"Coventry"
by Robert A. Heinlein

Originally published in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction, July 1940,
collected in Revolt In 2100 (1953), and The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)
©Synopsis by AGplusone@aol.com

"Coventry" is an oft-ignored short story in The Future History Series chronologically and conceptually taking place between the novelette "If This Goes On . . ." (ASF, Feb-Mar 1940, rewritten and expanded for collection 1953) and the novel Methuselah's Children (ASF Jul-Aug-Sep 1941, rewritten and expanded for book publication 1958). The author postulates a highly evolved and comfortable society in which democracy has been restored following 'The Second American Revolution' against the theocratic dictatorship imposed by Nehemiah Scudder, the "Prophet," and his successors, a revolution described in "If This Goes On . . .". The patriots who restored this freedom have engrafted to the Constitution of 1783 an agreement known as the "Covenant," defined as the custom of all to refrain from doing any damage to other citizens--a "golden rule" imposed into law, to insure the maximum possible liberty for every person.

In the story, Heinlein's protagonist David MacKinnon is by occupation an English Literature Professor--immediately a tip-off of the author's viewpoint, given Heinlein's expressed disdain for some practitioners of that occupation [See, the essay "Who Are The Heirs of Patrick Henry: Afterword" republished in Expanded Universe (1980); see also: the character of Clyde Leamer in Cp. XI, Time Enough For Love (1973)]--who violates the "Covenant" by committing atavistic violence. He breaks the nose of someone who calls him an "upholstered parasite," surely 'fighting words' to a Literature teacher! In his words, "I simply punched a man in the nose for offending me outrageously."

The State convicts him of the essential crime of believing himself capable of judging morally his fellow citizens and feeling justified in personally correcting and punishing their lapses--being a danger to all that, from its societal standpoint, makes him mad as a March Hare. He is sentenced to choose between the Two Alternatives normally offered offenders in that society. The choice: either undergo submission to psychological readjustment to correct his tendency to wish to damage others, or having the state withdraw itself from him--by exiling him to Coventry, is Hobbesian in the extreme. Here, Coventry is a very real place--separated from the rest of the Country and kept so by an physical Barrier thought impassable--a mysterious wall of force fields. Addressing the Court, MacKinnon castigates his society for its choice to fit into a "cautious little pattern" of "compromising 'safe' weaklings with water in their veins . . . [who've] planned their world so carefully you've planned the fun and zest right out of it." The English teacher, a self-defined "rugged individualist," chooses Coventry.

What do you suppose the author who many today consider the prophet of the Libertarian Party, "rugged individualists" all, had in store for this "rugged individualist"? What MacKinnon finds in Coventry changes him and is the story.

Would you like to find out more about this Heinlein story? Then [SPOILER ALERT] click this hyperlink:

More Story.

Alternatively, if you've read this story, you might ask what the author intends you to make of it. If interested in the viewpoint of others, you might join AOL's Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group on Wednesday, December 3, at 9 p.m. ET, in AOL's The BC Salon I, and discuss the theme of 'individual behavior' exemplified by this and other works of Heinlein.

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