One of the major conflicts of the novel is between Tistram and his brother, Derek. Who chose a different path from Tistram, and pretends to be homosexual while in public to help his career. Then in private, he has an affair with Beatrice-Joanna, and when she forgets to take her contraceptives, she becomes illegally pregnant and is unsure of who the father of her unborn child. Life quickly changes as the police become more active and more repressive, and Tristram is arrested after getting unintentionally mixed up in a protest and ends up spending a considerable long time in jail. In then mean time the society on the outside changes rapidly.
While he is in prison, formerly repressed religion begins to re-bloom. The structure of society soon crumbles and fertility rituals are practiced. Most of England openly practiced cannibalism because the food rations soon became rare. In the mean time Beatrice-Joanna runs away to stay with her sister and brother-in-law in the countryside on their Farm. She resides there until she delivers her twin sons, when a government agent arrives to take her and her children to the city.
With the help of his cellmate, Tistram escapes to find his wife. He travels across England to his sister-in-law’s farm. He is so desperate for food, like everyone else he briefly joins a “dining club” which is a chaotic affair, which provides food for him (human meat). His journey eventually takes him to a sort of soup kitchen, where he is tricked into enrolling for the army. In the army, he is shipped to an unknown location to fight in the war, though the he later discovers that he is in Ireland. In his first battle he discovers that there is no real enemy; and the reason of the “war” is population control. Battalions are sent to a made-up battlefield to kill each other, and the dead bodies are sold for food. Every other member of his battalion gets killed in the battle. He goes back into general society, and finds a new job. In his absence, Beatrice-Joanna has been moved to live with Derek. She named the twins after the two brothers. In the last scene Tistram meets her again at Brighton pier.
In the novel, it is often repeated the concept that history in cyclical. There are three phases: Pelphase, interphase, and Gusphase.
Pelphase is characterized by the belief that people are generally good. Crimes have slight punishment, and the government works thorough socialism. According to Tistram “A government functioning in its Pelagian phase commits itself to the belief that man is perfectible, that perfection can be achieved by his own efforts, and that the journey towards perfection is along a straight road”. The novel begins as well as ends in Pelphase.
Interphase is the dark ages of Pelphase into Gusphase in other words an intermediate phase. The government grows disappointed in its population’s inability to be good, therefore making the police forces strengthened and creating a Totalitarian state. “Brutality!' cried Tristram. 'Beatings-up. Secret police. Torture in brightly lighted cellars. Condemnation without trial. Fingernails pulled out with pincers. The rack. The cold-water treatment. The gouging out of eyes. The firing squad in the cold dawn. And all this because of disappointment. The Interphase.'"
The last phase is Gusphase, which involves the lifting of the Interphase. The leaders begin to realize how terrible they have become therefore; the government relaxes its rules. Tistram describes the Gusphase as "The orthodox view presents man as a sinful creature from whom no good at all may be expected... It eventually appears that human social behavior is rather better than any Augustinian pessimist has any right to expect, and so a sort of optimism begins to emerge. And so Pelagianism is reinstated."
I personally enjoy dystopian novels, and books that require extra research and are challenging. This novel met all of those criteria making it a very enjoyable, and interesting read. I found the book both funny and grimly serious, because of certain aspects that seemed very linked and in sync with out world today.
by
mayowao (student)
