# The Coming Race — Themes

> Major themes in The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

## Utopian Society and Its Costs

The Vril-ya have achieved a seemingly perfect society with no war, crime, or poverty, but the narrator argues this utopia comes at the cost of individual ambition, artistic greatness, and the very passions that define human achievement.

### Where it surfaces

- [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/iii): The narrator's first glimpse of the subterranean world reveals a seemingly idyllic, artificially lit landscape with signs of advanced culture and harmony.
- [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/v): The Vril-ya's serene and orderly society is depicted as ideal yet unsettling, highlighting the cost of emotional suppression.
- [Chapter IX: The History and Government of the Vril-ya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/ix): The Vril-ya have achieved a peaceful, crime-free, and poverty-free society through the discovery of vril, but this utopia is maintained by strict population control and voluntary emigration.
- [Gender Roles and Marriage Customs Among the Vril-ya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/x): The Vril-ya's marriage customs and gender equality are presented as part of a utopian social order, but the historical cost includes a murder and male emigration that necessitated reforms.
- [Chapter XVII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xvii): The Vril-ya's perfect society lacks ambition, crime, and strong passions, leading to a decline in literature and individual distinction.
- [Chapter XVIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xviii): Taë describes the Vril-ya's ideal of small, self-sufficient communities that maximize happiness and intellectual achievement, contrasting with the narrator's Koom-Posh, which Taë sees as doomed to decay.

## Technology and Power

The discovery and mastery of vril, a mysterious fluid or force, grants the Vril-ya immense power over matter and life, fundamentally shaping their peaceful society while also posing an existential threat to the surface world.

### Where it surfaces

- [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/i): The engineer's use of mining technology (cage, safety-lamp) and the discovery of artificial lighting and a road underground hint at a technologically advanced subterranean civilization.
- [Chapter II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/ii): The rope, grappling-hooks, and cage represent human technological attempts to conquer the unknown, but they fail catastrophically.
- [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/v): Advanced technology such as lifts, automata, and winged flight demonstrates the Vril-ya's power and control over their environment.
- [Chapter VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/vii): Vril is depicted as a unified natural force that grants the Vril-ya immense control over their environment and minds, highlighting the theme of technological mastery.
- [Chapter IX: The History and Government of the Vril-ya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/ix): Vril is the ultimate technology that renders war obsolete and transforms all social and political structures, as its destructive power makes force-based government impossible.
- [Chapter XI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xi): The Vril-ya's ability to manipulate climate and temperature through vril demonstrates their technological mastery over nature.

## Gender Roles and Female Empowerment

The Gy-ei (women) are physically stronger, more intellectually advanced, and hold social and romantic initiative, reversing Victorian gender norms and exploring a society where women have full equality and dominance.

### Where it surfaces

- [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/v): The Vril-ya females are taller and more robust than males, with wings, challenging traditional gender norms.
- [VI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/vi): Zee, a female member of the College of Sages, takes the lead in teaching and commanding the narrator, subverting traditional gender expectations.
- [Gender Roles and Marriage Customs Among the Vril-ya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/x): Explores the Vril-ya's reversal of traditional gender roles: women are physically stronger, possess greater vril power, and are the wooing party, yet they are described as amiable and submissive wives.
- [Chapter XVII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xvii): The Gy chooses her mate and is responsible for domestic happiness, suggesting a unique but limited form of female agency.
- [Chapter XX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xx): The Gy-ei custom of wearing wings only while virgins and excelling in aerial sports contrasts with their suspension upon marriage, illustrating a gendered transition in freedom and role.
- [Chapter XXI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xxi): Zee embodies the ideal of the empowered, nurturing woman, yet the narrator's inability to love her due to her superiority highlights the tension between traditional gender roles and female power.

## Evolution and Species Superiority

The Vril-ya are portrayed as a distinct, superior species evolved from the same Aryan roots as surface humans, and the narrative suggests they would inevitably destroy or replace humanity if they emerged above ground.

### Where it surfaces

- [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/iv): The Vril-ya being is described as a distinct, superior type of man, evoking a sense of evolutionary difference and inherent danger.
- [Chapter XV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xv): Zee describes the Vril-ya's origin through natural selection, where only the strongest survived, leading to their current superiority and belief in eventual domination over upper world races.
- [XVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xvi): Zee's argument that the An began with the capacity for divine ideas, not as a tadpole, and the narrator's observation of the Vril-ya's serene, evolved faces, highlight themes of species superiority and directed evolution.
- [Chapter XX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xx): Zee's explanation that flight instinct is an inherited racial property underscores the Vril-ya's evolutionary superiority over the narrator, who is organically defective.

## Critique of Democracy and American Politics

Through the narrator's proud descriptions of American democracy (Koom-Posh) and the Vril-ya's dismissive responses, the book satirizes democratic institutions, party politics, and the corruption and instability of popular government.

### Where it surfaces

- [Chapter VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/vii): The narrator's praise of American democracy and New York is met with skepticism, implicitly critiquing the ideals of democratic governance and progress.
- [Chapter IX: The History and Government of the Vril-ya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/ix): The narrator contrasts the Vril-ya's simple, autocratic government with the democratic experiments of the upper world, which the Ana view as primitive and chaotic.
- [XII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xii): The narrator explains Koom-Posh as 'Hollow-Bosh' and Glek-Nas as 'universal strife-rot,' offering a satirical view of democratic governance.
- [Chapter XV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xv): Aph-Lin and Zee criticize Koom-Posh (democracy) as a system of ignorant rule and perpetual rivalry, contrasting it with the Vril-ya's ideal of serene equality.
- [XVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xvi): Aph-Lin dismisses the possibility of the Vril-ya relapsing into a 'Koom-Posh' (democratic chaos), reinforcing the critique of democratic systems as unstable and strife-ridden.
- [Chapter XVII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xvii): Aph-Lin's description of Koom-Posh directly parallels democratic and capitalist societies, criticizing their inequality and conflict.

## Religion and Morality Without Conflict

The Vril-ya universally believe in a benevolent deity and an afterlife, but avoid theological disputes, resulting in a peaceful society free from religious strife, while their morality extends to compassion for all living things.

### Where it surfaces

- [XIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xiii): The Vril-ya practice a unified religion without theological dispute, leading to a harmonious society.
- [Chapter XIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xiv): The Vril-ya's theology harmonizes divine justice with the existence of suffering, positing an afterlife for all creatures to resolve the problem of evil without conflict.
- [Chapter XXIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xxiv): The funeral ceremony blends religious faith with a practical, cheerful acceptance of death, emphasizing reunion with the All-Good.
- [Chapter XXVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xxvi): The Vril-ya universally agree on a benevolent Deity and a future world, avoiding religious strife—a state the narrator says no surface community has achieved.
- [XXVIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xxviii): Taë's offer to die with the narrator shows a faith that sees death as a mere transition, untroubled by moral conflict.

## The Limits of Human Happiness

The narrator concludes that surface humans, shaped by struggle and passion, could not adapt to the Vril-ya's tranquil, passionless happiness, suggesting that human nature is incompatible with such a perfected existence.

### Where it surfaces

- [Chapter II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/ii): The narrator's curiosity leads to tragedy and isolation, highlighting the perilous boundary between discovery and destruction.
- [Chapter XI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xi): The narrator's struggle to reconcile scientific dogma with observed reality highlights the limits of human knowledge and happiness in the face of the unknown.
- [Chapter XIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xiv): The chapter explores how the Vril-ya's belief in universal compensation for suffering underpins their gentle social order, suggesting a framework for happiness beyond earthly limits.
- [Chapter XV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xv): Zee argues that true happiness requires the extinction of strife and competition, which the upper world's systems perpetuate, making them incapable of divine tranquility.
- [Chapter XVII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xvii): The Vril-ya's serene happiness comes at the cost of artistic and emotional depth, questioning whether such tranquility is truly fulfilling.
- [Chapter XXI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xxi): Despite the Vril-ya's utopian conditions, sorrow and unrequited love exist, as seen in Zee's affection for the narrator and the narrator's fear and awe.

## Colonialism and Extermination

The Vril-ya's practice of peacefully emigrating to new territories, but ruthlessly destroying any hostile or inferior races that resist, mirrors and critiques colonial expansion and the logic of racial superiority.

### Where it surfaces

- [Chapter IX: The History and Government of the Vril-ya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/ix): The Ana's ancestors are described as having exterminated the animal inhabitants of the subterranean world, and the Vril-ya distinguish themselves from 'barbarian' Ana who do not use vril.
- [Chapter XXVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xxvi): The narrator fears that if the Vril-ya emerge, they would destroy and replace upper-world races, comparing it to Anglo-Saxon treatment of Red Indians and predicting a swift conquest of America.
- [The Escape](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_coming_race_se/chapters/xxix): The narrator's fear that the Vril-ya will eventually emerge as 'our inevitable destroyers' reflects colonial anxieties about being supplanted by a more powerful race.

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