Abstract

This paper investigates Samuel Butler’s Erewhon; or, Over the Range (1872) through an interdisciplinary lens highlighting the sociocultural and behavioural dynamics that, in the Swiftian topsy-turvy world described in the novel, are fuelled by the taboo of ill health. Here, an all-out criminalisation of disease combined with a draconian social selection process is bound to lead to a dramatic and often irredeemable loss of the sick person’s political and moral ‘fitness’ as a citizen. An anti-utopian and half-essayistic novel where Butler famously gave voice to a biting satire of Victorian society’s double standards, materialism and utilitarian policies – from a perspective that encompassed economic, legal, scientific, religious, bioethical and Darwinian discourse – Erewhon offers much food for thought. As we shall see, when considering possible intersections with the fields of biopolitics and the sociology of illness, it is evident how this text is capable of foregrounding practices of silencing, normalisation and disciplining aiming to exercise authority over individuals, communities, and the very management of life