The genre of dystopian novel from We by Zamyatin to 1984 by Orwell Research Paper

The genre of dystopian novel from We by Zamyatin to 1984 by Orwell - Research Paper Example Therefore, Clute and Nicholl (p.361) defines dystopia as a fictional society or community, which is in some crucial way frightening or undesirable. Dystopias are most of the time characterized by dehumanization, environmental disasters, autocratic governments, and other traits associated with a catalystic decline in the society. We by Zamyatin and 1984 by Orwell can be categorized as dystopian stories because they are characterized with the following: backstory, hero, conflict, and climax. First, since back story is part of the fictional world, a back story is necessary of how this world came to be or how it evolved from our current world. Secondly, the hero/protagonist intuitively feels something is wrong within the society and sets out to alter it, such as D-503 in Zamyatin’s We and Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984 .Next, in the conflict, the protagonists meets and is sometimes assisted by a group of individuals who are also attempting to escape or destroy the dy stopia. Lastly, in the climax of dystopian literature like We by Zamyatin and 1984 by Orwell, the dystopia is often not brought down, thus the stories remain unresolved. The elements of dystopias differ from political, environmental and social issues. The dystopian societies as the one depicted in We by Zamyatin and 1984 by Orwell culminated in a wide series of sub-genres of fiction and were utilized to raise awareness of the real world issues in relation to environment, religion, society, politics, economics, technology, and psychology, if left unaddressed, led to a dystopia-like condition in the future. Currently, dystopias have taken the form of a multitude of speculations, for example, poverty, pollution, political repression, and societal collapse. We is a classic dystopian novel that was set in the 26th century. Its message of hope and warning is as timely as the end of the 20th century as it was in the beginning (Parrinder, p.18). Yevgeny Zamyatin was a marine engineer and a Russian writer wrote this novel in 1919-1921. The novel was written as a consequence of author’s personal experiences during his life in the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond, the Russian revolution of 1905, and 1917, as well as the during his work in the Tyne shipyards during the First World War (Thomas, 314). This book by Zamyatin is one which ended up influencing other dystopian authors such George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. Orwell’s 1948 is a futuristic piece of work that the novelist chose to turn inside out the last two numbers of the year he had authored it, 1948 into 1984 to depict issues that would be solved by that time. Zamyatin is hailed as the grandfather of satirical futuristic dystopia genre. He goes ahead and takes the totalitarian and confirmative concepts of modern industrial society to a very extreme conclusion, portraying a state that trusts in free will which is the source of unhappiness, and that the lives of the general public is controlled with the mat hematical precision founded on the system of industrial efficiency which was formulated by Fredrick Taylor (Clute and Nicholl, 85). An examination of myths and symbols show that Zamyatin’s work is easily comprehended as an internal drama of a conflicted modern man as compared to the external drama reality in a failed utopia. Furthermore, the city is laid out as a mandala which had many archeotypes and was subject to an archetypical conflict. The utilization of color and other forms of imagery depicts that Zamyatin advocated for the same subjectivist as had Kandinsky as well as other European Expressionist painters. Zamyatin’s We novel is considered to be the first dystopian novel, since it was influential in the formation of genre and important in any study of literature. Dystopian stories