Saturday, July 21, 2012

A Guide To Choosing Dystopian Novels

By Hailey Wandell


In order to define what dystopian novels you have to know what the word dystopia means. The word refers to a future in which society has gone wrong. This can be for various different reasons such as a nuclear explosion, technology turning against its users or a world ravaged by natural disaster.

A dystopia is the opposite of a utopia. In a utopia everything runs perfectly and there are no problems. Indeed in many novels a society starts off seeming like a utopia before revealing that all is not perfect and that appearances are not all they seem.

In a dystopia everything has gone wrong. One of the most famous examples of this is the George Orwell novel 1984. In this vision of the future a repressive government uses surveillance and propaganda in order to watch over people and to ensure that they obey their government.

In the story Alex is offered a way out of prison. He undergoes a program that prevents him from having violent thoughts. Unfortunately a side effect of this is that he is equally prevented from enjoying classical music as he gets the same feelings of pleasure from Beethoven as he does from violence.

A common feature of a dystopian novel is that it will have a bleak ending. In the case of George Orwell he had worked for the government and had seen the effects of propaganda. In many respects his vision of the future was how he feared the world would become if totalitarianism was left unchecked. The point of these stories is often that the writer wants to warn people of how society could potentially change for the worse.

A Clockwork Orange is just one in the wide array of dystopian novels available. You can find a number of different titles in this genre, such as The Road by Cormac McCarthy, 1984 by George Orwell or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Look online for more information and reviews of stories about dystopia.




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