CHANGES/REFINEMENTS TO DYSTOPIAN LITERATURE
Dystopias are meant to be imperfect because they represent the imperfections of human society but over the years there have been a few influential authors that have revolutionized the genre. With the addition of actual scientific principles and theories, dystopias became incredibly realistic and many famous dystopias prophesize inventions that would come decades after they were published. “Perhaps dystopias even helped lead to these technologies by presenting them to the public? How knows”. What we do know, however, is that over the years new authors have changed the dystopian genre by adding their own little touch in their works. The following are changes that have affected this genre for decades and are still affecting it today.
Disease: diseases are prominent in many dystopias either as a negative or a positive. in H.G. Wells's ground-breaking novel War of the Worlds an alien invasion of Earth is first depicted. now in this novel disease is eventually what saves the human race, because our weapons cant harm their ships but the air they breath has disease foreign to them which they are susceptible to eventually they all die from ,what most people believe, small pox.
Disease: diseases are prominent in many dystopias either as a negative or a positive. in H.G. Wells's ground-breaking novel War of the Worlds an alien invasion of Earth is first depicted. now in this novel disease is eventually what saves the human race, because our weapons cant harm their ships but the air they breath has disease foreign to them which they are susceptible to eventually they all die from ,what most people believe, small pox.
Advanced Technologies: many dystopian authors have realized the applications of technology long before anyone else thought of them. in H.G. Wells's The War In The Air he predicts air raids using airplanes on cities and civilian targets, three years later Italians bomb civilian targets in north Africa. in the novel City Of The Living Dead by Laurence Manning and Fletcher Pratt, artificial illusionary worlds ,virtual reality, or cyberspace is introduced. this novels was published more than seventy years before the internet was created.
Enviroment: Many people now-a-days care about our impact on the environment, because of this dystopia has evolved to encompass environmental collapse and planet wide break-down of ecosystems. In the movie Silent Running all plant life on earth has gone extinct and only a few specimens have been saved in giant green houses that orbit the planet Saturn. The main character kills himself to save the eco-dome after his supervisors give him the order to jettison the dome and destroy the last remaining plants and animals. In the end he saves the forest and the animals living within it. the last scene in the movie is the eco-dome floating away through space.