Dystopian Fiction FICTION Etymology Popular Works Genre Topos (Greek for place) Samuel Butler Erewhon Fictional dystopias are often Utopia: Title of a book Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels set in the future. They are by Thomas More (1516). George Orwell 1984 often classified as science (An imagined perfect Aldous Huxley Brave New World fiction, a subgenre of place or state of things) Ayn Rand Anthem speculative fiction.

•A Dystopia is the opposite of a Utopia. •A dystopia often refers to a Utopia that has become corrupt. •Dystopias are described as “dangerous and alienating future societies.” •A fictional dystopia criticises the current cultural trends observed by the writer. •It is a culture where life suffers from deprivation, oppression, or terror. •Dystopias explore social and political structures. •Dystopian fiction is the creation of a nightmare world. •Many novels combine both Utopia and Dystopia as a metaphor for the different choices that humanity can take. •Typically, an observer from our world will journey to another place or time and see a contrast of an ideal or distressing society. Society •Fictional dystopias impose social restrictions on the characters’ lives. •There is social stratification: social class is strictly defined and enforced. •Social mobility is non-existent. •The class system is sometimes designated even before birth. Family •The concept of the family is under attack in fictional dystopian societies. •In Brave New World, children are reproduced artificially. •The concepts ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are considered obscene. •If the family exists, the State uses great efforts to keep the family in its service. •The State is hostile to motherhood: for example, in 1984, children are organized to spy on their parents. The Protagonist •Dystopias seldom feature an outsider as the protagonist. •The knowledge of the outside culture subverts the power of the dystopia. •The protagonist questions society, feeling intuitively that something is wrong. •The protagonist believes that escape or overturning the social order is possible. •The protagonist’s goal is to either escape from or destroy the social order. •The story is often unresolved: the protagonist fails to change anything. •Sometimes the protagonist ends up changed to conform to society’s norms leading to a sense of hopelessness. Personality Cult In fictional dystopia, there is generally a total absence of any social group besides the state. There is no freedom of religion - religious groups independent of the government are absent in these societies.

The state may stage a personality cult about a central figure, usually a head of state or an oligarchy of some sort, such as ‘Big Brother’ in 1984. Technology Advanced technology is controlled exclusively by the group in power. In Brave New World, people enjoy much higher material living standards in exchange for the loss of other qualities in their lives, such as independent thought and emotional depth. Fictional dystopias are commonly urban and frequently isolate their characters from all contact with the natural world. Politics Fictional dystopian politics are defined as types of governments and political systems such as: bureaucracy; socialism; communism; capitalism; fascism; totalitarianism; dictatorships. In the absence of such a clearly-defined political system controlling the world, chaos may occur. These governments often assert great power over the citizens, such as in 1984 the authority decrees that Two + Two = Five. Economy The state is in control of the economy, as shown in such works as Ayn Rand’s Anthem. The characters may be totally at the mercy of the state-controlled economy. The general belief in Brave New World is that everyone works for everyone else. Because a fictional universe has to be constructed, a selectively-told ‘back story’ of a war, revolution, uprising, critical overpopulation, or other disaster is often introduced early in the narrative.