A dystopia is a place in which people live their lives accompanied by rampant fear, decay, hopelessness, and misery. My favorite example of this is the world of the novel 1984. By its conclusion, the main character feels an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and misery. Another good example is the world of Judge Dredd in which law and order in society have collapsed and largely given way to a crime-ridden city full of violence. We can compare different aspects of these worlds as well as many others and see similar elements in our own world. This is one distinguishing fact about dystopias. Often the stories in which they exist are not only just mere entertainment or escapism but rather serve as commentary on different ideas and situations that occur in the world today. Take government control, for example, a dystopian story about a tyrannical government that takes control and subjugates its citizens will serve as commentary about a government in our own world’s tyrannical actions.
