Utopia Vs. Dystopia free essay sample

The future truly is a mystery. No one knows what it will honestly hold. There are so many key factors that control society. Among them are money, morals, class, and influence. Everyone wants a paradise or Utopia. Everyone hand in hand. No violence, crimes, illnesses, or corruption. There is only peace, love and happiness. It seems so ideal. It’s almost too good to be true; like something out of a dream. Well, that is because it is. It’s simply pure fiction. It is because the idea of utopia itself seems to be impossible. A real, material world of perfection cannot truly exist. As a matter of fact, â€Å"utopia† is translated literally as an imaginary good place that does not physically exist. This kind of world is not just unrealistic but also impractical. However, Dystopian and utopian societies are not so different after all. Dystopia is the opposite of utopia because everything seems to be imbalanced, chaotic, lawless, unruly, dirty, violent, and controlling. In several novels, the dystopian setting is also guised as somewhat similar to a utopian society. It’s just that upon further immersion into that society, eventually it is revealed that there’s excessive control, repression, and abuse. As distant as this may sound, dystopian stories have similar characteristics to the current society, unlike utopian books. Dystopian literature is superior to utopian literature because it has a sense of familiarity, provides a sense of realism to readers, bestows warnings upon the readers and uses a great deal of creativity. Utopian literature is basically social commentary: social criticism of what is and social suggestion of what could be. Its means are social rearrangement. The Utopia is usually far away in space, or time, or both, and the way of getting there is not clear or easy. In its lack of heavy-handedness, utopian literature tends to be light-hearted, playful, and optimistic. Utopian literature focuses its attention on the problems of the present and, in doing so, propels the world to take measures to cure these ills. In a utopian novel the author imagines a society with a given set of social conditions, which are different from those of the current own society. There is a discontinuity between the authors actual and imagined society, but the difference is not so great as to render the imagined utopian society unrecognizable to readers. In a way this estranges readers, because one does not feel as though the author’s views on utopia are the same as one’s own. Utopian literature can best be understood by what it is trying to accomplish. Oftentimes, utopias are representations of idealized socialist societies. The utopian literature does not provide a blue-print or a pathway, or a scenario that leads to utopia. It is not a formula of how exactly, things are to be done. Rather than this, it is suggestive of how things could be if certain few, crucial social features were imagined to be different. It merely suggests changing a few key elements in society to create a utopian future, but does not specify in changing to avoid a certain future. In other words, no actual warnings are given in utopian literature because it is based on an ideal future, where there is no need to worry about any sort of problems occurring. Utopian literature tends not to be too creative because it is written about an ideal state of life. It does not take time for a person to conjure up what would make others satisfied with life. Equality, money, protection, and rights and peace are common desires that are often seen not only, in utopian literature, but also in reality. However, in dystopian literature there is a sense of familiarity in the stories. The society has characteristics of the current society or whatever someone else has once experienced. Dystopian fiction typically extrapolates current trends and developments into the future. Some people can identify certain traits or patterns that would lead to dystopia in the reader’s own society. It proves to be very effective. For example, dystopian literature typically depicts events that take place in the future. It often features technology more advanced than that of contemporary society. Usually, this advanced technology is controlled exclusively by the government type in power, while the oppressed population is limited to a rather primitive technology. For example, in â€Å"The Hunger Games† by Suzanne Collins, the Capital had the finest weapons and cosmetic technology, while the Districts lived off what they had. Dystopian literature often focuses on a current technological, social, or government trend and foreshadows what would happen if the trend was to be revoked from society. It truly is a â€Å"worst case scenario† literature, allowing the dystopian story to critique on trends in the real world. Dystopian literature highlights concerns about societal trends. The stories serve as a warning to members of society in which they live, to show them how society can metamorphose from bad to worse without anyone realizing it. In dystopian literature, the truth about the world is often kept a secret from the society. Some works of literature often take place after a dramatic and apocalyptic event ends the world that it once was known as and gives rise to a new way of life in a new world. There is also often an illusion of a perfect society masking how terrible life truly is. Sometimes, the oppressors truly believe that they are doing the right thing; but often the illusion of a utopia is merely a propaganda meant to keep the citizens under control. This could be through the means of technology, bureaucracy, and corporate control. Dystopian literature is bound to be one of the most (if not the most) creative literatures. It has so many nightmarish qualities and dark fantasy characteristics. Some works of dystopian literature are the most â€Å"outside of the box thought†, that two stories tell the same story. For example, in â€Å"Delirium† by Lauren Oliver, love was considered a disease, but a cure was found that was required by the age of eighteen. Dystopian literature uses dark and vivid imagination, as well as abstract thinking. On account of dystopian literature has a sense of familiarity, provides a sense of realism to readers, bestows warnings upon the readers and uses a great deal of creativity, it is superior to utopian literature. It highlights concerns about real and current social trends can be centered on what a person or people in society have experienced, and uses abstract details and vivid and dark imagination. Perhaps if more authors used the same thought process as dystopian authors do, seemingly uninteresting works would be considered masterpieces.