Merriam-Webster defines dystopia similar to the way I would describe it. According to my previous knowledge, I would describe a dystopia as a place in which people suffer severely and may be treated in an inhumane way. Because of how “bad” a dystopia is, most people would not want to live there.
I feel as if my definition of dystopia is accurate because a lot of books under the genre of dystopian fiction fit the description. These books usually tend to raise awareness for current events that could possibly make things go wrong in the future if left unchanged.
On another note, I chose to describe a dystopia this way because it is the opposite of a utopia. Utopia literally translates to “no place” and it is defined as an imagined place in which everything is perfect. According to both of these definitions, we can imply that a utopia is imaginary and may never exist because there is “no place” like it, but a dystopia on the other hand, could exist and does exist. Thankfully the world doesn’t consist of all the characteristics you would see in dystopian fiction, but I do believe the world we live in has a few characteristics of a dystopia. For example, according to Merriam-Webster, “people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives” in dystopias, and in today’s world, we live everyday of our lives in fear of things such as mass shootings and climate change.
As I’ve stated earlier, a dystopia is a place many people may not want to live, and we see this all the time when several people want to leave their homeland. Although everybody’s reason for wanting to leave may differ, there’s definitely a lot of people that would say their reason for leaving has something to do with the way higher authorities inconsiderately treat the people below them as if they aren’t human too.
