Dystopia

About: Dystopia is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2146 publications have been published within this topic receiving 15163 citations. The topic is also known as: cacotopia.

An Analysis of the Utopia Question in Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

Abstract: This paper explores the theme of utopia and dystopia in Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”. The city of Omelas as a place, creates multiple spaces in accordance with the individuals and their perceptions about their surroundings. While the joyous citizens of Omelas perceive the city as a utopia, the child who ‘needs to’ suffer for their constructed system of stability, perceives the world that surrounds her/him as a dystopia. Le Guin, by giving the narrator a dominant power to include the readers into the storyline, also establishes the readers of the story as the individual beings that exist in the textual space of the narration. After giving the descriptions about the city of Omelas which is built on the duality of utopia and dystopia, Le Guin contributes a different kind of setting to the story, a place outside of Omelas, which cannot even be described verbally. My aim in this paper is to analyse the double-sided nature of the city of Omelas, and the spatial significance that Omelas, as an entity creates.

Biotech nightmare: science fiction dystopian visions of human genetic engineering and cloning with special reference to the boys from brazil and beggars in spain

Abstract: This article explores the dystopian visions of human genetic engineering and cloning as expressed in science fiction with special reference to Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil (1976) and Nancy Kress’s Beggars in Spain (1993). The Boys from Brazil presents the deep-seated fears associated with reproductive cloning. It creates a panic over human cloning by portraying its potential to immortalize an evil person like Hitler. Nancy Kress portrays the devastating social and political consequences emerging from genetic enhancement. It promotes class-conflicts and endangers democracy. Since the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), science fiction has always projected profoundly disturbing pictures of the unforeseen consequences of genetic engineering and cloning in humans. It exhibits deep anxieties about these technologies and offers nightmare scenarios. Genetic manipulation mutates human genome and leads to directing human evolution. It has the potential to create a new genetically superior posthuman species that promotes social and political inequality. Human cloning devalues the dignity and mysteries of human sexual reproduction. This technology can be misused for the creation of replicas of evil persons. Therefore, science fiction projects bleak pictures of the fate of humanity at the hands of mad scientists who ‘play God’. In a nutshell, these technological dystopias are deeply skeptical about genetic technologies. They address the darker aspects of these technologies which design evolution and endanger humanity as a whole.

Skinner's utopia: bidirectional influences

Abstract: Walden Two (Skinner, 194811976) is a utopian novel that gave popular form to the principles presented in The Behavior of Organisms (Skinner, 1938). The novel has received much commentary, analysis, and criticism (e.g., Freedman, 1972; Weigel, 1977; "Newest Utopia," 1948). Skinner stated that, "I wrote the book quite seriously. It is not a dystopia. I thought such a community was possible at the time I wrote the book, and I think so now" (Evans, 1968, p. 46). Fishman (1991) and Kinkade (1973) chronicle the actual implementation of the ideas presented in Walden Two. Skinner (1979) acknowledged the influence of the original WaMen (Thoreau, 185411968), H e also stated that in writing Walden Two he "adopted a standard utopian strategy . . ." (Skinner. 1979. D. 296). . . Skinner was queried by the author regarding the extent to which he had been influenced by the original Utopia (More, 151611965) during the production of his novel. His typically candid response was that, whde he had not read Utopia at that time, he had read New Atlantis (Bacon, 161711952), He assumed that Bacon had read More and concluded that he had been influenced indirectly by More via Bacon (B. F. Skinner, personal communication, 1974). Utopian authors describe their own conceptions of perfect societies. However, the conceptions vary greatly; More relied on political control while Skinner employed behavioral engineering. Both the means and the ends are very different for these two authors. When considering such works in the context of the history of ideas it is important to explore the antecedent conditions associated with their production. It seems Skinner was successful in creating a classic of utopian literature without the direct influence of the work that named the genre.

Owning Gilead: franchising feminism through Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments

Abstract: Margaret Atwood’s most famous dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), is one of those stories whose message seems to carry across the ages. The hyperreal patriarchy-as-terror-regime that The H...

Tenses of Imagination: Raymond Williams on Science Fiction, Utopia and Dystopia [Book Review]

Abstract: Review(s) of: Tenses of Imagination: Raymond Williams on Science Fiction, Utopia and Dystopia, by Milner, Andrew (ed.), Rahaline Utopian Studies Series, Peter Lang, Oxford, 2010, 9783039118267, x+243pp., 30.00.