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Dystopian Novels

Decent Essays

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a dystopia is defined as “an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives” or an “anti-utopia”. The word “utopia” was first coined by Plato and later used by Sir Thomas More in 1516 in his book Utopia. The book features a fictional island named Utopia and all its customs. This book prompted and generated more innovative genres, including that of dystopian novels. Dystopian novels, like any other well-written novel, contain a strongly developed protagonist and a mysterious, controlling antagonist. Often, the author labels the government or leader of the corrupt society as the antagonist. The authors have a propensity to use the ignored social injustices in modern society and …show more content…

Winston and Julia were lucky; they kept their lives, just not their beliefs. In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, society has become dehumanized and focuses solely on human pleasure and stability with the help of science. A new technique called the Bokanovsky process creates children within test tubes and conditions them to fill a certain role within the community. This process removes the need for sex as means of reproduction, and it becomes purely recreational. Bernard Marx is the central character for most of the novel. The other characters in the book consider his looks and actions strange and not uniform. He lusts for a young woman named Lenina. When Lenina finally agrees to go on a date with Bernard, he takes her to see the Reservation. The Reservation sounds primitive, but in reality, the humans living on the Reservation behave and survive like people in today’s society. During their visit, Lenina and Bernard find a woman and a young boy living on the reservation that originated in the city but were left behind in a catastrophic accident. Bernard brings the two back, but adjusting to modern society proves to be a difficult task. The woman constantly drugs herself and stays in a dream-like reality. The son, who had previously never been exposed to the new “city-life,” refuses to conform. Bernard uses his new popularity to condemn the caste system publicly. After a

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