A dystopia is a community or society that
is in some important way undesirable or frightening.
It is the opposite of a utopia. Such societies
appear in many artistic works, particularly
in stories set in a future. Dystopias are
often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian
governments, environmental disaster, or other
characteristics associated with a cataclysmic
decline in society. Dystopian societies appear
in many sub-genres of fiction and are often
used to draw attention to real-world issues
regarding society, environment, politics,
economics, religion, psychology, ethics, science,
and/or technology, which if unaddressed could
potentially lead to such a dystopia-like condition.
Famous depictions of dystopian societies include
R.U.R.; Nineteen Eighty-Four, which takes
place in a totalitarian invasive super state;
Brave New World, where the human population
is placed under a caste of psychological allocation;
Fahrenheit 451, where the state burns books
in response to the apathy and disinterest
by the general public; A Clockwork Orange,
where the state undertakes to reform violent
youths; Blade Runner in which genetically
engineered replicants infiltrate society and
must be hunted down before they injure humans;
The Hunger Games, in which the government
controls its people by maintaining a constant
state of fear through forcing randomly selected
children to participate in an annual fight
to the death; Logan's Run, in which both population
and the consumption of resources are maintained
in equilibrium by requiring the death of everyone
reaching a particular age; Soylent Green,
where society suffers from pollution, overpopulation,
depleted resources, poverty, dying oceans,
a hot climate, and much of the population
survives on processed food rations, including
"soylent green"; and Divergent, where people
must fit into one of five factions based on
character traits: Selflessness, Bravery, Intelligence,
Honesty, and Peace. Those people who possess
more than one quality are hunted down for
fear that they will not conform and that their
multi-trait personalities make them difficult
to control.
Jack London's novel The Iron Heel was described
by Erich Fromm as "the earliest of the modern
Dystopia."
Etymology
Dystopia represents a counterpart of utopia,
a term originally coined by Thomas More in
his book of that title completed in 1516.
"Utopia" is derived from the Greek words eu,
"good", ou, "not", and topos, "place." "Dystopia"
retains the topos, but combines it instead
with Ancient Greek: δυσ-, "bad, hard".
History
Decades before the first documented use of
the word "dystopia" was "cacotopia" originally
proposed in 1818 by Jeremy Bentham: "As a
match for utopia suppose a cacotopia discovered
and described." Though dystopia became the
more popular term, cacotopia finds occasional
use, for example by A Clockwork Orange author
Anthony Burgess, who said it was a better
fit for Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four because
"it sounds worse than dystopia."
The first known use of dystopian, as recorded
by the Oxford English Dictionary, is a speech
given before the British House of Commons
by John Stuart Mill in 1868, in which Mill
denounced the government's Irish land policy:
"It is, perhaps, too complimentary to call
them Utopians, they ought rather to be called
dys-topians, or caco-topians. What is commonly
called Utopian is something too good to be
practicable; but what they appear to favour
is too bad to be practicable."
Common themes
Although dystopias vary significantly across
and within artistic forms and genres, many
focus on similar kinds of sociopolitical dysfunction.
Politics
In When the Sleeper Wakes, H. G. Wells depicted
the governing class as hedonistic and shallow.
George Orwell contrasted Wells's world to
that depicted in Jack London's Iron Heel,
where the dystopian rulers are brutal and
dedicated to the point of fanaticism, which
Orwell considered more plausible.
Whereas the political principles at the root
of fictional utopias are idealistic in principle
and successfully result in positive consequences
for the inhabitants, the political principles
on which fictional dystopias are based, while
often based on utopian ideals, result in negative
consequences for inhabitants because of at
least one fatal flaw;
Dystopias are often filled with pessimistic
views of the ruling class or government that
is brutal or uncaring ruling with an "iron
hand" or "iron fist". These dystopian government
establishments often have protagonists or
groups that lead a "resistance" to enact change
within their government as is seen in Alan
Moore's V for Vendetta.
Dystopian political situations are depicted
in novels such as Parable of the Sower, Nineteen
Eighty-Four, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451;
and in such films as Metropolis, Brazil, Battle
Royale, FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions, and
Soylent Green.
Economics
The economic structures of dystopian societies
in literature and other media have many variations,
as the economy often relates directly to the
elements that the writer is depicting as the
source of the oppression. However, there are
several archetypes that such societies tend
to follow.
A commonly occurring theme is that the state
plans the economy, as shown in such works
as Ayn Rand's Anthem and Henry Kuttner's short
story The Iron Standard. A contrasting theme
is where the planned economy is planned and
controlled by corporatist and fascist elements.
A prime example of this is reflected in Norman
Jewison's 1975 Rollerball. Some dystopias,
such as Nineteen Eighty-Four, feature black
markets with goods that are dangerous and
difficult to obtain, or the characters may
be totally at the mercy of the state-controlled
economy. Such systems usually have a lack
of efficiency, as seen in stories like Philip
Jose Farmer's Riders of the Purple Wage, featuring
a bloated welfare system in which total freedom
from responsibility has encouraged an underclass
prone to any form of antisocial behavior.
Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano depicts a dystopia
in which the centrally controlled economic
system has indeed made material abundance
plentiful, but deprived the mass of humanity
of meaningful labor; virtually all work is
menial and unsatisfying, and only a small
number of the small group that achieves education
is admitted to the elite and its work. In
Tanith Lee's 'Biting the Sun', there is no
want of any kind - only unabashed consumption
and hedonism, leading the protagonist to begin
looking for a deeper meaning to existence
when everyday life seems to have nothing to
live for.
Even in dystopias where the economic system
is not the source of the society's flaws,
as in Brave New World, the state often controls
the economy. In Brave New World, a character,
reacting with horror to the suggestion of
not being part of the social body, cites as
a reason that everyone works for everyone
else.
Other works feature extensive privatization
and corporatism, where privately owned and
unaccountable large corporations have effectively
replaced the government in setting policy
and making decisions. They manipulate, infiltrate,
control, bribe, are contracted by, or otherwise
function as government. This is seen in the
novels Jennifer Government and Oryx and Crake
and the movies Alien, Avatar, Robocop, Visioneers,
Idiocracy, Soylent Green, THX 1138, WALL‑E
and Rollerball. Rule-by-corporation is common
in the cyberpunk genre, as in Neal Stephenson's
Snow Crash and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep?.
Social stratification
Dystopian fiction frequently draws stark contrasts
between the privileges of the ruling class
and the dreary existence of the working classes
in societies which ironically were born out
of the lofty dreams of universal equality,
empowerment, and social justice of their founders,
typically led astray by a hamartia within
humanity itself - the inability to withstand
the corrupting effects and the many seductions
of wielding absolute power, to become but
a perverse caricature of the founders Utopian
dream.
In the novel Brave New World, written in 1931
by Aldous Huxley, a class system is prenatally
designated in terms of Alphas, Betas, Gammas,
Deltas, and Epsilons, with the lower classes
having reduced brain-function and special
conditioning to make them satisfied with their
position in life.
In Ypsilon Minus by Herbert W. Franke, people
are divided into numerous alphabetically ranked
groups.
Family
Some fictional dystopias, such as Brave New
World and Fahrenheit 451, have eradicated
the family and deploy continuing efforts to
keep it from reestablishing itself as a social
institution. In Brave New World, where children
are reproduced artificially, the concepts
"mother" and "father" are considered obscene.
In some novels, the State is hostile to motherhood:
for example, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, children
are organized to spy on their parents; and
in We, the escape of a pregnant woman from
OneState is a revolt.
Religion
Religious groups play the role of the oppressed
and oppressors. In Brave New World, for example,
the establishment of the state included lopping
off the tops of all crosses to make them "T"s,.
Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale,
on the other hand, takes place in a future
United States under a Christianity-based theocratic
regime. One of the earliest examples of this
theme is Robert Hugh Benson's Lord of the
World, about a futuristic world where the
Freemasons have taken over the world and the
only other religion left is a Roman Catholic
minority.
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? humans
on Earth practice Mercerism, employing "empathy
boxes" to connect to each other in a way that
emphasizes their humanity and their difference
from the androids, which are incapable of
empathy.
Identity
In the Russian novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin,
first published in 1921, people are permitted
to live out of public view twice a week for
one hour and are only referred to by numbers
instead of names.
Some dystopian works, like Kurt Vonnegut's
Harrison Bergeron, emphasize the pressure
to conform to ruthlessly egalitarian social
norms that discourage or suppress accomplishment
or even competence as forms of inequality.
Similarly, in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451,
the dystopian society represses intellectuals
with particular force.
Violence
Violence is prevalent in many dystopias, often
in the form of war, urban crimes lead by gangs,
rampant crime met by summary justice or vigilantism,
or blood sports. Also The Hunger Games and
Divergent are prime examples of dystopias
that contain war and violence.
Nature
Fictional dystopias are commonly urban and
frequently isolate their characters from all
contact with the natural world. Sometimes
they require their characters to avoid nature,
as when walks are regarded as dangerously
anti-social in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
as well as within Bradbury's short story "The
Pedestrian." In Brave New World, the lower
classes of society are conditioned to be afraid
of nature, but also to visit the countryside
and consume transportation and games to stabilize
society. E. M. Forster's The Machine Stops
depicts a highly changed global environment
which forced people to live underground due
to an atmospheric contamination.
Excessive pollution that destroys nature is
common in many dystopian films, such as Avatar,
Robocop, Wall-E, and Soylent Green. A few
"green" fictional dystopias do exist, such
as in Michael Carson's short story "The Punishment
of Luxury", and Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker.
The latter is set in the aftermath of nuclear
war, "a post-nuclear holocaust Kent, where
technology has reduced to the level of the
Iron Age".
Literary characteristics of dystopian fiction
As fictional dystopias are often set in a
future projected virtual time and/or space
involving technological innovations not accessible
in actual present reality, dystopian fiction
is often classified generically as science
fiction, a subgenre of speculative fiction.
Back stories
Because a fictional universe has to be constructed,
a selectively told backstory of a war, revolution,
uprising, critical overpopulation, or other
disaster is often introduced early in the
narrative. This results in a shift in emphasis
of control, from previous systems of government
to a government run by corporations, totalitarian
dictatorships or bureaucracies; or from previous
social norms to a changed society and new
social norms.
Because dystopian literature typically depicts
events that take place in the future, it often
features technology more advanced than that
of contemporary society.
Hero
Unlike utopian fiction, which often features
an outsider to have the world shown to him/her,
dystopias seldom feature an outsider as the
protagonist. While such a character would
more clearly understand the nature of the
society, based on comparison to their society,
the knowledge of the outside culture subverts
the power of the dystopia. When such outsiders
are major characters—such as John the Savage
in Brave New World—their societies cannot
assist them against the dystopia.
The story usually centers on a protagonist
who questions the society, often feeling intuitively
that something is terribly wrong, such as
Guy Montag in Ray Bradbury's novella Fahrenheit
451, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four,
or V in Alan Moore's V for Vendetta. The hero
comes to believe that escape or even overturning
the social order is possible and decides to
act at the risk of their own life; this may
appear as irrational even to him/her, but
they still act. The hero's point of view usually
clashes with the others' perception, most
notably in Brave New World, revealing that
concepts of utopia and dystopia are tied to
each other and the only difference between
them lies on a matter of opinion.
Another popular archetype of hero in the more
modern dystopian literature is the Vonnegut
hero, a hero who is in high-standing within
the social system, but sees how wrong everything
is, and attempts to either change the system
or bring it down, such as Paul Proteus of
Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano or Winston
Niles Rumfoord in The Sirens of Titan.
The Domination is perhaps unusual in featuring
members of the upper caste of the dystopian
society as among the protagonists although
serfs questioning that society are also included,
along with international enemies of that dystopian
society. This may be an example of the anti-hero.
Conflict
In many cases, the hero's conflict brings
them to a representative of the dystopia who
articulates its principles, from Mustapha
Mond in Brave New World to O'Brien in Nineteen
Eighty-Four.
There is usually a group of people somewhere
in the society who are not under the complete
control of the state, and in whom the hero
of the novel usually puts their hope, although
often he or she still fails to change anything.
In Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four they are
the "proles", in Huxley's Brave New World
they are the people on the reservation, and
in We by Zamyatin they are the people outside
the walls of the One State. In Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury, they are the "book people"
past the river and outside the city. In the
case of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" such a group
is reported by the government to exist, but
it is postulated that it may just be an instrument
of the government, and indeed that was the
case.
Subversion
The destruction of dystopia is frequently
a very different sort of work than one in
which it is preserved. Indeed, the subversion
of a dystopian society, with its potential
for conflict and adventure, is a staple of
science fiction stories. Poul Anderson's short
story "Sam Hall" depicts the subversion of
a dystopia heavily dependent on surveillance.
Robert A. Heinlein's "If This Goes On—"
liberates the United States from a fundamentalist
theocracy, where the underground rebellion
is organized by the Freemasons. Cordwainer
Smith's The Rediscovery of Man series depicts
a society recovering from its dystopian period,
beginning in "The Dead Lady of Clown Town"
with the discovery that its utopia was impossible
to maintain. Although these and other societies
are typical of dystopias in many ways, they
all have not only flaws but exploitable flaws.
The ability of the protagonists to subvert
the society also subverts the monolithic power
typical of a dystopia. In some cases the hero
manages to overthrow the dystopia by motivating
the populace. In the dystopian video game
Half-Life 2 the downtrodden citizens of City 17
rally around the figure of Gordon Freeman
and overthrow their Combine oppressors. Destruction
of the fictional dystopia may not be possible,
but—if it does not completely control its
world—escaping from it may be an alternative.
In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, the main
character, Montag, succeeds in fleeing and
finding tramps who have dedicated themselves
to memorizing books to preserve them. But
ironically, the dystopian society in Fahrenheit
451 is destroyed in the end — by nuclear
missiles. In the book Logan's Run, the main
characters make their way to an escape from
the otherwise inevitable euthanasia on their
21st birthday. Because such dystopias must
necessarily control less of the world than
the protagonist can reach, and the protagonist
can elude capture, this motif also subverts
the dystopia's power. In Lois Lowry's novel
The Giver, Jonas, the main character, is able
to run away from "The Community" and escapes
to "Elsewhere", where people have memories.
Sometimes, this escape leads to the inevitable:
the protagonist making a mistake that usually
brings about the end of a rebel society, usually
living where people think is a legend. This
concept is brought to life in Scott Westerfeld's
novel Uglies. The main character accidentally
brings the government into the secret settlement
of the Smoke. She then infiltrates the government
to escape, but chooses to join the society
for the greater good.
The collapse of a dystopian dictatorship,
sometimes, has an ambiguous ending that is
unclear as to final result of the revolution.
The protagonist succeeds in causing the overthrow
of society, but no new society has been established
as a replacement. The legacy is open ended,
as in the movie version of V For Vendetta.
The rebels were secretly aided by disillusioned
officials of the ruling tyrannical regime,
but no one faction maintained dominance after
the fall of the dystopian society. The remaining
hard-core regime loyalists were eliminated
or ineffective. The audience is left to their
own conclusions.
Climax and dénouement
The story is often unresolved even if the
hero manages to escape or destroy the dystopia.
That is, the narrative may deal with individuals
in a dystopian society who are unsatisfied,
and may rebel, but ultimately fail to change
anything. Sometimes they themselves end up
changed to conform to the society's norms,
such as in With Folded Hands, by Jack Williamson.
This narrative arc to a sense of hopelessness
can be found in such classic dystopian works
as Nineteen Eighty-Four. It contrasts with
much fiction of the future, in which a hero
succeeds in resolving conflicts or otherwise
changes things for the better.
Notable examples
See also
Alternate history
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
Cyberpunk
Failed state
New world order
New World Order
Present
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Social science fiction
Soft science fiction
Utopian and dystopian fiction
References
External links
Dystopia Tracker, predictions about the future
and their realisations in real life.
