Common Themes Found In Dystopian Literature

Kirell Whitley

1/9/17

Mr. Gass pd. 2A

Dystopian

literature has been characterized as fiction that presents a negative view of the future of society and humankind. Utopian works typically sketch a future in which technology improves the everyday life of human beings and advances civilization, while dyst opian works offer an opposite view. Some common themes found in dystopian fiction include mastery of nature to the point that it becomes barren, or turns against humankind, technological advances that enslave humans or regiment their lives, the mandatory d ivision of people in society into castes or groups with specialized functions, and a collective loss of memory and history making mankind easier to manipulate psychologically and ultimately leading to dehumanization. Critics

Discussions regarding personal freedom, the role of free will, the value of individual resistance to dictatorships, and the powe r of technology to transform people's lives are also typical characteristics of dystopian fiction.

Scholars consider Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, H. G. Wells, and Yevgeny Zamyatin as four of the most important classic authors in the dystopian genre. Hux ley's Brave New World (1932),

Orwell's Nineteen Eighty

-

Four (1949), Wells's A Modern Utopia (1904), and Zamyatin's We

(1924) are regarded as some of the major canon works of twentieth

-

century dystopian literature.

Critics have repeatedly noted the influenc e of these works on the writing of modern dystopian authors, including Margaret Atwood, Chinua Achebe, Anthony Burgess, Ursula K. Le Guin,

Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, and Ray Bradbury, among numerous others. Dystopian fiction has remained critically and c ommercially successful throughout the twentieth century, inspiring new generations of contemporary writers such as Suzette Haden Elgin, Zoe Fairbairns, and