A dystopia is a fictional society in which individuals live dreadful and sad lives filled with injustice and fear.
Within a dystopian society, the environment is usually painted with a dark and gloomy setting. It usually involves people going through hardship and constant depression. My favorite example of a dystopia would come from the Netflix Original movie “What Happened to Monday”. This movie highlighted what a society would be like under very strict laws and surveillance of the government. The people within that society were only allowed one child and if there was found to be more than one child they would be “put to sleep” or killed as they later found out. In that society, the people were sad and depressed. They lived their lives with minimal freedom. Some might argue that America in a way is a dystopia in which our justice system is run. For a society to be considered a dystopia, most people lose their sense of individuality and can almost seem like they are a robot with the same constant routine of injustice and pain/suffering. In contrast, a utopia is a place where everything is pleasant and ideally the perfect life. I find it interesting that in contrast when you talk about a utopia it is based on the dystopia of someone else therefore a utopia never actually exists. The most notable story is “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas”. In that story, I remember it was about a utopia for the majority of the society except for a little boy who was in constant pain and suffering in order for his society to always be happy. This then sparked the debate about if those in the society were actually happy knowing the young boy had to suffer in return. Is there such a thing as a utopia?
