49 pages • 1 hour read
William MorrisNews from Nowhere
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1890A 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 17-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary: “How the Change Came”
Guest returns to the question of how this all came about and asks Hammond if the transition was peaceful. He says no: It was war. People in the 1800s speculated about communism, but they were so deeply entrenched in their situation that they did not believe it possible. They thought a gradual change in the condition of labor would naturally change the class dynamics. The working class saw a happy future without imagining the specifics of how to get there. Slowly, the workers demanded more from their masters, and the masters controlled less of the money, even if the workers’ lives did not actually improve much. This power struggle went on for half a century, with workers going on strike and masters giving in only as much as they had to. Eventually, the state took over the factories, in accordance with state socialism, and Hammond admits that they were close to the bread rations that critics of socialism always reference. The workers resolved to control the means of production, and the masters took that as a declaration of war. The workers met in Trafalgar Square, and the police, “civic bourgeoisie guard,” according to Hammond, arrested most, hurt many, and killed some of the attendees (131). Huge crowds gathered in response, and the rich began to flee to the countryside. People rioted everywhere, and rich citizens enrolled as police officers. The economy halted, and a few days later, people found themselves hungry. People demanded a resolution.
The government declared a siege on London and appointed a young general who planned an attack on a meeting at Trafalgar Square. They murdered as many as 2,000 mostly unarmed civilians, beginning the civil war. The government became even more oppressive, arresting journalists and local activists for inciting the masses. The activists were acquitted, and the government gave way to some of the workers’ demands, but not enough that they could live decent lives. As the socialist leaders gained power, Parliament became less powerful, but the country’s separation from the World-Market reversed the middle class’s support of the socialist party. After a brief pause, the civil war began again. The public engaged in a general strike, and the government, whose only method was brute force, was left with no protests or gatherings to put down. Newspapers released educational documents about socialism, and the ruling class did not know what to do. In an attempt to rile the rebel forces into doing something they could use force upon, they released them from jail. It could have turned into a general uprising with men acting on their every desire, but instead, the public had been educated and had learned to hate the ruling class and trust in non-legal leaders. The government granted some wishes including the official recognition of the Committee of Public Safety, which is now called the Board of Conciliation, and its local offices. Once the rebels were granted amnesty, the civil war could begin in full force. Soon there became only two options: a system of slavery or communism. With the growing support of the working class, the previously hopeless cause of communism became the obvious future.
Chapter 18 Summary: “The Beginning of the New Life”
After the civil war, almost all machines and tools were destroyed. During the war, the “rebels,” as Hammond calls them, were willing to destroy everything if it meant they would be free. Whereas before, there was no hope, now there was hope for a better future. They now believed in life more than life after death. In the aftermath, there was fear that the people had no use anymore, but they replaced the creation of useless goods with the creation of art. Their lives slowed, and they found pleasure in their work and then became aware of the pleasure, made more of it, and became happy.
Chapter 19 Summary: “The Drive Back to Hammersmith”
Dick, Clara, and Guest bid farewell to Hammond and begin their drive back to Hammersmith. Guest comments upon the brightness of people’s clothes, asking how everyone can afford such garments. Clara is dismayed by the criticism and perplexed by the question of affordability. She and Dick resolve to find better clothes for Guest so that he can fit in better.
Chapter 20 Summary: “The Hammersmith Guest-House Again”
Boffin and Annie, who saw them off, greet them as they return to the Hammersmith guesthouse again. Guest muses over the fact that his visit to this place has been the only time that he has lived in total pleasure without any dread or guilt. As he goes to sleep, he fears that he might not wake up there again tomorrow.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Going up the River”
Guest wakes up—excited to realize that he is still in the 21st century—and puts on a blue suit that has been laid out for him. He emerges in the hallway to a friendly kiss from Annie, who says that Dick and Clara are waiting for him to attend the hay harvest. They take off in a boat, and Guest looks forward to witnessing rural activities carried out by beautiful people of the 21st century rather than the ugly peasants of the 19th.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Hampton Court and a Praiser of Past Times”
The trio stops for a meal at and a tour of Hampton Court Palace, where Guest observes how the other visitors feel at ease in the grand rooms. They resume their trip, stopping at Runnymead for the night. An old man offers them a place to stay. They agree and meet his granddaughter Ellen. Ellen is excitable and giggly, while her grandfather is more negative. Dick calls him a grumbler, one of the last of his kind. The old man begins asking Guest about where he comes from and whether it is better, claiming that life in his society has become less vibrant without competition. His granddaughter contests this view, saying while the books in the old days may have been exciting and sometimes expressed empathy for the poor, they always ended with the main characters living a happy life at the expense of others.
He asks Guest again whether there is competition where he comes from. He says yes, but despite that, this place is like heaven compared to where he came from. The old man says there is more to life than heaven.
Chapter 23 Summary: “An Early Morning by Runnymede”
Guest wakes up early and goes outside to see the haymakers, all working happily. He and Dick watch Ellen in the garden, and Dick compares her to a fairy.
The old man asks them if they still like it there in the morning, and they say yes. He still laments over their country’s change, and Guest gets upset and yells that this is much better than the thieves being the only ones who can live well. The grandfather tries to change the subject, but Ellen intervenes and references the sage of Bloomsbury, who turns out to be Hammond. Ellen reminds her grandfather that if they lived in different times, they would be confined to a small, bare cottage, and he would have to work until he was old. Guest changes the subject and asks to see the river.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Up the Thames: The Second Day”
Guest rows the boat today, observing everyone around him. Ellen rests her head on her grandfather’s shoulder, while Clara is affectionate toward a cheerful Dick. Guest is glad because he takes this as a sign that Dick was not romantically entangled with Ellen.
Eventually, they reach Windsor Castle, now home to a “great many” people, as well as a museum of antiquities. Dick and Clara plan to visit Walter, an old friend, while Guest is still content with just observing the happiness around him.
Walter greets Dick warmly, but with a somber emotion, explained by the fact that there has recently been a death by violence in the village. He explains that a man was in love with a woman who did not love him back and, in fact, had begun to dislike him. He was asked to leave and had agreed, but he changed his mind and killed his rival. This man, Walter says, is now so upset that he may kill himself, and he worries that the woman involved could do so as well.
Guest reflects on the truth of what Hammond said about the perpetrator of violence punishing himself with guilt rather than being punished by society.
Chapters 17-24 Analysis
Chapters 17 and 18 return to exposition, with a focus on the historical events that brought about the shift toward a socialist system. While pleasure might, as Hammond claimed earlier, beget pleasure, those pleasures did not become possible without a violent struggle. Just as the first section of the novel made familiar places strange and the second showed how the seemingly unchangeable structure of society could become contingent and outdated, these two chapters make even the history of Guest’s own time newly strange. The account of the strife of the 1950s bridges the historical gap between the 19th century—including the earlier account of the 1877 riots at Trafalgar Square—and the imaginary 21st-century utopia, all in a way that had to seem plausible in the context of the late Victorian era.
Moreover, the account of the “change” in the 1950s reveals that the transformation of society and human nature was not immediate. Limitations on human perfection continue to exist, and the gains of socialism are implicitly coded as reversible, casting some doubt on the idea that pleasure, once set in motion, can go on creating pleasure indefinitely. These small doubts are amplified several chapters later, in the encounter with Ellen’s grandfather who deplores the stagnation of a society without competition, as well as in the encounter with Walter, who narrates a recent lovers’ quarrel that led to murder in his small village.
This section contains foreshadowing for Guest’s eventual return home. Somehow, other characters seem to know a truth that he does not. Dick jokes that he expected to walk in and see his grandfather talking to no one, and Hammond tells him, “[Y]ou will be happy there—for a while” (160). Later, Dick remarks to Guest that he has a “the cap of darkness” and is “seeing everything, [himself] invisible” (183). These references to the fact that Guest is not really there or implications that he might one day have to leave make him deeply uncomfortable, as if the difference between himself and these future Londoners is ultimately too great to overcome. The contrast between their lives and his is so great that he “loathe[s] the idea of going back to it again” (159). Yet, having learned so much from Hammond, Guest is closer to fulfilling his purpose there and being sent home. His anxieties only grow as he continues to feel happy in their society all while knowing he must leave.
Ellen’s grandfather, the “Praiser of Past Times” named in the title of Chapter 22, offers a sustained challenge to Guest’s enthusiasm for the 21st century. The old man is, essentially, a Victorian, as evidenced in his praise of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (published in 1848, the same year as The Communist Manifesto). The old man makes arguments that are no doubt familiar to Guest; they reflect doubts about communism and socialism very much in the mainstream of the 1890s. Yet, in keeping with the theme of The Familiar Made Strange, the old man is an outlier in his own society, voicing criticisms that no one around him appears to take seriously. Nevertheless, Morris does not dismiss them entirely. When Guest praises the 21st century as a kind of heaven, the old man pointedly responds with a rhetorical question: “[Y]ou like heaven, do you?” (178). Guest peevishly responds in the affirmative, noting that the period that produced literature like Thackeray’s was broadly unhappy, but the old man’s point is never fully refuted. Here, Morris acknowledges the costs of Pleasure Without Property, both in terms of art (no one writes books like Vanity Fair anymore) and discourse (while the old man is not silenced, his concerns are mostly ignored and minimized).
As Guest, Dick, and Clara pursue their trip up the Thames, the theme of The Return to Nature After Industrialization comes to the fore. Guest constantly notices the beauty of the natural world around him. When he wakes up in the morning, he “[walks] upstream a little, watching the light mist curling up from the river till the sun [gains] power to draw it all away” (181). Using personification to describe the sun evaporating the morning mist, Morris humanizes the landscape. He replaces the smog of factories with the more natural “mist” that disappears in the sunlight. After describing the morning’s perfect weather, Guest observes that “whatever anxieties might lie beneath the surface of things, [they] d[o]n’t seem to come across” (191). He himself associates the perfect weather with his freedom from his anxieties. As he observes the beautiful shore and feels the light wind, his fear of returning floats away. His feelings are directly reflected by the world. Furthermore, Guest notes that the haymakers wear beautiful attire and look especially strong and handsome. Few, if any, machines are in evidence; none are powered by coal. As they work with the land at this special time of year, their appearance reflects their usefulness and closeness to the wilderness, emphasizing the return to nature after industrialization.
As Guest describes the people’s enjoyment of nature, he compares their constant curiosity to that of “Cockneys newly escaped from the tyranny of bricks and mortar” (201). Harking back to Hammond’s sarcastic use of the word “tyranny,” Guest associates it with the urban landscape of Victorian London that many reformers at the time feared was spiritually damaging to the lower classes, here indicated by “Cockneys.” This use of metaphor emphasizes the pervasive nature of capitalism; workers feel bound to their work by tyrannical forces they do not understand. On the other hand, those who work in the fields now have a deep connection to the land. Guest even notices that there are more birds, suggesting that pleasure without property extends to the nonhuman world.
Nevertheless, certain limits exist. Dick’s friend Walter has recently experienced the tragedy of a murder in his village, and the repercussions are serious. The perpetrator now feels so guilty that he is at risk of suicide, and Walter believes that his suicide would in turn trigger that of the woman who had been the innocent cause of the initial quarrel. Guest is undoubtedly impressed by the fact that such incidents are obviously rare and that they are dealt with in the absence of courtrooms and prisons. However, lingering doubts remain about whether this situation represents a genuine solution to the problems of earlier eras.
