A dystopia to me now is a state of oppression that is caused by many factors that limits one’s own freedom and most importantly happiness.
In the first week, my definition was a world where everyone is constantly under extreme pressure from their leaders who uses their authority to control every action of their citizens. I got this impression of a dystopia after reading 1984. My definition started to change as the semester progressed to the point that I learned there were many aspects to a dystopia. I learned about the “Five Faces of Oppression” by Iris Young and I remember talking about violence. Mainly because it was related to Asian hate crimes and how it indirectly affected me. Then I learned about the Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes. He mainly talked about chaos and the effects the government has and a world without government. After learning about different aspects of a dystopia it was no longer like a dictatorship which I thought it was when I originally started this class. The class ended with each watching a movie and breaking it down and comparing it to the real world. My movie was the “BirdBox” and it is a dystopia because there is a mysterious creature that threatens the world and the citizen are living in fear not knowing if its their last day or not. To sum it up, my new definition of a dystopia is what I basically concluded from all my learning this semester.
