Dystopias and a Possible Future

My personal definition of dystopia is an imaginary place filled with oppression and speculative events. The reason why I say it is filled with speculative events is because I find a lot of dystopian book authors use their books as a warning to a possible future. For example, Margaret Atwood wrote a book called Oryx and Crake which is about a place where genetically modified organisms were on the rise and little to nothing was natural anymore. Without too many spoilers, the genetic modification went too far causing worldwide destruction. In the book series Divergent, there is speculation about what society may look like if we all stayed in communities that fit our personality and did jobs that suited said personality. In the book this led to jealousy and tyranny. Dystopias go beyond just how people are treated. The environment may seem like it is just, but there are a lot of consequences to false perfection. The reason why I chose to say the place is filled with oppression is because after reading “The Five Faces of Oppression”, I recognize a lot of those traits in dystopian societies. It also groups together what is said in the Webster dictionary version: “…people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives”. The reason why human lives are this way is because they are being oppressed through means of violence, exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, and/or cultural imperialism.