| Farnham's Freehold |
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Information AboutFarnham's Freehold |
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The book is popular with Survivalist groups as it combines the Civil Engineering and Physics of fallout shelter survival with the social dynamics of "lifeboat rules," or autocratic authority under extreme conditions, a theme further explored in depth in '' The Number Of The Beast ''. To paraphrase Mr. Farnham, "How do you know who is the officer in the lifeboat? The one with the gun." As the novel develops, the family finds itself marooned in a distant future where a decadent but technologically advanced Black culture keeps either uneducated or castrated Whites as slaves. Each of the characters adapts to the sudden role reversal in different and sometimes shocking ways. In the end, Farnham and Barbara, his daughter's guest, fail to adjust to the new situation. They volunteer for a time-travel experiment to send them back in time. They return just prior to the original nuclear attack. They survive it, then spend the rest of their lives trying to make sure the future they experienced does not come to pass. Both ''Farnham's Freehold'' and '' also practices race-based Slavery and institutionalized Cannibalism . Some have argued that the portrayal of the black ruling caste as cannibalistic, polygynous tyrants with a preference for Caucasian women utilizes most of the available racist stereotypes about Africans and African-Americans. Another interpretation posits that the cannabalism and sexual predation of the dark-skinned masters is allegorical, representing the way that black slaves were historically taken advantage of by their masters. This is similar to the "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard" theme in Upton Sinclair 's The Jungle . Proponents of the allegory theory point out that early on in the story, Farnham describes a place in the West Indies where the blacks are cultured and sophisticated, and whites are feckless and shiftless, and that Heinlein then plays out a traditional slave narrative with Farnham as the narrator. From this point of view, the story is not about Africans and Caucasians, but rather about masters and slaves, regardless of race. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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