Utopia and Dystopia-some thoughts on Fiction
Concepts
of utopia and dystopia represent imaginary societies in which people
live their life either in a perfect environment, governed by the laws
that provide happiness to everyone, or in an oppressive society that is
ruled by repressive and controlled state. Origin of these concepts can
be traced to the year of 380BC, when Greek philosopher Plato released
his influential political dialogue called “Republic”. In it, he first
postulated the main themes of utopian society and his visions of the perfect Greek city-state that provided stable life for all of its citizens.
The
modern world “Utopia” came to life during early years of 16th century,
in the work of the famous English philosopher Thomas Moore. His
description of utopian society gave birth to enormous wave of utopian
thought that influenced the life and works of many future philosophers
and novelist, and helped in creation of several important political
movements (most notably socialism). Utopias that were envisioned by the
minds of those authors can most easily be divided in several distinct
categories, all based on the means of their creation – Ecology utopia,
Economic utopia, Political utopia, Religious utopia, Feminists utopia
and Science and technological utopia. 19th century gave the birth of the
largest wave of utopian thought the world has ever seen. Numerous
novelist and philosophers focused their careers on the exploration of
those themes, and result of their work influenced the audiences across
the entire world. Most notable utopian novel from that period was
without a doubt “Looking Backward” by Edward Bellamy.
Not
all examples of utopian life were set in the theory. Some people tried
to realize the dreams postulated in the work of several philosophers,
and so the age of utopian societies came
to life. During the 19th century, over a dozen utopian societies were
established in the United States, and few of them managed to survive
even to today.
Utopia
Over
the last two thousand years, many philosophers envisioned societies
that were governed by the perfect set of systems that would enable its
citizens to live peaceful and long lives. These utopian visions greatly
affected the rise of several political movements in our modern history.
Utopian Fiction
The
present day literature has provided us with many great visions of
utopian societies, but the origin of the utopian fiction goes all the
way back to the instrumental work of Thomas Moore in 1516. Find out here
how did those important early works influenced modern literature and
movies.
Dystopia
Authors
of mid-20th century were first to envision futuristic societies in
which people lived in a repressive and controlled state that only from
the outside resembled a Utopia. These dark visions of the future
represent great vehicle for the investigation of concepts such as
individuality, freedom, class distinctions, repression, religion and
advanced technology.
Dystopian Fiction
In
our modern environment, works of fiction that are focused on the
futuristic visions of dark dystopias are common and widespread. These
visions of futuristic worlds produced some of the most famous novels,
movies, comics and music of our time. Here you can find out more about
them.
Dystopian thought
End
of 19th century brought the rise of Dystopian thought. Numerous
philosophers and authors imagined the dark visions of the future where
totalitarian rulers governed the life of ordinary citizens. Their works
explored many themes of dystopian societies -
repressive social control systems, government coercion of citizens,
influence of technology on human mind, coping mechanisms, individuality,
freedom of life and speech, censorship, sexual repression, class
distinctions, artificial life and human interaction with the nature (and
often the consequences of its destruction).
Some of the earliest and influential works of dystopian fiction can be contributed to the authorsH.G. Wells (Time Machine), Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-Four).
Their works paved the way to the numerous other authors, who event
today manage to envision some new aspect of life in dystopian societies.
In addition to literature, dystopian themes found its life in many
other types of mediums, such as comic books (most notably V for Vendeta,
Transmetropoliten, Y: The Last Man and Akira), music, video games
(Fallout, Deus Ex and BioShock ) television series (The Prisoner, Dark
Angel, Doctor Who and Twilight Zone) and movies (Metropolis,Blade Runner, A Clockwork Orange and Matrix).
No comments:
Post a Comment