Bibliography
Course Hero. "Looking Backward Study Guide." Course Hero. 25 Oct. 2017. Web. 25 Sep. 2023. <https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Looking-Backward/>.
In text
(Course Hero)
Bibliography
Course Hero. (2017, October 25). Looking Backward Study Guide. In Course Hero. Retrieved September 25, 2023, from https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Looking-Backward/
In text
(Course Hero, 2017)
Bibliography
Course Hero. "Looking Backward Study Guide." October 25, 2017. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Looking-Backward/.
Footnote
Course Hero, "Looking Backward Study Guide," October 25, 2017, accessed September 25, 2023, https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Looking-Backward/.
| Character | Description |
|---|---|
| Julian West | Julian West, who is the narrator of the novel, is a privileged 30-year-old man, born in the mid-19th century who enjoys the benefits of inherited wealth, an education, property, and a servant. It is not until Julian finds himself suddenly transported to a utopian community over a hundred years later that he begins to realize the failings of his own age. Read More |
| Dr. Leete | Dr. Leete is a retired physician from the 20th century. He logically and sympathetically explains the intricate inner workings of the new social order to his guest from the 19th century. Read More |
| Edith Leete | Edith Leete, a beautiful, empathetic young woman of the 20th century, is Dr. Leete's daughter. She has long admired the man who was to be her great-grandmother's fiancé, and she quickly falls in love with Julian as his successor. Read More |
| Edith Bartlett | Edith Bartlett is a young woman in an upper-class Boston family in the 19th century. She is devoted to her fiancé, Julian West. Read More |
| Mr. Bartlett | The father of Edith Bartlett, Mr. Bartlett is the conservative patriarch of an upper-class Bostonian family in the 19th century. He believes labor disputes have disrupted most of the world. |
| Mrs. Bartlett | Mrs. Bartlett is the mother of Edith and wife of a well-to-do Bostonian in the 19th century. She wishes emigration, or residence in another country, could provide an escape from labor struggles. |
| Edith Bartlett's brother | The unnamed eldest brother in the Bartlett family serves and dies in the Civil War on the side of the Union. He is buried at Mount Auburn. |
| Mr. Barton | Mr. Barton is a preacher in the year 2000. He believes 19th-century capitalism brought out the worst in people, but that humanity's goodness has been proved since Julian West was transplanted into the new social order. |
| Clerk | A clerk at the store in the Leetes' precinct carefully takes down orders to transmit to the central distributing center. The clerk's only concern is accuracy. |
| Bank director | An elderly gentleman who is the director of a bank in Julian's later dream of the 19th century. He praises the bank as a thing of poetry, at the center of the business system. |
| Unnamed narrator | The unnamed narrator of the preface is from the 20th century. He introduces the text to 20th-century readers, urging them to consider how different the 19th century was from their own time as they read the words of Julian West. |
| Dr. Pillsbury | Dr. Pillsbury, really a mesmerist who bills himself as a practitioner of animal magnetism, regularly treats Julian's insomnia by putting him into a "mesmeric sleep." |
| Sawyer | Sawyer is a man of color who works as Julian's servant. He not only lives in Julian's home, but he knows how to rouse Julian from his deep sleep in the mornings. |
| Waiter | A young man in the industrial army, he serves as a waiter at the central dining room, contentedly performing his duty during his years of general, unskilled labor for the nation. |
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