiaries5. Its geographical remoteness was sufficient to function as a penalty, hiding exile under the guise of imprisonment. These examples illustrate that island exiles imply more freedom than island prisons since island prisons function as meticulous systems of incarceration while island exiles often lack features such as surveillance and containment at a certain place. While in both forms, society exercises control over an individual, the degree of control strongly varies.
2.2.2 Islands of Refuge
When a person was sent to an island as a form of punishment, this place of exile was a specific destination. But what happens if a person has to leave a certain place and does not know where to go? Throughout history, islands have served as havens for castaways and voyagers who had lost track or needed a shelter. This ‘shipwreck' motif has become a popular theme early on and has therefore been taken up again and again in literature up to the present day. The oldest example of shipwreck literature is probably Homer's Odyssey. After the Trojan war, Homer's hero Odysseus and his crew want to return to his hometown - itself an island - Ithaka. On their journey, they are several times forced to land on islands in order to find shelter. These islands, however, either lure Odysseus and his crew into staying there or pose dangers the men have to face. Islands of refuge such as in the Odyssey are no end points but serve as temporary settlements the protagonist eventually has to leave to find his way back home (cf. Moss 146).
Modern examples such as the isle of Lesbos or island neighbours of Australia show that islands near the mainland can serve as liminal spaces which harbour refugees while concurrently keeping them from sovereign territory (cf. McMahon 14). Both modern examples, however, also imply that these islands have become islands of refuge on purpose and that again the island is only a place of temporary stay. At this point it is important to note that the Moria Refugee Camp on Lesbos has recently been in the headlines around the world and is openly being criticised by the Human Rights Watch as they rather consider it an open-air prison than a place of refuge. In contrast to the epic tradition of Homer's Odyssee or Virgil's adaptation, the Aeneid, these modern island refuges are spaces of territorial sovereignty in which the control of the status quo is of high relevance. Refuge thereby leads to a lack of personal freedom. All these examples show that islands can simultaneously fulfil several functions, depending on how society chooses to use them.
2.2.3 Paradise Islands
The remoteness of islands has always been an inspiration for people to think of them as ideal worlds (cf. Meeker 199). Unsurprisingly, Thomas More's Utopia is set on a remote island. But even before his depiction of an ideal world on an island, imaginations of paradise islands have existed. Europeans had “always imagined Eden as insular, representing it as either landlocked or sea-girt” (Gillis 25). The perception of Eden as an island, however, also implied God's wrath due to man's sinfulness since islands concurrently represented the shattered pieces of a once perfect Eden betrayed by Adam and Eve (cf. Gillis 22). In medieval Judeo-Christian tradition, islands represented the fragments of a once complete world, and the water surrounding them was a symbol of chaos (cf. Gillis 20). Islands were thus both, symbols of man's sinfulness and salvation. Ian Kinane explains that this dichotomy also led to “counter-narratives of paradise [on islands] as an altogether more fearful and hellish place” (154).
Similar to the island's paradisiacal depiction in Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism also feature images of paradise islands. In Buddhist cosmology, there are “four islands of ‘excellent earth'”, providing their inhabitants with everything they need (Tuan 118). In Hinduist beliefs there exists “an ‘essential island' of pulverized gems on which sweet-smelling trees grow[, housing] the magna mater” (Tuan 118). In addition, Chinese legends tell of the “Blessed Isles or the Three Isles of the Genii which were believed to be located in the Eastern Sea” (Tuan 118). To ancient Greeks, Romans, and Celts, Oceanus was the border of the world, and places beyond were mysterious islands which were the homes of heroes, inaccessible to ordinary people (cf. Gillis 21). Throughout history, islands have been considered locations of mystery as they are hidden in the sea far away from the mainland. It is this quality that made them ideal places for people to imagine potential paradises to be there.
With the beginning of the Age of Discovery, places which were once inaccessible suddenly lost their mysteriousness due to extensive explorations, and paradise islands moved further away (cf. Gillis 23). According to Gavan Daws, eventually the South Seas received the emblem of holding a paradisiacal place (cf. 6). Concurrently, the “legends of the Fortunate Isles [were] revived, luring European explorers first to the Canaries, then to the Madeiras, Azores, Sao Tome, and the Cape Verdes” (Gillis 23), pushing the boundaries further and further away. Although today there are no more boundaries which explorers can transcend to find an undiscovered island, the notion of islands as paradisiacal places has prevailed. Kinane points out that modern island paradises are hideaways from globalisation and function as places resisting those globalising effects (cf. 138). Gillis, accordingly explains that “the Caribbean isles, with all that tragic history, were rediscovered by modern tourism as earthly paradises” (31). Interestingly, the image of the ‘island paradise' is always linked to exotic places, although ninety percent of small islands in the world are in the northern hemisphere with a cooler and rainy climate (cf. Meeker 202). Travel agencies exclusively advertise dream tours to ‘paradise islands' such as Barbados, Dominica, the British Virgin Islands etc. on their websites (cf. “Paradise”), TV shows such as Bachelor in Paradise or Temptation 6 Island create their own microcosm on islands promoting a potentially paradisiacal place. These islands certainly do not represent paradise in its original sense and have lost their mysticism due to mass tourism and mass media, but they still illustrate the concept of islomania that has fueled the imagination about paradise islands for centuries.
2.2.4 Islands of Possession and Exploitation
In the previous chapters it could already be shown that islands can fulfil several functions for society. Yet, the core of all these functions is still missing, namely that islands are material objects. The process of making an island a place of exile, a place of refuge or a place of paradise results from an underlying discourse of possession. The act of occupying a space, even if it is only temporary, always implies the idea of possessing this space. With exile islands and islands of refuge this is done subliminally; paradise islands, at least the modern, demystified ones, illustrate this aspect more overtly. As Godfrey Baldacchino states, “[I]slands help to unleash and encourage the indulging of atavistic desires for power and control, encouraging humans (usually men) to think that their island world is an enticing tabula rasa” (105). This certainly also applies to modern paradise islands which often serve as constructions of utopian expectations - particularly from a Western point of view. Furthermore, islomania, especially prominent in terms of finding paradise islands, has pushed people to explore the world and unravel island mysteries, seizing these places for themselves.
Islands are generally easy to attack as their security depends on how well islanders can maintain control of the surrounding sea (cf. Franks 8). If they ever lose control, islanders are restricted to their resources which usually cannot compete with those of greater powers (cf. Franks 8). Although islands have always been “subject to breaching and incursion, both natural and cultural” (Edmond and Smith 5), especially the Age of Discovery has shaped the discourse of islands as places of possession (cf. Weaver-Hightower xiii). In the European colonial period, virtually any Western island has been target of European colonisers. In terms of small islands, Stephen A. Royle goes so far as to say that all islands are or have been colonised or at least depend on an external government (146). With regard to literature, Weaver-Hightower explains that the expansion of the British Empire due to exploration and colonisation has fuelled castaway narratives starting with Shakespeare's play The Tempest (cf. xiii). Alluding to ‘Providence' or ‘nature's plan', these castaway narratives were ways of legitimising the colonisation of those spaces (cf. Weaver-Hightower xiv). Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is probably the best-known representative of this narrative, that features what Weaver-Hightower calls the ‘castaway colonist' (cf. xviii). His work laid the foundation for the genre ‘Robinsonade'. According to Weaver-Hightower, these stories' protagonists have “not so much been cast away from something as brought to the island by colonial ambition and . . . [thus] the story concerns [their] relationship with the island more than the home [they] left” (xviii). As soon as the castaway realises that he7 is on an island, he tries to westernise it. In terms of castaway stories, Weaver-Hightower raises an interesting argument saying that the island is particularly a target of possession because it resembles the male body which the castaway incorporates and constantly tries to control (cf. xviii).
Philip E. Steinberg adds another intriguing notion to the aspect of islands as places of possession. Using portolan charts8 as an object of research, he argues that the boundedness of islands served as a prototype for territorial states and sovereignty. Although it was already known that England and Scotland belonged to one landmass, portolan charts of the 16th century viewed them as separate islands in order to illustrate statehood (cf. Steinberg 260). Islands were ideal symbols of sovereignty since their natural boundaries allowed them to be easily perceived as places that belonged to only one entity. Therefore, they were not only places colonisers conquered but also themselves representations of possession on terra continens. Simone Pinet even argues that the word ‘island' itself is a metaphor for government (cf. 183). Indeed, most of the islands today with a few exceptions are subject to one government9.
Besides their symbolic function of possession, islands are also objects of exploitation. James-Hamilton Paterson annotates that islands “have the air of being extra-legal, extra-territorial, out of sight and censure” (77) and therefore pose seemingly more possibilities than the mainland. Military, for instance, uses them as testing grounds for “nuclear and ballistic missile testing” (McMahon, “Gilded Cage” 200). Since they are often far away from the mainland, they are also used as dumping grounds for toxic waste (cf. McMahon, “Gilded Cage” 200). Additionally, they serve as strategic positions from where its possessing entity can control trade or start military operations on the mainland (cf. McMahon, “Gilded Cage” 200). Meeker further highlights the island as an object of exploitation, explaining that often indigenous island inhabitants “have been exterminated, converted to foreign religions, and exploited as sideshows. Their forests and minerals have been taken for use elsewhere [and] invasive species of plants and animals have been introduced to further degrade their ecological stability” (201).
2.2.5 Metaphorical Islands
In 1623, John Donne introduced his poem “No Man is an Island” (cf. McMahon, Islands 19). The poem's first line has become a famous metaphor for the incapability of human beings to live in isolation. The immanent features of insularity and boundedness make it possible for the conception of islands to shift from a geographical to a metaphorical realm. Franks argues that “in literature, the island is a powerful icon of the self” (10). In this regard, the self becomes an isolated unit disconnected from society. Concerning the incorporation of islands in the human psyche, Franks explains that “[d]ue to their boundedness, their desirability, and their remoteness, islands constitute a highly imaginable type of space. It is easier to imagine oneself an island than a continent” (10). Meeker accordingly states that John Donne's island metaphor “is convertible to its opposite, everyone is an island, depending upon whether one prefers to emphasize autonomy or interconnect” (197). McMahon adds another intruiging notion to the connection between the human body and islands. She suggests that the ship journeying to the island serves as a metaphor of the mind, while the island represents ego and id (cf. Islands 134). Furthermore, the ship itself can work as a “ship-island . . .[,] a site where various forms of authority and sovereignty are contested” (McMahon Islands 135). Regarding islands as humanised forms, Paterson even considers the foetus “an island for the first nine months of life, entirely surrounded by an amniotic moat and connected to the mainland only by an umbilicus” (77). It thus appears that any isolated space can become an island metaphor. With regard to modern occasions, Edmond and Smith apply the island metaphor to the internet, where people ‘surf' from ‘site' to site, and to words and poems forming their own islands on a sheet (cf. 4).
In terms of literature, islands are not necessarily places surrounded by water. Dante's Purgatory, for instance, is a mountain and on top of the mountain there is “an island surrounded by sea and fire, an island within an island” (Meeker 198). In J. G. Ballard's Concrete Island, a 20th century Robinsonade, the protagonist shipwrecks in an area surrounded by motorways. Besides, in Science Fiction, islands are no longer necessarily places on earth but can be planets or space stations. It is especially the modern concept of insularity which reinforces the island metaphor. Pinet argues that the abstraction and metaphorisation of islands paved the way for new literary genres such as the modern novel, of which Don Quijote is probably the earliest example (cf. 173). To that effect McMahon explains:
[T]he island operates as a kind of metafigure, a key topos of the literary imagination. The island is a figure of another world, the site on which possibilities are created, rehearsed and tested, as occurs in a novel, play or poem. In seeming contrast to this other place of fabrication and the ‘no place' of utopia, the island is variously the world in microcosm, the suspended promise of home or Heimat, and the site of new beginnings. (Islands 8)
The ambivalent character of the island as a geographical site but also a metaphor, which has been rooted in the human psyche for centuries, makes it a versatile element that never takes on just one meaning but becomes an object of discourse. Fittingly, Edmond and Smith describe islands as “the most graspable and the most slippery of subjects” (5).
3. Theoretical Background Part 2: Approaching and Identifying Social Structures on Islands
3.1 Universal Criteria for a Functional Community
To be able to analyse social structures in each fictional dystopian island society, it is necessary to uncover in what ways they concur with and diverge from functioning societies. Humans are social beings that have always lived in communities. Anthropologists and social scientists thus often pose the question whether there are innate features all human beings have in common. In his book Blueprint Nicholas Christakis argues from an evolutionary point of view that there are eight universals that are present in any functional society, calling them the “social suite” (15). These consist of “[t]he capacity to have and recognize individual identity, [l]ove for partners and offspring, [f]riendship, [s]ocial networks, [c]ooperation, [p]reference for one's own group (that is, ‘in-group bias'), [m]ild hierarchy (that is, relative egalitarianism [without any brutality]), [and] [s]ocial learning and teaching” (15). According to Christakis, these features are necessary for a society to persist; if it tries to abolish these principles, it is likely to collapse (cf. 24). While anthropologists, such as Clark Wissler (1923), George Murdock (1945), or Donald Brown (1991) include cultural features that appear to be universal in human societies but are also dependent on their environment and can thus vary (cf. Christakis 10-11), Christakis focuses mainly on “universals that are encoded in our genes” (14), looking at the root of how societies establish order. This attempt is especially interesting for the analysis of island societies since islands themselves are ever-changing places of “arrival and departure” (Edmond and Smith 12) and constantly force islanders to create order.
To confirm his hypothesis, Christakis looks at different communities in which members have to establish order ‘from scratch'. He differentiates between unintentional, intentional, and artificial communities (cf. 23). These community types will serve as a starting point in my later analysis to classify the society and its general emergence in a first rough framework. Since relationships within societies are not static, it is possible for social networks to emerge independently from their community type (cf. Christakis 104), which is why internal subgroups can be formed (cf. Christakis 106). The analysis of community types particularly serves as an indication of the starting conditions a potential society has.
Interestingly, all examples of unintentional communities Christakis looks at are communities on islands. These are all communities which castaways have established10 and thus unintentional communities are groups of people which form out of a sudden necessity. In his analysis of these shipwreck communities, Christakis found that the communities that applied the most features of the social suite were the most successful ones (cf. 64). Since unintentional communities develop from sudden crises and have unfavourable preconditions, Christakis also takes into account communities which formed intentionally. These communities deviated from their respective society aspiring their own real-life utopia (cf. Christakis 69). As an object of research, he analyses communities such as ‘Brook Farm', ‘Shakers', ‘Kibbutzim', several communities organising themselves according to B. F. Skinner's book Walden Two, urban communities, and arctic science crews. Although these intentional communities have better starting conditions than their unintentional counterparts, again their success depended on the degree to which they complied with the social suite (cf. Christakis 111).
As a third community type, Christakis names artificial communities. These communities are neither intentional nor unintentional and serve as ideal testing grounds for social experiments since they are created artificially (cf. 117). They can vary from experimental groups to communities in online games or TV shows such as Love Island or Big Brother. The distinction of these three community types helps to reveal control mechanisms which stand in conflict with the social suite. Since communities can have both utopian and dystopian elements, Christakis makes an interesting comparison of these two forms with the state of entropy (cf. 140). He argues that in contrast to (e)utopian societies, in dystopias “there are more ways for something to be broken than for it to work; more disordered states of nature than ordered ones” (140). These new insights raise the question of how such societies can exist at all and in what ways they can maintain control if they disregard the social suite.
3.2 Community Control Mechanisms
Control is a key feature in any society. Along with control goes the notion of power. As McMahon argues, “the island is a realm of power and invention that exceeds the constraints of the world that lies beyond its borders” (Islands 5). Her statement illustrates that power plays an important role in viewing islands. In order to understand how island societies stabilise themselves by means of control, it is necessary to detect how power is exerted in each society. Michel Foucault's concepts of power, which he extensively explores in his philosophical works, offer a promising basis for uncovering such control mechanisms.
3.2.1 Discourse
In order to analyse forms of power, it is crucial to understand their underlying discourse. According to Foucault, power and discourse are intertwined, meaning that power can only exist through discourse and vice versa (cf. History 100-1). Discourse both “transmits and produces power . . . but also undermines and exposes it” (History 101). Throughout his works, Foucault explores the forms discourse can take. The fact that Foucault's concept of discourse has varied from his early work Madness and Civilization on until his later works Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality (cf. Lynch 120), highlights the complexity of this concept. Foucault analyses discourse in various ways, focusing on historical mechanisms that have changed social structures. Science and the development of the psychiatry, for instance, have essentially changed the ways how madness is perceived in society. Furthermore, the discursive formation of sexuality has created a whole range of norms and concepts on this subject. In his later works, Foucault revised the concept of discourse from being a theoretical framework to being an element within the framework of a set of powerknowledge relations (cf. Lynch 125).
[...]
1 eu (good) - chronos (time) -ia (suffix which constitutes a place).
2 The term was most famously used by Michel Foucault in describing institutionalised places which represent and contest social norms.
3 My translation. The term aXi is especially interesting since it, actually meaning ‘salt’, probably first became a metonymy for the word ‘sea' in Homer's Odyssee, which, in turn, extensively deals with the topic of islands.
4 The Latin term exsilium describes the banishment of a person; According to Georges, it is derived by the word exsul which consists of the words ex and solum meaning ‘off the soil'.
5 It is debatable, whether Australia as a continent can still be considered an island. The definition of a continent itself depends on the respective discipline: Geography, Sociology and Politics vary in their definitions (cf. Cunningham).
6 Although ‘paradise' itself is not part of the title, the term ‘temptation' alludes to the Biblical Eden, where Adam and Eve could not resist the temptation of eating from the Tree of Knowledge.
7 According to Kinane, the genre ‘Robinsonade' is a predominantly male domain in terms of authors and protagonists (cf. 6).
8 From Italian ‘portolano'/Latin ‘portus': ‘harbour'; From the 13th century until the 17th century, Portolan charts served as manuals for sailors, containing “lists of directional headings and distances between communities along the coasts that were frequented by Mediterranean sailors” (Steinberg 256). They are especially interesting because they display islands in abstract ways and out of scale in contrast to their accurate drawings of the mainland (cf. Steinberg 258).
9 For exceptions see https://www.woridatlas.com/articles/islands-that-are-shared-by-more-than- one-country.html.
10 Christakis uses shipwreck narratives as sources. This genre has been prevalent both in the 18th and especially the 19th century (cf. Lincoln 160). Margarette Lincoln gives interesting insights into the various functions of the shipwreck narrative and thereby shows why it is an ideal object of research for social order: it served as an “‘eyewitness account'” (155), a travel handbook (cf. 155), children's literature (cf. 155), as a symbol of divine Providence (cf. 155) and of human perseverance (cf. 158), as a propagator of racial stereotypes and justification for conquest (cf. 166), an implicit depiction of gender roles and femininity (cf. 170), and as a medium of national propaganda (cf. 161). The latter is, for instance, visible in shipwreck narratives published after the Battle of Waterloo, which Britain used to compare the French ship Medusa to the British ship Alceste. While the French Medusa supposedly became a place of murder, cannibalism, and disorder, the British crew of the Alceste, which approximately shipwrecked at the same time, managed to cooperate and obtain order. The depictions of the two ships representing microcosms of the two countries were used by the British to reinforce their national identity (cf. Lincoln 162).
- Quote paper
- M. Klaiber (Author), 2021, Insularity vs. Islomania. The Island Setting and Shipwreck Experience in Three Dystopian Novels, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1342160
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