Lost Marginalia

I can’t help but see the character Goodwin as another Enlightenment reference. This time it’s the political philosopher and novelist, William Godwin, father of intellectual anarchism and influence upon Romantic poets and writers. In his “An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice” (1793), Godwin makes the case for government as a corrupting influence and proposes a utopian model based on the perfectability of man. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy summarizes: “Epitomising the optimism of events in France at the time he began writing, Godwin looked forward to a period in which the dominance of mind over matter would be so complete that mental perfectibility would take a physical form, allowing us to control illness and ageing and become immortal.” I chose to quote this online source, because it also seems curiously like a major thread of (or proposed theory to explain) “Lost.”

Godwin’s Enquiry is a response to Edmund Burke’s (yes, the same name of Juliette’s husband) “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (1790). Viewed as an argument for strong government and stability, Burke’s political philosophy is countered: “ Is it well that so large a part of the community should be kept in abject penury, rendered stupid with ignorance, and disgustful with vice, perpetuated in nakedness and hunger, goaded to the commission of crimes, and made victims to the merciless laws which the rich have instituted to oppress them? Is it sedition to enquire, whether this state of things may not be exchanged for a better?” In “The Other Woman,” the theme of governance and sedition is raised when Ben asks Locke if he has a revolution on his hands – in light of Locke’s inability to completely manifest an all-knowing supremacy.

Godwin is just as famous for fathering Mary Shelley, author of “Frankenstein” (seen by some as Gothic portrayal of her father in his zealous educational methods to create the ideal human being). Godwin and the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft both spoke out against the institution of marriage but tied the knot when she became pregnant. Like the birthing mothers on the island, Wollstonecraft died after childbirth.