The Impossibility of Utopia

Paper Summary:

The paper explains that in utopias the world is absolutely good, while in dystopias the universe becomes an absolutely evil place. The paper first compares Orwell's famous utopia "Nineteen Eighty-Four" to Huxley's famous dystopia "Brave New World". The paper then examines the utopian and dystopian elements in Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories". The paper shows how all three works hint at the possibility of the future existence of a dystopian world and that our present world may be a dystopia where we are controlled without being aware of it.

From the Paper:

"It can be said therefore that these two notions are more or less correspondent to the two Christian concepts of heaven and hell, respectively. Also, it should be noted that utopias and dystopias are both totalitarian: the purpose is to imagine a world in which the balance provided by the existence of opposites, such as good and evil or beauty and ugliness, has been completely erased. Instead of nature there is only a totalitarian state which is 'perfect', either in its goodness or in its evilness. In a way, although utopias and dystopias are virtually opposites, it should be noted that they both design a world in which possibility and change are impossible, and where there is no respite from either the absolutely positive or the absolutely negative state of things."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Hochman, Jhan. "Overview of Brave New World." Exploring Novels. <http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.
• Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: New Directions, 1999.
• Keech, James. "The Survival of the Gothic Response," in Studies in the Novel, Vol. 6, No. 2, Summer, 1974, pp. 130-44.
• Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
• Rushdie, Salman. Haroun and the Sea of Stories. New York: New Directions, 2006.

More papers on The Impossibility of Utopia:

• Book Review # 129135 : "The Fatal Flaw in Thomas More's 'Utopia'."
• Analytical Essay # 67819 : "Utopia"
• Book Review # 117544 : "Swift's Impossible Utopia"

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