The Scarlet Empire
Encyclopedia
The Scarlet Empire is a dystopian
novel written by David MacLean Parry, a political satire
first published in 1906
. The book was one item in the major wave of utopian and dystopian literature that characterized the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
. He loses consciousness—but is revived by a man in a strange diving suit; Walker at first mistakes him for a kind of fish/man. In fact, the man is a surgeon engaged in research; he explains to Walker that they are in Atlantis
, at the bottom of the sea, and gives the American a cursory explanation of the nature of Atlantean society. (He cannot say much; Atlanteans are limited to a thousand words of speech per day, as measured by the "verbometers" they wear.)
Socialist literature found in Walker's pockets suggests to the Atlantean authorities that Walker might be acceptable to their regime. (A few other Americans have penetrated to Atlantis in the past, though no one from the Earth's surface is there when Walker arrives.) The American is assigned to a barracks; the doctor who serves it is appointed his guide in all things Atlantean (and is given a dispensation to speak more than 1000 words per day). Together, the surgeon and the doctor become Walker's closest companions in his new life. The people of the domed city dress in red; their buildings, and even the cigars they smoke, are of the same color, giving their society its nickname, the Scarlet Empire.
At first, Walker (or Citizen No. 489 ADG, as he is designated) is delighted to have awakened in a socialist state; but his enthusiasm quickly fades as he experiences the capricious irrationality and the privations of life in a dictatorship of the proletariat. He soon learns that his guide, the doctor, shares his repulsion from Atlantean life. Walker meets, and quickly falls in love with, a beautiful young woman, No. 7891 OCD; since she has no name, he comes to call her Astraea
—"the last goddess of heaven to visit the earth". Yet he is shocked to learn that his new love is condemned as an "atavar" (from "atavism"), a reactionary individualist, a dissenter who cannot or will not conform to the dictates of society. As such, she is confined to an insane asylum (another anticipation of Soviet times). Atavars are given chances to conform; the recalcitrant ones are fed to a kraken
outside the dome of Atlantis, in a ceremony reminiscent of the Christian sacrifices in the Colosseum
of ancient Rome. The plot quickly resolves into Walker's struggle to rescue Astraea and escape back to the surface.
The Atlanteans keep all they recover from the surface world in their Hall of Curiosities; its contents include everything from ships' figureheads and waterlogged books to enormous heaps of jewels and gold coins. In his research work, the surgeon comes into possession of a sunken miniature submarine; Walker and the doctor decide to use the vessel to escape. Their plan reaches a crisis when Walker is caught consorting with the imprisoned Astraea; the two are sentenced to be devoured by the kraken. Yet the hero and his friends manage a suspenseful getaway from the Atlanteans. Walker, Astraea, the doctor and the surgeon depart in their (treasure-laden) submarine; in a confrontation with the attacking kraken, they fire a torpedo, which kills the monster and also punctures the dome of Atlantis, destroying the city.
Walker and friends reach dry land. With the advantage of enormous wealth (the appropriated Atlantean treasure), they manage to make their way through the individualistic capitalist world. The surgeon and doctor distinguish themselves in science and medicine; Astraea and Walker enjoy a long happy marriage. After her eventual death, Walker writes the story of their adventure.
.) Parry imagines that Atlantis is heated and lit by the power of radium
, and evocatively describes its "scintillating" light. He is good on the gloomy grandeur of the Atlantean realm, as when Walker first beholds the full scale of the city:
Indeed, John Clute
and John Grant
, in their Encyclopedia of Fantasy, suggest that the novel was perhaps ghost-written.
solutions to the world's problems; Edward Bellamy
's Looking Backward
(1888
) was the most famous book of this type, though there were many more. Other authors, however, reacted against this literature of socialist advocacy; writers of more conservative and capitalist orientations wrote to counter the leftist tendency of utopians like Bellamy, and produced dystopia
s and works of satire. Parry cast his Scarlet Empire precisely in this satiric dystopian vein; he exploited the ancient story of Atlantis
to portray his conception of the defects of a socialist state, which he termed "Social Democracy."
. His political, economic, and social orientation was capitalist
, hostile to socialism and to the developing labor movement of his generation. His pre-existing ideological commitment is clearly revealed in The Scarlet Empire; few would accuse Parry of objectivity. His assertion that the "first principle" of socialism is that "might is right" would be disputed not only by leftists but by many in the center of the political spectrum. Parry characterizes the capitalist system he favors this way:
—a description that would not pass universally unchallenged. In his own time, Parry was sarcastically dubbed one of the "latest valiant conquerors of the Socialist Dragon...."
's enormously popular Atlantis: The Antediluvian World
(1882
), a number of novelists chose Atlantis as the setting for their fictions. Parry's book shows the influence of Donnelly: he pictures the ancient Phoenicia
ns, the Aztec
s, and the Incas
as offshoots of Atlantean civilization.
These Atlantis novels were often adventure tales and romances that were set in the ancient world, like C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne's The Lost Continent
(1899
); yet others, like Arthur Conan Doyle
's The Maracot Deep
(1929
), take place in the modern world and involve the survival of Atlantis through the intervening millennia. Parry took the latter approach; his Atlantis has persisted as a submarine city for thousands of years. Over recent centuries, it has rejected its ancient and traditional monarchy for "Social Democracy."
Parry's primary goal, however, is not in crafting a tightly-organized fiction, in the way a science-fiction writer might do; he does not even attempt to provide a plausible explanation for the survival of Atlantis. Neither does he try to explain how his modern American protagonist can speak and read the same language as the Atlanteans. Parry's focus is on the polemical and satirical goals of his book.
was meeting increasing success in organizing American workers; the AFL used what it called "walking delegates" to inspect union activities and enforce its contracts with manufacturers. In his novel, Parry imagines a "Federation of Labor of Atlantis" that becomes so powerful that it dominates the democratic government of Atlantis, and then imposes its extreme commitment to workers' "equality" on the whole society. In his view, this type of state would repress all individual rights and enforce a destructive and inhumane conformity on its citizen victims.
For Parry, the resulting society resembles an enormous prison. Parry wrote prior to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917; he took Czarist Russia
as his model and precedent for what his socialist prison-state would be like. Nonetheless, Parry made some surprisingly prescient forecasts of the excesses of Marxist/Leninist
Communism
to come. His Atlanteans dress in dreary unisex
outfits, like the Mao suit
used by the Chinese during the Maoist era. He pictures Atlantean agriculture as primitive and inefficient, like Russian agriculture in the Soviet era. The Atlantean state goes to extremes to ensure that everyone gets the same amount of food to eat—while neglecting the obvious strategy of trying to produce more food. (The result is that the average, undernourished Atlantean male is five feet tall and weighs 110 pounds.)
Parry's Atlantis does not rely upon secret police
, like Czarist Russia and later totalitarian societies; spies and enforcers work openly, as "Inspectors" (successors of AFL-style "walking delegates"). In his Atlantis, fully one quarter of the workers are Inspectors. There are Departments of Sleep Inspectors, Time Inspectors, Bath Inspectors, Cooking Inspectors, and many more. Parry addresses the enduring problem of who guards the guardians?, with a Department of Inspectors of Inspectors—and a Department of Inspectors of Inspectors of Inspectors.
In Parry's Atlantis, personal names have been replaced with alphanumeric designations. The state classifies its citizens with a system that starts with the cephalic index
. Yet the division of humans into the two classes of brachycephaly
and dolichocephaly
causes dissatisfaction, since it negates the prime value of equality. The Atlantean regime works to overcome this basic distinction:
Instead, the state produces greater physical equality through eugenics
. Matchmaking is determined by government function, without personal choice: tall people are matched with short, attractive with homely, etc., to produce a more uniform and standard Atlantean.
Much of Parry's satire concentrates on the Atlantean state's excesses in its attempts to enforce equality. The Atlantean legislature eventually passes bills "Requiring the Use of the Left Arm as Much as the Right", and "Providing for the Equal Use of the Maxillary Muscles on Both Sides of the Mouth in Masticating Food".
, in which some public offices were assigned to citizens by lot. (In Atlantis, in fact, all occupations are assigned by lot; one becomes a farmer, or an Inspector, or fills any other job or profession, purely by chance.)
Parry's American protagonist is astounded to find himself assigned to the Atlantean legislature, the Vorunk, apparently by this method of chance. It is a dreary job that nobody wants, and he amuses himself there by creating even more absurd laws. (He gets snoring declared a crime, punishable by death.) He quickly learns that the people who run Atlantis are corrupt and self-interested, and violate the basic tenets of Atlantean equality to feed their own hunger for power.
's American Craftsman
movement, called the novel "grotesque" and "a crude romance...."
The Scarlet Empire had a longer life than many popular novels enjoy, however. This was due partly to its humor and its effective storytelling—and due partly to effective promotion by capitalist interests. (The novel was serialized in American Industries, the magazine of the National Association of Manufacturers
.) The book went through multiple editions; as late as 1954, L. Sprague de Camp
would refer to it as a "well-known" work.
A new edition of Parry's book was released in 2001 by Southern Illinois University Press.
Utopian and dystopian fiction
The utopia and its offshoot, the dystopia, are genres of literature that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction is the creation of an ideal world, or utopia, as the setting for a novel. Dystopian fiction is the opposite: creation of a nightmare world, or dystopia...
novel written by David MacLean Parry, a political satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
first published in 1906
1906 in literature
The year 1906 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:* December 24 - Reginald Fessenden transmits the first radio program, a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech, broadcasts....
. The book was one item in the major wave of utopian and dystopian literature that characterized the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Plot summary
John Walker is a young American socialist, active and dedicated. Yet his personal poverty, and the slow progress of his cause, leave him despondent. In a fit of depression he decides on suicide by drowning: he hurls himself off "the long pier...called the Suicides' Promenade" at Coney IslandConey Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
. He loses consciousness—but is revived by a man in a strange diving suit; Walker at first mistakes him for a kind of fish/man. In fact, the man is a surgeon engaged in research; he explains to Walker that they are in Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
, at the bottom of the sea, and gives the American a cursory explanation of the nature of Atlantean society. (He cannot say much; Atlanteans are limited to a thousand words of speech per day, as measured by the "verbometers" they wear.)
Socialist literature found in Walker's pockets suggests to the Atlantean authorities that Walker might be acceptable to their regime. (A few other Americans have penetrated to Atlantis in the past, though no one from the Earth's surface is there when Walker arrives.) The American is assigned to a barracks; the doctor who serves it is appointed his guide in all things Atlantean (and is given a dispensation to speak more than 1000 words per day). Together, the surgeon and the doctor become Walker's closest companions in his new life. The people of the domed city dress in red; their buildings, and even the cigars they smoke, are of the same color, giving their society its nickname, the Scarlet Empire.
At first, Walker (or Citizen No. 489 ADG, as he is designated) is delighted to have awakened in a socialist state; but his enthusiasm quickly fades as he experiences the capricious irrationality and the privations of life in a dictatorship of the proletariat. He soon learns that his guide, the doctor, shares his repulsion from Atlantean life. Walker meets, and quickly falls in love with, a beautiful young woman, No. 7891 OCD; since she has no name, he comes to call her Astraea
Astraea
In Greek mythology, Astræa or Astrea was a daughter of Zeus and Themis or of Eos and Astraeus. She and her mother were both personifications of justice, though Astræa was also associated with innocence and purity...
—"the last goddess of heaven to visit the earth". Yet he is shocked to learn that his new love is condemned as an "atavar" (from "atavism"), a reactionary individualist, a dissenter who cannot or will not conform to the dictates of society. As such, she is confined to an insane asylum (another anticipation of Soviet times). Atavars are given chances to conform; the recalcitrant ones are fed to a kraken
Kraken
Kraken are legendary sea monsters of giant proportions said to have dwelt off the coasts of Norway and Iceland.In modern German, Krake means octopus but can also refer to the legendary Kraken...
outside the dome of Atlantis, in a ceremony reminiscent of the Christian sacrifices in the Colosseum
Colosseum
The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...
of ancient Rome. The plot quickly resolves into Walker's struggle to rescue Astraea and escape back to the surface.
The Atlanteans keep all they recover from the surface world in their Hall of Curiosities; its contents include everything from ships' figureheads and waterlogged books to enormous heaps of jewels and gold coins. In his research work, the surgeon comes into possession of a sunken miniature submarine; Walker and the doctor decide to use the vessel to escape. Their plan reaches a crisis when Walker is caught consorting with the imprisoned Astraea; the two are sentenced to be devoured by the kraken. Yet the hero and his friends manage a suspenseful getaway from the Atlanteans. Walker, Astraea, the doctor and the surgeon depart in their (treasure-laden) submarine; in a confrontation with the attacking kraken, they fire a torpedo, which kills the monster and also punctures the dome of Atlantis, destroying the city.
Walker and friends reach dry land. With the advantage of enormous wealth (the appropriated Atlantean treasure), they manage to make their way through the individualistic capitalist world. The surgeon and doctor distinguish themselves in science and medicine; Astraea and Walker enjoy a long happy marriage. After her eventual death, Walker writes the story of their adventure.
Style
Though Parry was not a professional writer, his book is surprisingly well-done for an amateur. (In this respect, contrast Bradford Peck's contemporaneous The World a Department StoreThe World a Department Store
The World a Department Store: A Story of Life Under a Coöperative System is a utopian novel written by Bradford C. Peck, and published by him in 1900. The book was one entrant in the wave of utopian and dystopian writing that occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries...
.) Parry imagines that Atlantis is heated and lit by the power of radium
Radium
Radium is a chemical element with atomic number 88, represented by the symbol Ra. Radium is an almost pure-white alkaline earth metal, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, becoming black in color. All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226,...
, and evocatively describes its "scintillating" light. He is good on the gloomy grandeur of the Atlantean realm, as when Walker first beholds the full scale of the city:
- "It was as though we had stepped into some vast cathedral...I looked down a vista of titanic columns, which rose to a dome of immeasurable height. About each pillar ran a line of light — a shining vine — winding upward until its brilliancy contracted to a thread and lost itself in the upper air. The dome was faintly disclosed by lights which shed their rays like distant stars...and in this half-light the columns shimmered like colored marble and were dimly mirrored in the smooth and glossy flooring of the mighty naves. At intervals, running transversely across the vista down which I looked, were channels from which shone forth floods of light, and these channels I came afterward to know to be the streets of Atlantis. In the day-dreams of my boyhood I had often pictured sea caverns with crystal walls and sweeping distances, but no stretch of my imagination was ever comparable to the reality that now confronted me."
Indeed, John Clute
John Clute
John Frederick Clute is a Canadian born author and critic who has lived in Britain since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part of science fiction's history."...
and John Grant
John Grant (author)
John Grant is a Scottish writer and editor of science fiction, fantasy, and non-fiction. Born as Paul le Page Barnett, Grant has sometimes written under his own name "Paul Barnett" or as "Eve Devereux"...
, in their Encyclopedia of Fantasy, suggest that the novel was perhaps ghost-written.
Genre
Utopian novels of Parry's era regularly advocated socialistSocialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
solutions to the world's problems; Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy was an American author and socialist, most famous for his utopian novel, Looking Backward, set in the year 2000. He was a very influential writer during the Gilded Age of United States history.-Early life:...
's Looking Backward
Looking Backward
Looking Backward: 2000-1887 is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a lawyer and writer from western Massachusetts; it was first published in 1887...
(1888
1888 in literature
The year 1888 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*Grant Allen - The Devil's Die**The White Man's Foot*Edward Bellamy - Looking Backward*Rolf Boldrewood - Robbery Under Arms...
) was the most famous book of this type, though there were many more. Other authors, however, reacted against this literature of socialist advocacy; writers of more conservative and capitalist orientations wrote to counter the leftist tendency of utopians like Bellamy, and produced dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
s and works of satire. Parry cast his Scarlet Empire precisely in this satiric dystopian vein; he exploited the ancient story of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
to portray his conception of the defects of a socialist state, which he termed "Social Democracy."
The author and his politics
David Parry (1852–1915) was a businessman by profession, who served for a time as president of the National Association of ManufacturersNational Association of Manufacturers
The National Association of Manufacturers is an advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C. with 10 additional offices across the country...
. His political, economic, and social orientation was capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, hostile to socialism and to the developing labor movement of his generation. His pre-existing ideological commitment is clearly revealed in The Scarlet Empire; few would accuse Parry of objectivity. His assertion that the "first principle" of socialism is that "might is right" would be disputed not only by leftists but by many in the center of the political spectrum. Parry characterizes the capitalist system he favors this way:
- "Though some may obtain more material comfort than others, yet none starves, and the strong learn to be charitable to the weak..."
—a description that would not pass universally unchallenged. In his own time, Parry was sarcastically dubbed one of the "latest valiant conquerors of the Socialist Dragon...."
Atlantis
In the aftermath of Ignatius DonnellyIgnatius Donnelly
Ignatius Loyola Donnelly was a U.S. Congressman, populist writer and amateur scientist, known primarily now for his theories concerning Atlantis, Catastrophism , and Shakespearean authorship, all of which modern historians consider to be pseudoscience and pseudohistory...
's enormously popular Atlantis: The Antediluvian World
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is a book published during 1882 by Minnesota populist politician Ignatius L. Donnelly, who was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during 1831...
(1882
1882 in literature
The year 1882 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*F. Anstey - Vice Versa*Walter Besant - The Revolt of Man*Bankim Chatterjee - Anandmath*Richard Doddridge Blackmore -Christowell*Wilkie Collins - After Dark...
), a number of novelists chose Atlantis as the setting for their fictions. Parry's book shows the influence of Donnelly: he pictures the ancient Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
ns, the Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
s, and the Incas
Inca civilization
The Andean civilizations made up a loose patchwork of different cultures that developed from the highlands of Colombia to the Atacama Desert. The Andean civilizations are mainly based on the cultures of Ancient Peru and some others such as Tiahuanaco. The Inca Empire was the last sovereign...
as offshoots of Atlantean civilization.
These Atlantis novels were often adventure tales and romances that were set in the ancient world, like C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne's The Lost Continent
The Lost Continent: The Story of Atlantis
The Lost Continent: The Story of Atlantis is a fantasy novel by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne. It is considered one of the classic fictional retellings of the story of the drowning of Atlantis, combining elements of the myth told by Plato with the earlier Greek myth concerning the survival of a universal...
(1899
1899 in literature
The year 1899 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:*Edgar Rice Burroughs begins working in his father's business.*Rainer Maria Rilke travels to Moscow to meet Leo Tolstoy....
); yet others, like Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
's The Maracot Deep
The Maracot Deep
The Maracot Deep is a short 1929 novel by Arthur Conan Doyle about the discovery of a sunken city of Atlantis by a team of explorers led by Professor Maracot...
(1929
1929 in literature
The year 1929 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Candide by Voltaire is declared obscene by the United States Customs and seized in 1930....
), take place in the modern world and involve the survival of Atlantis through the intervening millennia. Parry took the latter approach; his Atlantis has persisted as a submarine city for thousands of years. Over recent centuries, it has rejected its ancient and traditional monarchy for "Social Democracy."
Parry's primary goal, however, is not in crafting a tightly-organized fiction, in the way a science-fiction writer might do; he does not even attempt to provide a plausible explanation for the survival of Atlantis. Neither does he try to explain how his modern American protagonist can speak and read the same language as the Atlanteans. Parry's focus is on the polemical and satirical goals of his book.
Satire
Parry exploits the Atlantean legend to condemn the advocacy of socialism that was prominent in his own era. Parry wrote when the American Federation of LaborAmerican Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
was meeting increasing success in organizing American workers; the AFL used what it called "walking delegates" to inspect union activities and enforce its contracts with manufacturers. In his novel, Parry imagines a "Federation of Labor of Atlantis" that becomes so powerful that it dominates the democratic government of Atlantis, and then imposes its extreme commitment to workers' "equality" on the whole society. In his view, this type of state would repress all individual rights and enforce a destructive and inhumane conformity on its citizen victims.
For Parry, the resulting society resembles an enormous prison. Parry wrote prior to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917; he took Czarist Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
as his model and precedent for what his socialist prison-state would be like. Nonetheless, Parry made some surprisingly prescient forecasts of the excesses of Marxist/Leninist
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
to come. His Atlanteans dress in dreary unisex
Unisex
Unisex stands for the meaning that either gender or sex will be able to, but can also be another term for gender-blindness.The term was coined in the 1962 and was used fairly informally...
outfits, like the Mao suit
Mao suit
The modern Chinese tunic suit is a style of male attire known in China as the Zhongshan suit , and known in the West as the Mao suit...
used by the Chinese during the Maoist era. He pictures Atlantean agriculture as primitive and inefficient, like Russian agriculture in the Soviet era. The Atlantean state goes to extremes to ensure that everyone gets the same amount of food to eat—while neglecting the obvious strategy of trying to produce more food. (The result is that the average, undernourished Atlantean male is five feet tall and weighs 110 pounds.)
Parry's Atlantis does not rely upon secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
, like Czarist Russia and later totalitarian societies; spies and enforcers work openly, as "Inspectors" (successors of AFL-style "walking delegates"). In his Atlantis, fully one quarter of the workers are Inspectors. There are Departments of Sleep Inspectors, Time Inspectors, Bath Inspectors, Cooking Inspectors, and many more. Parry addresses the enduring problem of who guards the guardians?, with a Department of Inspectors of Inspectors—and a Department of Inspectors of Inspectors of Inspectors.
In Parry's Atlantis, personal names have been replaced with alphanumeric designations. The state classifies its citizens with a system that starts with the cephalic index
Cephalic index
Cephalic index is the ratio of the maximum width of the head multiplied by 100 divided by its maximum length ....
. Yet the division of humans into the two classes of brachycephaly
Brachycephaly
Brachycephaly, also known as flat head syndrome, is a type of cephalic disorder. This can result from premature fusion of the coronal sutures or from external deformation . The coronal suture is the fibrous joint that unites the frontal bone with the two parietal bones of the skull. The parietal...
and dolichocephaly
Dolichocephaly
Dolichocephaly is another word for scaphocephaly, a condition where the head is longer than would be expected, relative to the width of the head.It can present in cases of Sensenbrenner syndrome, Sotos syndrome, as well as Marfan syndrome.-External links:...
causes dissatisfaction, since it negates the prime value of equality. The Atlantean regime works to overcome this basic distinction:
- "...in order to produce greater uniformity in the length of the head, the plan has been tried of using pressure on the heads of children, but the results have been sadly disappointing."
Instead, the state produces greater physical equality through eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
. Matchmaking is determined by government function, without personal choice: tall people are matched with short, attractive with homely, etc., to produce a more uniform and standard Atlantean.
Much of Parry's satire concentrates on the Atlantean state's excesses in its attempts to enforce equality. The Atlantean legislature eventually passes bills "Requiring the Use of the Left Arm as Much as the Right", and "Providing for the Equal Use of the Maxillary Muscles on Both Sides of the Mouth in Masticating Food".
Politics
Parry envisions the Atlanteans as reverting to the habit of some of the early democracies of ancient GreeceAncient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, in which some public offices were assigned to citizens by lot. (In Atlantis, in fact, all occupations are assigned by lot; one becomes a farmer, or an Inspector, or fills any other job or profession, purely by chance.)
Parry's American protagonist is astounded to find himself assigned to the Atlantean legislature, the Vorunk, apparently by this method of chance. It is a dreary job that nobody wants, and he amuses himself there by creating even more absurd laws. (He gets snoring declared a crime, punishable by death.) He quickly learns that the people who run Atlantis are corrupt and self-interested, and violate the basic tenets of Atlantean equality to feed their own hunger for power.
Reception and influence
The early responses to Parry's Scarlet Empire were conditioned by its politics: conservative or mainstream reviewers liked or accepted it, while progressive reception was far more critical. In one example, The Craftsman, the periodical of Gustav StickleyGustav Stickley
Gustav Stickley was a manufacturer of furniture and the leading proselytizer for the American Arts and Crafts movement, an extension of the British Arts and Crafts movement.-Biography:...
's American Craftsman
American Craftsman
The American Craftsman Style, or the American Arts and Crafts Movement, is an American domestic architectural, interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts style and lifestyle philosophy that began in the last years of the 19th century. As a comprehensive design and art...
movement, called the novel "grotesque" and "a crude romance...."
The Scarlet Empire had a longer life than many popular novels enjoy, however. This was due partly to its humor and its effective storytelling—and due partly to effective promotion by capitalist interests. (The novel was serialized in American Industries, the magazine of the National Association of Manufacturers
National Association of Manufacturers
The National Association of Manufacturers is an advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C. with 10 additional offices across the country...
.) The book went through multiple editions; as late as 1954, L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
would refer to it as a "well-known" work.
A new edition of Parry's book was released in 2001 by Southern Illinois University Press.