Dystopia, to me, would be defined as a corrupt society under social injustices, oppression, dehumanization, and a totalitarian way of government.
As seen in books and movies categorized as dystopian like The Hunger Games, Divergent, and 1984, dystopian worlds are shown as ‘post-apocalyptic’ worlds in which Big Brother is controlling their free will. The similarity in all of these medias is that the rich control the poor. The settings of these books feel dark and cold, and they are under constant government control and surveillance.
In the Hunger Games series, we see the districts *literally* fight to death to for their freedom, while the capital watches for entertainment. The entire reason of creating the hunger games was to serve as entertainment for the rich, while also displaying the capital’s power and lack of remorse after the First Rebellion took place… in which the districts lost the rebellion against the capitol. As these kids fight to their deaths, the capitol exploits the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale, and creates a blind eye for the world to not see this as a fight for life but rather as a sort of show.
These books and movies have a protagonist who is against these injustices and will go out of their way to show their rebellion towards the government. This however is received poorly by the governments, and the protagonists are met with punishments to “set the example” of people who commit rebellious acts, which goes to show the limited freedom. These are books in which happy endings are not usually the case. This war filled world where individualism and independence is scarce is how I would define a dystopian society.
