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Samuel Butler’s “Erewhon�
As A Satirical Utopia

Samuel Butler has said “I did not want to write Erewhon. I wanted to go on painting and found it an abominable nuisance being dragged willy-nilly into writing it. So with all my books­–the subjects were never of my own choosing; they pressed them­selves upon me with more force than I could resist�. Erewhon, thus is, par excellence the book that is written in spite of the author. As Butler puts it � “The books came and said they were to be written, I grumbled a little and wrote them�. Strangely enough, the reader too feels that Erewhonpresses itself on him with more force than he can resist and the book compels the reader to read it almost in spite of himself and he has absolutely no reason to grumble about it either.

It is necessary at the outset to remember that our author Samuel Butler is different from the Samuel Butler of the seventeenth century England who is the author of Hudibras. Samuel Butler, the author of Erewhonwas born in 1835 and educated in St. John’s College, Cambridge. He spent some of his early years in New Zealand, which experience he used in creating the local colour in Erewhon. He studied painting and exhibited at the Royal Academy. He died in 1902. His Erewhonwas published in 1872, Erewhon Revisited was published nearly thirty years later in 1901, The Way of All Flesh came out in 1903. His Italian journeys led to the publication of Alps and Sanctuaries� and his Note Baaks, a selection from his manuscripts were posthumously published. It is on these works that Butler’s fame rests.

In spite of the fact that Erewhonis an anagram for “Nowhere�, Butler seems to have been particular about how the word is pro­nounced. The Preface to the first edition says� “The Author wishes it to be understood that Erewhonis pronounced as a word of three syllables, all short, thus E - re - whon. Erewhon is not as outlandish a place as the land explored by Gulliver. Since it has already been mentioned that Erewhon is oly an anagram for No-­where, the “Nowhere� character of it need not be defined as it would be an exercise in futility. The word Utopia refers not merely to “a place, state or condition ideally perfect� but “nowhere exist­ing�. Erewhon, as a satirical utopia seems to proceed from the latter idea.

When Butler refers fairly early in his book to the “extraordi­nary perversions of thought which existed among Erewhonians� we recognize his satirical intention. He says –� “The Erewhonians hold that unalloyed virtue is not a thing to be immoderately indulged in. I was shown more than one case in which the real or supposed virtues of parents were visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation�. The tone of voice for his satire is made clear with sentences like this and then we are all set to read him in the proper spirit with the right perspective. We will now look at just a few samples from his book to see for ourselves how Butler’s Erewhonis satirical utopia.

One of the venerable institutions of Erewhonis the institution of the Straighteners. The “straightener� is quite simply an expert who cures a moral ailment. Butler comments on the rigorous train­ing that a straightener has to undergo � “It stands to reason that he who would cure a moral ailment must be practically acquainted with it in all its bearings. The straightener is required to set apart certain seasons for the practice of each vice in turn. Those who intend to be specialists, rather than general practitioners devote themselves more particularly to the branch in which their practice will mainly lie. Some have been obliged to continue their exercises during their whole lives and some devoted men have actually died as martyrs to whatever branch of vice they may have chosen for special study�.

About vegetarianism in Erewhon, Butler says that the “unseen power� had commanded that “the only animal food that you may eat, is the flesh of any birds, beasts or fishes that you may come upon as having died a natural death or any that may have been born prematurely, or so deformed that it is a mercy to put them out of their pain; we may also eat all such animals as have com­mitted suicide�. Butler’s satirical approach cannot be better illustrated than by quoting his comments on this mandate. He says “It was found that animals were continually dying natural deaths, under more or less suspicious circumstances. Suicidal mania, again, which had hitherto been confined exclusively to donkeys, became alarmingly prevalent even among such for the most part self-respecting creatures as sheep. It was astonishing how some of these un­fortunate animals would scent a butcher’s knife if there was one within a mile of them, and run right up against it if the butcher did not get it out of their way in time�.

Butler’s views regarding life and death not merely show him as a man interested in philosophical ideas � he took himself seri­ously as a philosopher � but they reveal his Swiftian approach to satire. Here is Butler talking about what he calls a “Birth-­Formula�. He says that the Erewhonians have devised something which they call a birth formula � a document which varies in words according to the caution of parents, but is much the same practi­cally in all cases......These formulae are printed on common paper at a moderate cost for the poor; but the rich have them written on parchment and handsomely bound so that the getting up of a person’s birth formula is a test of his social position. They com­mence by setting forth, that whereas A.B. was a member of the kingdom of the unborn, where he was well provided for in every way and he had no cause of discontent, etc., he did of his own wanton depravity and restlessness conceive a desire to enter into this present world; that thereon having taken the necessary steps as set forth in laws of the unborn kingdom he did with malice aforethought set himself to plague and pester two unfortunate people who had never wronged him and who were quite contented and happy until he conceived this base design against their peace; for which wrong he now humbly entreats their pardon�. Butler pro­ceeds to quote from what he calls Erewhonian mythology � “To be born is a felony …� Consider the infinite risk; to be born of wicked parents and trained in vice: to be born of silly parents and trained to unrealities �.            Remember too, that there never yet was a man of forty who would not come into the world of the unborn if he could do so with decency and honour. Being in the world he will as a general rule stay till he is forced to go; but do you think that he would consent to be born again, and relive this life, if he had the offer of doing so? Do not think it. If he could so alter the past as that he should never have come into being at all, do you not think that he would do it very gladly?� This Swiftian tone, however, gives place to the typical Butlerian banter when he satirises the unfelt grief that is very often expressed. He says, “Returning to the Erewhonian customs in connection with death there is one which I can hardly pass over. When anyone dies, the friends of the family write no letters of condolence nor wear mourning, but they send little boxes filled with artificial tears and with the name of the sender painted neatly upon the outside of the lid. The tears vary in number from two to fifteen or sixteen according to the degree of intimacy or relationship; and people sometimes find it a nice point of etiquette to know the exact number which they ought to send. Strange as it may appear, this atten­tion is highly valued, and its omission by those from whom it might be expected is keenly felt. These tears were formerly struck with adhesive plaster to the cheeks of the bereaved, and were worn in public for a few months after the death of a relative; they were then banished to the hat or bonnet�.

Though storied urn and animated bust cannot call the fleeting breath to its mansion, even the utopian Erewhonians are not past the vanity of human wishes and even from their tombs the voice of nature cries. The Erewhonians, Butler points out “have their statues made while they are still alive and write inscriptions under them which are often quite as untruthful as our own epi­taphs�. Butler’s ironic contemplation of human vanity and egotism is revealed when he says, “If a person is ugly he does not sit as a model for his own statue although it bears his name. He gets the handsomest of his friends to sit for him�. Butler’s ruthless eye does not spare womenkind either. He points out–“Women generally sit for their own statues, from a natural disinclination to admit the superior beauty of a friend, but they expect to be idealized�.

What one finds in Butler the satirist is not so much a passio­nate anger which frets and fumes, raves and rants but a deceptively quiet and apparently unoffending amused irony. Part of the charm of Erewhonconsists in its pricking the bubble of Victorian complacency. Butler’s partiality for clear sense and his sharp flavour for wit are the hallmarks of his writing. Butler’s achievement lies not merely in holding a mirror upto nature but in his deep-rooted constructive intention in making man look at himself in all honesty as he really is so that he may cease to be what he should not be. This, however, does not make his work clumsily didactic but the gross man is purged away of all his mental impurities through the best medicine � honest to goodness laughter.