People often imagine that a dystopian society is vastly diverse from our modern day society, but in fact they are very similar. Sure there are a few differences not limited to, rules, family, and how the societies are governed. One prime example of a dystopian fiction is The Giver, written by Lois Lowry, which takes place in a town that is governed by a circle of people with no emotions or feelings. In our modern society we have multiple rule guides called the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. These rule guides were created and maintained by our government, which consists of three branches that make community decisions; they are kept in balance with a system called checks and balances so that one branch isn’t …show more content…
“But the most conspicuous difference was the books. In his own dwelling, there were the necessary reference volumes that each household contained: a dictionary, and the thick community volume that contained the descriptions of every office, factor, building, and committee. And the Book of Rules, of course” (Lowry 74). This means that most average people in The Giver do not have access to anything other than necessary books. One of these many rules is that you are assigned one spouse, and two children a boy and a girl. If a person decides that they would like a spouse than they will apply for a spouse and a spouse will be chosen for them. The same thing occurs for children if that family wants one or two then they will have to apply for it. The people who lead this amazing town is a group called The Committee of Elders. The Committee of Elders never lets rules change, but they make it look like they are thinking about it. “Larissa frowned. ‘I don’t know why they don’t let children come. Not enough room I guess. They should enlarge the Releasing Room.’ ‘We’ll have to suggest that to the committee. Maybe they’d study it,’ Jonas said slyly, and Larissa chortled with laughter”(Lowry 32-33). The paragraph cited here gives light onto the fact that the committee doesn’t ever change
Unlike today’s society, a household cannot possess as many children and members as the guardians choose. Explaining the regulations of the capacity of children to be in a family unit, when his sister, Lily, wants to adopt a brother, Jonas pronounces the rules by reciting, “Two children-one male, one female-to each family unit” (Lowry 8). Furthermore, rather than the traditional way of bearing a child in a family, one must instead send in an application, and be approved by the Elders. Children are received from surogates, and watched over for the first year of their life by Nurturers. Recalling the time Jonas’ mother had sent her application for Lily, she described the time as, ““The year we got Lily, we knew,
“Most of us knew in our bones that things with the world weren’t right long before they became a crisis” (Pernell Plath Meier). This quote means that people in these dystopias probably felt that somehow their life was not perfect even though they may have been told that it was. In the dystopian societies of The Giver and Fahrenheit 451 there are some similarities such as laws and people, although there are many differences such as mechanical hounds (Fahrenheit 451) and not seeing in color (The Giver). Although in both societies there are laws and citizens, still the people live very differently.
Many examples depict what a dystopian society looks like, but in The Testing, by Joelle Charbonneau, surveillance, distrust of nature, and the fearfulness of the outside world are shown. Dystopian literature shows the cataclysmic decline the world in it is going through. The characters in dystopian literature face many challenges, for example, environmental and technological. In a dystopian world, the citizens have almost no access to privacy. The citizens in a society like this are also easily influenced by the government.
"The Giver" takes place in a community at some point in the indeterminate future where "Sameness" is prized above all else. Multiple factors have gone into creating a monochromatic world where individuality is crushed, a citizen 's every move is monitored from the moment of birth, natural families have been replaced by artificial "family units" and choice has vanished. A soothing voice makes passive-aggressive scolding announcements over loudspeakers. The Giver 's cavernous dwelling, perched on the edge of a cliff, is a gloomy and masterful set, overlooking the clouds gathered below.
Have you ever thought about why authors write dystopian fiction book? Well some reasons authors write dystopian fiction books are to give us ideas about future inventions, ideas about things that could happen to society in the future and a paragraph on why I disagree with the people who say this stuff will never happen in our lifetimes. First dystopian fiction books give us ideas about future inventions. One example of this is when in The House of the scorpion El Patron has the technology to be able to clone people from a person's genes. We don’t have the technology to do that yet
An assignment is given and the children are not being honored for their similarities this time. Instead, ‘’’We honor your differences. They have determined your futures’ ... She mentioned how there was one who had singular skills at caretaking, another who loved new children, one with unusual
Those who also lived in the fantasy book The Giver were also living in a dystopia since they lived in a world with no history or choice. Saying that leads me into the two main elements that contribute to a dystopian society,
"Dystopian literature is specifically that literature which situates itself in direct opposition to utopian thought, warning against the potential negative consequences of arrant utopianism. At the same time, either through the critical examination of the utopian premises upon which those conditions and systems are based or through the imaginative extension of those conditions and systems into different contexts that more clearly reveal their flaws and contradictions". By this definition, dystopian literature is not so much a specific genre as a particular kind of oppositional and critical energy or spirit. (Booker 3). In a dystopian story, society itself is typically the antagonist; it is a society that is actively working against
What is the difference between a dystopian society to our society? How about the similarities between the two societies? There are definitely many discernible unorthodoxness in a dystopian society versus the “real world” like the fact, that a dystopian society is more grotesque, to the point that it’s boring. On the other hand, there are plenty enough similarities like, how both societies strive for better, a utopia. In other words, dystopia compared to society, more specifically dystopian society, education systems, rules/laws, and family between our society’s education systems, rules/laws, and family, is substantially different, but there are some associations that could be made.
“Even the Matching of Spouses was given such a weighty consideration that sometimes an adult who applied to receive a spouse waited months or even years before a Match was approved and announced” (Lowry 48). In the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, there is a community where there is almost no decision or say in any situations, you wake up tomorrow, and it is the same as yesturday. Nothing is ever unique or different, it’s always the same. Every choice is made for them, every move the make being decided for them. This is how it was in the community, everything was the same always.
However, there are people who have other thoughts on the topic of dystopian writing. Elissa Nadworny, for example, wrote "Why Teens Find The End Of The World So Appealing", which explains how dystopian
Gradually, many authors use dystopia as a genre, thus becoming dystopian literature. Cranny-Francis (1990) described dystopian literature as “the textual representation of a society apparently worse than the writer/reader’s own” (p. 125). Booker (1994) wrote that dystopian literature offers the chance of giving new perspectives on questionable political and social practices that would have been otherwise thought as natural. In a research done by Mcclantoc (2016), it can be deduced that the main ingredient of a good dystopian literature are the main protagonists who induce some kind of social change in their society or world.
The Giver is the second major character in the novel. He is paradoxically older than Jonas and wiser. He is deeply affected by the memories he received as he felt different feelings of pain, suffering and love. Consequently, the community was prohibited to feel such feelings by the Chief Elder for them to be powerful and able to destroy the stability of such community. The Giver is considered to be the current Receiver of Memories and he is teaching Jonas to receive these memories of the community.
Dystopian fiction is a contemporary literary sub-genre that falls under the umbrella genre of speculative fiction. This type of fiction predicts the possible, oppressive, futuristic sociopolitical changes that deprive the society of worldly pleasures. Dystopian fiction was defined by many scholars. Basu, Broad, and Hintz in their edited book Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults: Brave New Teenagers (2009) defined dystopia as a fiction that “describes non-existent societies intended to be read as “considerably worse” than the reader’s own” and that is the opposite of utopia which is “the non-existent society “considerably better” than the current world” (Basu et al. 2). Therefore, dystopia gives the illusion of a highly moral and perfect society that could exist in real life which is a feature of speculative fictional writing.
There are a lot of books centered around dystopian literature. A dystopian world is a place trying to act like a utopia but fails. Usually, when authors are wanting to make a dystopian world they take what they think is a problem times it by 20 and fix in a dystopian world. Usually, when an author will take something like kid are eating too much he will take it to the levels and write a society where the kids eat healthier.