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The Importance Of Dystopian Literature

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Indeed, the best works of literature are those which are of relevance to our lives today. Through their relevance, these novels continue to persist and endure on. Through their relevance, we can better comprehend the messages, the themes, and the ideas that are imbued in them. Rather than literature being contradictory and in conflict with the truth and unpleasant reality of daily life, it becomes a weapon through which we can be educated about the existential crises facing our world today. In fact, the statement above could not be more far and distant from the reality of literature today. It is fatally flawed. Literature, whilst at the surface, seems whimsical and amusing is, at its very core, a medium through which we are enlightened …show more content…

The main freedom that is taken away across the genre is the freedom of speech/expression. In Orwell’s 1984, the Party, who rule over the continent of Oceania, essentially abolish the freedom which people have through the implementation of the ‘thoughtpolice.’ Citizens of Oceania are mentally conditioned to believe that, “thoughtcrime does not entail death; it is death.” Thinking indifferently, not necessarily in disagreement, to what the Party thinks is out of the question and simply taboo. As a result, citizens are forced to believe oxymoronic statements that comprise the Party’s slogan: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Similarly, in Huxley’s Brave New World, freedom is restricted by controlling one’s emotions. In this capitalistic society, the ‘World Controllers’ endorse citizens to consume ‘soma’ - a hallucinogenic drug. By taking “2 or 3 gramme tablets, anybody can be virtuous now.” Freedom is restricted as well in that citizens aren’t free to choose/dictate the course of their lives. They are categorised into classes and specifically engineered for a purpose. In both novels, the drive for an authoritarian regime/suppression of emotions is derived from the fear of conflict, the fear of instability that comes with freedom. Both the Party and the World Controllers have created a world stripped of individual thought and expression. For it is through uniformity that variety and, therefore, conflict can be avoided. The positive outcomes

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