...The three different forms of Dystopian texts we have looked at in class have definitely had an impact on my understanding of this genre. We are able to visualize how the dystopian society reflects our own society and are able to connect the genre to the social issues in our present world. In the article “How Dystopian Futures Are Merely Mirrors Into Our Own Society” the author comments: “After our appetite was recently satiated on Hunger Games, we are diverging our fingers to the next tasty literature meal: The Divergent series by Veronica Roth. Again we sink our teeth into a dystopian society and a bleak prediction of our future Earth. What these books never fail to dish up are the faults with society, humans and their failure to actually...
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...Utopian literature is a genre that is characterized by a perfect society. A utopia is a place where everybody is equal. No one is better looking than anyone else. Nobody is stronger than anybody else. Normally a perfect society becomes an imperfect, or dystopian society. In the story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, the handicap general claims to have a perfect society. In the book it says ”...Everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way.” (Vonnegut 1). This portrays a utopian society because nobody had to worry about being better than anybody else. The world was finally a “perfect” place. “The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say ladies and gentlemen.” (Vonnegut 2). In the story, they tried to create a utopia by handicapping people to make everyone equal. Also, because of the handicap...
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...The stories “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin are stories that ponder society in being a perfect environment. The View of an ideal society is different, but flawed in. In each story there is a veto on seeing beyond or beneath the sketchy appearance of everyday events. Though these to stories show a difference, they share a similar characteristic of a dystopian society. In Harrison Bergeron, Vonnegut begins the story of by giving a misunderstanding of the real meaning of equality, by having the idea that nobody can be better than anybody else. The narrator tells us “they were equal in every which way. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker...
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...collectivist-minded and totalitarian society (also referred to as a dystopian society) where freedom is limited. The dystopian society strongly believes in the idea that everybody is equal and that everybody should only care about the each other and not about themselves. The society had created different councils, each with its own job, and people were not allowed to choose their job, but it was chosen for them. The society believed in one quote that summarized all their beliefs. Ayn Rand talks about this in the following quote: “Everything done by many is good. Everything done by one man is evil (Rand, 77).” The main character of Anthem, Equality 7-2521, was born differently, according to his society, because he had different features than the others. Accepting his difference, he started to separate himself from the society. He did this becuase his 7-2521's real passion was science and just wanted to understand the world, but sadly, in Equality 7-2521's society, he was forbidden from asking questions. Though he was supposed to be a street sweeper. he did not...
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...1984, A Dystopian Novel The novel “1984” by George Orwell, is a quintessential dystopian novel. A dystopia is a vision of society in which life is typically characterized by human misery, poverty and violence. A dystopian society have an oppressive societal control and the illusions of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control. The novel 1984 takes place in a totalitarian state of Oceania that would make even dictators like Hitler and Kim Jong Un grin with envy. In a dystopian society, citizens are perceived to be under constant surveillance. A great example of this, in 1984, would be the telescreen. The telescreen is a “futuristic device” used to survey the citizens of Oceania at all times for crimes such as “thoughtcrime, facecrime sexcrime etc. Throughout London, Winston sees posters with a man gazing down over the words “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” everywhere he goes. “Big Brother” is the face of the party and a leader behind the great power. Any One who goes against Big Brother will be vaporized. The poster of the Big Brother seems to control people of Oceania by reminding that they are being watched at all times. Furthermore, the party also uses propaganda as a powerful weapon to control the citizens of Oceania. One of the main propaganda used by the government is the “Two minutes”. The two minutes hate is used to brainwash the citizens into identifying who the true enemy is. Even though the...
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...from the Greek: οὐ ("not") and topos ("place") and means "no-place", and...in standard usage, the word's meaning has narrowed and now usually describes a non-existent society that is intended to be viewed as considerably better than contemporary society." Dystopia, on the other hand, is the direct opposite of utopia, and is used to describe a utopian society after things have gone diminished. The future based short story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut is based on a 'utopian society' where the world is living up to the idea of America’s fourteenth amendment in which everyone is created equal. The gifted, strong, intelligent, and beautiful are forced to wear handicaps of either earphones, heavy weights, or hideous...
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...Everyone dreams with the ridiculous idea of having a perfect world without problems, without suffer, without greed, and even with immortality, but what if we found what we were looking for, would it still be perfect. Many talented writers attempted to illustrate the opposite idea that people had about a perfect world because it would create sense into a broken society that just needed a little healing. Before it could be too late, Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World with dense dystopian characteristics that certainly painted some sort of dark image in the minds of readers about the type of world that they would face in a distant future. Dystopian novels essentially illustrate a futuristic world that seems perfect in the eyes of others, but...
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...Introduction It was the year of 1516 when Utopia was brought into being by Sir Thomas Moore, and from then on to the 19th century, utopian fiction has experienced a development and a dramatic turn into just the opposite tone, dystopian. These two distinctive streams in British literature, with a same distant source, contain totally different settings—if the utopian novels have demonstrated the perfectly idealized future society for mankind, then the dystopian ones describe the least ideal society, and it is usually considered that a dystopia is the vision of a society in which condition of life are miserable and characterized by poverty, oppression, war, violence, disease, pollution, nuclear fallout and/or the abridgement of human rights, resulting in widespread unhappiness, suffering, and other kinds of pain.1 As material civilization develops into a certain level and can be considered as more than sufficient, then the world is superior to spiritual civilization; however human spirit is the reflection and is controlled by the substances. So, in a highly-developed society with rich material life and high technology, human spirit indeed has no real freedom. Of course, flooding modernized technologies provide human beings a better living condition, but they are covering up an empty and weak spiritual world. Human beings are made to be squeezed to become the flat and instrumental existence surround by machines which makes them feel it is a perfect world. It is obvious...
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...Harrison Bergeron Analysis Harrison Bergeron is a short story written by Kurt Vonnegut. The story is a about the society in America in 2081, a man called George and his wife, Hazel, and the way the society is controlling people, so they can fit into what the government call “average”, and thereby achieve the goal of being ‘equal’. In today’s society everybody strikes to be the best, better looking and smarter than anybody else, and therefore the thought about living in a society where everyone is equal might sound tempting, if you find the race of being the best tiring. A lot of the things that most young people are struggling with right now might disappear. No more jealousy and at best no more war. There is often created a dystopian world, when humans are trying to make it a utopian one. The story about Harrison Bergeron concerns this issue. Everybody is equal, which might sound like a utopian world but in fact is a dystopian society to be living in. “The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the Law. They were equal in every which way. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else” The meaning of the word ‘equal’ has been taking to a whole new level and it is supposed to be making the society a better place, but in fact the thing it is doing, is controlling the citizens and taking away their freedom of thought, intellectual ability and their individual beauty and strength. An...
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...an adult. But what happens if this question is no long applicable or even necessary? Dystopian novels remove this illusion of choice. In each of the novels I will address, all teenagers attend or participate in a ceremony whereby they transition from young adult to adult. The first series I will address is Scott Westerfield’s Uglies series, where youth undergo plastic surgery as their rite of passage. Maturation and growing up require endure body modifications to create same-ness and the perfectly pretty white race. Second, I will analyze Ally Condie’s Matched series, where social order to determined by sorters who decide vocation and spouses. All teenagers attend a ceremony where a person’s perfect match is determined by a computer program. Lastly, I will use Veronica Roth’s Divergent series to explore how the world is constructed by personality type. Youth choose to participate in factions that are determined by a psychological examination that detects a youth’s instinctual predilections when facing their fears. As readers begin to figure out the rules to this new society, they are challenged to make comparisons to their own world. We are forced to wonder whether or not, as educators, we reinforce stereotypical constructs of adolescence despite our interaction with seemingly critical texts. In the last few years, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of dystopian novels marketed to young adults. The story always begins in media res, where some kind...
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...Ayn Rand, a Russian-American novelist and philosopher, is known for her belief in ethical egoism which is showcased in her dystopian novels, including the fictional novel Anthem. She expressed her political views within her many novels and developed her philosophy of “objectivism” which proposed ethical egoism. Her strong belief in her philosophy demonstrated how morality should only be based on one’s self-interest, even if it may benefit or harms others. One of her dystopian novels, Anthem presents her version of an awful society while featuring her political views. Many other works have used her novel as a resource as a connection as well as some locations around the world. Some societies have been experiencing similarities to the actions...
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...Universal Storytelling Elements Movies, such as The Maze Runner, follow an extremely similar chain of events in comparison to other stories of the same genre. The Maze Runner takes the prototype storytelling strategy of dystopian societies, and creates a feel similar to the recognized short story called “The Lottery”. The story begins with a teenage boy arriving at an open field surrounded by walls far too high to reach. This boy instantly found himself at the center of many other boys of the same age who seem to be completely used to people showing up there. While this may seem like a simple story, the detail added to The Maze Running that gives the unique feel is that everybody in the field were also somehow forced into this...
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...reproductive organs and this leads to the presumption that the real problem lies within the men. The obvious discrimination towards Handmaids causes feelings of revulsion within the reader. “I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.” As Offred lays in the bath she now understands her meaning within the society. She sees herself now as only a vessel for a child, as a tool for Gilead rather than for her own happiness and wellbeing. In my society I am not exposed to the same circumstances within The Handmaids Tale. This therefore requires me to escape my own world and enter Offred’s place, time and society. This has enabled a further understanding of Offred’s world and the actions she took within the text and further developed my understanding of the world I live in...
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...Zhang 1 ! Brave New World －the Nightmare of Dystopian Society The society in Brave New World is full of peace and harmony seemingly, but the inside of that is a dystopian society which is full of maladies that cannot be controlled. The inundation of human science and technology improves people’s living standard, but essentially, it covers up the weak and empty human’s mental world. The novel Brave New World was written in 1931 by the famous English novelist, Aldous Leonard Huxley. It describes a futuristic society that in 632 A.F in London, people are controlled by the World State, a new world which has a slogan “COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY”. The marriage is forbidden, and babies are produced in an embryo factory. At the same time, the society is formed by five castes. Different levels people have their own different jobs. In the novel Brave New World, the World State reflects a dystopian society because it embraces an exploitative caste system, is morally bankrupt, and the citizens lack freedom and human dignity. The first reason why the World State reflects a dystopian society is because it embraces an exploitative caste system. In the new world, it has an extremely severe class system, which people are divided into five different castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. All of them are responsible to a different part of jobs in the state, like brain workers, labors, creators, and leaders. The Alpha embryos will become the leaders and thinkers, but the Epsilon embryos...
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...The dystopian themes of both Cuarón’s Children of Men and Orwell’s 1984 place the protagonists in the position of making the difficult decision to either rebel against their society or remain sangfroid for their own safety. Their characters make the decision to lash out against their society when given hope that something they do can make a change within their world. From a psychoanalytic perspective, this theme in dystopian works helps us better understand ourselves and what drives the audience to make changes in their world. Both Cuarón and Orwell explore man’s nature to strive for change when faced with inequality, given something to cultivate hope for revolution, in their own dystopian works. In this case, the motifs presented in both works,...
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