Utopia is defined as "an elaborate thought experiment, a kind of parlor game for intellectuals who set themselves the task of designing a future society, a perfect society"(Featherstone ,1). The authors present dystopia as "utopia's twentieth-century doppelganger," claiming it represents a total opposite of a utopia. Dystopia "is a utopia that has gone wrong, or a utopia that functions only for a particular segment of society"(Featherstone,1). Both contain similar elements, although dystopia as a genre views utopias as impossible; an attempt to reach a utopia often results in this unfair and unjust oppressive future society. Science fiction is a "literary genre in which a background of science or pseudoscience is an integral part of the story. Although science fiction is a form of fantastic literature, many of the events recounted are within the realm of future possibility, e.g., robots, space travel, interplanetary war, invasions from outer space"(Lagasse). Science fiction often holds stories that occur in a dystopian or utopian society where the technology is unfamiliar to the reader, but often impressive. Post-apocalyptic was harder to find a definition for, but the following definition covers it: "The apocalypse can be thus identified by its radical otherness from anything human beings may have experienced before. This same characteristic, though, makes the apocalypse and its aftermath, if there is any, unimaginable and unrepresentable: it constitutes a representational impasse. According to the definition above, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction should be the writing of alterity, it should depict the end of the world we know, followed by either a new world order or total annihilation"(Cristofaro, 67). This definition was long, but ultimately it states that a post-apocalyptic story follows humans after a significant event (an apocalypse) has devastated earth or society as we currently know it. Dystopian fiction overlaps within all of these genres as a dystopia could result from a collapsed or failed attempt to achieve a utopia or a corrupted utopia, it could hold futuristic technology or encounters in the future that are not possible present day, and it could also occur after society attempts to regather itself from an apocalypse of sorts that has entirely altered things as we know them.
One example of a dystopia that comes to mind is The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth. Now mind you that quite some time has passed since I have read the books and the movies under-delivered in my unprofessional opinion, so I will be attempting to recall some details. However, there are several elements through out the series that portray this society as a dystopia. The premise of separating citizens into factions based upon their personality types to encourage efficiency and prosperity seems like it could provide a utopia at first glance. Everyone is surrounded with people of similar interests as themselves and the society is prospering with no wars and no issues. However, we then learn that people of diverse thought, known as divergent, are not permitted to exist as the are a threat to the utopia. We also learn that the society is surrounded by a wall, and beyond this wall is the aftermath of society as we knew it with remnants of buildings and outcasts. This idea that diverse ways of thinking are not allowed mixed with a post apocalyptic world hidden by the shiny lights of a supposed utopia offers significant elements of a dystopia. My final piece of evidence comes from the erudite faction attempting to control the minds of the the dauntless and using them to attempt a genocide of abnegation. The supposed perfect government proves to be oppressive and flawed, challenging and conflicting the painted utopia. This challenged existence of a utopia makes it a dystopian story.
I think that dystopian literature has been gaining popularity as it has become dominant in teen literature. Current teenagers and young adults were likely raised by millennial parents that have been linked to be more anxious and worried about the world changing. These young adults have also been growing up in an age of tremendous social change and technological advancement by means of the internet, social media, surveillance, and more. Personally, I related to the idea of escapism during the Great Depression as we have been subjected to extreme climate change and political extremism. It has been a worrisome decade and escaping into worlds the portray what could happen have been a thought provoking method to pass time. Dystopian literature also often grapples with these ideas of extremism which activates the sense of fear we might all share of seeing the world fall into ruins. The idea of climate change has molded our expectations of the future from the perfect shiny future seen in say "The Jetsons" television show to the trash filled landfill seen in the movie "Wall-e". Dystopian literature portrays what-ifs in an exciting manner that shifts the "potential future" a realistic but unattainable future that is then confirmed through some kind of systematic failure or opression often through technology; technology being another topic we love dearly. Geir Finnsson writes that the writing of The Hunger Games among young adults mixed with the ideas of technology and relate-ability have contributed to this explosion of dystopia literature in popular culture (7). Teenagers and young adults have been a driving force in the demand for the genre, and the main thing that they relate to is the evolution of technology into something fascinating in concept but over bearing in practice. Finnsson relays the idea that The Hunger Games can be compared to high school and social media, as the game of survival serves as a metaphor for the control set in this environment and the pressure of fitting in to the system (7-8). Divergent grasps with technology that the government can monitor dreams and provide truth serums and mind control. It often prays on our fears of the future, and for this I believe it has grown in popularity.
Works Cited:
Cristofaro, Diletta D. "The Representational Impasse of Post-Apocalyptic Fiction: The Pesthouse by Jim Crace." Altre Modernità: Rivista Di Studi Letterari E Culturali, no. 9, 2013, pp. 66-80.Featherstone, Mark. Utopia/Dystopia: Conditions of Historical Possibility – Edited by M. D. Gordin, H. Tilley and G. Prakash. vol. 62, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, UK, 2011, doi:10.1111/j.1468-4446.2011.01389_5.x.
"science fiction." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Paul Lagasse, and Columbia University, Columbia University Press, 8th edition, 2018. Credo Reference, http://ezproxy.lynchburg.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/columency/science_fiction/0?institutionId=3447. Accessed 24 Jan. 2020.
