Nudity, frequently found in science fiction literature, often symbolizes inner or outer situations. The circumstance that individuals, groups or entire nations are not clothed, is in such cases not simply an expression of a natural form of living, but reflects in an allegorical manner intentions of the author, or it fulfils different functions within the text. So a plenitude of positive or negative meanings can be attributed to the nudity, such as perfection, beauty, simplicity, childishness , frankness, but also poverty, humiliation or defencelessness .
Nudism and naturism have influenced some of the authors, for instance Isaac Asimov in his novel The Gods Themselves (1969).
Some exemplars for the symbolic use of the nudity:
- H. G. Wells presents in his utopia Men Like Gods (1923), largely a work of social philosophy, a mankind in another dimension that has developed to a stage of beauty, intelligence, sociability and peace. The almost complete nudity stands for the ideal of a perfect life.
- In some novels and stories of Robert Heinlein, especially in his satiric Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), nudity serves a symbol of an alternative form of living, as a protest against the tradition, as a sign of the liberation from controls. The criticism of the modern lifestyle however is connected with a wink.
- In Marion Zimmer Bradley's voluminous The Mists of Avalon (1982) nudity appears only in a short episode, but the meaning characterizes the whole story. Nudity here symbolizes naturalness and innocence as well as threat and vulnerability.
- In Christian von Kamp 's German novel Paradision (2004) a complete civilization lives naked. Here the bareness seems to be a sign of freedom and heavenly bliss. But the government uses the nudity to hold down the people, to equalize them, to prevent a higher cultural level.
- In several early stories by John Varley characters wear skin-tight reflective force fields over their naked bodies instead of spacesuits, so that they resemble animated nude statues. Furthermore, when two force fields touch they merge together, which allows wearers to touch skin to skin and even make love while wearing them, no matter how hostile their external environment may be. Thus nudity in this context can be seen as a symbol of the ability of technology to conquer hostile environments; the wearers may appear naked but they are no longer (at least physically) vulnerable.
See also
Nudity, Nudism
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