A dystopia is a fictional world or society where people live in misery, are treated as less than human, and experience fear. It is a place, sometimes ruled by a government, where life is unpleasant or harmful, often because of strict control or serious harm to the environment. Dystopia is the opposite of utopia, a term created by Thomas More in 1516 to describe a perfect society. Both ideas are common in stories. Dystopia is also called cacotopia or anti-utopia.

Dystopias are often shown through fear, oppressive governments, environmental destruction, or other signs of society’s major decline. Common themes in dystopian stories include governments controlling people using lies and strict rules, limiting free speech or thinking, pushing people to chase impossible goals, losing personal identity, and forcing everyone to act the same. While similar, dystopian stories are different from stories about the world after a disaster. A bad society is not always a dystopia. Dystopian settings appear in many types of fiction and are used to highlight issues like society, the environment, politics, economics, religion, psychology, ethics, science, or technology. Some writers use the term to describe real societies, such as those ruled by oppressive governments or in severe decline. Dystopias often use extreme examples to criticize current trends, rules, or systems.

Etymology

The word "Dustopia," the original spelling of "dystopia," first appeared in a book titled Utopia: or Apollo's Golden Days by Lewis Henry Younge in 1747. Later, in 1868, John Stuart Mill used the term "dystopia" in a speech to the British Parliament. He created the word by adding the Greek prefix "dys" (meaning "bad") to "topia" (meaning "place"). Mill changed the original "u" in "utopia" to the prefix "eu" (meaning "good") instead of "ou" (meaning "not"). He used "dystopia" to criticize the British government's policies in Ireland, saying, "It is too kind to call them Utopians. They should be called dys-topians or caco-topians. What is called Utopian is too good to be real, but what they support is too bad to be real."

Before "dystopia" was first recorded, the term "cacotopia" (or "kakotopia") was proposed in 1818 by Jeremy Bentham. He used it as a contrast to "utopia" (a place with the best government) by suggesting "cacotopia" (a place with the worst government). Though "dystopia" became more widely used, "cacotopia" is sometimes used today. For example, author Anthony Burgess, who wrote A Clockwork Orange in 1962, said "cacotopia" better described the harsh world in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four because it "sounds worse than dystopia."

Theory

Some experts, like Gregory Claeys and Lyman Tower Sargent, explain differences between common terms used to describe dystopias. They say literary dystopias are imagined societies that are much worse than the society where the author lives. Some of these are called anti-utopias, which criticize efforts to create perfect societies. In a detailed book titled Dystopia: A Natural History, Claeys looks at how the idea of dystopias has developed over time. He begins with early reactions to the French Revolution and highlights how dystopias often focus on ideas against group living. Other themes, such as the risks of science and technology, social inequality, corporate control, and nuclear war, are also discussed. The book also uses a psychological approach, linking fear to harsh forms of rule and exploring how group behavior helps explain the connection between utopias and dystopias. Andrew Norton-Schwartzbard pointed out that Dante’s Inferno, written many centuries before the word "dystopia" was used, includes many features of the dystopia genre, even though it is set in a religious world rather than a future one. Similarly, Vicente Angeloti noted that George Orwell’s famous image of "a boot stamping on a human face—forever" could describe life in Dante’s Hell. Likewise, Dante’s line "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" could fit at the entrance to Orwell’s "Ministry of Love" and its feared "Room 101."

Society

Dystopias often show real problems in society today and imagine the worst possible outcomes as warnings about the need for change. These stories always reflect the worries and fears of the time when they were created. Because of this, they are useful for studying society. In dystopias, people may live without freedom, be watched all the time, or fear the outside world. In the film What Happened to Monday, the main characters (seven identical sisters) take risks by leaving their home to escape a rule that allows only one child per family in a futuristic society.

In a 1967 study, Frank Kermode wrote that when religious predictions failed, society began to view the future differently. Christopher Schmidt pointed out that while the world faces problems for future generations, people often ignore these issues by watching them as entertainment.

In the 2010s, many young adult books and popular movies with dystopian themes became widely read and seen. Some people say it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. A writer named Mark Fisher used this idea to explain "capitalist realism," which means many people believe capitalism is the only possible system and cannot imagine a better future. He wrote about this in his book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? and used the movie Children of Men (based on a novel by P. D. James) to show how the future can seem to disappear slowly. An actor named Theo James, who appeared in Divergent (based on a novel by Veronica Roth), said young people are especially interested in these stories because they are growing up in a world where problems like climate change are obvious. These issues make people think about the future and how the Earth will change.

Stories that imagine different versions of history, such as ones where Nazi Germany won World War II, can be considered dystopias. Other alternative history stories also show repressive worlds. For example, the 2004 film C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America and the book Underground Airlines by Ben Winters imagine a world where slavery continues today, with technology used to control enslaved people. Another example is Pavane by Keith Roberts, which describes a 20th-century Britain ruled by a strict religious government that punishes people who disagree with it.

Common themes

In When the Sleeper Wakes, H. G. Wells showed the ruling class as focused on pleasure and lacking depth. George Orwell compared Wells's world to the one in Jack London's The Iron Heel, where rulers are cruel and extreme in their devotion, a situation Orwell thought more likely to happen.

Fictional utopias (perfect worlds) are based on political ideas that aim to help people and create good outcomes. Fictional dystopias, though sometimes inspired by utopian ideas, lead to bad results because of a serious problem.

Dystopias often show rulers or governments that are harsh, unkind, or control everything with strict rules. These governments may be run by dictators or fascist groups. In some stories, characters or groups fight against these systems to change society, like in Alan Moore's V for Vendetta.

Examples of dystopian stories include We, Parable of the Sower, Darkness at Noon, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, The Handmaid's Tale, The Hunger Games, Divergent, Fahrenheit 451, and films like Metropolis, Brazil (1985), Battle Royale, Soylent Green, The Purge: Election Year, Logan's Run, and The Running Man (1987). An earlier example is Jules Verne's The Begum's Millions, which describes Stahlstadt, a city focused on making weapons, ruled by a strict and cruel leader named Prof. Schultze.

Dystopian societies have different economic systems, often tied to the story's theme of oppression. Some stories compare planned economies (where the government controls production) to free market economies (where businesses decide what to make), as seen in Ayn Rand's Anthem and Henry Kuttner's short story "The Iron Standard." Another example is the 1975 film Rollerball.

In some dystopias, like Nineteen Eighty-Four, people trade in secret markets for hard-to-find goods, or the government controls all economic activity. In Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano, a powerful central government provides plenty of material goods but gives people meaningless jobs. In Tanith Lee's Don't Bite the Sun, people have everything they need but live in a society focused on pleasure, leading one character to search for deeper meaning. Even when the economy is not the main issue, like in Brave New World, the government still controls the economy.

Some stories show societies where private companies replace governments, making decisions and setting policies. This is seen in books like Jennifer Government and Oryx and Crake, and films like Alien, Avatar, RoboCop, Idiocracy, and WALL-E. This is common in the cyberpunk genre, as in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (and the film Blade Runner).

Dystopian stories often show a big difference between the wealthy ruling class and the poor working class. In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, people are born into different classes with different abilities, and lower classes are conditioned to accept their roles. Other societies, like those in Nineteen Eighty-Four, have a clear hierarchy: the powerful Inner Party, the middle-class Outer Party, and the working-class majority.

In the film Elysium, most people on Earth live in poverty, with little healthcare and harsh treatment, while the wealthy live in space with advanced technology. In H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, the wealthy live on the surface in a garden-like area, while workers live underground. Over time, the roles reverse, with the rich becoming weak and the workers becoming powerful.

Some dystopias, like Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, eliminate families and prevent them from forming again. In Brave New World, children are made in labs, and the words "mother" and "father" are considered bad. In We, the state opposes motherhood, as shown when a pregnant woman rebels.

Religious groups may be either oppressed or the ones causing harm in dystopias. In Robert Hugh Benson's Lord of the World, a small group of Catholics is the only one resisting a world ruled by Marxists and Freemasons. In Brave New World, religious symbols are replaced with symbols of a car company. In C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength, a group mocks religion and forces people to destroy Christian symbols. In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, a future United States is ruled by a religious government.

In Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, people are only known by numbers and can only leave their homes for one hour twice a week. This is also seen in the film THX 1138. In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, society forces everyone to be equal, even if it means stopping people from being smart or successful. In Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, characters are shown acting the same way, with no individuality.

Pop Culture

For more information, visit the List of dystopian literature, the List of dystopian films, and the List of dystopian TV programs.