Dystopia: a depressing, uniform society heavily controlled by a governing body.
In my definition of dystopia, I made sure to include the words “depressing” and “uniform” because it is the first thing I think of when I hear or see the word. I imagine a world that lacks color and joy, and free will. I see dystopian societies as places full of unhappy people with little to no control over their lives. Of course, I think of places like “The Giver” or “Divergent,” but I also see similarities to our world today. Although we have free will to make our own choices, there are some things we cannot control about our lives because of our laws. In dystopian societies that I have seen in movies or read about in books, they tend to have harsh laws and consequences. People do not get to pick their lifestyles or careers or even families. While this isn’t present in our society, I believe certain conditions are put in place to keep people in their lanes. In dystopian societies, there always seems to be one really happy group and one really depressed group, and a bunch of in-between. The governing bodies always seem to favor one set of people over the other, and it is always interesting to see how everyone else aspires to be those people however they can. It reminds me of what we call the American Dream. There are so many people working towards something that they statistically would never and could never achieve. Our society is not truly dystopian but some aspects could be compared to such.
Dystopian societies seem to be unhappy places where a person’s life is controlled and monitored in every way. The people in these societies always seem to act the same and lead very routine lives. I view such societies as depressing and uniform because there is hardly ever anything to smile about. There is no room to be unique or themselves. I could not imagine living in such a society or being told how I can or can’t live my life.
