Talk:Farnham's Freehold

General discussion

"...uneducated, often castrated whites..." As I read it, the more educated ones were more likely to be gelded, and vice versa. PML — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.202.5.75 (talk • contribs) 05:32, 31 March 2003 (UTC)

Good point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.175.245.160 (talk) 09:29, 25 July 2003 (UTC)

Actually, the TALLER whites were the ones most likely to be castrated - by law - except when a slave owner wanted to violate the law in order to improve his breeding stock. loupgarous (talk) 03:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

---

I know of an off-site review of this page at http://srehn.com/books/rh_farnhamsfreehold.html but I feel it would be dishonest for me to link to it because it's on my site.
If anybody else feels it's appropriate to put that link there, do so, but I won't.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.129.158.171 (talk) 04:35, 4 July 2005 (UTC)

I've read your review. With all due respect, it is not a review. It is just a brief retelling of the plot. The novel is one of the best of its kind and deserves a way better analyses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.171.82 (talk) 06:56, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

---

I felt like I needed a long shower after reading this book. If I hadn't read and liked other books of his before reading Farnham's Freehold, I doubt I would ever have read another. After finishing it, I threw it in the trash rather than giving it away to someone else. The book would have been OK if it were not for the cannibalism - it turns it into a cautionary tale rather than a book which makes you look at a situation from a different perspective. --RLent 20:33, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

None of it really makes any sense. No technologically advanced society practices cannabalism or keeps slaves (it isn't economical). It just makes Heinlein look like a candidate for Grand Dragon of the KKK. Clarityfiend 02:05, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should build a time machine and go visit the United States of 1860. No cannibalism, but it was a technologically advanced society, and did indeed keep slaves. BarrettBrown —Preceding undated comment added 21:22, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

The mostly agrarian South was hardly advanced. The rapidly industrializing North had little use for slaves. Clarityfiend 03:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

From the first settlements of the New World until the Civil War, there were many forms of slavery practiced in both the North and the South.

1. How many times were Native Americans cheated of their lands and the things they valued because they were thought of as sub-human savages by the newcomers?
2. Many poorer peoples sold themselves and their families into servitude for a significant portion of their lives in exchange for passage to the new world. Granted they (lackeys and indentured servants) did have the hope of freedom some day, but it was still a form of slavery.
3. Primarily in the more industrialized areas and mining areas, workers had little choice but to accept substandard wages and working conditions which were designed by the wealthy owners to make the rich richer and keep the workers poor and desperate enough that they HAD to keep working to live. "I sold my soul to the company store". This abuse eventually resulted in worker revolt and the rise of the unions.
4. Children and women were forced to work in abusive, sub-standard, dangerous conditions for little pay in the "technologically advanced society" of the industrialzed North.
5. Owned (bought and sold like cattle) House Slaves were common amoungst the wealthy in many Northern homes.

The more industrialized North could afford to free their "owned" slaves because they still retained immense master/slave like powers over their main workforce. The agrarian South was Socially Advanced in many ways, however their economy depended on a large, cheap labor force which was largely the oppressed "owned" slaves. Loss of those workers was devastating to the Southern economy. Following the "freedoms" gained by the outcome of the war, the wealthy Northerners plundered the very best of the South. Post-war "freed" slaves were hardly free, they still remained at the bottom of the social order and lived/worked in slave-like conditions. Other ethnic groups also suffered slave-like abuses, for instance the "orientals". Even with the advent of the Civil Rights movement, strong arguements continue to this day whether slavery has truly been abolished. IMO- The Civil War was really a war over economy, control/power, and real estate. Slavery was used as an easy cause to rally under.

ALL SLAVERY IS WRONG! I am not trying to justify slavery, but denying that it existed or turning a blind eye to all types of slavery is plain wrong.

More to the point, I don't know what Heinlein's intentions or motivations were in writting this story. I do know that the story is valuable and important in that a reader is presented with a situation that encourages the reader to experience the emotions of role-reversal and "what would I do". If after reading the story you find that you learned something about yourself or you feel uneasy, dirty, unsatisfied, or even sick to your stomach, then the story accomplished it's purpose.

--Steve 05:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC) (Sorry...couldn't hold my indignation)

You are so right Clarityfiend.

The North used abusive child worker practices instead. 166.82.201.8 17:25, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, okay everyone. The south had slaves and the north exploited their workers such that they may as well have been slaves. However, the equivalency falls apart when you find yourself in it. Yes, I get that the North had "wage slaves", but while such might starve, they'd at least starve with their loved ones - and they at least had the option, impractical as it was, of running off to the woods. The south had "real" slaves, and the kids could be sold away, and running to the woods got you hunted down and killed.

In some sense, any time any of your labor is used against your will, you are a slave. Under that argument, we are all slaves who pay any tax at all. But the word slave in general, and for the purposes of the book in question, is a person who is treated as property. To be bought, sold, transferred, bred or ate at the whim of another. And as much as I can enjoy Socialist critiques of 19th and 20th century America, the exploited workers of the North were NOT slaves in generally accepted sense of the word, no matter how many of them starved. Alexandria177 (talk) 13:47, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

West Indies story

I changed it to "in the second half of the story" rather than "early on" because I just finished the novel today and that anecdote comes well into the book, probably around 2/3 of the way through. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.150.161.10 (talk • contribs) 18:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Ruling caste race

I don't have the book with me, but I remember the ruling caste not being African, but being mostly Indian (and possibley asian) decent. I remember the rulers being described as having dark skin but having straight wavy hair, not the thick black curls Africans have. I'll have access to the book in a month. In the mean time, anyone with a copy can check it. -Peter C. (contribs) 19:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The ruling class isn't any one particular dark skin race. The book makes the point that they are mixes of Indian, Arabian and African. The servant race is a mix of European and Far east cultures. At least that is the division between "blacks" and "whites" given. Wyrmis 19:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Trivia question

Do I remember right that Mrs Farnham had a Miltown habit? I think that's where I first heard of the stuff. —Tamfang 20:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

As I recall, she abused Miltown after their supply of alcohol is exhausted. In any case, I think this book is my least favorite of RAH's works. Quite unpleasant, too unpleasant for me to appreciate it. Phasmatisnox 15:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Obviously the majority of you don't have the the sence to understand such a novel, expecally the fool who through the book in the trash because he was too squemish about cannablism. wtf reach down and grab a set for all of us. Why wouldn't a highly advanced culture have slaves and caniblism, it cuts down on population, it seems to me that it doesn't matter how technologically advanced a culture is in the first place. first of all it says right in the book that they hadn't invented anything in years, so naturally there stupid, or just plain ignorant. and if you analize heinlein's character, or if you read some of his other novels you can gather that what he is implying is that "you can never under-estamate the power of human stupidity" = ie you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.54.98.106 (talk • contribs) 18:23, 01:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The word is "sense", not "sence". I've read most of Heinlein's books, and I'm not at all squeamish about cannibalism, but my point seems to be beyond you. This book is a role-reversal story. Role-reversal stories come in to basic varieties. One reverses the roles to help see things from the perspective of the other side. Had the story not had the cannibalism, it would have been such a story, allowing the largely white audience to see matters from the perspective of slaves. But my making the black people not only slave owners, but cannibals, it turns it into a different sort of story, a cautionary tale: "Keep the black people oppressed, or they will do this and worse to you!" In any case, a slave-owning societies are less likely to be inventive, as cheap labor removes incentives for invention. When labor is expensive, there is more incentive to find technological solutions. Steam engines were invented many centuries before they were used for practical purposes. It wasn't that they couldn't apply the technology, it was that labor was labor was cheap. --RLent (talk) 15:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Negroid

I am aware of the common breakdown of four racial types, of which "Negroid" is one. However, the use of "oid" in racial designations (Negroid, Mongoloid and Australoid) has come into question, as the same classification system calls whites "Caucasian" rather than "Caucasoid". "Oid" thus has a connotation of inferiority. Alexandria177 (talk) 13:06, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Grace

Grace was not an "incipient alcoholic", but an alcoholic pure and simple. Granted, AA points out that only the person can make that determination, but as Grace is a fictional character, we can only judge by the description. Not only did she have an intense desire for alcohol, to the extent of stealing it and attempting drug substitutes when she could find none, but she also suffered intense withdrawal from it (Delirium Tremens), usually associated with long term problem drinkers. Alexandria177 (talk) 13:17, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Themes and Criticism Section

That section is good enough, but is entirely uncited. It needs citations. Alexandria177 (talk) 13:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Has anyone compared and contrasted FF with The Admirable Crichton? They both feature a subset of contemporary society transported to an exotic locale where conventional class roles are challenged, and then a return to "normality". --Hugh7 (talk) 21:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Cannibalism

RLent makes a good point in pointing out that it seems more than a simple reversal when cannibalism is thrown in. However, I do not agree that Heinlein was thus making this a cautionary tale to keep African Americans down. His history of racial tolerance and belief in the equality of the races was far too well established by his entire body of work, and in fact, he is regarded as being well ahead of his time in such issues.

However, the cannibalism was an odd addition. I have took that to be Heinlein attempting to jolt white readers of his time. After all, African Americans were said to be animals and treated as such. Heinlein was pointing out - in my opinion - that if the shoe ever got on the other foot, then maybe they would treat whites like animals. And animals are rightless beings for labor and food. A conversation, vaguely touching on this, was had between Hugh and Joe, in which Joe's secret rage at the conditions he had lived under in America came out for the first time. Joe had actually - for the time and place - been treated better than most, which Hugh was quick to point out. However, Joe then got more angry, and pointed out to Hugh that he'd never been black in that time and place, and was not qualified to express an opinion. Joe's famous line - "Hugh, have you ever made a bus trip through Alabama? As a 'nigger'? Then shut up. You don't know what you're talking about." - makes far more sense to readers today. We take it as an "Of course Hugh couldn't know what it was like to be black" and wonder how the otherwise intelligent Hugh could not see that obvious point. But to readers of the time, it was more a delayed reaction of "Yeah...I think I get that. Hugh couldn't know what Joe went through.".

Races, ethnicities and tribes that have long been oppressed tend to go overboard when they get the upper hand, and so the cannibalism of the predominantly southern hemisphered peoples after the northern hemisphere killed themselves off in nuclear war may be more understandable. The northern hemisphere has historically treated the southern hemisphere rather poorly.

We could also speculate on food shortages that may have existed in the aftermath, in which first a group of white slaves was fed more economically by using some of the surplus slaves as food, then this graduated to a given number of slaves being food in general for any.

In any case, I still believe Heinlein intended it as a role reversal, and that he was not attempting to express the false opinion that only Africans are cannibals. Alexandria177 (talk) 13:56, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Heinlein intended to create a cautionary tale, and did intend to create a simple role reversal. The reality of slavery is bad enough, but I suppose enough people had a white washed "zippity-doo-dah" understanding of slavery when the book was written. A racist would be unlikely to change his mind by reading this book, and would likely only see his own racist ideas reinforced, despite Heinlein's intent. --RLent (talk) 16:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)