Dystopias Displayed in The Lottery by Jackson and The Pedestrian by Bradbury and Never Let Me Go

A dystopian text is a fictional society which must have reverberations of today’s world and society and has many elements and rules that authors use to convey their message or concern. Dystopian texts are systematically written as warnings use to convey a message about a future time that authors are concerned will come about if our ways as humans continue, such as in the short stories called The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury. Dystopias are also written to put a satiric view on prevailing trends of society that are extrapolated in a ghoulish denouement, as in the case of the dystopian film Never Let Me Go directed by Mark Romanek. Dystopian texts use a variety of literary devices and filming techniques to convey their message, but in all three texts there is a main protagonist who questions the rules of society, and all citizens carry a fear of the outside world who adhere to homogenous rules of society.

In The Pedestrian and The Lottery, all characters conform to uniform expectations, except for the main protagonist who feels apprehended and is struggling to escape the grasp and questions the rules of society. In The Pedestrian the Bradbury is concerned that if society constantly depends on technology then it will cease to exist. The story itself does not have a structured plot, which is an example of situational irony because the citizens also have a structured purpose in life, which emphasises Bradbury’s message. Houses are where all abiding citizens of society spend all of their time, so it suggests that they are living in a place where the government can cultivate people who idealise the government by providing entertainment on television that claims that ‘…the United States Calvary [are coming]...

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...han one is considered one is mentally defective, because it is the only way to access the outside world. With a television there is no need to go outside to interrogate the world, therefore what is on the television is what people believe.

Conclusively, dystopian texts are written to provide a warning about future times. Authors and directors use a variety of techniques to put their idea forward and have an impact of the audience. Rules that the chosen texts exhibit include that citizens have a fear of the outside world and all citizens adhere to a strict set of rules, but there is a main protagonist who scrutinises the governments or society’s nature. The rules that authors and directors use to put forward their messages of the moral issues human cloning and relying too much on technology and instinctively perusing traditions are evident throughout all three texts.