Understanding Dystopia: Definition and Characteristics

What is Dystopia?

I am sure that many of you have encountered this word at some point in your lives. Sometimes in the company of friends, sometimes at school, sometimes through popular culture, you have been exposed to this word a lot. So, what is dystopia? Some of you will answer this question as the opposite of utopia or a depiction of a bad future. To make a broad definition, “Dystopia” is a depiction of an unrealizable, undesirable, feared future and generally a totalitarian world. Although it is the opposite of utopia, it presents an improbable world narrative just like it. The concept of dystopia was first used by John Stuart Mill. Dystopia can also be considered as a sub-genre of science fiction, as famous dystopias are always set in the distant future.

What Kind of World is Dystopia?

When we look at famous dystopian works, we mostly see an oppressive state or state. These states, which are very authoritarian and tyrannical, restrict all kinds of rights of people and make life miserable for them. Of course, this is from our reader’s point of view. The characters in the novel either take this system for granted or become slaves to it. For the people, it is not a problem that the state is authoritarian. Being exposed to different propaganda, living like a robot, and losing their humanity is ordinary for them. If they are alive, the rest is nothing. At this point, the main character of the work is the one who questions this system and is disturbed by it. He is aware that something is wrong. Throughout the work, they find comrades like themselves and organize, criticize this system, and discuss what they can do.

Those who read it for the first time continue with excitement, but such excitement is futile because the ending is clear from the beginning. No dystopia ends well, friends! In fact, many science fiction classics don’t end well, either they have a bad ending or the author leaves it open-ended. So you don’t have to worry about spoilers. Mostly the plot and the message are the same. What is different are the characters and the universe. In some, technology has advanced too much, in some, governments are too oppressive, in some, the youth of the age are criticized. At the end of the day, the main character fails, fails, or dies. Sometimes the author leaves us with an ambiguous ending. However, naïve readers believe that the characters will achieve something and that we will at least get a good or bad ending. Unfortunately, dystopias are not like other literary works. The character cannot change the system, but is either punished or joins it. The only work I know of that contradicts this is the book “Kallokain”. Instead of opposing the system, the main character works for it from the very beginning. Yet even in this work, the ending is ambiguous.

Famous Examples

There are four best-known dystopias. They are also known as the Dark Quartet:

• We
• Brave New World
• Fahrenheit 451
• 1984

Beyond these, works such as Kallocain, A Clockwork Orange, The Iron Heel, Lord of the Flies, and Make Room! Make Room! can also be mentioned. It would not be wrong to say that 1984 is the most famous among them. We holds the distinction of being the first written dystopia, while Brave New World has long been debated—does it depict a dystopia, or is it, in some twisted sense, a utopia?

In Kallocain and A Clockwork Orange, the protagonists are far from the conventional heroes we expect; instead, they are deeply flawed, even villainous figures. Fahrenheit 451 bids us farewell with an uncertain future—will Montag succeed in his purpose? We shall never truly know.

What became of Bernard Marx in Brave New World? Did he perish in exile? Did he abandon questioning altogether? And Winston and Julia—what was their ultimate fate? Is the world of 1984 truly divided into just three superstates? Such unanswered questions linger in our minds, visiting us from time to time, and haunting our thoughts when we least expect them.

Let’s Get to the Point

Each of the books I mentioned above deserves an article of its own—two of them I have already written about. Some have been adapted into films, which you can watch online. These works also feature fascinating and unique characters, each with their own distinctive presence. I hope to delve into all of them one day.

I have given you a brief yet clear explanation of what dystopia is. See you in the next articles!

A Chilling Book and Masterpiece: Fahrenheit 451