10 Devastating Dystopias | Britannica

[Gunnar Larson]

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10 Devastating Dystopias
By Mic Anderson
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necessarily reflective of the views of Encyclopaedia Britannica or its
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>From delivering powerful critiques of toxic cultural practices to
displaying the strength of the human spirit in the face of severe
punishment from baneful authoritarians, dystopian novels have served as
indispensable teachers to their readers through propelling societies into
seemingly possible futuristic worlds. So jump into your time machine and
visit each of these dystopian societies!

The Time Machine (1895), by H.G. Wells
Morlocks in "The Time Machine" (1960), directed by George Pal.
© 1960 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.; photograph from a private collection
In his premier novel, H.G. Wells begot the concept of time travel as well
as pioneered the nascent genre of science fiction. The Time Machine
features the so-named Time Traveller who ventures hundreds of thousands of
years into the future, in which the human race, presumably thanks to
evolution and the forces of unchecked capitalism, has split in two—the
dissipated, hedonistic Eloi and the subterranean, vicious Morlocks, who
terrorize the night and feed upon the former. In this futuristic dystopia,
Wells craftily spells out a premonition of doom for the human race and the
Earth itself while critiquing various social practices and beliefs held by
the upper echelon of British society. So, while immersing yourself in this
dystopian conquest, keep a keen eye out for hate-filled Morlocks and even
futuristic crab monsters!

The Iron Heel (1907), by Jack London
Jack London’s first categorically political novel, The Iron Heel, eerily
prophesizes the disastrous rise of fascism in the first half of the 20th
century and earned praise from such renowned social critics as George
Orwell and Leo Trotsky for his perceptive portrayals of how decaying
capitalism could mutate into an authoritative plutocracy, in which a
dominating circle of wealthy individuals turn farmers into serfs and
laborers into near-slaves. Rhetorically, London demonstrates his abounding
skill, as the story of the “2nd Revolution” during the then futuristic
1912–32 period is relayed to the reader through a fictitious historian in
the 26th century (who lives in a tranquil socialist society that enjoys
economic and social prosperity) who is editing a manuscript that was penned
by Avis Everhard, the political adherent and lover of the revolution’s
political leader. The manuscript recounts how the plutocracy is able to
victimize members of the lower classes and beat out democracy from society
through secret mercenaries as well as how the revolution eventually fails
to overcome such a powerful, seemingly omnipresent force. Thus, this
spellbinding dystopian novel predicts conspiracies and attacks of the
pre-World War II era, all while espousing the importance of democracy in
the face of fascist regimes.

My (1920; We), by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Yevgeny Zamyatin, one of the most subversive authors to hail from Russia,
penned perhaps the most fundamental dystopian text in 1920. Although Russia
forbade its publication until 1988, My (or We in English) circulated
throughout the nation in manuscript form and found itself published in the
United States as early as 1924. The novel depicts life in the “Single
State,” where citizens are identified by numbers, live in glass houses, are
assigned sex partners, and don identical uniforms, through the journal
entries of an engineer of a government project to conquer neighboring
planets. It has been credited as the fundamental text upon which most
modern dystopias are based, chief among them being George Orwell’s Nineteen
Eighty-Four (1949). Through the consistently and unanimously elected
“Benefactor” and his totalitarian dictatorship, Zamyatin effectively warns
against the dangers of strict utilitarianism and conformity. The extremity
of Zamytain’s dystopia is so great that, in one instance, a female
character is not allowed to procreate for the reason that she’s too short.

Brave New World (1932), by Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley’s empirical, efficiently managed society that suppresses
emotions and nonconformity is perhaps the best-known dystopia on this list.
In Brave New World, John the Savage—a feeling, thinking, and creative
individual who is familiar with various primitive spiritual rituals—and his
mother are introduced to this ostensible utopia, only to learn of its
euthanasia practices as well as to suffer from the fatal effects of a
pain-relieving happiness-creating drug called soma. What ensues is an
unadulterated tragedy, in which the novel’s author deftly displays the toll
of ubiquitous conformity on the human, feeling spirit.

Atlas Shrugged (1957), by Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand, in her magnum opus Atlas Shrugged, creates a dystopia in the
not-so-distant future where collective governing, ruled by overly
bureaucratic and outright corrupt moochers, has led the United States to
the brink of economic collapse. Rand’s protagonist—Dagny Taggart, a
prodigious railroad tycoon—and her business are continually thwarted by
government regulations, leaving her to choose between endlessly battling
alone the rampant corruption in order to keep her business alive or
abandoning the company that she has worked tirelessly for since she was of
age and joining Galt’s Gulch, a secretive utopia where all productive and
creative members of society (namely scientists, artists, and
industrialists) fled so that they could create a world in which rationality
and self-determination reign supreme. Thus, this dystopian novel has become
celebrated by Rand followers as being the mouthpiece for Objectivism,
Rand’s personal philosophy.

A Clockwork Orange (1962), by Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange, known for its unrelenting depictions of
“ultra-violence” in a futuristic dystopia where incorrigible gangs of
youths threaten the mind-numbing monotony of the state-ruled society, is
relayed to readers through a violent youth named Alex, who employs an
idiolect derived from English, American, and Russian slang. Burgess follows
his antihero as he, along with his “droogs” commits desultory acts of
violence against normal citizens, culminating in a savage beating that
turns fatal, after which Alex is abandoned by his subordinates to be
charged for the murder of an old lady. He is then confined by police and
subjected to state-sponsored intensive psychotherapy, in which he is
drugged and forced to watch heinous acts of violence until he is no longer
his former, aberrant self. In this unique dystopian universe, Burgess is
able to masterfully display contradictions formed from the opposing minds
of human nature, from its perfectibility to its outright depravity, and the
extreme political systems upon which they are based.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), by Margaret Atwood
First edition dust jacket to Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's
Tale" (1986)
The Handmaid's Tale
Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc., Merchantville, N.J.
In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood envisions a future theocratic
American country in which women are categorized in a hierarchy as wives,
servants, breeders, and so on. The story is framed as a handwritten account
of a handmaid (breeder) whose sole purpose in life is to supply babies for
infertile wives who are higher in the social hierarchy. As Offred (the
narrator’s given name in the new regime) becomes useful through the
capabilities of her body, she becomes repulsed by herself and only finds
relief in memories of her life, friends, and family before the theocratic
ruling began. The Handmaid’s Tale serves as a powerful feminist text that
effectively illustrates the horrors that women can face at the hands of
overly conservative ideologies.

The Children of Men (1992), by P.D. James
Penned in 1992 and set in 2021, P.D. James’s The Children of Men envisions
a foreseeable future in which the human population has become infertile and
an authoritative Warden of England retains order where anarchy could easily
come to dominate. With a dying population, the Warden of England has
installed various regulations such as mass “voluntary” suicides by the
elderly, rampant cruel treatment toward prisoners of the state, and
mandatory sperm testing and female inspections. In this dystopian future,
the reader finds the dispassionate college professor Dr. Theo Faron, a
cousin of the Warden, as he joins a small cohort of subversives in
opposition to the unelected dictator. The Children of Men not only conveys
strong warnings for its readers but also tracks the journey of a man’s soul
as the protagonist finds something to fight and live for, even when the
odds are seemingly stacked against him.

The Giver (1993), by Lois Lowry
Jonas, an unusual pale-eyed 11-year-old boy turning 12, comes of age and is
assigned the prestigious role of Receiver of pain and memories in an
apparent utopia where war, fear, pain, and choices have ceased to exist. He
meets with the Giver, a weary though benevolent grandfather figure, who
bestows upon Jonas memories of the world and Elsewhere, when and where
colors, passions, love, hate, and war exist. Growing discontent with the
monotony of his society and enraged when he learns what it means to be
“released,” Jonas, with the Giver, conspire to endow their society with
what it has been missing in the dystopia created in Lois Lowry’s renowned
novel The Giver.

The Road (2006), by Cormac McCarthy
As survivors in a gloomy postapocalyptic America, where anarchy dominates
after an unspecified disaster, a father and son trek across the doom-ridden
terrain with a pistol, scavenged food, and each other in Cormac McCarthy’s
Pulitzer Prize-winning dystopian novel The Road. The father, committed
entirely to keeping his son alive at whatever cost, and son stave off
starvation at every corner and deal with occasional interlopers who have
also survived, all while coping with the near impossible task of keeping
memories of happiness and loved ones alive in a world that rains gray and
wreaks desolation. In his deft prose, rife with morbid imagery, Cormac
McCarthy spells out metaphors that offer bleak hope in the face of total
devastation and provide wisdom beyond value, thus making The Road perhaps
the most important dystopian novel of the early 21st century.
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