Dystopian Society Essay

Australia is filled with many different aspects in which makes it the country it is today. I believe it is important to study texts that explore aspects of Australia by studying texts such as ‘The Club’, by David Williamson, a play written in 1977 about an Australian football club and movies such as “The Castle”, directed by Rob Stitch in 1997, about the daily life of an Australian family when their happiness is threatened when developers attempt to buy their house to expand the neighboring airport. Both these texts show us what Australian life was like in the past. By us looking at themes such as language, tradition and the mateship shown we are able to explore different aspects of Australia that make it what it is today.

Although comparing one society to another does not require them to be different in government or human behavior, it does necessarily weight one’s faults against its victories to render it better or worse than the other. This comparative structure, found between Thomas More’s two books of Utopia, poses the country of Utopia opposite the broader communities of world civilization. Despite the comparison of Utopia as distinct from and morally better than widespread society, in truth Utopia is, at best, an extension.

Stan Grant, ‘The Australian Dream’ has a more effective illustration of the perception of all Indigenous Australians, that Indigenous people should not be segregated from society due to racism. Grant’s version of the reality is that racism is still continuous despite the perception of multiculturalism and therefore places great emphasis on Australia’s racism towards certain groups and questioning the Australian ideal. This is evident in the lines “But every time we are lured into the light, we are mugged by the darkness of this country’s history.” Through the utilisation of metaphor and juxtaposition, Grant is able to make a strong emphasis that, Australia had tried to erase racism, such as through the apologies and reconciliation made by the people, but are then blinded by the past targeting of Aboriginal people who continue to be disadvantaged in the community today. Through this Grant has effectively stated that the nation covers the truth by providing hope to those most vulnerable but in fact the perception of a multicultural country still contains racism. Furthermore, Grant successfully expresses the fact that the nation overs the truth of racism, through the National Anthem in attempt to erase racism. However no matter what strategies are implemented to hide the truth, the country’s history will always be a reminder of the racism as it has shaped the nation as it is today. “It reminds me that my people, were killed on those plains. We were

Through the use of poetic devices, the author has successfully encouraged the audience to explore their thoughts on Australian identity and to reflect on our nation’s history.

One night, a very dark night, trouble was lurking in the shadows. You could just smell it in the air everywhere you go. It was like choking on a dark cloud filled with danger. Legend has it that it targets one person until they die. It fills them with dreadful thoughts, making them do bad deeds, and leading them to suicide. Today it chose to pick me...

The city that once had homed thousands and been the most economically successful country ever, was now a contaminated wasteland. The land looked dry, destroyed and lonely. The morning breeze felt like crying sorrows, and the grey deceitful sky awed down at us. In the deepest corner of despair lies dystopia where hope dies. As someone looks through the eyes of the devil, they see his utopia. Only visible by the dim light of the moon was the great wall. Beyond the wall? No one knew. Stretching away from the wall was a humongous bridge that towered the wall. Standing tall on the bridge was a tower, which had two circles that almost looked like eyes. Those mysterious, creepy and dangerous looking eyes stared down at the city giving away a haunting look.

I look to the right of my bed and it’s there; crouching beside me. Its face is pure white and doesn’t resemble skin at all, but a shining porcelain. The monster doesn’t have a mouth - there is just skin running down from the bottom of its nose to its chin. Shielding it’s beady eyes are a pair of raven-black goggles strapped to its bald head. It wears what resembles a completely circular helmet the colour of a neon orange and its hands are covered in tactical gloves, dark as a jet-black night. It wears an amber jumpsuit and stare into my soul. Its wretched face is about five centimetres away from mine and I can feel an ice cold breath creep onto my forehead.The creatures body is hunched over and strange

Australia’s identity has always been a complicated one. Starting with Aboriginal genocide, 1800’s cowboys and villains, two world wars and a bunch of poems describing them, it makes it difficult to conclude on what being an ‘Aussie’ really is. Thankfully, the two thought-provoking poems Nobody Calls Me a Wog Anymore by Komninos Zervos, and My Country by Dorothea Mackellar both use their discerning selection of themes to reflect modern attitudes in some extent. Along with their themes, Nobody Calls Me a Wog Anymore and My Country both use their story to capture the attributes modern Australians possess to some degree.

What exactly is a dystopia, and how is it relevant today? E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops uses a dystopian society to show how one lives effortlessly, lacking knowledge of other places, in order to show that the world will never be perfect, even if it may seem so. A society whose citizens are kept ignorant and lazy, unknowing that they are being controlled, unfit to act if they did, all hidden under the guise of a perfect utopian haven, just as the one seen in The Machine Stops, could be becoming a very real possibility. There is a rational concern about this happening in today’s world that is shared by many, and with good reason. Dystopian worlds are often seen as fictitious, though this may not be the case in the

‘We’re all Australians now’ draws the reader to see the war from a positive Australia home front perspective. Texts from

Now, in 2017, the protests over Australia Day and the history of the country have escalated to a level first seen here in America. Over a week ago, in Sydney’s Hyde Park, the statute there dedicated to Captain James Hook was vandalized. With what is presumed to be spray paint, “no pride in genocide” and “change the date” were written across the statute. Many members of Australia’s nationalist party have spoken out and held their own protests in response to this “heinous” act. They have spoken out how this act is tarnishing the history of Australia and given the country a bad name as well as spreading the positivity of nationalism. The Prime Minister of Australia, Malcom Turnbull called the act, via Facebook, an act of Stalinism, and that Australians

The stone hollow echoed with dozens of small breaths and the clunky shuffling of chairs and tables. The lighting pulsated, from glowing orbs, the color of mandarins, positioned near walls throughout the room. Every child in the room was quiet in fear of disobeying and in pure content that today was another school day. Eilig sat in the back left of the room, at an ancient wooden desk with years worth of scratches and pen marks. Everyone else’s desks were identical: a scribbled-out heart an inch away from the corner, a deep, inch long scratch on the side. The silence was contagious until a woman entered the room, with hare-like features she clutched a clipboard, needle-like claws holding the soft wood in place.

In 1948, George Orwell published 1984; Orwell twists the dystopian genre to depict an exemplification of life in the future based on conformity, dependence upon technology and the absolute control of the state over the people, their rights, and their history. Orwell follows the dystopian genre to the basics: a futuristic setting, uniform obedience, and clearly separated classes. However, Orwell also warps these concepts in ground breaking manners to fit his own idealization: the disturbing ways futuristic technology is used to infringe upon the rights of the people, the fear-tactics used in order to keep the people of Oceania in complete order, and how the higher Inner Party Members claim the luxuries that Outer Party Members do not even dare thinking of lest they be taken and “vaporized” by the thought police. The dystopian genre used in 1984 has been recognized to have harrowing storylines based on mental and psychological strife.

A utopian society can only last so long before turning into something quite threatening. Dystopia is more than likely always the outcome. In the novel Divergent by Veronica Roth it is clear that the community's “perfect” utopian society is quickly turned into something much worse. Throughout the novel, Roth shows signs of the loss of identity. As the characters in the book turn sixteen they must chose one of the five factions to live the rest of their life. As the sixteen year olds leave their families for a new faction, they tend to live a completely different lifestyle than what they grew up in causing them to lose their past identity of who they once were. Roth also shows

Veronica Roth uses a combination of dystopian societies and teenage protagonists in her writing to mirror today's society. Her Divergent series and Carve the Mark series both follow the same idea. It is through the eyes of the young female protagonist who teams up with her friends to take down an authoritarianism government. In Divergent the dystopian world is defined by a faction system--a system in which everyone is split into separate groups based on personality. Members of one of the factions decide they are more fit to lead the city and start a revolution, which in turn gives the main character motive to fight for her freedom.