Improving Society In Zamyatin's The Lathe Of Heaven

Zamyatin’s novel We introduces a seemingly utopian society called One State where all societal problems are eradicated. Every citizen is completely controlled and developed to work within a perfectly logical framework and rules are effectively enforced to ensure harmony. Why then is One State still incapable of achieving a perfectly functioning society? This paper will argue that the reason why Dr. Haber’s attempts to improve society through George’s dreams creates fundamentally drastic changes in reality in Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven helps explain the the One State in Zamyatin’s We is incapable of systematically functioning perfectly, because the premise of a utopia contradicts the irrational egoist nature of humans. In The Lathe of Heaven,

Haber’s attempt to solve world problems by intervening in George’s dreams causes extreme changes that are rendered unrecognizable because of the drastic changes required in humans and society. The first substantial change occurs when Dr. Haber attempts to suggest George about solving the growing problem of overpopulation and the degrading environment. As a result, six of seven billion people are effectively killed by a devastating plague in order to reduce the pressures of overpopulation which shocks George and Lelache (Le Guin 63). The resolution dramatically changes the way the society functions through the smaller infrastructure due to the sheer decrease with nearly all of the world population eradicated. While the solution of overpopulation is resolved, George and Lelache’s shocks further emphasize the magnitude of the loss of six billion people not only because of the amount of deaths, but because of the unexpected change that drastically changes the society from what they are used to. Dr. Haber’s interventions also cause other fundamental changes within the structure of human physical attributes. In his attempt to remove the issue of racism, all the humans on the planet and food become a uniformly gray color and bland (129). George’s dreams effectively remove the fundamental part of human social structures segregated by skin color. This is further highlighted with the disappearance of Heather Lelache in the new world, whose brown skin town is considered a core part of her identity (130). The removal of Lelache shows the eradication of cultural identity and the development of human society through the wars and social movements that defined the history of humans. Eradicating this results in a society rendered unrecognizable to George because of drastic change into not only the alien physical attributes of the new humans but because of the removal of a fundamental part of race in human