Dystopian Characteristics in Society Today

There will always will be a power or a government with a society. Whether it be as small as a group or as large as a country. According to multiple sources, government has been around since the first city-state was created. Just by this source alone we demonstrate how society has always needed an order and power: Government. Dystopian: An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. Lord of the Flies, a novel that is realistic is the fact that it parallels with the real world. The moral that Golding was taking example of was the evil inside all of us. He created this novel to express dystopia, which was how boys were stuck on an island and how they created their own “government” which was nothing but to avoid the beast they thought was amongst them.

Simon figured the beast was all of them. But since the other boys believed that the beast was an actual creature, it brought the death of Simon. The characters are easily compared to personalities found in society: Simon was the first and only one to realise the real beast on the Island. He could be compared to someone who is aware and knowledgeable of know what is going on around them. (The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible. (Page 162).) Jack easily convinces everyone on the Island that there is a beast around their area. He said the beast was ready kill them at anytime. Jack got all the boys on his side by scaring everyone. He could be classified as a manipulator.

Ralph tried to do what is in the best interest of the boys, but sometimes was overpowered by the majority and went with what was said. In over words, he does his best to keep order and peace, but found it difficult at times with the stubborn easily manipulated boys. Piggy was the boy who followed the rules, he became very irritable when things went otherwise. He had ideas but no one would listen to him with his physical appearance and presence of being a nerd. When the twins first discovered the dead airman on the top of the mountain, they assumed it was a beast and ran to tell the others. Without any adult supervision the boys created their own fictitious government.

On the surface, Lord of the Flies appears to be the story of a group of young boys trapped on an Island and there is a beast after them. But when you look in depth to what Golding has written, it is easy to see that the beast was in the boys. They wanted to blame everything that wrongly happened on the island they were on. They all needed a reason for what they were doing, which they blamed on the island. Such as murdering Simon and finding pleasure in slaying pig. Goldings novel isn’t just about some boys on an Island, it can be related to the world today. His diction was used to serve the idea that there is evil inside all of us.

Sometimes we have this evil but it’s there and most of the time we have no idea. People commit crimes and murders. They all need something to blame on all this. It could be the government maybe in other times it is blamed on temporary insanity. Or we can find someone who just admits of themselves being bad. There is evil in all of us but we choose not to acknowledge its presence. We can continue with the government in Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and Huxley’s Brave New World, both use different methods of control over individuals, but are the same in the assumption that humans are looked at as instruments. Humans in both novels are known as object and emotionless. Both governments are strict and the people have little to nothing.

Huxley and Atwood used class systems, employment, and the reproduction control. They both forewarn that a society such as theirs is destined to corrupt and revolt. The novels perceive that humans are objects rather than living things. In HMT, the single goal of reproduction was the entire structure of the Gilead society. Gilead controlled the reproduction (birthrates) thinking it would solve their society crisis. They did this by controlling the women. Society ruled to overthrow any woman power. The government took their right to vote, to have property or jobs. They even took the privilege of reading away from them. Women were only looked at as potential mothers rather than individuals.

At one point looking at her deformed self, Offred states; ” I used to thin of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or an implement for the accomplish of my will … now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping,” (Handmaid’s tale, chapter 13). She discusses what her body was before and what it is now. She described herself as an instrument but then realizes that she is nothing when she bears a child. Offred shows Gilead’s use toward women, not as human beings but as object to conceive child and birth them. In BNW, it is similar of the human race being looked upon objects.

The Predestinators determined which caste and which hatchery produced people by mathematical figures. Similar to the rules of supply and demand in economics. With the Podsnap and Bokanovsky Processes, the most produced were lower caste persons to keep with the necessities of the market, just like anything else manufactured. The doctor in BNW says humans are to be “used up until they wear out” (Brave New World, Chpt. 11). Just as the products, when people get useless and old, they are thrown away. In both novels, beings are to be looked at as goods or products. Humans are known as nothing else than `things’ that can do tasks asked by the government. Atwood and Huxley create the idea of human rights being tainted by government.

Brand new world is similar by people believing that the society they’re in, is normal, but different by society being conditioned to believe it is from birth. The citizens of BNW were convinced to enjoy their contribute to society. Science and technology created a world where no one suffers and the government is free to control everything mindless, like they created everyone. HMT illustrates a dystopia which their strict government controls it’s people in order to maintain power.

The two novels show differences in control by government surveillance, police, and even torture. Power in Brand New World is contributed by their technology and science to their people from birth till their death. The technology they created destroyed what they wanted for society when they built it. The government of Gilead was maintained through force. The government of BNW created an illusion for it’s citizens, making them happy with what society is regardless of their limited powers and rights. Both novels, in summary, lost humanity. A poem : “Turn on, turn off” by Tacit

Turn on the lights and examine what you’ve become I want you to see it all The beauty in the flaw, The one before the next. Turn off the lights and explore delve into feelings I want you reeling with thought Fraught with idea Feel everything in darkness. Turn on the pain and prosper for it is the essence thrive in it’s presence, Crippled by the strain we fall but rise again. Turn off emotion and scrutinize for impartiality is in equality blinded by the fog of fake it is time to wake. We are what we make. We lose what we break. In the poem “Turn on, Turn off” by Tacit, the author demonstrates what he believes dystopia emotionally and physically brings to people.

He sees the truth in what is going on in the event of dystopia and seeks the realization he acquires to share with others. In the first stanza the writer tells the audience to examine themselves. He says “what you’ve become”, implying that the audience or the person being spoken to has changed. He continues to ask the person he/she is referring to, “to see it all” saying there is more than one flaw to recognize. He concludes with “The one before the next”. The author uses this to continue to the next santza but infers that there is more to see and feel. The writer begins with “turn off the light” in the second stanza, different from the first stanza, but we can create an image of it becoming dark, by either turning off the light or closing ones eyes to “explore” or “delve into [ones] feelings”.

One can imagine the audience or the one being spoken to have been thought to have forgotten himself/herself for the reason why the author asks to explore himself/herself. We go back to “turn on” but the author asks to turn on the pain and the prosper. Knowing that dystopia is the opposite of Utopia and basically the downfall of humanity, we can relate the statement to what is going on presently to the person being spoken to. “Cripples by strain, we fall but rise again” implying that people are strained but when one falls they rise again. He is referring to humanity possibly stabilizing itself again.

Though the author asked the person or audience he was talking to to look into their feelings, he begins with “turn off emotion” and “scrutinize” to break it down, to realize what is going on. “for impartially is in equality” to fend for yourself, to break away from the norm, it’s only fair to you. “blinded by the fog of fake” this diction makes the reader see that the person or audience has been blinded by fake reality. “it’s time to wake.” he says this as if a demand to wake and see what false reality they’re living in. In Tacits peom the reader first should know that this is about dystopia, we can identify this through the false reality he say of “blinded by the fog of fake” or how the audience or person forgot who they were. But he has his audience or the person he talks to to find realization and we are left at that.

Though society today wishes not to admit the flaws we have today, they’re still there. We are afraid of what might happen or even what is happening. “We are what make, We lose what we break” from Tacits poem saying we create our own mistakes and with mistakes we lose something, such the boys from Lord of the flies or the technolgy created that ruined society in Brand New World. Or we can see how society falls like Handsmaid Tale and how humanity was forgotten because of government corruption. We see problems that we can compare to these stories to modern society today.