Dystopia+Fiction

media type="youtube" key="6a6kbU88wu0" height="360" width="640" Adapted and abridged from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Utopian and Dystopian Fiction The roots of the word dystopia—dys- and -topia—are from the Ancient Greek for “bad” and “place,” and so we use the term to describe an unfavorable society in which to live. Whether or not a society is perceived as a dystopia is usually determined by one’s point of view; what one person may consider to be a horrible dystopia, another may find completely acceptable or even nigh-utopian.

The utopia and its offshoot, the dystopia, are genres of literature that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction is the creation of an ideal society, or utopia, as the setting for a novel. Dystopian fiction is the opposite: creation of an utterly horrible or degraded society, or dystopia. Many novels combine both, often as a metaphor for the different directions humanity can take in its choices, ending up with one of two possible futures. Both utopias and dystopias are commonly found in science fiction and other speculative fiction genres, and arguably are by definition a type of speculative fiction. Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing not only utopian and dystopian fiction but also other fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, weird fiction, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction,, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as related static, motion, and virtual arts.

Utopian fiction

More than 400 utopian works were published in the English prior to the year 1900, with more than a thousand others during the twentieth century. The word utopia was first used in direct context by Sir Thomas Moore in his 1516 work Utopia. The word utopia resembles both the Greek words "no place", "outopos", and "good place", "eutopos". In his book, which was written in Latin, the author presents an ideal society. As the title suggests, the work presents an ambiguous and ironic projection of the ideal state. An earlier example of a Utopian work from classical antiquity is Plato's The Republic, in which he outlines what he sees as the ideal society and its political system. Later examples can be seen in Samuel Johnson's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia and Samuel Butler's Erewhon, which uses an anagram of "nowhere" as its title.

Dystopian fiction

Dystopia is defined as a society characterized by a focus on mass poverty, squalor, suffering, or oppression. A dystopia is a community or society, usually fictional that is in some important way undesirable or frightening. Most authors of dystopian fiction explore at least one reason why things are that way, often as an analogy for similar issues in the real world. These stories usually extrapolate elements of contemporary society and are read by many as political warnings. Many purported utopias reveal a dystopian character by suppressing justice, freedom and happiness. Elements of dystopias may vary from environmental to political and social issues. Dystopian societies have culminated in a broad series of sub-genres of fiction and are often used to raise real-world issues regarding society, environment, politics, religion, psychology, spirituality, or technology that may become present in the future. Famous depictions of dystopian societies include Nineteen Eighty-Four, a totalitarian invasive super state; Brave New World, where the human population is placed under a caste of psychological allocation; Fahrenheit 451, where the state burns books out of fear of what they may incite. The Iron Heel was described by Erich Fromm as "the earliest of the modern Dystopian". Many dystopias found in fictional and artistic works present a utopian society with at least one fatal flaw;[ whereas a utopian society is founded on the good life, a dystopian society’s dreams of improvement are overshadowed by the consequences of a society or government that brainwashes citizens into believing they are providing a better world. The Giver and the Hunger Games series.

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