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(A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., Dystopian Fiction,…
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Canticle for Leibowitz, published in 1960, is about a boy named Brother Francis Gerard in the world 600 years after the nuclear war that almost completely destroyed him.
Years ago, a man named Isaac Edward Leibowitz founded the Albert Order of
Leibowitz. Leibowitz was originally a Jewish electrical engineer for the US military, but after the war he converted to the Roman Catholic faith.
Dystopian Fiction
Most people understand what a "utopia" is, but "dystopia" is not as well known. Where a utopia describes the perfect society and an ideal world, dystopian literature is more nightmarish and dark as it explores political and social structures.
What makes this genre so interesting is its exploration of some of the darker parts of the human psyche and society, both in the political sphere and in social norms.
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H.G. Wells
There he discovers that the humans have split into two separate races, the Upper Class Humans and the Morlocks. Years without conflict left the humans uneducated and desensitized while the Morlocks grew more aggressive and violent.
Ayn Rand
Another famous person in the field of literary fiction is Ayn Rand. It features a man, Equality 7-2521, living at an unspecified time in a dystopian future where individuality has been eliminated and technological progress is almost non-existent.
Suzanne Collins
A more recent example of dystopian fiction is Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. There is a very distinct class divide between the lower and upper classes, beyond the Hunger Games, which goes so far as to separate them by mountains without any contact.
To summarize, dystopian fiction comes to us as a reaction to Sir Thomas More's Utopia.
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1984 by George Orwell
This classic piece of dystopian fiction was first published in 1949. We read about Winston Smith and his adventures as he rebels against the intellectual limitations of society and finds romance with Julia to be caught, tortured and re-educated. Some read it as a warning of the potential power that government can have over people.
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