Examples Of Dystopia In Pleasantville

Do you feel like you have no freedom to choose things? Do you feel like everything is taken from you? Well the truth is, it is not. But there is a place that is, and that place is called a dystopia. In other words, it is a very unpleasant place. There is usually a very controlling and oppressive government, and also individuality is not allowed. Most importantly, the dystopian societies try to seem like they are perfect or a utopia, which means everything is how you would dream it to be. When something goes wrong and the society turns out to be a dystopia. The more utopic you try to make it the more dystopic it will get. Both Pleasantville and the Giver’s societies are both striving for a utopic society but they fall short because so many things

To do this, it requires a lot of ignorance and government control. An example of ignorance is when there is an actual fire in Pleasantville, so Bud goes into the station and yells, ‘“fire, fire, fire”’ (Pleasantville), but the firefighters do nothing. But when he says cat in a normal voice, the firefighters start moving fast and getting ready to get the cat out of the tree. This shows ignorance because the firefighters do not realize how unimportant getting cats from trees is versus real fires. They did not even know what a real fire looked or sounded like until then. They were too ignorant to realize cats can get down from trees and their names literally mean fire-fighters, people who fight fires! Another main ideal of Pleasantville is patriarchy. There is the George who is the dad, the mom who is Betty and Bud and Mary Sue, who are the two children. George is the breadwinner and Betty stays at home and cooks, cleans, and takes care the children. The father will come home

George is valued higher than his wife because Betty stays inside the house on most days and only works inside the house. He expects dinner to be ready by the time he walks through the door. This also is another form of perfection. It is the stereotypical American dream, two kids, a father, and mother, and the father has a job and the mother works and stays at home. It is a dream that people used to strive for but gave up because they realized that they could not achieve that level of perfection. The Giver also has some of the ideals of Pleasantville, for one being the American dream again, there were “Two children-one male, one female, - to each family unit” (Lowry, 8). Here is a form of government control and perfection. They can only have two children, not one less and not one more. But also, the gender of your children counts too. They cannot have two girls, or two boys, it must be one of each gender and only two. Another ideal that is like Pleasantville is ignorance. In the Giver, when people get released, it is a “terrible, punishment, [and] an