What is an utopia? And a dystopia? The complexity of these two intertwined topics is enormous but it also is difficult the future questions they can lead us to. This abstract will give a brief and not clearly defined explanation about them and how they relate with each other. An utopia is a future and imagined project or place where everything is the way the creator wants it to be. A dystopia or anti-utopia is exactly what its last-mentioned name says, the antithesis of an utopia. It is a place where nothing is the way it is desired.
In this essay apart from explaining in a richer way the concepts mentioned before, a comparison between two authors will be explained. They are Eric Blair or also named George Orwell the writer of the novel “1984” which we have studied in Culture class and William Golding the author of the novel “Lord of the Flies”.
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After developing an analysis of a book named “Lord of the Flies” to establish a better understanding of the matter, a conclusion about what is, in today’s culture, utopia and dystopia will be made and why the book is described as a dystopian novel. The biographies of these novelist have been focused on what seems to have been relevant to understand their works. What this document will specify into is the influences they had.
Eric Arthur Blair, commonly identified by his pen name George Orwell, was a novelist, journalist and critic who had full awareness of social injustice and was against totalitarianism. Blair was raised in a poor family, but he also claimed he was from a lower-upper-middle class. Eric Blair worked as a teacher for only two years in a private school for children of tradesman and in a college in Uxbridge.
His work goes from poetry to fiction novels. In fact, one of his most famous fiction novels is “1984” which explains a fictional future that could happen anytime. It shows us how dystopian a future can be. The novel won an amazing amount of fame due to the society we have developed throughout the years. Nowadays, in our society, there is a government who has gained full almost full control of our minds. They can decide whether anything is right or wrong, if it should be vanished or if we should worship it. And last, the matter that gives shivers when it seems to be true, is that the government is capable to track us down and able to look through our messages or calls without us noticing it. In conclusion, that the spying of the masses exists.
Through his life Blair was influenced by Shakespeare, Dickens and others. But the modern writer who is thought to be the one that influenced him the most was William Somerset Maugham for writing gospel truth without any frills. Other facts to consider are that he lived through the Second World War and The Spanish Civil War. He also was identified by himself as a communist and as type of atheist, a humanist.
William Gerald Golding was a novelist and poet. Known for his novel Lord of the Flies which made him won a Nobel Prize in Literature. He came from a wealthy family, married at the age of twenty-eight years old, became a schoolmaster and taught Philosophy and English for twenty-three years, was knighted in 1988 and died in 1993.
The authors that are said to be the ones that influenced William Golding are Herbert George Wells and Julio Verne. Apart from other authors he served in the military service of the Second World War and despite of having an atheist father his beliefs were the ones of a Christian. Sir Thomas More, an English lawyer, social philosopher, author and noted Renaissance humanist, was the author of a book named Utopia in which it defined, for the first time, the concept of the word. It is in the second part of the book that the Utopia, as a place, is described.
Utopia is a word coined from the Greek by Sir Thomas More trying to describe an imaginary place. It comes from U (οὐ) meaning “not” and Topia (τόπος) meaning “place” which, adding both into one word, means “no-place” describing a nonexistent place or civilization. There is another word, Eutopia using, instead of U (οὐ), uses Eu (εὖ) that means “good” or “well” creating the word “good place”. In English both words are considered as homophonous and both we fused into the word utopia, Utopia is an imagined, non-existing, community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens.
An example for an utopia is Sinapia. Is considered as the only Spanish utopia which follows the theories established by Thomas More. A dystopia, also from the Ancient Greek, means “bad place”. Using Dys (δυσ) instead of Eu. It has some alternative names such as cacotopia, kakotopia and anti-utopia. Dystopia is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening, is considered as the antonym of utopia. The novel analyzed in this essay is a dystopian fiction novel just as “1984”.
The genre used in both novels is the dystopian fiction. The utopia and dystopian fiction are two types of genres based on speculative fiction. Speculative fiction is one of the most realistic types of future because is based on the present and how, argued with true analysis, it will turn out in years or decades. The dystopian fiction is a novel in which everything completely disagrees with the ethics, principles and behaviors of the author.
Before the analysis of the novel there is a minor description about it. The book Lord of the Flies was the first and most known work of the author William Gerald Golding. Published in 1954, the book talks about the human nature. It is considered to be from the dystopian fictional genre and presents a situation in where a group of children, after an airplane accident, find themselves lost in a desert island in which they will have to seek for their own survival. Lord of the Flies takes place on an unnamed and uninhabited tropical island in the Pacific Ocean during an evacuation from fictional world war around the year 1950.
The characters of this novel are a group of kids who survived the plain downfall. Ralph, the novel’s protagonist, the boy who is elected leader of the group of boys on the island. Jack, the novel’s antagonist, one of the older boys stranded on the island. Simon, a shy and sensitive boy in the group. Piggy, who is Ralph’s second hand, a clumsy but intellectual boy. Roger, Jack’s second, a sadistic, cruel older boy. And at last, Sam and Eric, the pair of twins closely allied with Ralph.
A plane crashes into the sea, the kids try to look out for any other living humans of their plane. They found one adult, but he seems to be unlikely to wake up soon. Few hours later they realize nobody else is on the island and maybe they will not be rescued in a long time. After understanding the situation, they create a rule. The rule states that whoever wants to say something must use the seashell if they want the other members to listen. The days passed slowly and all of them were making a huge effort to build up a place for their survival and not to mentally break down. More days went through, fear was not capable to take them down completely because of the good connection the group had until what it seems to be a monster appears in front of one of them. In this point the group was getting divided into two sides, the ones who believed in the monster and the ones who did not. These two new groups, with their own new perspectives, try to act the best way they can think of. The believers (the pen name of the group who believe in the monster) grew bigger by getting new members from the unbelievers (the pen name of the group who does not believe). These believers also began to act as if they were more like a indigenous tribe: trying to hunt down their preys, taking what they want whenever they like and developing a feeling of hate towards the unbelievers. Another difference is that the unbelievers let anyone who wanted to leave their group while the other group was not willing to accept that from their own members. Weeks passed by until there were only two kids remaining in the unbeliever’s group: the clumsiest kid and the first leader of all of them. One of the most important resources was fire, only possible if using the glasses of the clumsy kid. The believer’s tribe accomplishes to steal them, trying also hurt the unbeliever’s group, on one night. After hunting down a big prey they begin to celebrate with a barbecue. A moment later a humanoid figure appears but the dark night does not let them see clearly what is that being. They begin to stick their spears into the being and after seeing there is no movement, they realized they just killed one of their colleagues, the one who was taking care of the only adult, which had escaped few days later after waking up. In a heated discussion they push a rock which falls into the head of one of the kids from the unbeliever’s group, killing him. The only one left is the past leader of all which begins to run into the forest to save his life. The critical point shows up when the forest begins to burn down as the savages try to hunt the last member but after running through the beach, he found out a man and a rescue team.
The author tries to create a reflection about the ways of expression, self-delusion and violence between children. Lord of the Flies exposes different kinds of themes: the need to adapt to unfavorable circumstances, civilization versus savagery, the loss of innocence, difficulties of creating and developing a society, the danger of the mind and last, war and the future of humanity.
He used the characters as concepts to express the acting of the human nature and the reason behind the behavior of humans. Ralph is representing order, leadership and the human instinct to create a society. Jack as the instinct of savagery and the desire for power inside human beings. Simon represents the natural goodness by opposing to Jack savagery and the imposed morality of society of Ralph and Piggy. Piggy represents the scientific, intellectual aspects of civilization and the rational side. At last, Roger represents brutality and bloodlust at their most extreme.
There are some objects that also represent abstract ideas. The conch shell became a symbol of community, order and freedom of speech. The glasses represent science’s power in society. The signal fire is the last connection between the boys and the civilization. The beast or imaginary beast, frightening everyone and making the group split in two, is the instinct of savagery existing in each human being also represented by Jack.
Looking forward to a better understanding of them this essay will make a comparison of both widely known novelists. These authors lived in the same period, Golding being clearly wealthier than Blair. Golding served in the Second World War and developing a belief in God, being his father, an atheist is quite interesting, and it will be explained why later. Blair, a less wealthy man who had seen two catastrophically wars and developed into an atheist. They are not that much different from each other looking from a bigger point of view.
The two of them wrote a fictional novel about dystopia. How, despite of having completely different beliefs, they have reached to this point in their career? The conclusion I have reached to with the research and this essay is that each one tries to highlight a point of view.
In Blair’s novel, 1984, tries to emphasize his atheist or humanist belief by showing the true power of humans. It might sound different from the comments written about it saying the book shows a realistic future of humans where there is nothing less but a dystopia in it. From what has been mentioned before, showing the true power of humans does not mean they are Gods or Goddesses. It shows how the future is only up to the decisions humanity will take themselves. Creating a relation between showing there is no destiny or control over humans in the novel and himself being identified as a humanist or atheist.
Golding, as I see it from my own point of view, tries to demonstrate how human children who have been educated properly and raised to be as the new leaders for the future that due to their fears, stress and anxiety can develop into completely wild beings who just seek for their own survival and will not hesitate if they have to kill someone from the same specie as theirs. It seems as if a Christian was trying to show humanity that without some kind of mentoring or God there is no place for civilization.
Surprisingly Blair, as an atheist, presents humans as terrifying beings with a superior ability to control others, giving them the right of deciding their own future. In the other hand, Golding, being a Christian, presents them as lost sheeps who need rules, mentors, leaders and a society to follow what it is considered to be the right path as if humanity needed sort of a God being.
In today’s culture the meaning of utopia and dystopia has not changed itself. What it has changed is the variety of utopias and dystopias that the human society can think of. Despite of thinking about the utopia and dystopia that most religions have always thought of like heaven and hell or reincarnations and not being able to reincarnate, new ones have appeared.
Dystopias due to some scientific facts like the problem with climatic change and how it will not be possible to stop it in the future making the ultraviolet rays directly hit us, destroying the natural habitats of wild animals and, destroying planet Earth. Another dystopia is how in the future industries are going to be monopolized and society will transform into slaves of a small part of human beings because they have the control over food, health care, water, properties, etc. The last one is that humanity will be controlled by AI, the initials of artificial intelligence or vulgarly expressed robots will rule over humans. It is said that there will be a critical point in which the AI will gain consciousness and while seeking for the solution of the problem caused by humans will understand that this solution is the full control or extermination of the human race.
The same way we have the utopia of having a fully developed technologically speaking society. With electric cars, no energetical problems, no use of non-renewable energies or resources, a fully efficient use of solar, hydraulic and wind energy. It will be able to travel to Mars, which will be fit to live in. Technology will be able to connect us with the cyberspace and genetical engineering will be utterly developed making possible the transformation of humanity into a new specie determining whether we want to create an evolutionary leap in the stairs of evolution.
What I have understood apart from the definitions is that utopias are what we think we need, and dystopias are what we think we do not need. It might seem it lacks ideas or concepts but after this research and knowing many different definitions of these two concepts I consider this the definition of utopia and dystopia by my own words and the one that fits more with what I think.
Bibliography
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