My definition of dystopia is a not good place where there is powerlessness and the elite live high and mighty while the common people are begging for their scraps.
My justification for my definition is from the book Brown Girl in the Ring. In the book, the rich people were pretending to care about everyone else while they are safe and secure. The common people are believing what they are being told while they are stilling struggling. In 2020 something similar happened when the celebrities all came to social media to try and preach about “being in the same boat as you”. They were in there Los Angeles mansions while we were listening in worst situations. This was like a dystopia because we had to worry about real world issues like losing our jobs and celebrities kept going on about “being in a prison” in their mansions.
Another justification for my definition is from the annotated reading on the five faces of oppression. One of the faces of oppression was powerlessness. This section of the reading was talking about listening to authority without any say because you are inferior to them in power. Who wants to feel inferior to someone because of their power? This paired with my previous paragraph sound like the makings of a dystopia right there! I think that my definition of dystopia hasn’t changed, but it did mature. My first definition was based off of movies and video games like The Hunger Games and 60 Seconds.
My sources are Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson and Five Faces of Oppression by Iris Young.
