The dystopian novel: an undesirable world becomes reality

Since Thomas Moro’s publishing of Utopia in 1516, the word “utopia” has been used to distinguish a perfect world, a world where everything works flawlessly and people live in harmony. According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995: 1584) utopia stands for “an imaginary perfect world where everyone is happy.” However, if utopia is a perfect world, the contrary of it should be imperfect or undesirable, that is why a word was coined as an antonym of utopia, the “dystopia.” Since its foundation, dystopia has been used to portray the opposite of a utopia and this has created a variety of content that goes from books and short stories, to movies, TV shows and even music. Dystopian novels on its own had gained significance in the 21st century, thanks to the evolution of new technologies and the multiple cultural changes that had similarities with what books like 1984 and Brave New World, had represented of what a dystopian society looks like to their respective authors. The accuracy of these similarities makes the reader believe that the civilization described in these books is something possible to happen or to become reality. How come this happens?

To answer that question, first we must answer What is a dystopia? Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms (2001: 74) defines dystopia as “a modern term invented as the opposite of UTOPIA, and applied to any alarmingly unpleasant imaginary world, usually of the projected future. The term is also applied to fictional works depicting such worlds” this definition agrees with what was mentioned before, “dystopia” works as the antonym of “utopia.” On the other hand, etymologically speaking “dystopia” comes from the Greek δυσ- ‎(dus-) “bad”, and τόπος ‎(tópos) “place” (see “dystopia” n.d.), and the word was coined by J. S. Mill in one of his speeches given before the British House of Commons in 1868, as he was denouncing the Irish government's land policy:

It is, perhaps, too complimentary to call them Utopians, they ought rather to be called dys-topians, or cacotopians. What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be practicable; but what they appear to favour is too bad to be practicable (Mill, 1988: 248) [emphasis added].

In literature, the dystopian novel (also called “dystopian literature” or “dystopian fiction”) borrowed characteristics of the definition of a dystopia; dystopian literature is a fairly recent genre. Since its portrayal of a society is unpleasant, disagreeable and even offensive, it was not until the 19th century that it started to spread among literature in general. One of the first works considered as having dystopian characteristics is Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels published in 1726, in it Swift criticized various aspects of the modern societies (Willans, Joel: 2014). Other examples are Jerome B. Holgate’s A Sojourn in the City of Amalgamation, in the Year of Our Lord, 19-- (1835), Émile Souvestre’s Le monde tel qu'il sera (1846), Jules Verne’s Paris in the Twentieth Century (1863), Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Vril, the Power of the Coming Race (1871), Samuel Butler’s Erewhon (1872) and many others, however, the most famous examples of dystopian novels are Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1948).

Given that our reality is not perfect, dystopias seem more accurate to the perception we have or see of modern human civilization, as a matter of fact, the access to information nowadays allows us to know things that we were not used to knowing in the past, like political corruption, invasion of privacy, espionage, criminal activities of governments, and so on. Authors of dystopian novels create worlds where society is controlled by elites and organizations, people are artificially produced, individuals are indoctrinated and/or brainwashed, wealth inequality is massive, books are banned, and many other issues. For example, Brave New World is set in London as part of the “World State” (a unified government of the entire planet); in it, natural reproduction has been abolished, people are indoctrinated since birth with sleep-learning, isolation and critical thinking are prohibited (any unauthorized thought gets repelled by the consumption of a hallucinogenic drug called “soma”), scientific thinking and experimentation are forbidden, recreational sex is encouraged, etc. On the other hand, in 1984 the world has been divided into three “superstates:” Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia; these superstates are in continuous war. The novel is set in a province of the superstate Oceania called “Airstrip One,” the government of this superstate controls the people with constant surveillance via devices called “telescreens,” people in Oceania speak “Newspeak” (the government's invented language) and they must be loyal to Big Brother (the leader of the superstate). The protagonist, Wiston Smith, works at the Ministry of Truth, an organization responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. Wiston’s job consist in rewriting past newspaper articles that compromise the Party’s legitimacy, this keeps the historical records constantly altered. As we see, these two examples show places where people do not have freedom of choice or even free will, these places are creative productions of the mind of writers that take facts of the world they know and adapt them into these depictions.

So, “Do we live in a dystopia?” It is not naive from these authors to present those creations in the way they did because, dystopian literature actually started as a satire of modern human societies; it can be seen as a magnification or distortion of actual facts (complemented with lots of fiction of course), this makes it seem not too far from reality and that is why conspiracy theories tend to be very popular nowadays. Whether or not we live in a dystopia or different versions of dystopias, this genre makes the reader question the reality he/she lives in, and that is for many, the greatest accomplishment of the authors of these works of literature.

References

Books

Baldick, Chris. (2001). Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.

Huxley, Aldous. (1932). Brave New World. United Kingdom: Chatto & Windus.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. (1995). Harlow: Longman Dictionaries.

Mill, John Stuart (1988). The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVIII - Public and Parliamentary Speeches Part I November 1850 - November 1868. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Orwell, George. (1949). 1984. United Kingdom: Harvill Secker.

Websites

dystopia. n.d. In Wiktionary. Retrieved from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dystopia

List of dystopian literature. n.d. In Wikipedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature

Science fiction. n.d. In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculative_fiction

Utopia. n.d. In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia

Utopia (book). n.d. In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(book)

William, Joel. (2014). Dark days: The fascinating history of the dystopian novel. In Ink Tank. Retrieved from http://inktank.fi/darks-days-fascinating-history-dystopian-novel/

Miguel Riveros | CI: 20.123.187

Facultad de Humanidades y Educación

Universidad de los Andes

Mérida, VE - September, 2016