An introduction to our 'future worlds' context study, focussing on dystopian literature.

5. (1) Giant-size TV; (2) Electronic video movie camera; (3) Flat screen TV;
(4) Video disc player for recording off the TV; (5) Domestic robot; (6)Mail slot for electronic mail

7. Look at the QUOTATIONS from dystopian novels you have been given.
What sort of themes, plots and characteristics do you think feature in
dystopian literature?
Read the DEFINITIONS you have been given.
How do these fit with the themes, plots and characteristics you picked out
from the quotations?

9. Dystopia as a genre can be used to
describe a place that appears perfect on
the surface but is bad underneath.
Sometimes this corrupt existence is known
but suppressed. In other instances, the
world appears to all intents to be perfect,
but it is discovered as otherwise, quite
often by the main character in the story.
This situation can arise because, in a dystopia, the society often gives up one thing
(freedom?) in exchange for something else (safety?). The benefit of the thing gained
blinds the society to the loss of the other; it is often not until many years later that the
loss of it is truly felt, and the citizens come to realise that the world they once thought
acceptable (or even ideal) is not the world they thought it was. That’s part of what is so
compelling—and insidious—about dystopian fiction: the idea that you could be living in a
dystopia and not even know it.
The Capitol in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games - perfect on the surface and rotten underneath. How
many residents believe they live in a utopia?

10. "In a dystopian story, society itself is typically the antagonist; it is society that is
actively working against the protagonist’s aims and desires. This oppression
frequently is enacted by a totalitarian or authoritarian government, resulting in the
loss of civil liberties and untenable living conditions, caused by any number of
circumstances, such as world overpopulation, laws controlling a person’s sexual
or reproductive freedom, and living under constant surveillance" (Adams, 2011).
Because of this, society itself is often the antagonist in dystopian
fiction:

12. “In a glass-enclosed city of absolute
straight lines, ruled over by the all-
powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the
totalitarian society of OneState live out
lives devoid of passion and creativity - until
D-503, a mathematician who dreams in
numbers, makes a discovery: he has an
individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth
century AD, We is the classic dystopian
novel and was suppressed for many years
in Zamyatin’s native Russia.”
Features:
• The Individual Human vs. The Collective
State
• Conformity and loss of privacy
• D-503 a reluctant rebel
Published: 1924

13. “Far in the future, the World Controllers have
created the ideal society. Through clever use
of genetic engineering, brainwashing and
recreational sex and drugs all its members
are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems
alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to
break free. A visit to one of the few remaining
Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect
life still continues, may be the cure for his
distress...”
Features:
• World State citizens preconditioned to
be happy
• Genetic control and predetermination of
people’s lives
• Safety, comfort and prosperity…but at
what cost?
• Contrast with “savage reservation”
Published: 1931

14. “Hidden away in the Record Department of
the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston
Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the
needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels
against the totalitarian world he lives in,
which demands absolute obedience and
controls him through the all-seeing
telescreens and the watchful eye of Big
Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his
longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a
secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia,
but soon discovers the true price of freedom
is betrayal.”
Features:
• Doublethink, Newspeak
• Mass surveillance
• Thoughts are controlled utterly
• Big Brother, Room 101...
Published: 1949

15. Features:
• Books have been banned
• Mass culture and conformity pervade
• Firemen, the Hound
“Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where
television rules and literature is on the brink of
extinction, firemen start fires rather than put
them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of
commodities, the printed book, along with the
houses in which they are hidden. Montag never
questions the destruction and ruin his actions
produce. But then he meets an eccentric young
neighbour, Clarisse. When his wife attempts
suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag
begins to question everything he has ever known.
He starts hiding books in his home, and when his
pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for
his life.”
Published: 1953

16. “Fifteen-year-old Alex likes lashings of
ultraviolence. He and his gang of friends
rob, kill and rape their way through a
nightmarish future, until the State puts a
stop to his riotous excesses. But what will
his re-education mean?”
Features:
• A world of “ultra violence”
• Free will and the problem of Evil
• “At what cost?”
Published: 1962

17. “World War Terminus had left the Earth
devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick
Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade
replicants who were his prey. When he wasn't
'retiring' them with his laser weapon, he dreamed
of owning a live animal -- the ultimate status
symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life.
Then Rick got his chance: the assignment to kill
six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But in
Deckard's world things were never that simple,
and his assignment quickly turned into a
nightmare kaleidoscope of subterfuge and deceit
-- and the threat of death for the hunter rather
than the hunted . . .”
Features:
• “Replicants” have surpassed humans
• An environmental nightmare
• Population controlled, albeit more
subtly
Published: 1968

18. Most authors of dystopian fiction explore at least one reason why things are that way, often as an
analogy for similar issues in the real world. In the words of Keith M. Booker, dystopian
literature is used to "provide fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices that might
otherwise be taken for granted or considered natural and inevitable". Dystopias usually reference
elements of contemporary society and are read by many as political warnings.
We: influenced by the author’s experiences of mass labour, organised by logic, and
exploring the loss of self for the benefit of the many
Brave New World: influenced by the industrial revolution and capitalism, exploring the loss
of self in the fast-paced world of the future with a slave class drugged to enjoy their
servitude
1984: a cautionary tale against totalitarianism and the use of propaganda to control a
population
A Clockwork Orange: the reformation of youth by state authorities who fear youth violence
and culture
Do Androids Dream: the emergence of A.I. and what it means to be human in a
technology-heavy age

20. CAN YOU APPLY THESE IDEAS TO
FAHRENHEIT 451?
BRAINSTORM AS MANY LINKS AS YOU CAN.