Not Quite There Yet: Jurisprudence, Utopia and Intentional Community

Abstract

This thesis examines the role of concepts of jurisprudence, utopian theory and intentional community in three novels that are based on actual attempts to construct utopian intentional communities. Chapter one focuses on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance, applying Ronald Dworkin’s interpretive theory in order to evaluate the Blithedale commune’s attempt to construct its own legal community. Questions of “why does it fail?” are pervasive in this thesis, but in this chapter, I pull apart the various roles of individual members in order to decipher both the role of the individual and the community in self-created legal systems. Chapter two adds to the consideration of constructive interpretivism by looking at the role of associative obligations in T.C Boyle’s Drop City. In particular, I analyze how associative obligations change when the commune relocates to Alaska, considering the effects of space in shifting associative obligations. The final chapter considers the meaning of legal death in Richard Brautigan’s In Watermelon Sugar. I explain the implications of a commune based on negative intent in order to determine whether this community can still maintain integrity to its cause.