The Iron Heel Literary Elements

Dystopian / Science Fiction

The novel is set between 1912 and 1932 in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sonoma County. The manuscript is explained 700 years later – in the year 2600.

The novel is written in first person from the point of view of the protagonist Avis Everhard. The footnotes are written in third person from the perspective of Anthony Meredith.

Each of the two narrators conveys a different mood, the protagonist Avis has an optimistic mood as opposed to the pessimistic one adopted by Meredith. The overall tone is foreboding and grim as the oligarchy takes over the United States.

The protagonist of the novel is Avis and Ernest Everhard. The antagonist is the oligarchic capitalistic government known as the “Iron Heel”.

The Everhard Manuscript charts the rise of an oligarchic government that seeks to oppress the lower classes. However, the Everhards among others are organizing a revolt to topple the oligarchy.

The novel reaches its climax when Ernest is falsely accused of bombing the Senate building and sentenced to life imprisonment in Alcatraz.

Meredith foreshadows the events following the first revolt revealing the failed efforts of the revolutionaries in executing a second one.

“The trial was prompt and brief. The men were foredoomed. The wonder was that Ernest was not executed.”

Avis understates the trial process and the eventual outcome which would prove vital in the future.

The novel references several historical figures including Austin Lewis, William Randolph Hurst, and Carroll D. Wright. The mentions highlight the labor movements in the early twentieth century and the tensions that arose in the political scene. It alludes to moments in history such as the rise of socialism which would later be countered by extreme conservatism in Germany, Spain, and Italy as predicted in the novel.

“The soft summer wind stirs the redwoods, and Wild-Water ripples sweet cadences over its mossy stones. There are butterflies in the sunshine, and from everywhere arises the drowsy hum of bees.”

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Meredith parallels the dystopian past with the utopian future by highlighting the political and social elements that were forsaken or are now defunct.

“The Wall Street group turned the stock market into a maelstrom where the values of all the land crumbled away almost to nothingness.”

The term Wall Street is a metonymy for the financial companies as Meredith denotes “named from a street in ancient New York”.

“Even now the Plutocracy is taking it away from you. In the end it will take it all away from you. And then you will cease to be the middle class.”