Dystopian literature explores social, political and economic structures by showing us, through a nightmare world, the negative characteristics using exaggerated critiques on real world issues. The Dystopian literature of the 21st century is the complete opposite of the Utopia of the 21st century. While a Utopia is an imagined state of things in which everything is perfect, while a dystopia is an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. According to John Adams; "The roots of the word dystopia "dys" and "topia" are from the Ancient Greek for “bad” and “place,” and so we use the term to describe an unfavorable society in which to live. “Dystopia” is not a synonym for “post-apocalyptic”; it also is not a synonym …show more content…
Divergent includes all aspects of a dystopian novel. Some of these are the illusion of a utopia, constant surveillance, and fear of the outside world. According to Kyle Jannak-Huang; "In the novel Divergent, the society is split into five different factions. At first, it seems like the five factions can all live together peacefully in a perfect society. Each faction has a role in society. Eventually, factions disagree and they go to war, showing that the society is not really a perfect one." [4] Demonstrating the characteristic of the unrealistic utopia that is shown to the reader in the first chapters.
Hunger Games is another dystopian novel in which we see the abuse of power the government has over its people. Here we see how the government, the Capitol, is a completely totalitarian one. It portrays the way that ordinary people are being dehumanized in this made up world. This dehumanization is being caused by the dictatorship led by President Snow. In that dictatorship we can find the worship of a figurehead, which is yet another characteristic of dystopian
Both Anthem and Divergent’s societies try to make the world “perfect,” which is impossible because there will always be rebels like Tris and Equality, that go against the system. In Divergent, all of the different factions have their own idea on how to make the world better. Dauntless’ idea for making the world “better” is by being in control of your fears ,which is stated as, “ ‘but becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it, that’s the point’ ”
Dystopian Future Ever wondered what a dystopian future under totalitarian rule would look like and what the people in it would do and feel? Welcome to Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and 1984 by George Orwell. Winston from 1984 and Montag from Fahrenheit 451 live in terrible dystopian future were commonplace things like reading and even thinking are outlawed, these two characters in there respected book represent rebellion against government. They also must keep their secrets to themselves because of the danger it presents, the point of these characters is to defeat the totalitarian rule and create a new and fair government. The purpose of Winston and Montag is to defeat to afowl governments they have and replace them with new fair governments.
According to the website dictionary.com a Dystopia can be defined as, “a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding” (Random House). Throughout the world there are thousands upon thousands of dystopian novels. People all around the world are attracted to these types of novels, especially modern day teenagers. These teens are attracted to them because they can easily relate to the novel itself and the characters in the novel. Teens can relate to these books easily because they often feel oppressed and overcrowded.
Worlds in fictional books have always had an ever-changing style. A society has a big effect on the personality of a character. There are two main types of society’s in a fictional book, a utopian and a dystopian society. A Utopian society is one that is jubilant whereas dystopian society is doleful and cheerless. The qualities of a dystopian society are in the books, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and Anthem by Ayn Rand.
“All utopias are dystopias. The term "dystopia" was coined by fools that believed a "utopia" can be functional.” ( A.E. Samaan) Dystopia is like North Korea they believe their society has no other option or say in their own lives. Dystopias are based on human misery, a protagonist that questions society, and they serve as warnings to contemporary man. Dystopias are the complete opposite of utopias.
Dystopian Affairs Ray Bradbury’s depiction of a dystopia is interpreted through Guy Montag and his escape from society as well as Captain Beatty and his desire to get rid of books when they explore the technology and its advances in his novel, Fahrenheit 451. Born in a time of despair from the ongoing World War II, Bradbury fell in love with books as well as horror from a young age, and he enjoyed the sense of adventure it created (“Ray”). Bradbury uses “Fahrenheit 451 [as a reflection of his] lifelong love of books and his defense of the imagination against the menace of technology and government manipulation” (“Ray”), and bases his plots, characters, and themes on his past experiences and memories. World War II is a time period when literature was suddenly disappearing and technology became greatly significant. Realizing the troubles technology will create, Bradbury wrote stories based on dystopian affairs, including his most powerful novel, Fahrenheit 451.
Utopian societies aren’t always as they seem. The author of the book Anthem grew up in a collectivist society and is voicing her opinion through the character Equality about individualism. The book Anthem can be classified as a dystopia, because the government is trying to force everyone to be equal, people are miserable, but don’t want to say or do anything about it, and not everyone knows the truth about the unmentionable times. In the book Anthem the government, known as the World Council, has an excessive amount of control over the people in their city.
Dystopia is a popular genre in which authors write about a fictional society that is perceived to be perfect and ideal by the vast majority of the people in it. Authors must intrigue the reader, and this is difficult because they have to somehow illustrate a future that is vaguely similar to ours. However, it has to be completely fictional, which makes it tough to formulate realistic storylines. Nevertheless, these authors use literary elements to counter these difficulties and produce realistic characters and you can see this when Ray Bradbury, Ayn Rand, and James Dashner use symbolism in their respected novels, Fahrenheit 451, Anthem, and The Maze Runner. This literary technique gives Dystopian Literature the uniqueness and adds the key elements to make the story flow.
The book Anthem by Ayn Rand is an example of a dystopian society. The definition of a dystopian society, is a society that is in the illusion of a perfect society, but in reality they are living a horrible life, but they don’t know any better. In Anthem the main character equality broke that illusion and figured out what was happening. Another example of a dystopian is the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. In the Hunger Games people lived and districts and had their lives chosen for them before they were born.
Dystopian literature Is it not common for people to be controlled by others? For freedom to be taken away from their lives and not giving them the rights they deserve? The book Anthem and the film the Hunger Games are known as dystopian novels. Ayn Rand, the author of Anthem writes stories like these to catch the young audience's attention. Suzanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games as another dystopian novel where people are not granted their freedom either.
A dystopian society is a dysfunctional society that is marketed to its citizens as a utopian society. It includes elements such as a lack/ downplay of religion or one government sanctioned religion that everyone must follow. The government either uses force and or fear to control its population. There is a suppression of freedom of speech and a suppression of intellectualism. In this society, there is a protagonist who rebels against the status quo.
Dystopian literature has become more common in today’s society. Some of the top book series are about dystopias. One of the top dystopian book trilogies is “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins. While most dystopian novels are similar in some aspects, “The Hunger Games” is specifically relatable to Margaret Atwood’s novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Collins describes the society of Panem in “The Hunger Games”.
Dystopian stories are usually set in an unfavorable society in which to live, where the antagonist is the society itself, and the protagonist is the person who is looking towards changing this society and fixing its flaws, who believes that they can make a difference by overthrowing the government or escaping from it. The conflict is often not solved, or the hero fails to solve it, and the dystopian society continues as it was before. Harrison Bergeron is an example of a dystopian story where society has intensely controlled the population’s unique qualities to make everyone exactly equal. People’s talent, beauty, intelligence, and any other quality that makes them different is brought down and destroyed by forcing them to wear handicaps, masks, and weights. Harrison Bergeron is the protagonist of the story.
The hunger games by Suzanne Collins is typically called a dystopian novel. Since it sheds the light upon a utopian society that is controlled by the government. A society that is fooled by the totalitarian government of the Capitol in order to maintain power, and prevent the uprising of the Districts.that authority is practiced by making people from the districts live in a dehumanized state using another form of dystopia which is propaganda for the reason that they showed them the penalty of disobedience. Another characteristic of a dystopian society that we can see in the novel are keeping the players during the games under surveillance at all times, and everywhere. The last thing that make "The Hunger Games" a supreme example of a dystopian society is the fact that freedom is restricted by forcing the families from the districts to send their kids to death, also known as the hunger games.
Dystopia is complete opposite Utopia, a well constructed and desirable society; a pleasant place to grow up for the citizens. The Utopian people are free to express their opinions, keep their individuality and can be free without any compulsion. It is highly imaginary positive world. Dystopia is also an imaginary world but with the dark side. The origin of the word ‘dystopia’ is from the Greek, means ‘bad place’; devoid of all comfortable; a place that appears perfect on the surface but is bad underneath.