First Prize Winner

Ben Start Essay

The main idea behind a utopian community is a group of people working together for the “greater good”. These people ideally put the health and development of the community above their own self-interest; this is usually facilitated by a close-knit group of people who share familial, religious, economic or political bonds. In the book, Commonwealth is a classic example of a utopian community in that it is structured not like nearby towns, but rather was built from the ground up as a worker’s community founded on progressive ideals. As products of the Everett massacre, Charles Worthy and others rejected many of the values that pervaded America at this time, namely big capitalism and anti-labor. This also reflects the realities of many Utopian communities created in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries; their founders sense something wrong with the outside world and attempt to at least partially isolate their community so as to prevent it from being tainted. Influenza (and the resulting self-imposed quarantine) becomes both an allegory to the outside “ailments” of society that Commonwealth has always been attempting to keep out, and a foreshadowing of how the community will never truly be able to keep either from disturbing their way of life.

The message that I took from this book, then, was that isolation, in the attempts to create a utopia, is always a pipe dream, because you can never fully insulate yourselves from the outside; you’re simply running from the problem, and you can’t run forever. Instead of succumbing to fatigue from trying to keep ever vigilant against the outside, you sometimes have to bite the bullet and attempt to work with what you have. Yes, people will die from the flu, in this case, but life as a whole will (and did) go on.

2^nd Prize Winner

Mike Levandowski Essay

Commonwealth, the main setting in The Last Town on Earth, by Thomas Mullen, is an excellent example of a utopian society. That is, it was an excellent example until the town fell on hard times and had its ideals put to the test.

In the beginning of the story, the town has all of the trappings of a utopian society. First of all, there is no crime and no police. Secondly, workers in the town mill are provided with houses free of charge. What’s more, Charles Worthy, the owner of the mill does not take advantage of his workers for self gain. He pays them all high wages and he, himself, lives a rather meager life for a mill owner. Worthy’s only concern is the wellbeing of Commonwealth. As a result of his desire to maintain the welfare of the town, he suggests they all quarantine themselves to avoid the Spanish flu that is ravaging the surrounding countryside. This is when the utopian feel of the town begins to disappear.

Armed guards are posted to, ideally, keep outsiders out and the townspeople in. However, in the process of protecting the town, two innocent people who were lost and in need of food and shelter were denied help and eventually killed. This is hardly a utopian way to handle a situation. As the quarantine continued much needed food from the community gardens was stolen, and eventually the remainder of the towns’ supplies from the general store were taken as well.

At the end of the novel, the quarantine fails and the town becomes infected. Some of the people of Commonwealth secretly left to selfishly gratify their own needs in nearby infected villages, returning to Commonwealth with the sickness. Ultimately the selfish actions of some of the residence doomed the rest of the town, finally destroying the remainder of the utopian feel.