Utopia and Dystopia

early examples of utopia

• Golden Age myths

• Plato’s The Republic

• Biblical utopian images: Garden of Eden, Kingdom of God

• fairy tales

• Ovid’s Metamorphoses (past)

• Virgil’s Eclogue (future)

the origins of “utopia”

• 16th century: expansion of geographical horizon

  • discovery of the Other

• utopian thought: tendency to think in alternatives

• utopia is innate to man - wishing nature of man = fundamental aspect of being human, to measure life “as it is” by a life “as it should be”

utopianism

• communities (utopian practice)

• ideologies (social theory)

• literary representations

• utopian societies (real/ fictional)

  • monasticism

  • hippies, eco-villages

  • communism? nazism?

  • Robert Owen: New Harmony (Indiana)

• functions like a microscope:

  • first isolating then magnifying aspects of existing

  • non-utopian societies allegedly needing drastic improvements

  • it enables us to see more clearly their political, economic, cultural and psychological mainstreams

• utopian imagination’s capacity for terror

• utopia as a positive informing model, rather than an absolute restrictive and impossible one → utopia need not be fully realized to remain valid or valuable

utopia as a literary genre

• journey - guided tour

  • nonexistent place or time

  • device of displacement → isolation

• dynamic by essence

  • yet as a construction often static model as frozen image

• focuses on everyday life as well as economic, political and social questions

• fantasy: alternative solutions to reality (Plato on fiction)

  • speculative discourse on a non-existent social organization

• perfectibility is often an issue, but utopia does not generally portray the perfect society

• human centered (everyday life)

  • no chance or external (divine) forces exist in a utopia

  • technology vs. magic?

dystopia

• 20th century - paralysis of utopian imagination → disillusionment

• rejection of utopiansim: anti-utopia

• parasitical to utopia (copy, negative response)

• utopia carries the function of anti-utopia as well - presenting the writer’s world negatively as an anti-utopia, to which utopia is the constructive positive response

• a much younger concept than utopia

  • antique predecessors & Swift’s 19th century critique of enlightenemnt

  • overwhelming - 20th century totalitarianism → dystopia meets science fiction

• intentionality? → utopias are created, dystopias just happen?

• mythical prehistory of dystopias: hell, monstrous domains

  • evil spaces and times (Deluge, Apocalypse)

• Heaven: archetype for Christian idealism (fuelling utopia)

• Hell: imaginary conterpart of malevolance

• dystopic times: pogroms, wars, witch-hunts, martial law, mob violence

semantic elements of dystopia

• repression of emotions and imagination

• sublimination of individuality

• non-conformist revolt group

• alienated protagonist

• often: love relationship

• A society characterized by despotism, fear, alienation, paranoia, and scapegoating. It typically seeks to enslave parts of its population and keep the rest in a state of fear to maintain order.

phases of dystopian literature

• prehistory of dystopias

  • interpretation (Plato, More)

  • Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

    • Houyhnhnms - the paradox of the Enlightenments: the rule of reason at its extreme creates an inhuman world

  • wells: described utopian societies that later generations usually interpret as dystopian

• first phase: totalitarian dystopia

  • Zamyatin and Orwell

  • the individual in a collectivist dystopia: virtually no influence on the political sphere, while politics permeates even the most intimate and personal aspects of life

  • dystopias implicitly support the autonomy of the individual

  • Orwell’s 1984

    • ur-text for the dystopian genre

    • human freedom presented through its absence - the inhabitants of Oceania are deprived of virtually all libertes, even the liberty of free-thought

    • phrases and characters created by Orwell have become staples of political discussion

    • foreseeing?

  • the modern dilemma of dystopian texts: the conflict between the pursuit of pleasure/happiness and the desire for freedom

  • a dystopia for the many may be a utopia for the ruling few

• cold war dystopia

  • the focus remains, though strong feminist influence

  • the primary enemy of the individual’s autonomy is the political power of the state

  • Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange

    • esentially the Orwellian totalitarian state, but extended to the critique of postmodern consumer societies

  • metapolitical shift: criticism of neolibertism and postmodern societies, corporations, nuclear war, overpopulation

• Margaret Atwood

  • demonstrates how dystopia changes

  • The Handmaid’s Tale - essentially Orwellian, with a feminine perspectives (The Testaments - detailed political structure of Gilead)

• 21st century

  • increasing popularity (films and video games)

  • climate emergency, technology, post-apocalypse

  • corporatic dystopia

    • David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas

    • Dave Eggers’s The Circle

  • dystopia in popular culture

    • Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy

• while dystopia is historically the shadow or alter ego of utopia, in an intellectual climate of the present, utopia exists in the shadow of dystopia