Despite his description of narrative events as if observedfromadistance and
without commentary,Jung can hardlybecalledatypicalrepresentative of the re-
portagenovel. His utopianism is materialist to the corefor he treats hopes and
fears as an integralpart of socialreality,and not just as emotional rewards
added to maintain reader interest.Accordingly, the mistreatment of the workers
in the passagecited aboveisreenacted and madeavailable to critical analysis
through their reduction to an anonymous mass identified as“they.”The violence
of the police isreproducedinthe fragmented sentencestructure, and the exces-
sive use of passivevoice mirrors the anonymity of existingpower structures.
Meanwhile, in the hopefulvision of the prisoner at the end ofTheConquest of
the Machines,the forceofconviction is conveyednot through pathos or senti-
ment,but in anticipation ofalong and arduous march into life:
Now the prisoner sawthe march into life that the mass ofworkers began centuriesago.
Manystaybehind along the way, aremowed down in rows, but the march cannot be stop-
ped. In every breach stepsanew fighter. [...]Then the prisoner’smemoriesset freeanew
force.Aburden weighing for hours on the heart lifts.Nothingiscoincidental. [...]The feel-
ing of beingirrevocablylost disappears.Like the sun appearing from behindabank of fog
and chasingawaythe thickswaths of mist.That iswhat the prisoner felt: the rhythm that,
in the midst of the struggle and the expectation of immediateresults,seems lost and buried
is alive after all.It animates the enormous masses of workers, settingthem into motion,
into beats and steps. In the loneliness of remembrance, it becomes all-powerful, filling
the prisoner’ssoul, and enlargingits narrowvessel. Indeed, the proletariat of theworld
is on the march, the blood of those hopingintheir loneliness, hesitating, breaking
under pressure.With feverish pulse,acry yearningfor release, born of confidenceand a
sense of happiness.[Hence the prisoner’sfinal vision:] He felt happy and free. He drew
himself up. He felt that everythingkeeps movingand runs its path. The lockstep of the
workers can be heard, growing stronger and stronger. Some of the circumstances arestill
unclear.Those coming after us will know better. Our victory is like an ironlaw of nature.
In our field of vision, the happiness of free people alreadyappears.Itdoes not matter
whether todayortomorrow.But it will. And it is! (CM,160 and 162)Jung’sself-reflexivecomments in his other works provideaconceptual frame-
work for this miraculous transition from scenes of working-class struggle to vi-
sions of collective happiness.¹⁹In a1919 article, he describes class consciousness
as“the feeling of community (Gemeinschaftsgefühl)among thosewho are op-
pressed and dominated [...]and who commonlyfeel the effects of oppression
and domination. [...]And it is embodied by the workers preciselybecause the
sum of oppression and domination becomes most noticeable among the work-
See AnnetteGraczyk,DieMasse als Erzählproblem unter besonderer Berücksichtung von Carl
Sternheims“Europa”und FranzJungs“Proletarier”(Tübingen: Niemeyer,1993).
202 Chapter10