Littérature étrangère

Littérature étrangère

Dystopia


According to the Dictionary, the term of dystopia was coined in the 19th century by the British philosopher John Stuart Mill. In fact, Dystopia combined the dys-, for "bad" or "negative" with topos for place. We can deduce the meaning of dystopia "bad place ». In deed, a dystopia is a fictional society, usually in a future time, where the conditions of life are extremely bad due to deprivation, oppression, or terror.

"Dystopia" is also sometimes use to condemn trends in society seen as negative. In most dystopian fiction, a corrupt government creates the poor quality of life. They often use manipulation to make people believe that the society is proper and right, even perfect. Most dystopian fiction takes place in the future but often incorporates actual social trends taken to extremes. So we can say that dystopias are frequently written as warnings, because they are showing current trends turns into a nightmarish conclusion.

We can find the perfect example of dystopian regime in a book which we study in class, named The Handmaids Tale. The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel, written by Margaret Atwood and published in 1985..

We can ask ourselves what is actually a dystopia? To what extent a fictionnal story turns Into a dystopia fiction? To answer, I'll build my argument by presenting the similarities of all dystopias and I'm gonna illustrate them with examples.


- The first commun point of dystopias is that dystopia is build with a hierarchical society where there is divisions between the upper, middle and lower class.

Indeed, on the one hand, the upper class takes the power and control the rest of the people, middle class and lower, very easily. Moreover,it's a well known fact that the division of the people simplify the fact of control thousand people and cancel the possibility of a revolt. We can see that in the Handmaid’s Tale.

Offred, the heroine, which was terrorized, completely stripped of her job, her husband, her child and now her own body, which is a just a surrogate mother of the State. The divisions are very clear, the class are separated with a colour code.

- Moreover, on the other hand, a dystopia works only wit two feeling : the fear and the hate.

The new government has to generate terror, because the fear makes the people very submissive, so with the terror the gouvernement can easily control everybody and obviously cancel the rebellion.

In deed we can see an exemple of the fear in an extract which we study in class. In this extract, the upper class is in front of a wall where bodies are hanging. When they see this wall and dead bodies hanging from hooks, viewers are supposed to feel shocked.

This regime appeals to the fear but also the hate.

- Indeed brainwash is also at the core of dystopian regimes. In fact, they are supposed to believe that these people are murderers, so they are supposed to be full of hate for the dead, because if there are here, they committed something wrong and against the value of the regime. So they are considered as sinners.

- Finally, a dystopian regime deprived people of their individuality Indeed, the personality, the right and the freedom are remove. In the

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