Why Do Authors Write Dystopian Fiction?

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.

My last reason on why this is a dystopia is because they live in a collectivist society. It is a collectivist society because there is dictator and the people only use group words no singular pronouns. They only use “they” “we” or “us”. They are not allowed to have individual thoughts about anything what so ever. This shows that Ayn Rand believes that if you follow others and not lead yourself or what you believe.

Society’s belief of the government is a possible reason. For instance, in Harrison Bergeron the government is controlling and treats citizens like a statistic they can change with a snap of a finger. People today feel trapped within the government’s laws and they can relate to the citizens in dystopian stories. Also, these books

Two key aspects in a dystopian text are the reflections of society and futuristic settings and how they have changed overtime. The two texts I will use to support the points are Fahrenheit 451 and The Island. The first aspect of change is reflection of society. Reflections of society means taking themes and issue that are current to that time and using them in a way to terrify the audience and create worst

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.

Many examples depict what a dystopian society looks like, but in The Testing, by Joelle Charbonneau, surveillance, distrust of nature, and the fearfulness of the outside world are shown. Dystopian literature shows the cataclysmic decline the world in it is going through. The characters in dystopian literature face many challenges, for example, environmental and technological. In a dystopian world, the citizens have almost no access to privacy. The citizens in a society like this are also easily influenced by the government.

In Huxley’s Brave New World, Orwell’s 1984, Lowry’s The Giver, and Auden’s The Unknown Man, they warn the reader by using drugs, surveillance cameras, and screeching at the TV. The dystopian genre of literature is a relatively recent recognition. The majority of this generation's teen literature is structured by this genre, including books such as The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Divergent. Dystopian literature revolves around a future society with un-ideal conditions. A dystopia is often known by the totalitarian form of government and a separation of factions or sectors.

Dystopian novels have an entrancing factor that allows them to captivate the American public like no other genre. The mass popularity gained by these novels can be seen dating all the way back to 1950’s with the publishing of George Orwell’s 1984, and through the present day with the publication of various dystopian novels such as Divergent, Maze Runner, and The Hunger Games. The main reason why these dystopian worlds resonate with so many people is because they address present day problems in outlandish but conceivable ways, "whatever its artistic or philosophic qualities, a book about the future can interest us only if its prophecies look as though they might conceivably come true. "(Beauchamp). While The Handmaid 's Tale focus on a variety of issues, such as the mistreatment of women, it also realistically illustrates the mental deterioration that occurs during prolonged periods of isolation in captivity.

Dystopia is an imagined place where everything is degraded, and the condition is bad. In the materials we have covered, dystopia was created either with the use of technology of with the use of totalitarianism. Many times, totalitarianism is justified with the purpose of having a stable government and technology is justified by making things easier for the people. These two have their own similarities and differences in terms of dystopian discourses that reflect the contemporary fears of what could happen in the future.

In paragraphs 5-6, the author includes a description of the 1990s in order for us to know the origin of dystopian fiction. The first paragraph, paragraph 5, focuses on the belief humanity had that a utopia could be created using the technological advances humanity had. However, as the article says, “no matter how much humanity progressed, perfection was never achieved. The promises of technoilogy and sociopolitical theory only resulted in war, poverty, famine, and chaos” (Ostergaard 5). Dystopian fiction is place around the belief that in the pursuit of perfection, a “‘bad place’”

Dystopian texts present futuristic universes that have been exaggerated to comment on current issues. They explore the true meaning of being alive and how an individual is only a very small part of the world. This is depicted through Ursula K. Le Guin’s science fiction novel, The Lathe of Heaven (1980) which follows a man who has the power to alter reality through his dreams. The novel conveys how reality cannot satisfy everyone’s needs and wants, how one should accept The Lathe of Heaven illustrates how our reality cannot be changed and should be left the way it is.

Dystopian and science fiction literature has been developed and is later recognized since the 18th century. According to Merriam Webster, the definition of a dystopian novel is: “an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives” (unknown year) According to dictionary.com the definition of a science fiction literature is: “a form of fiction that draws imaginatively on scientific knowledge and speculation in its plot, setting, theme, etc” (unknown year) One of the first well known novels that comprised both a dystopian and science fiction literature is We by Zamyatin. Since he was the first author to write a dystopian novel, there wasn’t any evidence of any other dystopian novels before him.

People use literacy to express their thoughts, feeling and sometimes experiences. Some stories are similar and others are not, these stories are then categorized into different genres to have a universal organization for the many literature pieces we have. I have decided to read and analyze a collection of stories that all fall under the genre of dystopian fiction. By imagining and writing about the extremes of a society, which are dystopian societies in these stories our present society is enabling itself for the actions, it needs to take in the chance of a similar event. Human instinct finds comfort in a situation that one has experienced before but the fear of the unknown causes threat.

However, there are people who have other thoughts on the topic of dystopian writing. Elissa Nadworny, for example, wrote "Why Teens Find The End Of The World So Appealing", which explains how dystopian

¨I dystopian futures are also a reflection of current fears( Lauren Oliver)¨. The reason that they all live in these dystopian societies is because they fear that the future holds. This shows that they fear what is going to happen so they have all these rules that the people don 't want to follow but because it is punishable by death they do, but there is always the ones who don 't. Both novels are very popular and will be for quite some time. Dystopian literature is so popular among the teens because they are all alike that makes them more appealing to the readers. Both Anthem and Divergent are both very popular among the younger ages.