“The Country was Apparently Tranquil”: Robert Chambers’ Social Satire (Part 1)

My last few entries have looked at works with religious and metaphysical themes. Today, I’d actually like to switch gears a little bit and look at a story with a less abstract focus. The story is “The Repairer of Reputations” by Robert W. Chambers, and it is far more concerned with social commentary than metaphysical speculation.

This entry will consist of two parts. Part 1 will focus on summarizing the relevant aspects of the story; part 2 will look at the social and historical issues the story addresses. If you’re already familiar with “The Repairer” feel free to skip this first part.

Published in 1895, “The Repairer of Reputations” belongs to Chambers’ short story collection titled The King in Yellow. The collection derives its name from a fictional play that induces insanity in those who read it. This play serves as a linking element for the first four stories including “The Repairer.”

“The Repairer” is set in a hypothetical United States circa 1920. At this point (25 years in the future from when the story was written) the U.S. has undergone a series of dramatic social and political changes:

[T]he exclusion of foreign-born Jews as a measure of national self-preservation, the settlement of the new independent negro state of Suanee, the checking of immigration, the new laws concerning naturalization, and the gradual centralization of power in the executive all contributed to national calm and prosperity.

[A]fter the colossal Congress of Religions, bigotry and intolerance were laid in their graves. . .kindness and charity began to draw warring sects together. . .

These measures are cited approvingly by the story’s narrator, Hildred Castaigne, who seems to believe that the United States has entered a utopian era (at least for white Anglo-Saxon Americans).

Yet, amidst Castaigne’s gushing descriptions of how “tranquil” and “prosperous” the country has become, there are hints that even for the privileged majority, the reality is far less pleasant:

In the following winter began the agitation for the repeal of the laws prohibiting suicide which bore its final fruit in the month of April, 1920, when the first Government Lethal Chamber was opened on Washington Square.

Even as a government official claims “the number of suicides in the United States has not increased” since the practice was legalized, he also declares the Government’s intent to open “lethal chambers” [basically do-it-yourself euthanasia stations] in “every city, town, and village in the country.” That the demand for assisted suicide is so great and (apparently) ubiquitous certainly raises some interesting questions about the quality of life in this alleged utopia.

Castaigne is shortly revealed to be delusional, having succumbed to the mind-warping effects of reading The King in Yellow. That the descriptions of national peace and prosperity come from an unreliable narrator is another reason for readers not to take them at face value.

In his madness, Castaigne believes himself to be descended from an imperial dynasty (of extraterrestrial origin). Throughout the narrative, he conspires to claim the “throne” from his cousin (who Castaigne believes to be the “rightful heir” to the dynasty). I won’t give away the ending, since it’s not important for my analysis, and I’d rather not spoil it for anyone who wants to read the story.

There’s a lot that can be written about Castaigne as a character, and about the questions the story raises about the reliability of perception as it relates to the nature of reality. However, for the time being I’m going to stick with the social commentary the story offers. Obviously I’ve excluded a lot of plot details from my summary above, but I’ve included the key elements that relay Chambers’ social satire. We’ll look at that satire in detail in part 2. . . .