In this short story by Ursula K. LeGuin, the protagonist Belle lives in a dystopian future America that has been corrupted by excessive capitalism and environmental destruction. Resources are scarce and the authoritarian government restricts basic freedoms. Belle dreams of a better, more utopian society emerging from the ruins of the old one, just as Plato's story of Atlantis describes a new civilization rising after the old one falls. While Belle finds solace in imagination and ideals, her husband Simon seeks practical solutions like developing solar power. The story explores themes of dystopia, feminism, and finding hope in the face of societal collapse.

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Dana Hollis
Vida Cross
English 215-452
July 30, 2016
Perchance to Dream
An Analysis of Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The New Atlantis”
I have a dream Martin Luther King said. Some characters in Ursula K. LeGuin’s short
story “The New Atlantis” also have a dream. They dream and think of a more utopian existence,
of a better world for living, that is free of the blights that greedy, desperate people bring upon
themselves. They want a world that is free of the upheavals of corruption and corrosion from
overwrought capitalism. Free of the debilitating effects of overwork, and overconsumption.
Free of heaving ozones and weeping glaciers. The story is one of optimism rising above hard
reality and pessimism, even though the latter may have the upper hand. The new Atlantis is the
submersion of evil, and the rising old lands are the new hope and power of a more wholesome
distant mankind. Belle's notebook bobbing on the waters may be the seed of a new
enlightenment. Even though the horrors of the world and the frustrations of a life can seem
insurmountable, they nevertheless, in their contrast, reaffirm the value of original, utopian ideals,
and there can still be joy in a dream of a better existence.

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In this short story by Ursula K. LeGuin, there is a world that has gone awry. The theme
and setting relates to a world, and specifically an America, that has lost its way and
overconsumed itself into a cancerous condition of catastrophe. In this story, in the cold and the
rain on a broken bus, there is talk of rising continents and lowering hopes. The skies are yellow
and moods are black. There are floods in Times Square and oyster beds in the streets of San
Francisco. Ancient and archaic legends come to life again. The assignment of Noah and the
concepts of Plato become relevant again.
In this story of a time in the not too distant future, set around the Portland, Oregon area,
there is a condition of dystopia. The precise details of how this came about are left out of the
short tale, but evidence is there that suggests debilitating effects from aggressive capitalism and
abuse of the environment. There are blackouts and food shortages, acid rain and lands loosened
by erosion. The ether of the earth thins, and the bowels of the globe thicken. The government,
unable to cope with the situation effectively, and in order to deflect people’s fears and
frustrations, has instituted authoritarian rule. People are watched if they show dissent, and there
are restrictions on marriage and procreation, to avoid an increase in population and use of scarce
resources. Even language is used cleverly to disguise the poor quality of the remaining resources
for use and consumption. For instance, a restaurant is named the “Longhorn Inch-Thick Steak
House Dinerette”, but it serves such things as meatless hamburgers and other faux ingredients
that are cheap to produce. This use of language is similar to the Orwellian Newspeak, which was
used to deceive people from the true essence of something. (Suvin) In the midst of this
totalitarian control and deceptive propaganda there is a need for optimistic and utopian ideals.

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Essentially the protagonist is a lofty thinker, and an idealist, who likes to play a viola on
the commode, and dreams of ancient souls from better days crying out to emerge from the depths
of a dark sea, and live again. As the protagonist Belle is surrounded by the deterioration of her
society, and the destruction of the environment, she still takes consolation in the thoughts of a
new civilization arising and replacing the old, disgraced one. This is analogous to the legend of
Atlantis, which is a derivation from dialogues of Plato called Timaeus and Critias. The name
Atlantis translated in Greek would actually be “island of Atlas”. Within these dialogues Plato
conveyed a tale of this island nation as an antagonist to ancient Athens. Athens, however, repels
this attack. Atlantis then earns the wrath of the Gods, and is infamously submerged into the
Atlantic. (Rowe) As with the fictional Atlantis, which consisted of a confederation of kings who
had great power and held sway over the land, but went too far and brought destruction onto their
land, (Annas) so too is this futuristic America corrupted by a government that has gone too far in
its centralized, corporative institutions. This event then can be alluded to the current situation in
Belle’s world. The America of this near future is the new Atlantis.
Belle, with her artistic mind and imaginative tendencies is not particularly attune to
precise ways that this decaying world can be saved. It is as if her role in this story is to be the
more enlightened, aloof one; the one that sees further and knows farther of the more useful ways
that can allow for the only thing left that is possible in this impossible condition, consolation.
Her husband Simon, however, and his friends, do not seem satisfied with just consolation. They
still have ideas that a tangible way can be affected for, and be relevant to, resolutions of the
dilemma. The energy shortages and restrictions are intense. The group of dissident protagonists
endeavor to create a device that uses solar power to reduce energy consumption. As in the story
of Noah from the Bible, Simon and his colleagues feel they can build an ark, so to speak, and

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provide a way to save those that are willing to be saved. Belle on the other hand, is more like the
dove. After the waters have already destroyed the world, and only the immediate family of Noah
was saved, the dove seeks out and finds the olive leaves, which symbolize a new land and a new
hope. Belle, as the dove, is not part of the efforts to save the current world, but is the medium
for discovering and providing evidence of a newer world possible. It is not evidence of olive
leaves, but rather the effluence from dreams of light and the hopes of a new and rising buoyant
world. This ethereal optimism from a lady who is nostalgic for childhood, and who maintains
the purity of noble living, is best exemplified from a line in the story spoken by Belle, “To know
the abyss of the darkness and not to fear it, to entrust oneself to it and whatever may arise from it
– what greater gift?” (Le Guin 337)
The fact that Belle is represented in this story as a woman who is strong in her will, and
who is independent and appreciates hearty living, and the tickling scent of the pines, and who
respects the sacred inspirations of music and the innocence of childhood, is appropriate in a Le
Guin story. Le Guin, being a woman herself, and a daughter of an anthropology professor, wife
of an historian, fervent advocate for environmentalism, and student of social issues, often
depicted women in these ways. She often focused on gender differences in her stories. This can
be seen in this story where the narrator Belle is depicted as rather independent and artistic and
her husband Simon is shown as a mathematician and more mechanically adept. She plays the
viola and he tinkers with energy toys. But in their differences they still share the same ideals for
utopia. In this story you can feel the tough tenderness of womanhood, and the soft hardness of
manhood.

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As a person interested in social identity and cultural structures, Le Guin often refers to
scenarios of government oppression in some of her stories.(Lee) This story is an excellent
example of an image of a dystopian-style government, with a militaristic aura, and the
implementation of paranoia-induced restrictions. There are elements of surveillance against
dissenters, like the Big Brother thought police of the Orwellian 1984. Ingredients of Le Guin’s
environmental concerns are ripe as well. The entire tale essentially has an atmosphere of these
sociological and ecological elements. Within its scope there are the panoramas of the lush
Oregon firs, but also the eye-sore images of bland and generic products, there are dark clouds
over a concrete world with vacant eyes, but also the serene strains of a viola serenading a
moment of urgent altruism. Which of these worlds comes ahead will be up to the individual
minds. Even though the experiment of her kinship to save the immediate world comes to
nothing, there is still a hope that pulses, yearning and throbbing from a dark sea. The mysteries
of this hope prevail, but the clarity and life of it can exist and thrive if a past of proud purpose
can be remembered.
.

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Works Cited
J. Annas, Plato: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2003), p.42
Lee, Whitney. Neal Adolph Akatsuka ed. "Ursula Le Guin: Short Stories Themes". GradeSaver,
9 April 2015 Web. 23 July 2016.
LeGuin, Ursula K.. "The Other." The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Literature. Ed. R. V.
Cassil. 2nd ed. N.p.: W.W. Norton &, 1998. 326-347. Print.
Plato: The Atlantis Story. Ed. Christopher J. Rowe . Wiltshire, U.K.: Bristol Classical Press,
1980
Suvin, Darko, Parables of De-Alienation: Le Guin’s Widdershins Dance. Science Fiction
Studies. #7 Vol 2 Part 3. November 1975.