Essay On Dystopian Literature

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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

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