How do dystopias warn us against the dangers of our society ?

Dossier llcer : How do dystopias warn us against the dangers of our society ?

Introduction

Today, I’m going to talk about my following key question : How do dystopias warn us against the dangers of our society ?

This question is part of the theme « Arts and debate » and it is particulary interested in dystopias. By the way, dystopian narrative has been a popular literary genre for more than a century. Not only does a well written dystopian novel entertain its readers, it often also has the ability to educate them and make them think about the society in which they live. Many of such novels have been written in the periods of great pessimism which are epitomized by wars, power abuse, tyranny and many other happenings. So first, I reflect on the characteristics of a dystopia and then I will address the issue of whether they are able to act in our society. We will be able to answer these questions thanks to several documents, firstly Margaret Atwood's novel THD'sT written in 1985, secondly an extract from George Orwell's novel 1984 written in 1948, then a poster of the film "Upside Down" made in 2013 and a science fiction poster made by Dean Ellis in the 70's and finally a press article by Daniel A. Olivas in June 19, 2018.

To begin with, dystopia has been defined in many ways. The word is associated with the notion of 'wickedness'. We could define dystopian works as works of anticipation, offering macabre visions of the future, full of pessimism, and opposed to utopia. In the dystopian universe, hope seems to be weak and man is constantly obliged to struggle to obtain not what he wants, but what simply allows him to live. This parallel between our world and the dystopia is double-edged. On the one hand it makes us realise how lucky humanity is in real life, but on the other hand it also feeds the dark side of each person. For example, in THD'sT, this shocking and topical anticipation story, the author presents a society not so far from ours, women have an unequal place, the social relationship that once existed between men and women is a thing of the past and men have stripped women of their freedom and equality and lowered them to various degrees of status. Their only hope of survival depends on their fertility. In addition, the society sets strict rules and restricts communication between the population, everything is run according to the laws of the rulers. This is similar to the second novel 1984 by G. Orwell.

 In 1984, he presents a vision of a society (Oceania) where privacy does not exist. The mysterious leader of the single party that runs Oceania, Big Brother, monitors every action of every citizen (hence the famous - and chilling - sentence "Big Brother is watching you") and controls this society through four ministries (Truth, Love, Peace, and Abundance) as well as three slogans: "War is peace", "Freedom is slavery", and "Ignorance is knowledge". For example in my extract Winston is locked in the ministry of Love, this is the place where opponents are tortured. He waits in his cell, a cell with no windows, no water or food. He has no right to move where a voice rings out to warn him. So we notice, a direct link with dystopia, by the lack of freedom, the extreme authority or the cameras.

A dystopia is represented or aims to represent a perfect world where the laws are only there so that the society functions well, like a utopia, and it is besides the first glance that one can carry on the dystopia and it is only when living through the character of the novel its life that one realizes that this one hides a world in destruction. To illustrate this idea, I decided to choose the poster of the film "Upside Down" and the poster of Dean Ellis. In the movie poster we notice that it is divided in 2, at the bottom we are facing a utopian world, new and modern buildings where the wealth of the society appears and light colours which give us the impression of a perfect world and at the top of the poster the reflection of another society which seems to be in destruction and which represents a poor part of the society and the dark colours and the smoke make us think of a dark almost violent world. However, these two parts come together and show us that these two aspects are nothing other than the society itself. Now in Dean Ellis' poster we can understand this same point of view, we notice a perfect, modern, brightly coloured society that is enclosed in a kind of bubble and what is outside is destruction, violence, almost emptiness, lifeless. It is simply a representation of a dystopia, a perfect appearance that contains a bad world.

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