Most people are familiar with dystopian literature, whether they realize it or not. Some of the twentieth century’s most celebrated books are dystopian novels; many routinely appear on high school and university-required reading lists.
Dystopian works are regularly adapted into films, television programs, and video games. George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World are two works that immediately come to mind. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 or William Golding’s Lord of the Flies may be more familiar from English class, recent or distant. Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games and Veronica Roth’s Divergent series, both of which were adapted into blockbuster film series, are more contemporary examples. But what exactly makes these books ‘Dystopias?’
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A Little Etymology
It can be helpful to think about dystopia in terms of its supposed opposite, utopia. If a utopia is a perfect place, then a dystopia must be an imperfect one, or perhaps, a perfectly flawed place. This might not be the most useful definition, since most if not all places are flawed in one way or another and as a matter of opinion.
The word utopia itself, coined by Thomas More as the title of his 1516 book, has evolved throughout its usage, originally meaning ‘no place’ from the Greek ou, meaning not, and topos, meaning place. The Greek prefix for ‘good,’ eu, is pronounced the same way. At least in part due to the fact that More’s Utopia describes an idyllic society, this has become the primary meaning of the term. The ambiguous nature of the word itself is reflected in the works that portray would-be utopias and dystopias.
The word dystopia sports the Greek prefix dys (dus) meaning bad. Bad places are indeed the settings and subjects of dystopian stories, but there has to be a little more to it than that, right? For example, the Baudelaire siblings in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events find themselves in many less-than-desirable places, but the series is not considered dystopian.
Generally, dystopias are characterized by constant fear and distress felt by the inhabitants of the societies they describe. This is not a universal rule, and in some cases, that distress may be felt instead by the reader on behalf of the characters who are ignorant or naive to their own situations.
These stories portray worlds in which something has gone wrong and people live under conditions of deprivation or oppression. There is a pervasiveness to what is wrong that goes beyond the particular circumstances that any individuals might find themselves in.
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Subscribe to our weekly newsletterObvious Dystopias
Some dystopias are rather obvious. They take place in worlds ravaged by war, climate change, or other disasters.
Conditions are objectively horrible in these worlds and characters struggle daily for mere survival. Zombie stories like Max Brooks’ World War Z or Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore’s comic series The Walking Dead are good examples.
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (the inspiration for the Blade Runner films) depict worlds in which nearly all life has been destroyed by nuclear war or some kind of similar devastation. These kinds of dystopias can share significant overlap with other works of post-apocalyptic fiction and science fiction.
Another form that obvious dystopias can take is that of alternative history. Phillip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, in which the axis powers are the victors of World War II and divvy up the new world to rule with iron fists, is a good example.
A common theme in these kinds of dystopian stories is extreme inequality. This may be due to a scarcity of resources, where the strong hoard what little remains and force the straggling survivors to serve them or fend for themselves.
This is the case in Collin’s The Hunger Games, in which the citizens of the districts must provide resources to the Capitol while they themselves go hungry and sacrifice their children in ritual appeasement. Often, the source of inequality is massive population growth, such as that depicted in the 1973 film Soylent Green, based on the novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison.
The opposite scenario can be the cause of dystopia as well, such as the population collapse presented in P.D. James’ The Children of Men.
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Ambiguous/Utopian Dystopias
On the other hand, some dystopias are not always as easy to pick out as dystopias in the first place. They often appear to depict prosperous utopian societies, where everything appears perfectly in order until one scratches below the surface or a character begins to question their own society and entertain alternative ideas. These are perhaps the more emblematic works of the genre.
One of the most common elements of these works is totalitarian governments or other domineering institutions, such as religious organizations or corporate bureaucracies. These institutions produce conformity and control through the use of propaganda, censorship, surveillance, coercion, fixed hierarchy, and control of resources.
The Party and its representation as Big Brother and their control of information through the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984 have become classic examples of totalitarianism and propaganda. The firemen’s burning of books in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 could be the equivalent example of censorship.
The telescreens, hidden cameras, microphones in 1984, and buildings made entirely of glass in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We ensure that nothing goes unnoticed by the authorities. When behavioral infractions or even incorrect thoughts occur, they are forcibly remedied.
This can take the form of public shaming or executions, as in The Handmaid’s Tale, or a visit from the Thought Police to Room 101 in 1984. Institutional interventions need not be violent to cause concern, dissent and dissatisfaction are mitigated by universal use of the narcotic tranquilizer Soma in Huxley’s Brave New World.
Such extreme measures may have been implemented in order to overcome a societal threat or as the result of a past disaster. They are often credited with maintaining the prosperity of the current society, even if no longer necessary. What the reader recognizes as drastic overreaches of governmental power and clear violations of human rights are perceived as normal, necessary, and beneficial to characters that know of no other way of life.
These stories are commonly told from the perspective of a protagonist who begins to see the evils inherent in the society he or she once thought to be perfect, as occurs for D-503 in Zamyatin’s We and Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451. Often, the seed of doubt is planted in their minds by a higher-ranking member of their society, as occurs in these two works as well.
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Dystopia as Social Commentary
All forms of dystopian literature tend to be pointed social commentary. Authors focus on problematic elements already present in their existing or neighboring societies and exaggerate them to the point that they corrupt all other aspects of the fictionalized worlds and societies they create. Frequently, these stories take place in the near future in order to draw attention to current realities and create a sense of urgency around them.
A common theme addressed by this commentary is the risk of recklessly pursuing scientific and technological advancements, such as in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, in which an ingenious but unhinged Crake purposefully wipes out the human population. Another is the damage caused to the biosphere by the consumptive lifestyle and destructive habits of humanity, resulting in worlds like those in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower or Omar El Akkad’s American War.
Sometimes dystopias are cautionary tales that warn of the dangers inherent in the concept of utopia itself, arguing that freedom, individual differences, and human nature are incongruous with perfection and equality and that any attempt to establish these conditions will require force, destroy individuality, and ultimately cause more harm than good.
