Dystopian Society Research Articles

Climate Change as Apocalypse

The last couple of decades have revealed numerous consequences related to pollution and the impact of climate change. Natural disasters seem to have become part of our daily landscape; less than two years ago the whole continent of Australia was consumed by devastating forest fires, the Western part of the United States also experienced one of its worst wildfires in almost a century, while the ice cap in the North pole is melting and the permafrost of the Canadian and Russian tundra is disappearing. How can we deny the impacts of climate change as all of these catastrophes are unfolding before our very eyes? This conscious awareness of our planet’s rapid deterioration has generated a number of movies and fictional novels about the coming apocalypse, dystopian society and the end of the world. Demonstrating that there is a growing sentiment of worry and anxiety for the future of the planet and of humankind. In this article I propose to examine the anxieties surrounding the impact of climate change and its potential connection the apocalyptic literature.

Anomalous Forms in Computer Music

Anomalous Forms in Computer Music

Atwood's Men Meet the Screen

Margaret Atwood’s famous work, The Handmaid’s Tale, offers innovative and intriguing perspectives on gender and gender roles, as they are dramatized and problematized in the context of a dystopian society that in many ways is a projection of our own. Particularly interesting in the novel are the roles on men, represented by the principal male characters: the Commander, Nick, and Luke. As Atwood employs these personae to describe at least three different manifestations of masculinity —all with their own conflicts and possibilities—, the first season of the television version of the novel, created by Bruce Miller and resealed in 2017, explores, expands, and exploits various visions of manhood that help understand not only the protagonist’s but also the reader’s/viewer’s world. This paper is an attempt to establish a dialogue of sorts between Atwood’s and Miller’s viewpoints on masculinity through their portrayals of these three characters and their interactions with their protagonist and their context.

REBELLION OF MAIN CHARACTER IN LAUREN DESTEFANO’S WITHER

This study aims to reveal rebellion of main character in Lauren DeStefano’s Wither. The discussion is focused on Rhine’s rebellion which is trigerred by dystopian-life happened in the society. In revealing the rebellion reflected in the novel, Mercuse’s theory of rebellion and Millner’s theory of dystopian-life are applied. The research method applied in this study is descriptive qualitative with intrinsic and extrinsic approaches. Based on the analysis, the writer finds out that among the nine dystopian society characteristics, the writer has found five characteristics that are reflected in Wither, namely the society is an illusion of utopia world; the natural world is being a banished and distrusted world; perception under constant surveillance; fear ot the outside world; and information, independent thought, and freedom are restricted. In addition, the analysis of the main character’s rebellion shows that the rebellion happens as the impact of dystopian society faced by the main character. Rhine’s rebellion is done in four ways – having intention to escape from Linden’s house, refusing to be consummated by her husband, having relationship with Gabriel, and escaping. The reasons of Rhine’s rebellion are wanting to be reunited with her brother and wanting to have freedom. After doing the analysis, the writer finds out that science and technology should be developed for human’s better condition. Science and technology must not be expected beyond God’s power. When science and technology is developed without consideration in terms of humanity, it will result in chaosness.

Modernity, Mass Culture, and Self-Delusion in Nabokov’s Lolita and Martin Amis’ Money

Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) and Martin Amis’ Money (1984) discuss the disadvantages of mass media. Amis uses John Self to reflect the disintegration of the self in the modern, Capitalist society of England in 1980s. Self represents the failure of the postmodern world by portraying a dystopian society. Amis and Nabokov tackle subjects pertaining to money, incest, delusion, and disappointment. Lights are shed on the moral aspect of the characters. The modernity of Amis’ fiction lies in its double deception of its characters; there is the American motif and a character who is not able to resist the magic of such motif. It is about consumerism or how aspects of post modernity and the consumer culture are portrayed. This paper aims to show the impact of mass media on the characters who are self-deluded and indulged in loving money, advertisements, and sex. It also aims at showing duality and corruption in both texts, John Self is bankrupt and wants to commit suicide. Humbert cheats many and is imprisoned and Lolita dies. Lolita becomes the victim of incest. It is an attempt to urge human beings to refuse cultural divisions and encourage human spirituality instead of Materialistic point of view.

The Hunger, Desire, and Educational Implications of Dystopian Society in The Hunger Games

The Hunger, Desire, and Educational Implications of Dystopian Society in The Hunger Games

The Clash between the Utopian World of the Witches and the Dystopian Society of Humankind in “The Witch” and “Macbeth”

The Clash between the Utopian World of the Witches and the Dystopian Society of Humankind in “The Witch” and “Macbeth”

Dystopian Societies and Technological Threats to Humankind as Recontextualizations of the Myth of Cosmic Evil

Dystopian Societies and Technological Threats to Humankind as Recontextualizations of the Myth of Cosmic Evil

The anti-authoritarian role of dystopias: reflections on Érico Veríssimo’s novel Incident in Antares

O objetivo do presente trabalho consiste em analisar a partir do romance Incidente em Antares de Érico Veríssimo a relevância das distopias na crítica ao autoritarismo. Após apresentarmos as principais características do pensamento utópico e da distopia enquanto gênero literário, investigamos de que maneira Veríssimo denunciou através de sua sociedade distópica as mais profundas contradições de um país historicamente assolado por golpes de Estado e ditaduras militares. O trabalho almeja demonstrar, por fim, a atualidade da crítica de Veríssimo frente à permanência do pensamento autoritário, das desigualdades sociais e das violações aos direitos humanos no Brasil.

Beyond the Ideological Siege: A Critical Reading of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

The current paper is set to investigate the clash of ideologies and culturesas encoded in the American novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. This qualitative study aims at analysing the narrative text, from Marxist perspective and Foucault’s views on power and knowledge. It is hypothesized that knowledge and anti-knowledge reshape the clash of cultures in human communities. The objectives of this research paper are to investigate the clash of ideologies or, more specifically, the clash of epistemic systems in a dystopian society, as well as to unmask the games played by the political powers to annihilate human awareness and identity to convince the community to practice the culture of bourgeoisie. As a mass consumption community, this anti-intellectual ideology results in the sterility of life. One finding of the study is that the cultural shock experience by, Montag, the protagonist enables him to resist and break the ideological siege which is imposed by power. He became the modern hero of the culture who joined the elite or the sophisticated culture experiences by the Book people or the renegade intellectuals who believe in the progress of mankind through the sophisticated philosophy of loving and reading books.

Rousseau in a Post-Apocalyptic Context: Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains and Science Fiction

The present paper discusses Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains (1969), which parodies both “post-apocalyptic” novels in the Cold War era and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theory on civilisation. By analysing this novel in comparison, not only to Rousseau’s On the Origin of Inequality (1755), but also to the works of various science fiction writers in the 1950s and 1960s, the paper aims to examine Carter’s reinterpretation of Rousseau in a post-apocalyptic context. As I will argue, Heroes and Villains criticises Rousseau from a feminist point of view to not only represent the dystopian society as full of inequality and violence, but also to show that human beings, having forgotten the nuclear war as their great “sin” in the past, can no longer create a bright future. Observing the underlying motifs in the novel, the paper will reveal how Carter attempts to portray a world where human history has totally ended, or where people cannot make “history” in spite of the fact that they biologically survived the holocaust. From this perspective, I will clarify the way in which Carter reinterprets Rousseau’s notion of “fallen” civilisation in the new context as a critique of the nuclear issues in the late twentieth century.

From Dystopia to Utopia

Many science fction novels discuss either utopian or dystopian ideas. H.G. Wells’s novel, The Food of the Gods, is unique in that it addresses both. This paper argues that H.G. Wells’ s use of tonal shifts in The Food of the Gods signals a change from a dystopian society to a utopian one. Human refusal to adopt inevitable evolutionary change creates the former, while a superior race’s acceptance of it promises hope for an ever-improving future.

THIS IS HELL NOR AM I OUT OF IT: RAVENHILL’S PLAYS THE EXPERIMENT AND THE CUT

This paper analyses two of Mark Ravenhill’s plays, The Experiment and The Cut, the former dealing with the subjectivity and unreliability of truth, ironically used to justify scientific experiments, and the latter with an unspecified operation, the cut, as allegedly the only way out of a dystopian society. The introductory part offers an overview of the impact of society on one’s personality through the experience of concentration camps as a kind of experiment by V. Frankl, P. Levi and B. Bettelheim. The secret experiments done by the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s, as a continuation of what started in the 1940s, and, although not so well camouflaged by higher purposes, as precursors to modern experiments, were similarly financed by governments and with asimilarly profound toll. The aim is to draw attention to a Ravenhill’s warning of how dangerous the absence of moral values, awareness and responsibility can be, and his belief that there are ethical choices both on stage and in life.

Fincher’s 'Fight Club' as an example of a critical dystopia

This article investigates David Fincher’s film Fight Club as a critical dystopian narrative. The first part of the article provides the definition of critical dystopia as well as it presents characteristic features of the subgenre. It also sets forward the difference between classical and critical dystopias. The following sections are case studies in which different elements of the film in the context of the subgenre are examined. They focus on the construction of a dystopian society and the negative influence of consumerism on the protagonist and therefore on other people. Moreover, this paper attempts to demonstrate how the overall pessimistic tendency of the narrative is realised. Finally, the protagonist’s actions as well as the aftermath of these actions are described and analysed. The final part of the article focuses on the significance of the last scene which introduces a utopian impulse into the narrative.

How Cyborgs Define Themselves: On Ghost in the Shell

This article explores the influence of the interrelated relationship between machine and mankind on human subjectivity and the function of dystopian setting in the Japanese anime feature Ghost in the Shell (1995). The film set in the year of 2029 in Japan, and at that time human can “augmented” their physical body including their brains by engaging cybernetic parts. The heroine Motoko Kusanagi, as a cyborg with perfect physical function, starts to think about how to define herself when she is involved in a series of events concerning cyborgs. The narrative explores the subjectivity of cyborgs and how the intimate relationship with technology influence human self-awareness. The article seeks to explore the relationship between the physical body and human subjectivity and demonstrate the profound effect of the interrelated connection between machine and human on people’s self-cognition. In the use of textual analysis, the article attempts to uncover the meaning behind the identity crisis of Kusanagi in the dystopian society set in this science fiction film (SF film). In the film, although the technology confuses human on defining themselves, Kusanagi proves fully capable of cognizing herself at the end of the film. And the especial use of dystopia setting magnifies the identity crisis and enhance the desire to fathom self-identity.

En/Gendering dystopia: the performance of torture at Guantanamo Bay prison

ABSTRACTIn the post 9–11 era, the war on terrorism hastened the questionable practice of detaining alleged terrorists in confinement sites such as Guantanamo Bay. These mainly Muslim male detainees underwent interrogation by female agents with the intent to inflict suffering to gain covert information. Female agents used torture tactics by exploiting their sexuality, showing gender-specific undergarments, menstrual blood, and sexualized body taunts, all in opposition to detainees Islamic beliefs as interpreted by the Qur’an. This essay explores the role of sexuality and torture as performance strategy arguing that such practices move the U.S. closer to a dystopian society.

A Glimpse of Hope at the End of the Dystopian Century: The Utopian Dimension of Critical Dystopias

The 20th century demonstrated that the realization of utopian plans often fosters totalitarianism. Fantastic, speculative literature mirrored this by turning from utopia to dystopia. In the hopeful 1970s, critical utopian texts revived the hope for a better world in a more complex fashion that replaced perfectionism with ambiguity and self-reflection. But neo-liberalism prevailed and other utopian hopes declined again. But a new kind of utopian text emerged in the 1980s and 1990s: the critical dystopia. Novels like Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Gold Coast (1988), Marge Piercy’s He, She and It (1991), and Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993) depict horrible capitalist dystopian societies that almost crush the emancipatory hopes of resistance groups. But their utopian desire is not completely futile. This glimpse of hope also characterizes ambiguously utopian science fiction texts of the new millennium, e.g. Chris Carlsson’s After the Deluge (2004), Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (2008), and Margaret Killjoy’s A Country of Ghosts (2014).

Enjoyment After the End of Times: The Role of “Enjoyment” in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale

Utopia and dystopia are two interconnected genres. With the vision of a utopian future comes a manifesto for political action or belief, and so the opponents of that vision will find it a dystopia (Atwood 2007, n.p.; Clute and Nicholls 1993, 680). Literary dystopias can play out current societal anxieties and have evolved into sets of “what if?” scenario’s that show us our possible futures. The basics of these novels are the basics of our lives; what do people eat, what about money, what do they do? (Atwood 2007, n.p.). Enjoyment is an often overlooked but telling element to these world-formations. Who is allowed to enjoy what, under which circumstances, and in exchange for what? Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is a dystopian novel in which the 'old' society is overturned by the new puritan society of Gilead. Women are no longer allowed to have possessions and those that are still fertile become subservient to high-ranking men. In this process, women become reified, handed around like commodities. My central theses revolve around the following questions: what role does “enjoyment” play in the commodification of people in the dystopian society of Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale ? What is Atwood's vision of this possible future, what societal structures/what structures of exchange do they represent? Why are these images dystopian? Enjoyment and what is or is not enjoyed are maneuvered expertly into the systems that the novel represents; they are part of the overarching structure, yet not a good thing. How does this paradox come about?

디스토피아 소설에 나타난 유토피아적 충동 : 조지 오웰의 『1984』와 마가렛 앳우드의 『대리모 시녀이야기』

As a critical dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Owell and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood warn us of future dystopian society. Although both Oceania and Gilead are imagined communities, they resemble our modern society in many respects. Citizens in those totalitarian systems can not use language and body at their own disposal. Big Brother-style surveillance system watch an individual’s every moves and regulate their emotion as well. But protagonists in these novels try to write their own story confidentially and have a genuine relation with others. To be a human, their body and sexuality function against a social control and repression. And their desire of narrating stories and forbidden sexuality trigger desperate attempts to restore their lost past and identities through language and body. Although appropriation of language and body is means of totalitarian control of citizen, it could be a route for freedom and liberation from their dystopian reality. Even in dystopian novels, utopian impulse still exists and provokes in readers a determination to prevent nightmare future and to cherish what must not be lost.

E. M. Forster’s ‘The Machine Stops’: humans, technology and dialogue

The article explores E.M. Forster's story The Machine Stops (1909) as an example of dystopian literature and its possible associations with the use of technology and with today's cyber culture. Dystopian societies are often characterized by dehumanization and Forster's novel raises questions about how we live in time and space; and how we establish relationships with the Other and with the world through technology. We suggest that the fear of technology depicted in dystopian literature indicates a fear that machines are mimicking the roles that humans already play in relational encounters. Our relationship with machines frequently suggests a classical "I-it" situation. However, a genuine dialogue is where there is no master and where communication and understanding are achieved through the encounter and through openness to difference and to change. The article examines the ways machines and automata are imagined and become part of lived human existence, in the light of Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception and otherness. The problem seems to be how everyday technological interfaces can change the way we first perceive the world and the possibility that with certain types of mediation there is a loss of connection with the Other. It is argued that understanding dialogical conditions could help turn the relationship with technology into something more humane. Literature such as Forster's is considered as an example of such a dialogical condition, suggesting ways of dealing with human dilemmas by exploring the field of possibilities.