News from Nowhere · Chapter
XXVII: The Upper Waters explained
The journey continues up the Thames, with discussions on the transition from machine-based labor to pleasurable handicraft after the Great Change.
What happens
The journey continues up the Thames, with discussions on the transition from machine-based labor to pleasurable handicraft after the Great Change. The party meets Ellen again, who joins them, and they pass through Oxford and Godstow, observing the beautiful landscape and communal life.
Themes in this chapter
Pleasure in Work
The chapter contrasts the old view of work as drudgery with the new understanding that work can be a source of pleasure and artistic expression.
Critique of Industrial Capitalism
The discussion critiques the former reliance on machines and the mistaken belief that machinery would free humans for higher arts, revealing the flaws of industrial capitalism.
Nature and the Environment
The beauty of the Thames landscape and the restoration of natural surroundings after the removal of railways and industrial blight highlight the harmony with nature.
Characters to notice
- Guest
The narrator reflects on the historical changes in work and society, and feels a pang of jealousy when Ellen and Dick are close.
- Dick
Dick engages in the discussion about the shift to handicraft, and later helps Ellen with her boat rudder.
- Ellen
Ellen joins the party unexpectedly, having rowed after them from Runnymede, and interacts warmly with the group.
- Clara
Clara participates in the conversation about the historical mistake of separating humanity from nature, and suggests a division of boats with a hint of stiffness.
- Henry Morsom
Morsom explains the historical transition from machine work to handicraft, and shows the narrator examples of early post-Change pottery.
Key passages
“You must remember that the handicraft was not the result of what used to be called material necessity. On the contrary, by that time the machines had been so much improved that almost all necessary work might have been done by them; and indeed many people at that time, and before it, used to think that machinery would entirely supersede handicraft; which certainly, on the face of it, seemed more than likely.”
Handicraft emerged not from need but from choice, as machines could have done all necessary work; people once believed machines would replace handwork entirely.
Morsom explains the historical misconception about the role of machinery.
“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—'nature,' as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make 'nature' their slave, since they thought 'nature' was something outside them.”
The error came from a mindset of slavery that separated humanity from nature, leading people to try to dominate nature as if it were external.
Clara critiques the old worldview that saw nature as separate and subjugable.
“What is to come after this? The old man laughed. 'I don't know,' said he; 'we will meet it when it comes.'”
When asked about the future, the old man simply replied that they would face it when it arrived.
The narrator's question about the future is met with a relaxed, present-focused attitude.