7 OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL NOVELS IN DYSTOPIAN HISTORYOne of the most important dystopian novels was written in 1863 by Jules Verne entitled "Paris in the Twentieth Century." It tells the tale of a young man who has graduated college with a degree in literature; however all of the arts in Paris are government-controlled. Without being able to use what he learned in school to make a living for himself he finds he is running out of money and with no place to live. He is freezing to death at the end of the novel and walking the streets of Paris. There are mechanical wonders of all sorts, but nothing that will keep him warm and he becomes more and more delirious. He eventually dies after reflecting on how his society's lack of the arts ultimately led to the death of many innocent people. This dystopian epic paints the picture of a world without art and warns that it is a cold and mechanized future.
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In 1895, H.G. Wells wrote "The Time Machine". The story tells the tale of a 19th century inventor who discovers the secrets of time travel. While his travels take him to various times in the future and some are wonderful, he ultimately ends up in a future where humanity has devolved into horrid creatures called the Morlocks. There is an upper class of humans in this same future, but they same to be desensitized and highly uneducated because of years without war or challenges. The lower Morlocks, however, have become violent and aggressive beasts who attempt to kill everything they see. The story warns of the dangers of human class systems over centuries and the ability for man to be both angelic and hellish. The story, much like the society it details, begins in harmony and ends in disaster.
In 1899 the novels The Story Of The Days To Come and When The Sleeper Wakes by H.G. Wells are published. They are debatably the first modern dystopias, probably the first elaborately ideological dystopias, and definitely the first anti-capitalistic dystopias.
In 1932 the publication of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the first depiction of failed paradise-engineering. Among many other things, it basically introduces the themes of mass culture and technology abuse in dystopian fiction, as well as scientific concepts such as designer drugs, conditioning and cloning.
In 1949 George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four , the most elaborately anti-totalitarian dystopia and politically the most influential dystopia of all time, is published. It advances and consolidates the dystopian themes of systematic oppression and mind control. Until the making of Blade Runner, it is basically the sole Dystopia prototype.
One of the more modern examples of a dystopian epic in the 20th century was Anthony Burgesses' 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange. The novel takes place in an alternate-reality England where gangs roam the streets and rape and murder are a common occurrence. The main character is a leader of one of the gangs that terrorizes the innocence of England and cares nothing for people's emotions or property. By the end of the novel, however, the hero is arrested and taken to a secret government facility where he is brainwashed into being unable to think negative thoughts. The main character quickly discovers without the ability to defend himself, or even posit a negative idea, that he is quickly swallowed up by the world he has helped create. He is ultimately victimized by this same world and the cycle of a corrupted society becomes apparent.
In 1984 William Gibson's Neuromancer is published and marks the birth of the influential cyberpunk movement. It also inspires science, engenders debate, revitalises dystopian fiction, popularises the cyberspace concept, and consolidates the themes of corporate dominion and hyper-technology in modern science fiction.