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Pros And Cons Of Living In A Dystopian Society

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Introduction

Utopias and dystopias are both literary genres that explore the social and political

structures of a specific society.

A utopia is a perfect world or paradise. It is an imaginary place where there is no poverty,

disease, discrimination or war. Utopias consist of peaceful governments that have ideal economic

and social conditions. All citizens are equal, there is access to education, and healthcare, and the

environment is safe for all that live there.

A dystopia is the opposite of utopia; it is an imperfect world where things have gone

wrong. In a dystopian world people are usually controlled by an oppressive government. The

government uses lies and propaganda to control the minds of the citizens. Many things are …show more content…

A man named Hugh Conway

finds himself hijacked and whisked away to paradise: Shangri-La, a place where the air is clean

and the living is natural and spiritual and, moderate. Shangri-La is a place where people live

naturally long lives, hundreds of years, in peace, in love, and at one with nature. The defining

characteristic is inner peace, love, and a sense of purpose for those that can find it.

Another example of a utopia is The Giver by Lois Lowery. The Giver is the story of a

boy named Jonas that lives in a community that has converted to Sameness. In order to preserve

structure and order, things like color, climate, and memory, have been eradicated. Jonas is the

one person that has been chosen to store all the memories from the past, of the time before

Sameness. Jonas experiences a multitude of new thoughts, feelings and experiences as the

Receiver of Memory and he has to decide what to do with his new found knowledge. The

defining characteristic is that everyone is equal.

An example of a dystopia is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games

is a dystopia that is set in the country of Panem. Panem consists of citizens that live in

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