The Scarlet Empire - Satire

Satire

Parry exploits the Atlantean legend to condemn the advocacy of socialism that was prominent in his own era. Parry wrote when the American Federation of Labor was meeting increasing success in organizing American workers; the AFL used what it called "walking delegates" to inspect union activities and enforce its contracts with manufacturers. In his novel, Parry imagines a "Federation of Labor of Atlantis" that becomes so powerful that it dominates the democratic government of Atlantis, and then imposes its extreme commitment to workers' "equality" on the whole society. In his view, this type of state would repress all individual rights and enforce a destructive and inhumane conformity on its citizen victims.

For Parry, the resulting society resembles an enormous prison. Parry wrote prior to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917; he took Czarist Russia as his model and precedent for what his socialist prison-state would be like. Nonetheless, Parry made some surprisingly prescient forecasts of the excesses of Marxist/Leninist Communism to come. His Atlanteans dress in dreary unisex outfits, like the Mao suit used by the Chinese during the Maoist era. He pictures Atlantean agriculture as primitive and inefficient, like Russian agriculture in the Soviet era. The Atlantean state goes to extremes to ensure that everyone gets the same amount of food to eat—while neglecting the obvious strategy of trying to produce more food. (The result is that the average, undernourished Atlantean male is five feet tall and weighs 110 pounds.)

Parry's Atlantis does not rely upon secret police, like Czarist Russia and later totalitarian societies; spies and enforcers work openly, as "Inspectors" (successors of AFL-style "walking delegates"). In his Atlantis, fully one quarter of the workers are Inspectors. There are Departments of Sleep Inspectors, Time Inspectors, Bath Inspectors, Cooking Inspectors, and many more. Parry addresses the enduring problem of who guards the guardians?, with a Department of Inspectors of Inspectors—and a Department of Inspectors of Inspectors of Inspectors.

In Parry's Atlantis, personal names have been replaced with alphanumeric designations. The state classifies its citizens with a system that starts with the cephalic index. Yet the division of humans into the two classes of brachycephaly and dolichocephaly causes dissatisfaction, since it negates the prime value of equality. The Atlantean regime works to overcome this basic distinction:

"...in order to produce greater uniformity in the length of the head, the plan has been tried of using pressure on the heads of children, but the results have been sadly disappointing."

Instead, the state produces greater physical equality through eugenics. Matchmaking is determined by government function, without personal choice: tall people are matched with short, attractive with homely, etc., to produce a more uniform and standard Atlantean.

Much of Parry's satire concentrates on the Atlantean state's excesses in its attempts to enforce equality. The Atlantean legislature eventually passes bills "Requiring the Use of the Left Arm as Much as the Right", and "Providing for the Equal Use of the Maxillary Muscles on Both Sides of the Mouth in Masticating Food".