Politics In
When the Sleeper Wakes,
H. G. Wells depicted the governing class as
hedonistic and shallow.
George Orwell contrasted Wells's world to that depicted in Jack London's
The Iron Heel, where the dystopian rulers are brutal and dedicated to the point of fanaticism, which Orwell considered more plausible. The political principles at the root of fictional utopias (or "perfect worlds") are
idealistic in principle and result in positive consequences for the inhabitants; the political principles on which fictional dystopias are based, while often based on utopian ideals, result in negative consequences for inhabitants because of at least one
fatal flaw. Dystopias are often filled with
pessimistic views of the ruling class or a government that is brutal or uncaring and rules with an 'iron fist'. Dystopian governments are sometimes ruled by a
fascist regime or dictators. These dystopian government establishments often have protagonists or groups that lead a "
resistance" to enact change within their society, as seen in
Alan Moore's
V for Vendetta. Dystopian political situations are depicted in novels such as
We,
Parable of the Sower,
Darkness at Noon,
Nineteen Eighty-Four,
Brave New World, ''
The Handmaid's Tale, The Hunger Games, Divergent,
Fahrenheit 451,
and such films as Metropolis, Brazil (1985), Battle Royale, FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions, Soylent Green, The Purge: Election Year, Logan's Run, The Running Man (1987), and Hemet, or the Landlady Don't Drink Tea''. An earlier example is
Jules Verne's ''
The Begum's Millions'' with its depiction of Stahlstadt (Steel City), a vast industrial and mining complex, which is totally devoted to the production of ever more powerful and destructive weapons, and which is ruled by the dictatorial and totally ruthless Prof. Schultze – a
militarist and
racist who dreams of world conquest and as the first step plots the complete destruction of the nearby Ville-France, a utopian model city constructed and maintained with public health as its government's primary concern.
Economics The economic structures of dystopian societies in literature and other media have many variations, as the economy often directly relates to the elements depicted by the writer as the source of the oppression. There are several
archetypes that these societies tend to follow. One theme is the dichotomy of
planned economies versus
free market economies, a conflict which is found in such works as
Ayn Rand's
Anthem and
Henry Kuttner's short story "The Iron Standard". Another example is
Norman Jewison's 1975 film
Rollerball. Some dystopias, such as that of
Nineteen Eighty-Four, feature
black markets with goods that are dangerous and difficult to obtain or the characters may be at the mercy of the state-controlled economy.
Kurt Vonnegut's
Player Piano depicts a dystopia in which the centrally controlled economic system has indeed made material abundance plentiful, but deprived the mass of humanity of meaningful labor; virtually all work is menial and unsatisfying, with only a small number of the group that achieves education being admitted to the elite and its work. In
Tanith Lee's ''
Don't Bite the Sun'', there is no want of any kind – only unabashed consumption and hedonism, leading the protagonist to begin looking for a deeper meaning to existence. Even in dystopias where the economic system is not the source of the society's flaws, as in
Brave New World, the state often controls the economy. A character, reacting with horror to the suggestion of not being part of the social body, cites as a reason that it works for everyone else.'''' Other works feature extensive
privatization and
corporatocracy- both consequences of
capitalism- where privately owned, unaccountable large corporations have replaced the government in setting policy and making decisions. They manipulate, infiltrate, control, bribe, are contracted by, and function as the government. This is seen in the novels
Jennifer Government and
Oryx and Crake and the movies
Alien,
Avatar,
RoboCop,
Visioneers,
Idiocracy,
Soylent Green,
WALL-E and
Rollerball. Corporate republics are common in the
cyberpunk genre, as seen in
Neal Stephenson's
Snow Crash and
Philip K. Dick's
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (as well as the film
Blade Runner, influenced by and based upon Dick's novel).
Class Dystopian fiction frequently draws stark contrasts between the privileges of the ruling class and the dreary existence of the working class. In
Aldous Huxley's 1931 novel
Brave New World, a class system is prenatally determined, with Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. The lower classes have reduced brain function and are specially conditioned to be satisfied with their position in life. Outside of this society, several human settlements exist in the conventional way, but the World Government describes them as 'savages.' In
George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four, the dystopian society features a tiered class structure: the ruling elite, the '
Inner Party,' at the top; the '
Outer Party' below them, functioning as a type of middle class with minor privileges; and the working-class
proletariat at the bottom of the hierarchy, with few rights, yet making up the vast majority of the population. In the film
Elysium, the majority of Earth's surface population lives in poverty, with little access to health care, and is subjected to worker exploitation and
police brutality. Meanwhile, the wealthy live above Earth in luxury, with access to technologies that cure all diseases, reverse aging, and regenerate body parts. Written a century earlier, the future society depicted in
H. G. Wells'
The Time Machine had started in a similar way to
Elysium – with workers consigned to living and working in underground tunnels while the wealthy live on a surface transformed into a beautiful garden. However, over a long period, the roles were eventually reversed—the rich degenerated and became decadent 'livestock,' regularly caught and eaten by the underground cannibal Morlocks.
Family Some fictional dystopias, such as
Brave New World and
Fahrenheit 451, have eradicated the family and prevented it from re-establishing itself as a social institution. In
Brave New World, where children are artificially reproduced, the concepts of "mother" and "father" are considered
obscene. In some novels, such as
We, the state is hostile to motherhood, as a pregnant woman from One State rebels.
Religion In dystopias, religious groups may play the role of oppressed or oppressor. One of the earliest examples is
Robert Hugh Benson's
Lord of the World, about a futuristic world where
Marxists and
Freemasons led by the
Antichrist have taken over the world and the only remaining source of dissent is a tiny and persecuted
Catholic minority. In
Brave New World, the establishment of the state involved lopping off the tops of all crosses (symbols of Christianity) to make them 'T's (symbols of
Henry Ford's Model T). In
C. S. Lewis's
That Hideous Strength, the leaders of the fictional National Institute of Coordinated Experiments—an academic and governmental joint venture promoting an anti-traditionalist social agenda—are contemptuous of religion and require initiates to desecrate Christian symbols.
Margaret Atwood's novel ''
The Handmaid's Tale'' is set in a future United States under a Christian-based theocratic regime.
Identity In the Russian novel
We by
Yevgeny Zamyatin, first published in 1921, people are permitted to live out of public view twice a week for one hour and are referred to only by numbers instead of names. The latter feature also appears in the film
THX 1138. In some dystopian works, such as
Kurt Vonnegut's
Harrison Bergeron, society forces individuals to conform to radical
egalitarian social norms that discourage or suppress accomplishment, even competence, as forms of inequality. Complete conformity and suppression of individuality (to the point of acting in unison) are also depicted in
Madeleine L'Engle's
A Wrinkle in Time.
Violence Violence is prevalent in many dystopias, often in the form of war, but also in urban crimes led by (predominantly teenage)
gangs (e.g.,
A Clockwork Orange), or rampant crime met with
blood sports (e.g.
Battle Royale,
The Running Man,
The Hunger Games,
Divergent, and
The Purge). It is also explained in
Suzanne Berne's essay "Ground Zero", where she explains her experience of the aftermath of 11 September 2001.
Nature Fictional dystopias are commonly urban and frequently isolate their characters from all contact with the natural world. Sometimes they require their characters to avoid nature, as when
walks are regarded as dangerously
anti-social in Ray Bradbury's
Fahrenheit 451, as well as in his short story "
The Pedestrian". In
That Hideous Strength, science coordinated by the government is directed toward the control of nature and the elimination of natural human instincts. In
Brave New World, the lower class is conditioned to be afraid of nature but encouraged to visit the countryside and consume transport and games to promote economic activity. Lois Lowry's "
The Giver" shows a society where technology and the desire to create a utopia have led humanity to enforce climate control on the environment, as well as to eliminate many undomesticated species and to provide psychological and pharmaceutical repellent against human instincts.
E. M. Forster's "
The Machine Stops" depicts a dramatically altered global environment which forces people to live underground due to an atmospheric contamination. As Angel Galdon-Rodriguez points out, this kind of isolation caused by external toxic hazard is later used by Hugh Howey in his series of dystopias of the
Silo Series. Excessive pollution that destroys nature is common in many dystopian films, such as
The Matrix,
RoboCop,
WALL-E,
April and the Extraordinary World and
Soylent Green, as well as in video games like
Cyberpunk 2077 and
Half-Life 2. A few "green" fictional dystopias do exist, such as in
Michael Carson's short story "The Punishment of Luxury" and
Russell Hoban's
Riddley Walker. The latter is set in the aftermath of nuclear war, "a
post-nuclear holocaust Kent, where technology has been reduced to the level of the
Iron Age".
Science and technology Contrary to the
technologically utopian claims, which view technology as a beneficial addition to all aspects of humanity, technological dystopia concerns itself with and focuses largely (but not always) on the negative effects caused by new technology. '
Technologies reflect and encourage the worst aspects of human nature. Technologies harm our interpersonal communication, relationships, and communities.'''' Communication among family members and friends has decreased due to increased time spent using technology. Virtual space misleadingly heightens the impact of real presence; people resort to technological media for communication.
Technologies reinforce hierarchies: concentrate knowledge and skills; increase surveillance, and erode privacy, widen inequalities of power and wealth, and lead to surrendering control to machines. Douglas Rushkoff, a technological utopian, states in his article that the professional designers "re-mystified" the computer, making it harder to understand. Users had to depend on built-in programs that were incomprehensible to ordinary users.''''' In his article "Prest-o! Change-o!", technological dystopian James Gleick describes the remote control as a classic example of technology that fails to solve the problem it was designed to fix. Gleick quotes historian Edward Tenner, who argues that the remote control's ease of use increases distraction for viewers. As a result, people become more dissatisfied with what they are watching. ; ;Technologies destroy nature, harming human health and the environment. Business priorities replaced community, and the "story online" replaced real people as the "soul of the Net". ==Pop Culture==