adj; a fictitious world or a situation that’s objectively bad for a majority of a population while benefiting a smaller portion. The majority of the population experiences consistent injustice and oppression that may come to an end after some time or change.
Throughout the entirety of this class we have been able to take a critical look into what a dystopia is. Whether or not it is a dystopia in real life or one found in any form of media. As a result of this critical look into dystopias, I have formulated the above definition of a dystopia. Initially I thought of dystopias being primarily fake because their opposite, Utopias, don’t really exist in the real world, as well as the fact that there are many examples of dystopias in the media and not reality. Because of this thought, I wanted to include the “fictitious world” as apart of my definition. Dystopias are indeed created worlds in media or created situations that demonstrate an overall negative effect and quality of living for a portion of the population that it affects. Another major portion of my definition of a dystopia is the point about a majority of the population who is in the dystopia has a negative living experience while the other portion is benefiting off of the dystopia. The bad, injustice the majority of the population is experiencing is them being oppressed. Their oppression can come in many forms, some of which we learned while in the class. The oppression people experience within a dystopia can be in the form of being exploited, being powerless, cultural imperialism, being marginalized, and through violence of course. These are the five faces of oppression as coined by Iris Young, and people in real life or in the media uses these tactics to show their power and force their control over people, keeping them oppressed and living in a horrible situation. In novels such as The Handmaids tale, The Hunger Games, 1984, these all have some entity from the ruling few who are oppression the majority. The Peacekeepers in the hunger games specifically would publicly make an example of anyone who stepped out of line or tried to be against the regime. Lastly, the final and most important part of my definition is that these dystopias can come to an end. A common thing in these stories and real examples of dystopias is that they don’t last. The governments and ruling classes are so incorrectly set up that they are bound to fail and fall. Or there is some person or group who makes it their mission to seek the end and destruction of the dystopia.
