The essay analyses the interplay of death drive and heterotopian garden space in H. G. Wells' "The Country of the Blind".
In the essay, the author shows how the juxtaposition of Edenic/non-Edenic and utopian/non-utopian emplacements in the heterotopical garden space of the blind creates an ambiguity in which the protagonist Nunez finds himself unable both to mirror this ambiguity in himself and to live out his death drive fantasies on others.
H. G. Wells' short story "The Country of the Blind" acts as a prime example onto which to transfer the ambivalent understanding of heterotopian studies. In this story from 1904, the reader is presented an interplay between the protagonist Nunez clinging to his death drive fantasies and the semi-mythical place of the country of the blind.
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Heterotopian studies are concerned with the "space outside" as opposed to the "internal space", Michel Foucault determines before he provides his audience with a headstrong analysis of the heterotopic (177). Having put aside internal space for his lecture, Foucault does not return to this claim in order to give an explanation for his differentiation. This is curious insofar as one considers the internal space as the realm of fantasy. Assuming that Foucault's concept of heterotopia is to be taken as an approach not to real world sites, such as a garden, a cemetery or a brothel, but rather to their "fictional representations" (Knight 142), the heterotopic seems to predominantly play a role in spaces of imagination, as for example in literary spaces. Foucault himself adds to this idea and contrasts his first distinction between the internal and external by declaring the ship as "the heterotopia par excellence" and by that "the greatest reservoir of imagination" (185). Taking into consideration this grasp of the heterotopic as concerned with both the "mythical and real" (179), with the realm of imagination and the "space in which we are living" (177), H. G. Wells' short story "The Country of the Blind" acts as a prime example onto which to transfer this ambivalent understanding of heterotopian studies. In this story from 1904, the reader is presented an interplay between the protagonist Nunez clinging to his death drive fantasies and the semi-mythical place of the country of the blind. In this essay, I will show how the juxtaposition of Edenic/non-Edenic and utopian/non-utopian emplacements in the heterotopical garden space of the blind creates an ambiguity in which the protagonist Nunez finds himself unable both to mirror this ambiguity in himself and to live out his death drive fantasies on others. Ultimately, this inability leads Nunez to his self-destruction.
- Two critics proclaim in their analyses that Wells' short story is deliberately designed as a utopic story. In a short article, Terry W. Thompson states that "The Country of the Blind" displays multiple intertextual references to Plato's "fabled land of Atlantis" ("An Atlantis Allusion" 62). Thompson especially mentions visual similarities between Atlantis and "this alpine Arcadia", such as the valley's circular layout, the wall encircling the village of the blind, their "intricate irrigation system", as well as the "concentric inner" design of the village (63). This concentric layout is similarly visualised in a wood engraving by Clifford Webb (719). Furthermore, Thompson hints at the allusion that both the sightless settlers in Wells' short story and Plato's Atlanteans founded their civilisations "upon logic and beauty" and live in harmony "with nature and each other" ("An Atlantis Allusion" 64). In other terms, the cut-off valley in the mountains of Ecuador in Wells' story is portrayed as a utopic garden (63). In accordance to this reading of Wells' short story, Richard Toby Widdicombe defines "The Country of the Blind" amongst others as a utopian tale (94). In contrast to Thompson's focus on visual and ideological similarities between Atlantis and the valley of the blind, Widdicombe emphasises the text's "impossibility of textual resolution" as opposed to an alleged "monovalence" (93). Widdicombe also does not provide an explanation in his article why he considers "The Country of the Blind" utopian.
- Next to Thompson's and Widdicombe's classification that Wells' "The Country of the Blind" is inherently a utopian text, a general definition of 'utopia' yields certain characteristics of the non-space that are consistent with some of the short story's passages. According to the Metzler Lexikon Literatur, a 'Utopie' functions as an ideally designed state or community, where unhappiness, physical or mental afflictions, and social injustice are transformed through social, political, economic, and cultural reforms or revolutions into the common good for everyone (Schweikle et al. 795). Moreover, in utopic spaces, contingency and unpredictability are eliminated as far as possible (ib.). Some of these characteristics work in line with the community of the blind in the mountains. Early in the text, the narrator provides the information that the blind "met and settled social and economic problems that arose" (Wells 324). Since the text does not explicitly mention possible forms of social injustice occurring in the community of the blind, the previous reforms appear to have resolved social problems to the extent that neither reforms nor revolutions are needed anymore. In addition, apart from the omnipresent yet unacknowledged ailment of sightlessness, physical or mental afflictions do not play a significant role in the lives of the blind. The villagers speak only once of a physical disease that affects the mental state of one of its inhabitants when the blind doctor claims that Nunez' "brain is affected" by his "diseased" eyes (342). Still, the villagers acknowledge the threat of bodily deterioration in the guise of diseases and injuries for there is an appointed doctor who knows to some extent of complex procedures such as a "surgical operation" to remove the eyes of a patient (343). As a result, neither bodily affliction nor the need for reforms or revolutions are remarkably present in the text's portrayal of the blind community in the Ecuadorian Andes, which could lead to the assumption – especially in connection with Thompson's and Widdicombe's notes on the text – that "The Country of the Blind" is a utopian short story.
- However, although the blind community appears to be harmonious both within itself as well as embedded within the valley similar to Plato's Atlantean community, several indications that destabilise this utopian image emerge after Nunez' arrival in the valley. Firstly, the villagers appear to have established a well-working technique in order to deal with unpredictabilites. After numerous attempts to convince the villagers of his genetic superiority through vision, Nunez finds himself resorting "to force" (Wells 336). While waiting for his pursuers after his quasi-violent escape, Nunez beholds how some male villagers have taken up arms ("carrying spades and sticks") and how they are looking for the renegade outsider in a peculiar manner: "They advanced slowly, speaking frequently to one another, and ever and again the whole cordon would halt and sniff the air and listen" (Wells 337). This search-technique eventually proves rather successful since they reach Nunez within a short period of time (ib.). Considering that there was a time when the valley had not yet reached its supposedly utopian state, the early villagers probably had to concern themselves with various kinds of unpredictable incidents, which in turn called for efficient problem-solving methods such as the advancing line during Nunez' escape. Since the villagers still know how to efficiently employ this particular method, one might assume that even in the alleged utopian valley that Nunez has found the blind people still have to regularly deal with unpredictable events. However, unpredictabilities should have been eliminated in the utopian community to the point where one would assume that the villagers would react rather surprised than well-prepared to Nunez' renegade action.
- In addition to this indication of unpredictable incidents occurring in the valley of the blind, ubiquitous happiness has not been reached within the community as of Nunez' arrival. The miserable fate of Medina-saroté stands out among the general content of the blind villagers. Shunned by the community for her bodily deficits, such as her "long eyelashes", "strong voice" and "clear-cut face", she leads a lonely life with "no lover" but with her father (Wells 340). Apparently, the notion of beauty of the body has not died out within the valley community. As a result, probably not only Medina-saroté but also other women with "grave disfigurement[s]" (ib.) are considered unworthy of a lover. Hence, the misery of Medina presents itself in contrast to the utopian nature of the country of the blind as does the village's preparedness for unpredictabilites.
- A third notion that hinders a purely utopian reading of Wells' short story are the male villager's aggressions against the proposal that Nunez may marry Medina-saroté. Although Nunez has become "a citizen of the Country of the Blind" (Wells 340), the rest of the village maintains the concept of a two-class society in which Nunez finds himself on the lower end of social status: "They held him as a being apart, an idiot, incompetent thing below the permissible level of a man" (341). The idea that Nunez might marry Medina-saroté, although herself being unwanted by all male citizens, and thus corrupt the blind race evokes anger in the young men (341–342). This anger ultimately fuels an unprovoked violent action against the mountaineer in that a young man starts to insult and hit Nunez (342). At other times, some villagers display similar feelings of anger or hostility against the foreign man from Bogota. Pedro, one of the first three blind people to meet Nunez, becomes "hostile" after Nunez tries to redeem himself in front of the other villagers by asking Pedro some questions on his earlier whereabouts (336). Similar to the young man starting to fight with Nunez, Pedro's hostility does not appear as being provoked by an aggressive action from Nunez. In contrast to this, Nunez angers some blind citizens when he enters the room where the village's elders reside. Falling down in the "room as black as pitch", he enters a "one-sided fight" and stays on the floor (331). It becomes evident that aggressions or aggressive feelings such as anger are no new or forgotten concepts for the blind people in the Andes. They both react to seemingly aggressive actions, e.g. Nunez falling on them, as well as behave aggressively when no provocative element is present, i.e. when they hear of Nunez' proposal to Medina-saroté. If unhappiness were transformed in this allegedly utopian society, one would assume that unprovoked aggressions should not occur in the way they do in Wells' short story.
- While focusing on possible interrelations between unhappiness, violent actions and culture in a society deemed to be utopian, one is inclined to consult psychoanalytical theory in order to reach a deeper understanding thereof. Sigmund Freud stated in his book Das Unbehagen in der Kultur that human misery derives from three main sources: the human body, the outside world, and the social relations between human beings (43). Furthermore, according to Freud, culture appears as a process in the service of Eros, which is working against mankind's aggression drive, the descendant of the destructive drive (85). The interplay between aggression drive and culture is still observable in the community of the blind in Wells' short story. On the one hand aggression in the form of exclusion can lead to unhappiness for the unattractive Medina-saroté whereas on the other hand aggression is enacted against the proposed marital merging – a manifestation of Eros – of Medina-saroté and Nunez, further amplifying their mutual misery. In addition to this, the blind society condones these aggressive tendencies against their citizens since the perpetrators are not punished for their behaviour by the community in both cases. In a utopian society however, one would expect either that Eros has already won the battle against Thanatos and thus no occurrences of the aggressive drive should be visible any longer or that at least the blind community condemns and works against the natural aggressive tendencies of its population.
- After establishing that a utopic reading of Wells' "The Country of the Blind" can at times become problematic, a heterotopian reading might prove to yield better results of understanding the inner spatial and psychological workings of the short story. According to Kelvin Knight, the concept of heterotopia "remains notoriously ill-defined" albeit that it continually acts as a "source of inspiration for geographers, architects and literary critics alike" (141). Knight strives to give a unified definition of heterotopia and states that Foucault's intention behind this concept was not to provide a "tool for the study of real material sites" but rather of the "fictional representations of these semi-mythical places" (142). Thus, a heterotopian reading of the valley of the blind may be deemed feasible as long as the valley represents a semi-mythical place that Foucault mentions, such as "the mirror, the garden, the library, the prison and so on" (155). As was mentioned above, Thompson considers Wells' "The Country of the Blind" referring to Plato's Atlantis and thus representing a utopic garden. Although the alleged utopian nature has been shown to be problematic, the concept of the valley as a garden space works in accordance with other critical readings of Wells' short story.
- A possible reading of the valley of the blind as a paradisal garden shines through Boulton's survey of Terence Hawkes thoughts on Shakespeare's The Tempest. Here, Boulton quotes Hawkes who "outlines one particular historical moment which shaped the European psyche in its perceptions of an earthly paradise", i.e. the seventeenth century colonisation of the New World (5). According to Hawkes, this colonisation included the idea "of the New World as another Eden, replete with an infinity of good things, […] a place of redemption, of everybody's second chance" (qtd. in Boulton 4–5). The infinity of good things as well as a suggested absence of bad things in the country of the blind becomes apparent as soon as the narrator of Wells' short story describes the near-Atlantic layout of the valley for "life was very easy in that snow-rimmed basin […] with neither thorns nor briars, with no evil insects nor any beast save the gentle breed of llamas" (Wells 324). Furthermore, the valley's intricate irrigation system and abundance of precious metals, suggested by the inexpert lying of the settler with the "bar of native silver" (323), add to the image of a paradisal garden of the blind waiting to be colonised. The idea that the valley of the blind represents a space where one can find redemption or a second chance, mirrors the origin story of the blind community since the early settlers were "a family or so of Peruvian half-breeds fleeing from the lust and tyranny of an evil Spanish ruler" (322). The valley was thus their second chance of living in peace and harmony. Thompson supplements this idea of a garden of the blind by comparing the short story's protagonist Nunez to "one of the most ruthless and ambitious of the Spanish Conquistadors" – Vasco Núñez de Balboa ("Channeling Balboa" 218). Taking this interpretation into account, Nunez becomes the "destructive and reckless" conquistador (qtd. in Thompson, "Channeling Balboa" 227) invading the paradisal garden of the blind in the New World.
- Related to the coloniser's perspective on the blind community's paradise, one can recognise other similarities and dissimilarities between the biblical narrative of Eden and the inner workings of the valley in the Andes. Firstly, the text comments on the belief of the early settlers in the country of the blind that they are being punished with blindness because of their "negligence […] to set up a shrine so soon as they entered the valley" (Wells 323). Therefore, they did not think of this affliction as a result of "germs and infections but of sins" (ib.). This comment draws a clear connection to the events in Eden where an incident, i.e. the act of seeing/knowing by eating the forbidden fruit, leads to the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Gisela Steinlechner goes so far to claim that although the concept of the garden in literature represents the redeemed world, its image is still inscribed with the Fall of Man as a traumatic structure (294). Secondly, while at first glance the blind community in their garden space appear to be in a state prior to the Fall of Man due to their incapacity to see, the early villagers considered this state of blindness as godly punishment. Yet again, the later villagers whom Nunez meets seem to have rejected the idea of being afflicted with blindness to the point where they diagnose Nunez' brain as "affected" by his seeing eyes (Wells 342). This juxtaposition of seeing and sickness as well as blindness and punishment creates an ambiguous Edenic image of the blind community in "The Country of the Blind". The valley in the Andes is a near-utopic garden full of descendants of sinners that have regressed through their blindness into the Edenic state of not-seeing or not-knowing.
- Developing the idea of the pseudo-Eden in the Andes further, one can apply Foucault's concept of the garden as a heterotopia to the valley of the blind. In his lecture for a group of architects, Different Spaces, Foucault defines the garden similar to the cinema as a heterotopia which "has the ability to juxtapose in a single real place several emplacements that are incompatible in themselves" (181). Moreover, "the garden is the smallest parcel of the world and the whole world at the same time" (ib.). In the same way, the eldest blind villager explains to Nunez that the valley of the blind community is the whole world for them (Wells 332). The idea that beyond the valley nothing else exists stands in contrast to Nunez' experience, "who had been down to the sea and had seen the world" (325). As was mentioned above, Nunez recognises the valley as a harmonious but also partially artificial landscape, which has been denoted by Thompson and Boulton as a new Eden, a paradisal garden. Since Nunez is given the opportunity to join the blind community as a true sightless citizen by having his eyes removed, both world views or views on the valley appear to co-exist although they do not form a synthesis. In addition to this co-existence, the juxtaposition of the previously mentioned Edenic and non-Edenic as well as of the microcosmic and macrocosmic emplacements in "The Country of the Blind" corresponds to Foucault's concept of the garden as a heterotopia. This also includes the incorporation of utopian and non-utopian characteristics in the garden space of the Andes. In its harmonious layout, the valley appears to be utopic while some passages suggest the occurrence of unhappiness and violence and thus evoke the image of a non-utopian society.
- Besides the juxtaposition of contradictory emplacements in heterotopic garden spaces, Marvin Chlada emphasises how heterotopias unsettle the reader by undermining language (27). One can for example observe multiple instances of elliptical sentence construction in Wells' short story. According to Jodie Gaudet's remarks on "The Country of the Blind", most ellipses "appertain to sleep or fanciful imagination" (196). To Gaudet, some of these ellipses indicate that Nunez "may be drifting in and out of sleep as he dreams of the valley of the blind" (ib.). The suggestions that Nunez might only imagine the country of the blind or that the short story exhibits a case of "post-mortem consciousness" (Steinmann 157) to the point where "the reader is taken into the unknown realm between life and death" (162) further highlight the emplacement of ambiguous or contradictory notions in Wells' short story. Furthermore, the blind villagers not only do not understand Nunez when he tries to tell them of his power of sight but also do not recognise the words Nunez utters when he speaks of vision: "He […] mingles words that mean nothing with his speech" (Wells 331). The linguistic differentiation between 'blind' and 'seeing' cannot be articulated in the language of the blind, which becomes apparent when a villager carelessly asks Nunez: "What is blind?" (334). Finally, the villagers deny that Nunez has a language at all for they call him "uncivilised and infantile (ie. without language)" (Boulton 14). Therefore, it appears that both Nunez' and the villagers' language is reduced concerning the topics of sleep and imagination as well as vision and blindness. This interpretation corresponds to the undermining of language in heterotopias.
- After establishing that Wells' "The Country of the Blind" can be read as a heterotopian short story due to its allusion to the juxtaposition of contradictory emplacements and to language deterioration, one recognises a connection between Nunez' death drive fantasies and his inability to live out these fantasies in the heterotopian garden of the blind. At several points in the story, the reader gains insight into Nunez' power fantasies and witnesses his attempts at fulfilling them. As soon as Nunez realises that he has entered the fabled country of the blind, he starts to fantasise while a "sense of great and rather enviable adventure" comes upon him (Wells 329). His "confident steps" (ib.) emphasise that he is convinced to become the king in the country of the blind. However, shortly after he introduces himself to the three water bearers, the scene reverts Nunez' initial physical dominance opposed to the three men, who are at first standing close together "a little afraid", when they start to hold Nunez and feel him over (ib.). Finally, after an attempt to struggle free, Nunez succumbs to the three blind men and is led to the elders. This first close interaction between the mountaineer Nunez and the blind community mirrors the overall interrelation of Nunez' fantasies and the resisting country of the blind. From the very beginning, Nunez appears not to be able to act out his fantasies. In later instances, he makes other half-hearted attempts to gain power through his biological supremacy of sight. He tries to demonstrate his superiority by unsuccessfully hiding from the blind, by trying to tell the future or by describing what he can see. After those non-violent attempts failed, Nunez can no longer hold back the desire to fulfil his fantasies and thinks of "seizing a spade and suddenly smiting one or two of" the blind villagers (336). Although there are some mild physical interactions during this scene, Nunez never fully commits to his power fantasy and ultimately runs from the village after exclaiming that he is "going to do what [he] like[s] and go where [he] like[s]" in this valley (337).
- Nunez' power or domination fantasies can be categorised according to Freud's concept of the death drive. In his essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle from 1920, Freud defines the drive for power, next to the drive for self-preservation and recognition, as a partial drive of the death drive (Psychologie des Unbewussten 248). The aim of these partial drives is to paradoxically both shield the organism from any imminent danger as well as to ensure the organism's own choice of death (248–249). Similarly, Nunez who just had to recover from a mountaineering incident in which his death would not have been his own choice fantasises about a position of power over the blind community in order to be in control of his eventual demise in the closed-off valley. This Freudian interpretation would further explain why Nunez is quick to renounce his world view based on his sight so that he may return to the village and not die in the wilderness; for it is not starvation or thirst of which Nunez is willing to die.
- However, Nunez' aggressive stance towards the blind community does not only stem from an inherent drive for power. The text also marks another moment in which Nunez exhibits aggressive behaviour but there he directs it against cultural constraints. This occurs when Nunez first resorts to violent rebellion since his desire for power could not be satisfied in other ways. When a villager tells the renegade mountaineer to step off the grass, an order that is "grotesque in its urban familiarity", a "gust of anger" emerges in Nunez (Wells 338). At this moment, when Nunez finds himself like a child in an urban environment, scolded for trampling on the grass, the text reveals that the foreign intruder cannot live out his destructive fantasies – derivatives of his death drive that are deflected against external objects (Freud, Psychologie des Unbewussten 347) – on a defenceless blind community since he invaded not a utopian but a heterotopian space: The country of the blind is not an uncivilised world waiting to be civilised by the genetically superior conquistador Nunez but rather a culturally structured space with the means to enforce cultural constraints. Nunez either becomes part of this heterotopia or he perishes. This concept of joining the community of the blind by having one's eyes removed corresponds with Foucault's remark that heterotopias have a "system of opening and closing that isolates them and makes them penetrable at the same time" (183). The mountain range surrounding the valley of the blind also adds to this notion of isolation.
- After renouncing his concept of sight and becoming a second-class citizen, Nunez is given the choice to raise his social status and to marry Medina-saroté by having his eyes removed. Nonetheless, he ultimately decides to leave the valley, to lie down and await death "under the cold stars" (Wells 347) similar to when he worked himself out of the avalanche "until he saw the stars" (326). The focus on love and marriage in the second half of the story strongly contrasts the drive for power in its first half. Speaking in Freudian terms, Nunez' death drive recedes and makes way for his Eros to unfold in the Medina-saroté episode. However, Nunez remains unsure of his decision to give up his eyesight and finds himself in a "dilemma" (344). He remembers the "great free world he was parted from", a "world that was his own" (345) as opposed to the world of the blind, which he planned to conquer and make his own. By reminiscing about his earlier power fantasies, Nunez realises that he cannot satisfy his death drive in the heterotopia of the blind through marital union, which can be regarded as the institutionalised merging of two individuals into a greater unit and thus as mirroring the concept of Eros (Freud, "Unbehagen" 82). In addition, he recognises that the country of the blind is not the utopian space he intended to conquer but rather "a pit of sin" (Wells 345), which resembles the previously mentioned ambiguity of Edenic and non-Edenic notions. As a result, the heterotopian nature of the valley of the blind with its juxtaposition of contradictory emplacements is finally revealed to the failed conquistador Nunez. He then reverts to his initial desire to act out his death drive fantasies, only now he does not direct this destructive power at others but at himself. He attempts to climb out of the valley and eventually "his clothes were torn, his limbs were bloodstained, he was bruised in many places, but he lay as if he were at his ease" (346). According to Patrick Parrinder, this ending, in which Nunez "is almost certainly dead", portrays an "act of destructive self-assertion" (71). Nunez fulfils his desire to be in control of his own demise by directing his destructive drive against himself. This "self-fulfilment and self-destruction" (qtd. in Parrinder 71) explains Nunez' expression of content – "a smile on his face" (Wells 346) – while he awaits certain death. The beaten conqueror, driven by his death drive fantasies, must "assert [his] true freedom […] at the cost of physical extinction" (qtd. in Parrinder 71) since the non-utopian, heterotopian country of the blind denies him to direct his destructive energy at its inhabitants. As a result, Nunez appears unable to reflect the garden of the blind's heterotopian ambiguity in himself; it is either exclusively Thanatos or Eros who express themselves through his actions and thoughts. Finally, Eros disappears and Nunez' death drive prevails.
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
This essay aims to analyze H. G. Wells' short story "The Country of the Blind" by examining the interplay of the protagonist Nunez's death drive fantasies and the heterotopian garden space of the blind community. The essay explores the ambiguity created by the juxtaposition of Edenic/non-Edenic and utopian/non-utopian elements within this heterotopian space, showing how it ultimately leads to Nunez's self-destruction.
- The concept of heterotopia and its application to "The Country of the Blind."
- The ambiguous nature of the blind community's valley as a potential Edenic/non-Edenic and utopian/non-utopian space.
- Nunez's death drive fantasies and his inability to fulfill them in the heterotopian garden.
- The role of language and its undermining in heterotopias.
- The connection between Nunez's power fantasies and Freud's theory of the death drive.
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
- The essay begins by introducing the concept of heterotopia as described by Michel Foucault, highlighting its focus on "fictional representations" of real-world spaces, particularly within literary works. It then establishes "The Country of the Blind" as a prime example of this concept, exploring the interplay between the protagonist Nunez's death drive fantasies and the semi-mythical setting of the blind community.
- The essay examines the utopian interpretation of the story, analyzing the arguments of critics like Terry W. Thompson and Richard Toby Widdicombe who identify parallels between the blind community and Plato's Atlantis. It then compares the blind community's characteristics with a general definition of utopia, noting the apparent absence of social injustice, physical afflictions, and the need for reforms.
- However, the essay challenges the purely utopian reading of the story by highlighting several instances that destabilize this image, such as the community's preparedness for unpredictable events, the unhappy fate of Medina-saroté due to her physical appearance, and the villagers' aggressive reactions to Nunez's presence and proposed marriage.
- To delve deeper into the complex relationship between unhappiness, violent actions, and culture in a seemingly utopian society, the essay turns to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory. It examines the interplay of aggression drive and culture within the blind community, noting the lack of punishment for aggression against citizens like Medina-saroté and Nunez.
- Shifting to a heterotopian reading of the story, the essay argues that the valley of the blind can be understood as a semi-mythical place representing Foucault's concept of a garden as a heterotopia. It explores the juxtaposition of contradictory emplacements within the valley, including Edenic and non-Edenic, utopian and non-utopian elements.
- The essay examines the undermining of language in heterotopias, as demonstrated by the blind community's inability to understand Nunez's concept of vision and their dismissal of his language. It further analyzes Nunez's power fantasies and his inability to fulfill them, highlighting the resistance he encounters within the heterotopian garden space.
- The essay connects Nunez's power fantasies to Freud's theory of the death drive, particularly its emphasis on the drive for power as a partial drive. It argues that Nunez's fantasies stem from his desire to control his own demise, a desire that he cannot fulfill in the heterotopian valley.
- The essay analyzes the final confrontation between Nunez and the blind community, highlighting his choice to leave the valley and face his own destruction. It concludes that Nunez's failure to conquer the valley or become a part of it ultimately leads him to direct his death drive towards himself.
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
The main keywords and focus topics of this essay include heterotopia, garden space, death drive, utopianism, non-utopianism, Edenic, non-Edenic, "The Country of the Blind," H. G. Wells, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, cultural constraints, and imperialistic ideas of paradise.
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- Christian Schulz (Autor:in), 2018, The Interplay of Death Drive and Heterotopian Garden Space in "The Country of the Blind" by H. G. Wells, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/703378
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