Breaking Away

(Chapters 1-3)

 

This unit introduces six characters in search of a utopia and foreshadows their different view­ points. It also gives a brief glimpse of the Walden Two community.

 

Summary

 

After their discharge from military service, Lieutenant Rogers invites his friend, Steve Jamnik, to visit his college campus.  They meet Professor Burris, his former psychology instructor, and Rogers explains that they are in search of a place for themselves in contemporary society.  But they do not want to begin again in their earlier ways.  After fighting a war, they want to start fresh in life, to experiment, to try new ways of living.

 

"Why not get some people together and set up a social system somewhere that will really work?" Rogers asks his former professor.  "There are a lot of things about the way we're all living now that are completely insane-"

 

In particular, the young men want to locate the author of a magazine article on an experimen­tal community apparently much like one that Professor Burris discussed in his psychology classes years earlier.  It turns out that Burris, some time ago, did know this author, T. E. Frazier.  He agrees to write to Frazier, asking if this experimental community, Walden Two, is still in exist­ence and if it still accepts visitors. (Chapter 1)

 

The potential touring party becomes larger when two young women join. Barbara Macklin is Rogers' fiancee, and Mary Grove is a friend of Steve Jamnik.  Moreover, Professor Burris has met a colleague from the Philosophy Department, skeptical Augustine Castle. Fascinated by thoughts of ideal societies, Castle immediately accepts an invitation to visit, making a group of six alto­gether.

 

In the meantime, Rogers has found Frazier's article. It emphasizes that political activity is of little use in building a better world. Instead, economic self-sufficiency can be obtained with mod­ern technology, and the psychological problems of group living can be managed through the prin­ciples of "behavioral engineering."

 

The group leaves on Wednesday, planning to spend the rest of the week on this adventure.  After a trip by train and bus, they are met by Frazier at a deserted bus stop.  He is simply dressed and wears a scarcely visible beard.

 

The ride in his station wagon takes them from the main highway through prosperous farm lands, by typical farmhouses and barns, and then to a series of buildings of a different sort, earth­colored, built of rammed earth and stone.  Arranged in levels and connected in wings and exten­sions, these buildings, part of Walden Two, follow the landscape in a functional design.

 

3

 

 

Taken to their rooms in pairs-the young women, young men, and two professors--they find them small and functional, with large windows, all much alike.  Printed bedspreads, wood with natural finish, and earth-colored walls set the tone.  After surveying their room, Burris and Castle take an unexpected nap. (Chapter 2)

 

"We shall have fifty or sixty hours together," says Frazier upon awakening them.  "What do you say to a leisurely start?"

 

Their walk takes them first by an expanse of cropped grass.  Frazier explains that the sheep cut the grass.  The flock is kept together, as a movable lawnmower, by a length of string stretched to form an enclosure.  The training of the sheep to stay together in one area began with a portable electric fence, but soon it was clear that the fence need not be electrified.  The sheep kept well away from it anyway, and so a piece of string is used instead, much easier to move when a new patch of grass needs cutting.

 

The new lambs, Frazier explained, never question the judgment of their elders.  They adopt the same habit.

 

Burris and Castle object that some day a skeptical lamb will put his nose to the string, receive no shock, and begin a stampede.  The whole sheep society will be disrupted.  But the tradition, Frazier explains, is also due to the Bishop, a quiet sheepdog near the flock.

 

They pass a clear pond, reclaimed from a swamp by the medical staff and now suitable for swim­ming.  They enter a pine grove which screens the workshops from living quarters.  Then they ob­serve some birches which separate the gardens and pastures.  Frazier takes pleasure in pointing out these small but successful "treaties with nature."

 

Then all the interconnected main buildings come into view, built at low cost with rammed earth and stone, accommodating the one thousand members of Walden Two.  The construction offers cooperative housing and ready access from all personal rooms to the dining room, theater, and living rooms.  If the Walden Two community were constructed in contemporary buildings, Frazier explains, it would occupy perhaps two hundred and fifty houses and one hundred offices and ware­houses.  The savings in time and money are significant.

 

In addition, the connections among these buildings offer protection against the weather.  The streets of Edward Bellamy's Boston of the future, Frazier reminds his listeners, would be covered when it rained.

 

Most significant among these buildings is the Ladder, a long passageway connecting the child­ren's quarters and the main room.  It was once called Jacob's Ladder, for it allows the little an­gels to go up and down the stairs.  With large windows, it has several stages and alcoves furnished with chairs and tables.  The children and adults traveling from one place to another can stop here and enjoy themselves in small groups for snacks, rest, readings, conversation, or the magnificent view.

 

Frazier speaks proudly of the Walden Two architects.  He explains that their contributions to the community could hardly be exaggerated. (Chapter 3)