Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
"Stranger in a Strange Land" is a seminal science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein that explores themes of identity, society, and morality through the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians. Upon his return to Earth, Smith confronts a totalitarian regime and struggles with human customs, embodying the biblical idea of being "a stranger in a strange land." Guided by Jubal Harshaw, an individualistic figure representing Heinlein's philosophies, Smith utilizes his extraordinary Martian-given abilities, such as telepathy and telekinesis, to challenge societal norms.
Central to the narrative is Smith's establishment of a new belief system that emphasizes the divine nature of the individual and advocates for free love, communal living, and a deep, empathic connection among people, termed "grokking." While the novel garnered initial mixed reactions, it gained popularity in the 1960s, resonating with counterculture movements that questioned traditional values and sought alternative social structures. The book critiques bourgeois society and reflects the anxieties of its time, particularly in relation to militarism and the Cold War. With millions of copies sold, "Stranger in a Strange Land" remains one of Heinlein's most influential works, inviting diverse interpretations on freedom, morality, and the human condition.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Published 1961; restored version 1990
Author Robert A. Heinlein
The award-winning novel, especially popular among students, that reinforced the sexual rebellion and counterculture lifestyle of mid-1960’s youth. It provided an adolescent fantasy of a sexual utopia that would remedy alienation from such bourgeois interests as marriage, career, and property.
Key Figures
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), author
The Work
In Stranger in a Strange Land, Valentine Michael Smith, a human orphan raised by Martians, returns to Earth, where a gestapo oversees a totalitarian federation of nations. Lacking familiarity with human customs, Smith, like fugitive Moses, is “a stranger in a strange land” (Exodus 2:22). Smith is instructed by Jubal Harshaw, an aged, individualistic father figure who represents Heinlein’s views. Smith possesses special Martian-tutored mental powers (including telekinesis, levitation, and telepathy), and his educational use of them provides the plot for the novel. He founds a church based on the perception of the individual self as divine, the nonpossession of property (including spouses), the freedom of sexual expression, the merging of bodies and souls, and the mysticlike communion (“grokking”) that dissolves personal identity through a sympathetic merging with others. Smith demonstrates a Christ-like, infallible judgment and a miraculous capacity to cause the unworthy to die painlessly. Nevertheless, at the close of the novel, he is murdered (martyred) by a mob fearful of his messianic repudiation of the conventional Judeo-Christian moral code.
Impact
Although Stranger in a Strange Land was awarded a Hugo Prize, it was not immediately popular. The novel, filled with ideas indebted to H. G. Wells’s In the Days of the Comet (1906), was an unlikely candidate for wide success. However, by the mid-1960’s, it had become a cult book popular among students attracted to its counterculture critique of bourgeois social mores, its argument for free love, and its celebration of an altered state of consciousness. The notion that sexual promiscuity and arrested consciousness could supplant hypocrisy and artificiality, cure routine human dissatisfactions, and provide a basis for utopian social structures appealed to these young readers. The pervasive militaristic threat to Smith’s freedom and his promise of human escape from time (history) may also have attracted readers troubled by U. S. involvement in Vietnam. Many readers also found a socialistic message in Smith’s communitarian antidote for Cold Waralienation from nature, others, and self; however, the political views behind Heinlein’s Voltairian satire in this novel are murky, especially considering the pervasive cynicism and social Darwinian opinions of Smith’s teacher (Heinlein’s spokesperson). Later works by Heinlein clarify his political views and suggest that in this novel he is less sympathetic with socialism than with a libertarian emphasis on absolute individual freedom. Stranger in a Strange Land, which sold millions of copies, remains Heinlein’s most popular book.
Related Work
Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966) clarifies many of the ideas represented in Stranger in a Strange Land.
Additional Information
For a reading of the place of Stranger in a Strange Land in the development of the themes and characters of Heinlein’s fiction, see Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction (1980), by H. Bruce Franklin.