the madszine

Dystopia as ‘the shadow of utopia’[1] is defined by Krishnan Kumar in Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times. Much as a shadow cannot exist without a light source and an object, Elisabetta Di Minico sees the dystopian novel as shining a literary light on (and promoting) anti-utopian visions that exist because of ‘the degeneration of utopian attempts to change a community or a whole world’[2] into (or under existing) totalitarianism. Totalitarianism, says The Library of Congress, is a ruthless, brutal and (thanks to technological advance) potent form of political tyranny whose ambitions for power are unlimited. And Burdekin’s Swastika Night can be seen as promoting an “anti-Nazi utopian” vision which exists because of (and to warn against) Hitler’s own utopian political ideology; it is a critique of his extreme nationalistic attempts to change Germany and the world over the ten years surrounding the novel’s publication in 1938.

As such, Swastika Night is set apart from classic dystopian fiction – a ‘depressing genre with no space for hope within the story,’[3] according to Raffaella Baccolini. Fear is the driving force in classic dystopian fiction, a ‘nihilistic mask of crisis phenomenon’[4] – which passively believes in nothing and has no loyalties, according to (German Marxist philosopher) Ernst Bloch. It has no purpose other than, perhaps, the anarchical impulse to destroy. Swastika Night, however, is a critical (or open-ended) dystopian fiction where the characters connect in actively resisting and seeking a way out from under the political structure that oppresses them. For example, Alfred (a teacher) illegally gives lessons on life before Hitler, to fight against the erasure of knowledge (a totalitarian tool to maintain power) and for hope (‘by resisting closure’[5]). An unclosed, open-ended world being one open to the idea of change with hope (and a strong vision) for a better, more utopian future at its core. 

This utopian impulse in Swastika Night is central to Bloch’s Principle of Hope where utopian impulses illuminate what is missing (and is still yet possible) and point the way towards meaningful transformation of our material world. As long as Burdekin’s characters ‘hope by resisting [the] closure’[6] of their dystopian society by the totalitarian regime, they hold onto the ‘desire to change it.’[7] Hope is an emotion that Bloch considers far ‘superior to fear.’[8] It is neither passive like [fear],’[9] nor ‘locked into nothingness.’[10] Bloch notes that hope lives in the ‘idea of transcendence’[11] to a better world, and what kills hope is the ‘putridly stifling, hollowly nihilistic’[12] acceptance of closure. Passivity is in the classical dystopian idea that ‘a closed world has already become’[13] and therefore cannot be changed. Baccolini expands on this, noting that the ‘possibility of utopia’[14] isn’t entertained within classical dystopian fiction, whereas politically critical dystopian fiction (such as Swastika Night is of Nazism) prefers ‘open endings [to] maintain the utopian impulse[s] within the work.’[15]

Further narrative choices support utopian thinking within critical dystopian fiction which typically centres around finding ways ‘to fight against systemic oppression.’[16] ‘Forms of resistance and solidarity as factors of resilience are often represented,’[17] according to Francesco Bacci. The choice to represent resilience with a number of characters working together (like Swastika Night’s Alfred and Hermann) is typical of the genre. And, by publishing her critique and concerns at such a critical moment of political change (arguably ‘[foreseeing] the outbreak of the Second World War,’[18]) and challenging the loss of people’s freedoms and rights, Burdekin’s Swastika Night can in itself be ‘recognized as an instrument of resistance.’[19] Literature can be used as a tool to bring hope and engender both resistance and rebellion. As Tess Lewis confirmed, ‘it can provide resistance to the deadening forces of society whether they come in the form of political ideologies, social pressures or rampant consumerism.’[20] Just as Burdekin’s Swastika Night sought to resist the political changes that brought about the Second World War, her protagonists also seek ways to ‘manifest their defiance’[21] against systemic political oppression. 

Like Lewis, Bacci recognises the importance of literature as a tool to fight against political oppression. Fiction is, he considers, ‘an instrument for raising awareness of hidden forms of control and discrimination.’[22] And censorship is one such hidden form of control in totalitarian systems such as Burdekin’s apocalyptic Nazi Empire, as identified by Glyn Morgan. He notes that control is maintained by ‘limiting the knowledge and education of the general population’[23] and ‘by destroying all the records’[24] (in this case, of the pre-Nazi, pre-totalitarian system). In an inherently meta undertaking, Burdekin’s work allows the discovery of “The Book of Truth” by Alfred. It is ‘a symbol of hope’[25] to resist a government that controls and censors information from its citizens. The knowledge Alfred gains from this book – the “real history,” not the one the German Empire has invented – prompts him to rebel and teach the truths he has learned. Bacci describes this as the ‘reclamation of education,’[26] an effective tool to dismantle and subvert the Empire’s political structure. 

The necessity of creating relationships with like-minded characters in critical dystopian fiction for resilience (Bacci’s ‘importance of solidarity’[27]) is shown in Swastika Night through the relationships between Alfred and Hermann and between Alfred and his son. For Alfred and Hermann, resilience is in the form of rejecting the oppressive and hyper-masculinised society during their lifetimes but when Alfred tells his son about “The Book of Truth” saying, ‘the book is in a safe place…It’s with Joseph Black. Joseph knows the book is something precious to you and to me,’[28] it allows the resistance to remain alive and active after Alfred’s own lifetime ends. He dies ‘to allow the reader to hope – that knowledge will somehow survive, that the secret book will be passed on,’[29] Daphne Patai writes (in her introduction to Swastika Night). Hope, in the form of education and knowledge, provides longevity – resilience over time – in the fight against the German Empire’s totality.

Burdekin thought Nazism ‘too bad to be permanent,’[30] according to Gregory Claeys, and created hope in the totalitarian dystopia of Swastika Night’s censorial German Empire by introducing education and the reclamation of knowledge as a means of escape. Claeys believed that Burdekin thought hope – from the ability to transcend dystopian totalitarianism to a future vision (that she and Alfred shared) of a ‘more equitable and healthy society’[31] – would create ‘a higher state of humanity.’[32] Without such utopian thinking, it seems unlikely that Burdekin would have crafted her politically critical dystopian warning.

Footnotes
[1] Kumar, Krishan, Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) p.99

[2] Di Minico, Elisabetta, ‘Spatial and Psychophysical Domination of Women in Dystopia: Swastika Night, Woman on the Edge of Time and The Handmaid’s Tale,’ Humanities, 8 (1), 2019, p.28

[3] Baccolini Raffaella, ‘Genre and Gender in Critical Dystopias of Katharine Burdekin, Margaret Atwood, and Octavia Butler’, in Future Females, The Next Generation: New Voices and Velocities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism, (UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000) p.17

[4] Bloch, Ernest, ‘The Principle of Hope Introduction,’ Marxists Internet Archive, [last accessed 03/05/24] https://www.marxists.org/archive/bloch/hope/introduction.htm

[5] Baccolini, p.17

[6] Baccolini, p.17

[7] Bloch, ‘The Principle of Hope Introduction,’

[8] Bloch, ‘The Principle of Hope Introduction,’

[9] Bloch, ‘The Principle of Hope Introduction,’

[10] Bloch, ‘The Principle of Hope Introduction,’

[11] Bloch, ‘The Principle of Hope Introduction,’

[12] Bloch, ‘The Principle of Hope Introduction,’

[13] Bloch, ‘The Principle of Hope Introduction,’

[14] Baccolinni, p.18

[15] Baccolinni, p.18

[16] Bacci, Francesco, ‘Critical Dystopian Resilience in Swastika Night, If Beale Street Could Talk, and The Handmaid’s Tale’ [Inter]sections Journal, 24, 2021, p.29

[17] Bacci, p.29

[18] Bacci, p.30

[19] Bacci, p.30

[20] Lewis, Tess, ‘Literature as Resistance,’ The Hudson Review, 60 (4), 2008, p.10

[21] Bacci, p.30

[22] Bacci, p.31

[23] Morgan, Glyn, Imagining the Unimaginable: Speculative Fiction and the Holocaust, (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) p.49

[24] Morgan, p.49

[25] Bacci, p.35

[26] Bacci, p.34

[27] Bacci, p.31

[28] Burdekin, Katharine, Swastika Night, (New York: The Feminist Press, 1985) p.195

[29] Patai, Daphne, ‘Orwell’s Despair, Burdekin’s Hope: Gender and Power in Dystopia’ Women’s Studies, 7 (2), 1984, p.88

[30] Claeys, Gregory, Dystopia: A Natural History, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) p.350

[31] Bacci, p.34

[32] Claeys, p.350