Looking Backward

The next morning, West looks for Edith but cannot find her until he sees her at breakfast. He brings a newspaper from 1887 to show Dr. Leete, who then reads stories of labor unrest while they eat. West asks Dr. Leete how the United States dealt with the anarchists of his day, whom he calls the “followers of the red flag” (148). Dr. Leete tells him that it is accepted knowledge that the corporations paid the anarchists to cause trouble; their methods were so unpopular that their actions led many people to side with the corporations, delaying reform.

Dr. Leete explains reform could not happen until the formation of the national party. The labor parties realized their cause was not popular enough to encourage change, so a party appeared that proposed changes for the benefit of all. It is so named because the party’s intent was to “nationalize the functions of production and distribution” (149). Dr. Leete calls it the most patriotic of the parties because it was for all people of the nation.

West finds himself thinking of Edith Leete more and more. He is attracted to her “serene frankness and ingenuous directness” (150). Later that day, West asks Dr. Leete questions about women in the new world. Dr. Leete explains that while women no longer need to waste their lives with housework, they do serve in the industrial army, leaving only in the case they have children.

West is surprised because he was raised to believe it is improper for women to work. Dr. Leete explains that women are happy now; their labor tends to be less demanding than men’s, with shorter hours and longer breaks, but it is the work that keeps women healthy and happy, which Dr. Leete notes is for the benefit of men (151). Dr. Leete further explains that women have a separate governance within the industrial army, including a woman general-in-chief voted upon by retired women. Women can be appointed judges, and the woman general-in-chief serves on the president’s cabinet, where she has the power to veto any laws that concern women. As judges, Women preside over cases involving only women, while either men or women preside over cases involving both sexes. It is through the recognition that women and men are different, Dr. Leete explains, that these genders have reached a peace with each other.

Women were “victims” of the 19th century (152), but they are no longer underdeveloped and stunted by marriage, he claims. Now women receive the same amount of credit per year as men, and contrary to West’s concern, the fact that women are no longer dependent on men has not deterred the desire for both to seek marriage. Because women no longer need to find good economic matches, they can choose men based on attraction and love only. Dr. Leete mentions how strange it was that women could not express their fondness for a man in West’s day, because to do so was like requesting financial support. Today, he claims, women can express their love as freely as a man, and partners are chosen based on their perceived superiority to other possible suitors. Dr. Leete adds that this selection process has helped bring humanity closer to “race purification” (157).

Days of the week are now counted in intervals of five not seven, but there are still Sundays, and West asks the Leetes about organized religion. He incorrectly assumes that religion has been nationalized, too. Dr. Leete explains that clergymen are supported by voluntary fees paid for by civilians interested in that person’s sermons, through the state. West decides to listen to a sermon of Mr. Barton, a preacher who only sermonizes over the telephone and speaks to a following of over 150,000 people.

The Leetes gather in the library and listen as Mr. Barton’s sermon concerns West directly. Mr. Barton discusses the way that West’s presence in the year 2000 has thrown into greater relief the immensity of the social changes that occurred in the last century. Mr. Barton explains that the last 100 years must seem like a “miracle” in comparison to each century of progress before (162). He clarifies however that it was no miracle but a commitment to “rational unselfishness” (162). In the 19th century, even the most emphatic person would act against the interest of others in order to protect and provide for their own family. It was difficult, too, to be Christian when living in a society whose values seemed so anti-Christian. He explains that people today, if faced with the same conditions, would likely fall back into that same behavior.

Mr. Barton explains that it is much easier to believe in God today. The 10 commandments are now obsolete. With better circumstance, he explains, human nature is naturally good. To demonstrate how society changed, he invokes the image of a “rosebush planted in a swamp” (168). The poisonous bog water warped the bush such that people did not believe it truly was a rosebush, but the gardeners—philosophers and theorists with optimistic views of humanity’s future—insisted it was a rosebush. It is not until “the rosebush of humanity” was transplanted into fertile earth and tended appropriately that it indeed improved and proved itself to be a rosebush after all (169).

On Sunday afternoon, West feels sad. He feels lonely after the sermon because he feels like he doesn’t belong in this century, and he feels responsible for the moral failing of his own time. He is also in love with Edith Leete, and he fears that she thinks of him as a morally backward individual of the past. In the evening, he returns to his underground chamber feeling he belongs only there.

Edith follows him to the chamber. She reminds him he promised to seek her help if he felt out of spirits again. He calls himself “a stranded creature of an unknown sea” (174), having been convinced by Mr. Barton’s sermon that he is too different from her. Edith objects and tries to convince West their feelings for him are not mere pity. She holds his hands again, and West confesses he loves her. Edith brightens, and West realizes she does not pity him but loves him in return.

Then, Edith withdraws and tells him he must first learn who she is, and she leads him back into the house. There, Mrs. Leete tells West that Edith Leete is actually the great granddaughter of Edith Bartlett, West’s late fiancé. She explains that Edith Bartlett mourned West for 14 years before marrying and having a son. Eventually, Mrs. Leete named her own daughter after Edith Bartlett, and young Edith Leete grew up knowing the tragic story of her great grandmother and Julian West. She had been so romanticized by the story that she believed she would never marry unless she found someone just like the man in the story. After hearing the story, West goes to Edith and reaffirms his love. West thinks of her as both Ediths combined, and she insists that he love both of them, for she believes that Edith Bartlett’s spirit lives on inside her.

Sawyer wakes up West, as West had instructed him to. West realizes he is in his underground chamber as if nothing happened. Sawyer seems worried about him, so West tells his servant that he had an “extraordinary dream” (180). Finally, West raises and reviews the newspaper for May 31, 1887; he reads about an impeding war in France, a crisis of unemployment in England, and news of corporate embezzlement in the United States.

Sad that it was all a dream, West leaves his house and walks through the Boston of 1887. He is amazed by the squalor and by the heartlessness of human beings who could behold the wretchedness of their fellow humans without equal shock. He notices only waste around him and how silly it was that he ever considered one person better than another in station, due to their profession. He begins crying as he walks through the city, visiting the manufacturing district where different companies each wasted their efforts on the same products while unemployed people could be seen on every street. As he walks, he notices more of the poor population of Boston now than he ever had in the past, and while he never stopped to pause before, now the sight of seeing people live so poorly affects him emotionally.

Eventually, West arrives at Edith Bartlett’s home. He joins their company but remains in poor spirits. Edith asks him what is wrong, and he asks them how they can live so close to so much squalor and ignore it so. West realizes the lives of others don’t affect them at all. He apologizes for the outburst and says he does not accuse them of anything. West then lectures them, however, on everything he’s learned about the possible ways society might be reformed. They accuse him of “madness.” He begins to sob in despair, but suddenly he finds himself back in the year 2000, in his bed in Dr. Leete’s home. It turns out that his journey back to 1887 was a nightmare.

He finds Edith Leete in the garden, drops to his knees, and confesses to her how unworthy he is to “breathe the air of this golden century” (194).

Edward Bellamy writes a letter to the editor of the Boston Transcript in response to a review of Looking Backward that appeared in the publication’s March 30, 1888, edition. The reviewer charges Bellamy with making an unwise choice in setting his novel so soon in the future and argues he should have set it 75 centuries into the future for it to be believable. Bellamy clarifies that while his novel is a “fanciful romance,” he meant it also as a “forecast” (195). He lists a number of moments in human history where drastic changes occurred in short periods of time, and he believes the United States is currently due for such a change.