# Endnotes explained — Looking Backward

> Chapter companion for Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy.

## What happens

The endnotes provide additional reflections and clarifications on the differences between the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on the dignity of labor, the abolition of the marketplace, the freedom of public libraries, and the nature of courtship. Julian West comments on the social and economic transformations that have eliminated mercenary considerations and social prejudices in choosing occupations, and he praises the honor-based system of work.

## Themes in this chapter

### Labor and Dignity of Work

The endnotes emphasize the dignity of labor in the 20th century by refusing to set a price on it and abolishing the marketplace, contrasting with the commercial taint of 19th-century labor.

### Critique of Capitalism and Consumerism

The text criticizes the 19th-century system where all services, including those of physicians and poets, were subject to haggling and commercial transactions.

### Education and Physical Culture

The endnotes mention equal education and opportunity as key to developing natural aptitudes, contrasting with the lack of education for the poor in the 19th century.

## Character check-ins

### Julian West

Narrator and commentator on the contrasts between the 19th and 20th centuries.

### Dr. Leete

Referenced as having warned Julian about the amusement of 20th-century youth regarding 19th-century courtship.

## Key lines

> The physician must sell his healing and the apostle his preaching like the rest. The prophet, who had guessed the meaning of God, must dicker for the price of the revelation, and the poet hawk his visions in printers’ row.

In the 19th century, even the most noble professions were forced to haggle over the price of their services in the marketplace.

_Illustrates the commercial taint of all labor under capitalism._

> By requiring of every man his best you have made God his taskmaster, and by making honor the sole reward of achievement you have imparted to all service the distinction peculiar in my day to the soldier’s.

In the 20th century, work is motivated by duty and honor rather than money, elevating all labor to the dignity of military service.

_Highlights the transformation of labor's meaning in the new social system._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/looking_backward_se/chapters/endnotes
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/looking_backward_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/looking_backward_se/chapters