Utopia/Dystopia: 1984

UTOPIA: In 1516 Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia--a fictional/political satire that described a perfect or ideal setting (in his case a perfect island in the Atlantic--yep, he was hinting at the "new world"). The word Utopia literally means "no place". It was meant to satirize and comment on More's own English society, but our forefathers--those dead white guys who established our government were familiar with it. Religions often refer to an utopian state (usually achieved by death or crossing over into heaven) to satisfy the masses. Hope is an excellent human trait.

The book Utopia by Sir Thomas More is divided into two parts: a dialogue through correspondence (that's like texting a friend back and forth on one topic) about all the horrible things happening in Europe, and in the second part of the book, a discourse with protagonist Raphael Hythlodaeus--a fictional traveler who visits the fictional island of Utopia.

Utopia, though, might not be exactly that for us. Sir Thomas More says this perfect world would have households that employed slaves, that wives would be subservient to their husbands and never complain, there would be no personal belongings--as everything is shared, travel is allowed only by passport, and there is a welfare state (with free medical care), euthanasia would be permissible, priests would be able to marry, divorce would be allowed, but pre-marital sex would be punished. There is, in Thomas More's Utopia, no privacy.

Let all that sink in.

In the next 10 minutes (working with your partners) create a perfect world or society. Give your fictional world a name. Feel free to draw your world on the paper provided. Be prepared to share your "vision" of a perfect world/place with the class.

Questions to consider:

• What would make our world better? 
• Who would get to live in it? 
• Who would govern it? 
• How would these improvements be possible? 
• What has to happen to make these changes? 
• What resources would be needed? 
• How would these resources be protected or replicated? 
• How would our beliefs or minds need to change to allow this better world to occur? 
• How would this world be sustained?
• How would people have to behave?
• What would people have to believe?
• How would this world answer the problems of poverty, freedom, equality, education, economic class, death, disease, health or diet, crime, invasion, wars, or attacks from outsiders, etc.?

Let's go get 1984 by George Orwell from our library. Itself a good utopian idea. Free books and education for everyone. Who knew!

Chapter One: Reading along. 1984, Audio File #1 We'll stop at about 11 minutes in to change our direction and continue our discussion/writing prep.

A darker lens: The Dystopia

Roderick Vincent: "In most cases, the dystopian genre explores a fictional future, tapping into present fears about the path society currently travels.  The art is in imagery of the not yet invented but easily imagined. It’s not a surprise the dystopian genre is often lumped together with science fiction where technology plays a crucial role. Robotics, nanotechnology, advanced artificial intelligence, cloning, and all other derivatives of advanced, imaginable technology are often used as colors on the canvas painted into a reader’s mind. In George Orwell’s 1984, the all-seeing Big Brother uses the telescreen. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, reproductive factories of the future are used to produce a limited number of citizens preordained to a caste-world void of pain.

Task Pre-writing #1. As you’re writing dystopian fiction, think about how to take current technologies and extrapolate. When you have a vision of what that might look like, ask yourself how it changes the society that does not yet exist. Other dystopian novels avoid the technological aspect, but drive one forward with a central theme (book burning with Fahrenheit 451, ultraviolence with A Clockwork Orange, and the cycle of revolution to despotism in Animal Farm).

2. Discover what the central theme is and then explore it.

3. The narrative pushes internal events to an extreme. Drive the plot forward so that at the climax, there is a big sense of doom. How are the characters taking us there? In dystopian, a lot of times resolution of the central conflict comes in death (The Road, 1984), but before that a force exists inside the story driving the reader towards the second crucial element:

4. The inherent message within closely associated with a burning fire inside the author’s stomach. In Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, corporate domination led by biotech companies pushing the envelope of manufactured microorganisms (the theme) causes the inevitable collapse of mankind. The message: man is too smart for his own good; unfettered technological advancement without ethical consideration will have disastrous consequences. In The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, reality TV is pushed to a violent extreme (the theme). The message: gladiator games appealing to the masses distract from the true nature of the world. The Surveillance State in George Orwell’s 1984 is all pervasive (the theme). History is rewritten to suite Big Brother’s needs, and the nation is in a perpetual state of war (any of that sound familiar). The whole book is one big message warning us about the nature of totalitarianism.

5. Dystopia seeks to uncover truth in the morass of the present by projecting the problems of today into the future and amplifying them. When the author is successful at doing this, the writing immediately becomes more relevant.

6. When writing in a dystopian genre where the future usually isn’t so bright, one can draw on horrific examples of the past for macabre imagery. Keep in mind, almost all dystopian fiction uses stark, depressing imagery within the prose. What is crucial is to create something unique that will stick in reader’s minds.

Much more based in the reality we know and understand, dystopia magnetizes a reader’s sense of fatalism when we speak of hopelessly deadlocked politics and looming social and economic problems we all see habitually. The battlefield spreads itself wide and far in dystopian novels, where the imagination can dive into futuristic minefields. Considering the current political landscape and where we seem to be headed, a resurgence of the adult dystopian theme is inevitable (young adult seems to be already saturated and lacks a certain tie to the present in most cases).

7. The key to writing great dystopian fiction is to entrench yourself in current affairs. Does it piss you off? If so, then the fire in the belly will help you create great prose. Can you transfer it to paper? After each passing day, the narrative lie becomes the inkling of truth. How do you see the world differently and how can you express that through your characters without writing a diatribe on your beliefs? Therein lies the art of dystopian fiction."

How to Write a Dystopian Story/Novel

1984, Audio File #1
Audio file #2 & #3 can be found on Youtube.