Many scholars have addressed Samuel Butler’s representation of religion in his utopian novel, Erewhon. One such scholar, Hans-Peter Breuer, argues that Butler “was primarily concerned with reducing morality to physical causality” (322). According to this argument, “Butler’s analogy is a strict dramatization of a rigorous empirical morality” (Breuer 320), by excusing moral transgressions as frowned upon by not outside the realm of social acceptance, while simultaneously condemning even the mildest physical maladies as outward demarkations of disorderedness. While I find this argument compelling and substantiated by the text, there is an element of the novel’s treatment of religion that I find far more perturbing.

Although the pseudo-Butler narrator claims to have and be motivated by Christian imperatives, he is quite possibly the worst example of Christian behavior and morality. Beginning on the very first page of the novel, we learn of his unabashed aims to “better my fortune,” and “to reap any pecuniary advantage.” And though his real goal of monetary profit is inherently un-Christian (I seem to recall something about it being easier for a camel to travel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to gain access through the gates of heaven), this covetous man preemptively relies on the charity of others! Some of his later remarks in that first chapter paint him as something of an anti-Christ, not in a demonic sense, but rather as a markedly bad shepherd (as opposed to the Good Shepherd portrait of Christ). His sheep become lost, crying out desperately to reunite with their kin, but our ‘Christian hero’ does nothing to salvage them (Butler, 4).

As if greed and negligence weren’t enough, our boy goes on to demonstrate an all-to-cultivated willingness to manipulate and lie. In his mission to find Erewhon, he exploits “an old native, whom they had nicknamed Chowbok” (Butler, 5). He directly lies to him, encourages alcoholic tendencies (which he later condemns as sinful), and manipulates him into being his tour guide. He then has the audacity to impugn Chowbok’s “impenetrably stupid nature,” vainly calling attention to the fact that his own father was an English clergyman (Butler, 19). Shortly after this shameless namedropping, he worries that he improperly baptized Chowbok because he continued attempting to steal his brandy (Butler, 20). This concern demonstrated the narrators utter lack of understanding of the true nature of the sacraments, something a good Christian should be familiar with.

Butler’s final and most appalling affront to the principles of Christianity fall at the novel’s end, when the narrator has the sheer gall to suggest that he will “convert the Erewhonians not only into good Christians but into a source of considerable profit to shareholders” (161). Not only does this statement ring of corruption, it presents a clear violation of Christian ethics, in no uncertain terms! In fact, his “plan for the evangelization of Erewhon” is truly just a guise for invasion, enslavement, and exploitation. His moral hypocrisy should be repugnant to Christians and non-Christians alike.

Breuer, Hans-Peter. “The Source of Morality In Butler’s “Erewhon”” Victorian Studies16.3 (1973): 317-28. Jstor. Web. 3 Mar. 2013.