Dystopia

This article is about the philosophical concept. For the Half-Life 2 mod, see Dystopia (computer game)

Traits of dystopian fiction

Many films and literature featuring dystopian societies exhibit at least a few of the following traits:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• a selectively-told back story of a war, revolution, uprising, spike in overpopulation, natural disaster or some other climactic event which resulted in dramatic changes to society
• a standard of living among the lower and middle class that is generally poorer than in contemporary society. This is not always the case, however - in Brave New World and Equilibrium, people enjoy a much higher standard of living in exchange for the loss of intelligence and emotion respectively
• a protagonist who questions the society, often feeling intrinsically that something is terribly wrong
• necessarily, if it is based on our world, a shift in emphasis of control, e.g. to corporations, autocratic cliques or bureaucracies.
• because dystopian literature takes place in the future, it often features technology more advanced than that of contemporary society. Usually, the advanced technology is controlled exclusively by the group in power, while the oppressed population is limited to technology comparable to or more primitive than what we have today.

For the reader to engage with it, dystopian fiction typically has one other trait: familiarity. It is not enough to show people living in a society that seems unpleasant. The society must have echoes of today, of the reader's own experience. If the reader can identify the patterns or trends that would lead to the dystopia, it becomes a more involving and effective experience. Authors can use a dystopia effectively to highlight their own concerns about societal trends. For example, George Orwell originally based his title 1984 on the year it was written (1948), because he saw the world he describes emerging in austere postwar Europe. In similar fashion, Ayn Rand wrote Anthem as a warning against what she saw as the subordination of individual human beings to the state or "the We."

Related Topics:
1984 - Europe - Anthem

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~