Utopia and Dystopia: The Effect of Politics on Literature

What is it about?

This article introduces and evaluates the ideas of utopia and dystopia. To understand utopia as a genre, its origins, founding texts and evolutionary history are presented. Drawing on the debates of totalitarianism and capitalism, this study argues that utopia is not only a literary genre but an endeavour for building a future society and a better life by criticising the existing situation of human being. Correspondingly, the questions “What is utopia?” and “Is modern society a ‘dystopia?” are addressed. The relation between the individual (who is at the centre of political thought and decision) and the society and power is problematized through utopias that both reflect the political thinking of the era they are written in and are themselves a politico-social proposal.

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