What does this passage remind you of? Why?
These are some definitions of DYSTOPIA, which one do you prefer? Why?
Is there one that fits the extract below better than another?
After reading the short passage, can you come up with your definition of dystopia in Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things? Do you think it presents dystopic qualities or not? What do the words chosen by the writer make you feel like?
A negative utopia: a place where instead of all being well, all is not well. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 are the best-known fictional examples.
An imaginary society in which social or technological trends have culminated in a greatly diminished quality of life or degradation of values.
A dystopia (alternatively anti-utopia) is a fictional society that is the antithesis of utopia. It is usually characterized by an oppressive social control, such as an authoritarian or totalitarian government. In other words, a Dystopia has the opposite of what one would expect in a Utopian society. Some academic circles distinguish between anti-utopia and dystopia. As in George Orwell’s 1984,and Yevgeny Zamyatin‘s "We", a dystopia does not pretend to be good, while an anti-utopia appears to be utopian or was intended to be so (e.g. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or Andrew Ryan’s Rapture in BioShock), but a fatal flaw or other factor has destroyed or twisted the intended utopian world or concept.
Displacement
Excerpt taken from Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things, Faber and Faber, 1987, page85-86
In spite of what you would suppose, the facts are not reversible. Just because you are able to get in, that does not mean you will be able to get out. Entrances do not become exits, and there is nothing to guarantee that the door you walked through a moment ago will still be there when you turn around to look for it again. That is how it works in the city. Every time you think you know the answer to a question, you discover that the question makes no sense. I spent several weeks trying to escape. At first, there seemed to be any number of possibilities, a whole range of methods for getting myself back home, and given the fact taht I had some money to work with, I did not think it would be very hard. That was wrong, of course, but it took me a while before I was willing to admit it. I had arrived in a foreign charity ship, and it seemed logival to assume that I could return in one. I therefore made my way down to the docks, fully prepared to bribe whatever official I had to in order to book passage. No ships were in sight, however, and even the little fishing boats I had seen there a month before were gone. Instead, the whole waterfront was thronged with workers – hundreds and hundreds of them, it seemed to me, more men than I was able to count. Some were unloading rubble from trucks, otherws were carrying bricks and stones to the edge of the water, still others were laying the foundations for what looked like an immense sea wall or fortification. Armed police guards stood on platforms surveying the workers, and the place swarmed with din and confusion – the rumbling of engines, poeple running back and forth, the voices of crew chiefs shouting orders. It turned out that this was the Sea Wall Project, a public works enterprise that had recently been started by the new government. Governments come and go quite rapidly here, and it is often difficult to keep up with the changes. This was the first I had heard of the current takeover, and when I asked someone ther purpose of the sea wall, he told me it was to guard against the possibility of war. The threat fo foreign invasion was mounting, he said, and it was our duty as citizens to protec our homeland. Thansk to the efforts of the great So-and-So – whatever the name of the new leader was – the materials from collapsed buildings were now bieng collected for defense, and the project would give work to thousands of people. What kind of pay were they offering? I asked. No money, he said, but a place to lvie and one warm meal a day. Was I interested in signing up? No thanks, I said, I have other things to do. Well, he said, there would be plenty of time for me to change my mind. The government was estimating that it would take at least fifty years to finish the wall. Good for them, I said, but in the meantime how does one get out of here? Oh no, he said, shaking his head, that’s impossible. Ships aren’t allowed to come in anymore – and if nothing comes in, nothing can go out. What about an airplane? I said. What’s an airplane? he asked, smiling at me in a puzzled sort of way, as though I had just told a joke he didn’t understand. An airplace, I said. A machine taht flies through the air and carries people from one palce to another. That’s ridiculous, he said, giving me a suspicious kind of look. There’s no such thing. It’s impossible. Don’t you remember? I asked. I don’t know what you’re talking about, he said. You could get into trouble for spreading that kind of nonsense. The government doesn’t like it when people make up stories. It’s bad for morale.
I’ve just read the passage, unfortunately I cannot associate it at anyone storic event because I have only few memoris about the historic period that goes from 1900 to 2000 because I don’t study it since elementary schools!
About dystopia I don’t like any of this definition because all of them implies that men are men and in a dystopian society man are machine, robots, computers, because they cannot think!
The only definition that fits the extract is the third because the first implies that the “place” is apparenty well, and in the extract the “place” is not well and not bad (because people acannot think); the second contains the world “diminished” so is not good because people inside cannot think; the third fits because introduces the world “oppressive social control” that is the dystopia of the extract (there is the police that supervise the men at work).
Paul Auster maybe think that dystopia is a “thing” or a kind of society or something else where when you enter you cannot exit and when your mind is sucked by the power so you begin a grey people, part of the mass! This could be another definition of dystopia worst that the ones at the begin of the article! Looking at the language we can see the fear of the protagonist beusa description are not detailed so the narration goes fast, the terms are simply, the same term that a scared person could use!
MrLory1990
Dear Lorenzo,
I appreciate the fact that you read the definitions of dystopia very carefully and you chose with insight the one that suits the extract best. However, there is something I would love to invite you to consider. You say that in a dystopian novel men are robots, computers, because they cannot think. Well, I do not quite agree with this view. First of all because this view does not take into consideration the process of alienation that the writer genrally traces in a dystopic novel. Characters are not born incapable of thinking or feeling, they are turned into “alienated” beings by the totalitarian regime/society they live in. Secondly your view does not take into considaration that in a dystopic novel there is always a character (in “1984”, as in the excerpt you read by Auster) that tries to escape, to survive, to go against the system to preserve the human and humane qualities that for whatever reason have escaped the smothering annihilation activated by the System (to be read as the Government). There is then the element of langauge that you do not seem to analyse with due insight. Hope some of your classmates will do that. Just a hint: language in a dystopic novel conceals manifold meanings. The author, for example, refers to the building of the wall to criticise something about our society. Perhaps the wall between Israel and Palestine, the wall between Mexico and the United States, and other invisible walls. Who wants these walls? Who constructed them and why? Why are they legitimated by other countries? How is it possible that in certain parts of the world walls are pulled down (Berlin Wall) and in other parts they are raised? By posing these questions I am not at all claiming that I have an answer, I am only trying to point out that a dystopic novel has the objective of making the reader question certain things, of deconstructing what is taken for granted.
Already from the first superficial reading, the third definition seems to be the best, as the clearest and the most complete out of the three. But, in my opinion, the first, with its exaggerated way to be sinthetic, manages to spot the principle point of Dystopia: inside a dystopian world either Hope or Happiness cannot exist. Everything is upside down, everyone is strictly controlled. There is nothing that could ever help people to express their mind as that it’s the first forbiddance in such a fictional world.
“Dystopia has the opposite of what one would expect in a Utopian society.” The definition of Dystopia could be summarised just in this sentence, because all the rest then goes without saying. The means by which the inhabitants of that world are oppressed could be different and various, as everything you may think in a positive way, there it is simply thought in a deep negative way.
In fact reading this extract you start feeling anxious from the beginning, when the protagonist says that being able to get in doesn’t mean to be able to get out: and that is very important in a dystopian society,because, since you were a child, you are forced into this endless chain that never makes sense, but from which you can’t escape.
As concerning dystopia definition taken by Paul Auster text, it is perfectly presented in this methaphorical way: “Ships aren’t allowed to come in anymore – and if nothing comes in, nothing can go out.” In a dystopian novel there is no inside or outside, the System(or the Government) is the only thing that counts. And when someone try to call into question something that belongs to the reality the System has created, all the other well-indoctrinated people can’t even imagine something that goes beyond it. Moreover they advice this “inconsiderate man” not getting into trouble while spreading “nonsense” against the Government.
I think an author of dystopian novels always wishes the world he had described was just fictional and that none of his characteristics couldn’t be found in real life. Unfortunately sometimes that’s not true! you take the example of the wall between Israel and Palestine, which is a thing that cannot be explained and shouldn’t exist in 2008!(actually it should never exist)…but maybe there are even worse walls around the world that people can’t or doesn’t want to overtake: for istance xenofobia and racism, which are huge walls that unfairly divide peoples; or ideological and political thinking; or some prejudices that may move away a person from another. There are lots of those invisible and psychological walls which are raised between people or territories. Maybe reading a dystopian novel and feeling caught into that terrible condition can make the reader more aware of the existence of those walls that have to be taken down for the sake of humanity.
Pierluca..
I think that the better definition of dystopian society is: “a place where all is not well”. Where everything is controlled by someone and you cannot decide anything. You can only obey to rules and be oppressed. If you believed is something that is not the government, you would make a mistake. If do you think that you can came back from where you are coming, you are a deceived man!
Dystopia is control, laws, deprivation of any freedom, anxiety, difficulty; “entrances do not become exits, and there is nothing to guarantee that the door you walked through a moment ago will still be there when you turn around to look for it again”. That is dystopia!
The extract recalls very closely the scenario of Orwell’s 1984: a world dominated by a totalitarian government, by an excessive social control, and by fear of a threatening external essence (which may be the war). The definition I prefer is “[Dystopia is]a fictional society that is the antithesis of utopia. It is usually characterized by an oppressive social control, such as an authoritarian or totalitarian government.”; it expresses well the concept of Dystopia, also in light of what is said in this short extract. The definition explains the idea that also the author –probably- has of Dystopia. “In the country of last things” is certainly a dystopian novel: it is the representation of a world dominated, controlled and conditioned in all aspects of life. The words used by Auster express a very strong sense of oppression, they describe a world where you can come in but you cannot get out. Someone decides and plans for us our future and our lives. A society without dialogue, without freedom to express ideas.
Raggiotto Francesco
Dear Simone,
Thanks for your insight. To the “material” and appalling walls that we must witness nowadays, I would add the one between Mexico and the United States. The dystopian movie “The day after Tomorrow” seems to mock this wall, when American survivors climb over the long fence to seek refuge in Mexico. As to the extract and to the qualities it shares with other dystopian novels, I would love to add that in this fantastic novel (by the way, very shortly there will be a film based on it) there is utter desperation, there is a claustrophobic succession of difficulties characters must go through, yet, there is the regenerating power of love and friendship and finally the hope of a better place where characters can escape and start afresh, regardless of having been reduced to living dead creatures. As you saw in “1984”, in dystopian novels there is often a way out, regardless of how “tiny”, “invisible” or “dark” it may be.
Pierluca, your reflections on the meaning of dystopia are fine, but you missed to link the definition to the excerpt you read.
Francesco you certainly got to the point. Well done.
If, one day, you happen to have some time (I know you are overwhelmed with things to do and study for school now!), do read “In the country of last things”. I loved it immensely, it is a page-turner, a fascinating novel.
Love,
Your teacher of English.
reading this passage I think about the society spoken in “1984” by Orwell.mankind is dominated by someone who decides for all the other.there is a sort of totalitarism but I don’t notice a leader.in both “1984” by Orwell and this passage taken from “In the country of last things”by Auster,I don’t know if a leader exist.it seems that this regim is inside human being,they totaly done their body and their soul to the government ideas.in either there is a man who isn’t already taken by the ideology.he tries to understand why this nightmare is become reality.he tries to go against the sistem but he finds only a wall in front of him.in “1984” the protagonist is really convinced that he will not be part of the sistem but at the end he is forced to yield.it seems that he is not aware,they take his mind and he isn’t in him anymore.reading the book and this passage I think also about a sort of alienation of men like Marx said about work for workers.I’m reading “Animal farm”.I’m only at the beginning but I noticed that pigs are the boss,the leader without a democratic decision,maybe they will create a regim and the other animals will revolt to this injustice.
I choose the third definition because is the one that gives me the best meaning of dystopia.it gives also examples such as “characterized by an oppressive social control such as an authoritarian or totalitarian government”.it mentions Orwell’s book that is a perfect example of dystopia.
all three belong very well with the passage maybe the best one is the second one.reading the passage “what about an airplane?…it’s bad for morale”,the sistem decided to eliminate things like an airplane that are part of modernity.
in “The country of last things” dystopia is a passage from a reality to another.it is an unaware passage,the man finds itself in this new world were people is creating a see wall to protect theirself.he finds itself in a world that in his mind exist only years ago,not today.”the world GO BACK ROLLING”.
in this passage there are lots of words or sentences that make the protagonist and me feel confused,discouraged,loss of hopes and surprised.
1)”in spite of what you would suppose,the facts are reversible”
2)”does not mean you will”
3)”there is nothing to guarantee”
1,2,3 suggest us to be careful
2every time you think you know the answer to a question you discover that the question makes no sense”this makes me feel confused
“but it took me a while before I was willing to admit it”this is link with the discovery of reality
“it seemed to me more men than I was able to count”is a sort of surprise
“is often difficult to keep up with the changes”is a loss of hopes
1)”no money,he said,but a place to live and one warm meal a day”
2)”and if nothing comes in,nothing can go out”
1,2 from these answer is clear that people is subdued from government.
This passage has a lot in common with Orwell’s novel “1984”. People can’t leave the country, they are controlled by the police and the government has people’s minds in its power: they cannot decide on their own what is morale. Only the government knows the truth. Of course there are also some differences, for example in “1984” the chief of the government is always the same, whereas here it changes very often.
The definition of dystopia I prefer is the third one, which is exhaustive and includes the main points of the others: it says that a dystopia is a society usually controlled by a totalitarian government in an oppressive way. I think it also fits well the passage taken from Auster’s book, but if I had to add something, I would say that in a dystopic society people are brainwashed, they blindly obey the government. And it has dehumanazing effects. If I’m not wrong, then this passage can be considered dystopic, even because the writer conveys an idea of degradation through expressions like «a place to live and one warm meal a day» as salary for the workers, or just because there are people who can’t remember any longer what is an aeroplane; but the most meaningful to me is «Every time you think you know the answer to a question, you discover that the question makes no sense». It makes you feel lost, powerless.
federica zille
When i read this passage i immediatly remembered of “1984”, the book written by George Orwell. In the two different books happen the “same” things:in one hand,in 1984,there is the society submitted to the power of Big Brother,which spies upon everyone’s behavior,even their thoughts.It seems to be in a jail where you are controlled 24 hours to 24.In this totalitarian regime there are 4 Ministry,each of them is occupied in something.The Ministry of Love is the worst,it is a rehabilitation centre which uses tortures and brainwashing techniques in order to conform its prisoners into the thinking and beliefs of the party.In the other hand there is the book of Paul Auster “in the country of last things” where the resemblance with the other book is clear: here people are building a wall and the Government says that it is useful because it is used in order to protect the society from the enemy,but it’s a lie because there aren’t enemy.It’s a way to brainwash people and to mould them into the new society:the totalitarian regime.A wall which sorrounds the city in order to create a sort of world divided from the rest of humanity…
I prefer the third definition of DYSTOPIA because it is linked to the two books:”a dystopia is a society usually characterized by an oppressive social control,such as an authoritarian or totalitarian governmnet”. I think dystopia is a negative word and represents a society where there isn’t freedom and where people are submitted to the power of government.The title of the book is linked to the word dystopia,i mean, “in the country of last things” is pessimistic,it underlines the fact that in this society you can’t waste your time because you had to do your last things before losing in all ways your freedom.Also the language is going to change and many words would be forgotten.Another link to the word is the passage:”just because you are able to get in,that doesn’t mean you will be able to get out”, it is relevant because it tells in advance that you are going in a sort of real cage,prison where everything will change and you will lost your freedom for ever….
Santarossa Barbara
This passage makes me immediately think to 1984, by George Orwell. The rapid succession of different governments reminds me of the different countries the Big Brother was in conflict with. Then, the building of a wall, that will take 50 years, and that does not seem to be so useful, and the workers who won’t get money but just a place to live and food. But mainly is the brainwash that the government does on the workers that reminds me of Orwell: a man can’t remember of airplanes, and it seems impossible that he forgot it, but this is the power of totalitarism. Exactly as in 1984, where people don’t remember anything of freedom, of England, of our lives.
I prefer the purple definition: I think the lack of freedom is the element that mostly distinguishes a dystopia. The third one is the definition that points this out.
I think both the second and the third definition can fit the extract. Maybe mainly the third one, because it underlines the totalitarian regime, that I see as one of the worst thing ever existed.
I think the passage is a description of a distopian world. You can’t go away, and nobody can come in. You are not free to think freely: “The government doesn’t like it when people make up stories. It’s bad for morale.” Everybody has to think and to do what the government wants. These are all elements that in my opinion identify a dystopic society.
The first part of the passage is quite anguishing: it destroys my certainties, it presents me a world where you can’t be sure of anything.
Even the dialogue is anguishing, but in another way: reading the answers of the man, you think you are crazy because it seems everybody has another way of thinking. “What’s an airplane? he asked, smiling at me in a puzzled sort of way, as though I had just told a joke he didn’t understand.”
Pietro Perin
“A Dystopia has the opposite of what one would expect in a Utopian society”
At first reading, I chose the third definition: it explains well how a dystopian society grows up, and that a dystopia is characterized by an authoritarian or totalitarian government. However after I read the passage proposed, I realized that the first definition is the best: it’s concise, synthetic but it simplifies with clarify the term Dystopia – Negative Utopia. “A place where instead of all being well, all is not well”. An example of that is the text In the Country of Last Things of Paul Auster. Reading this except I fell worried and anxious. The words used expressed a sense of oppression: it’s like labyrinth where you enter but you don’t know if there is an exit. Here, you are able to get in, but it does not mean you will be able to get out. I must also underline another phrase taken from this passage: “What’s an airplane?… There’s no such thing. It’s impossible…You could get into trouble for spreading that kind of nonsense. The government doesn’t like it when people make up stories. It’s bad for morale.” So I agree with Simone’s quotation: in a dystopian world there is no inside or outside. Government controls you, he drives your thoughts or your hopes without any possibility to modify his decision. The system is your head, your eyes or your ears. He enters in your body: you are always controlled.
We can do a parallelism with “1984” of Orwell, or also with “Animal farm” of the same author. In the first, there is the “Big Brother” who controlled all the society. There are two people –Winston and Julia – who want escape from this life; they thought they were not driven by the System. At the end, they were compelled to follow the “bipensiero”, the only acknowledged thought. In this Society, the texts which are not on the same wavelength as the ideas of the Socing, are written in a new way. We can read this passage in another way: the fact that the man doesn’t know what an airplane is, is due to the Government that doesn’t want this kind of progress.
Monica Santi
Guarino Ilaria
This passage reminde me of the book by Orwell “1984”.In this passage I found the key theme of this book.Both in “1984” and in this extract taken by “in the country of last things” we can see the “system” that hang over the people and controll and manipulate their mind.Is a sort of authoritarian regime in which noone seems to rule.But we can percive a kind of “spirit” that is around and controll everithing.The purpose of the regime both in the book and in the passage is to eliminate common words to adopt less vocabulary different from the previous so that people cannot express their thought.there is fear and somehow “silence” in this kind of society.People prefer to hide their heads in the sand and no to face the reality.Seems that noone want to escape orm this situation and the people who still understand what is happening can t manage to escape.Because of this “oppression” the mind of the people became flat,empty and the way to come back to he country of last things seems to be disappeared.
I personally prefer the third quotation because is te most complete and sum up clearely the meaning of what distophia is.
I think that both the second and the third definition are suitable to the extract the we read.In spite of the briefely of the passage the degradation of value” and the “oppressive social controll” strikes immediately our attention
Dystophia is for me an imaginary society in which the past seems to be forgotten.In this kind of society rule the regession in spite of the progress.
This extract is the embleme of dystrophia.Paul Auster describes to us a reality where “all is not well”.When i first read this extract i felt a sens of anxiety.I wore the woman’s shoes and i felt like i wsa in a cage.The words chosen by Auster opened my eyes and makes me think about my reality.
This passage taken from Paul Auster’s “In the country of last things” remind me the book of George Orwell “1984”.
Both novels tell the story of a society that is controlled and submitted by someone more powerful. In “1984” there is the Big Brother that with his “eye” watches his subjects to make sure that they follow the rules. They are tightly controlled and they absolutely can not rebel to the system.
This happen also “In the country of last things” where people are all submitted under a system and they are instucted to work for a huge project: they have to build a wall to defend themselves from a possible enemy. The only purpose of this “thronged with workers” is that of building the wall and they can not refuse because they are controlled by the Government.
They can not escape from this place. Who manage to get in, is not able to get out. Entrances do not become exits and the only solution for whom who find himself in this system is to get use of it.
Among the three different definitions of Dystopia i prefer the last one because i think that in its meaning it includes the other two. It is the more complete definition and it is also the best that fits the extract of Paul Auster and that of Orwell.
In my opinion a dystopian society is a state in which the conditions of human life are so miserable that they are almost considered beasts. It is a place characterized by human misery, oppression and desease and where all is negative.
In the passage of Paul Auster one of the dystopic qualities that struck me was that the Governmetnt had so much power to oppress, control and educate the workers to the rules of the system that they do not even know the meaning of a common word such as “airplain”.They have also fear to pronounce it because it sounds nonsense and it is bad for the moral.
They are frightened and say something wrong or against the system can be a big mistake.
Marson Chiara
This passage reminds me of the dystopia “1984” by George Orwell, because there are a lot of common features. (the list is below, in “my definition” od dystopia).
I prefer the definition written in pink (the third one) because I think it is the most exhaustive and I completely agree with the idea of “dystopia” proposed. I really like the distinction between “anti-utopia” and “dystopia”, because I didn’t know about it and this definition motivates me to read an “anti-utopia” (in fact I’ve never read this kind of books, my first and only experience, for the moment, is 1984 by George Orwell, that’s a dystopia).
Both the first and the third definition fit the excerpt above. The first one because the place presented is “a place where instead of all being well, all is not well”: I don’t think the construction of the wall is a good sign, it could be interpreted as a metaphore of separation between the world in which workers live and the narrator lives. It is clear these worlds are completely different, because the worker does not know what is an airplane any longer and looks the narrator as if he was mad when he mentions it. Are these beliefs consequences of an oppressive and authoritarian government? I think so, because of the sentence “The government doesn’t like it when people make up stories. It’s bad for morale.” So, I think that also the third definition fits the extract.
Dystopia: an imaginary world (fortunately!) mainly characterized by lack of certainty, because of the negative turnaround of values present in the society. This world represents absurd situations, in which conscious characters feel like they were in a “blind alley”, because of the decline of people’s mind (their lack of consciousness), the presence of a totalitarian regime (that go into people’s private life) and centrality of war, as a means of power.
In my opinion, the excerpt presents distopic qualities (the list of them is above, in “my definition” of dystopia).
The words chosen by the author make me feel as if I was him… Language is really effective, because I felt like a prisoner of his/her world by reading the extract… This feeling is really unpleasant, in fact it implies a sense of anguish, anxiety and daze towards things you have always considered differently.
Giulia Marcassa
The definition which hit the most the means of distopia is the third.A dystopich society is the negation of all the basic freedoms wich made us humans.A society in wich “entrances not become exits”,in wich a wall precludes all the tryies of going out is absurd to be thought nowadays,but i don’ think that in a dystopich world there is always a way of going out.If we were all grown with brainwashings we would have not the possibilty to think in an other way,we would have been like robots.A dystopi can be thought only were it does not exists,that’s why the concept of the opposite of an utopia could change from man to man and from time to time.The nearest example of a distopich society are .China in wich hundred milions people must work as slaves even eighteen hours a day,in which information can not circulate if are not checked by the governement, and lots of other states with totalitarian regims in wich people are compeled to be poor in order to contrast their will of of freedom.the best definition is:a dystopia is the opposite of n utopia. In the excerpt the construction of the “Sea wall” ,the ”governments wich come and go quite rapidly”,the man brainwashed who has forgotten the excictence of airplanes leave the reader with a sense of consciousness and gratitude with all the people who fought for freedom.
Perin Marco
The description of the landscape, the woman protagonist sees, is the picture I made up in my mind everytime I read about the totalitaristic regimes that there were in Europe in 20th century and that Orwell described in his dystopian “1984”, because of the caracteristics he gave to the world he created(people brain-washed that work for a governament they think good…)
I personally prefer the first one for one reason:it couldn’t be definited an immaginary society, because in real life (and history prooves this), there were (and maybe,unluckily, there are and there will be again) Dystopian society.So I disagree with the 2nd and 3rd definition because I think it could be real and not fiction.
The 2nd one I think beeing the idea of dystopia from where P.A. started with his novel.
My definition of dystopia in Auster’s “In the country of last things”:an irreversibile reality in wich a society is forced to live in,in which there isn’t freedom neither personal nor of thinking, in wich people are oppressed and happy with this because of governament brain washed them; it is a condition in wich people are deprived of their identity, in wich merits are not considered, it is a reality that kills civilty and humanity, but that man has created.
Erica
This passage reminds me of prison, where people can come in, but can’t go out. They just receive a place to live and meal, but no salary for working for the government. They haven’t got any contact with the outer world because the government doesn’t want them to have any exchange with it. Furthermore to be under surveillance of armed police guards as they are forced in hard labour.
Dystopia is a imaginary society, where government and progress have change human values. People are controlled by fear (as in 1984 by George Orweel) or by the promise to absence of suffering (Brave new world by Aldous Huxley). Whatever for the reader, society seems horrible. I prefer the third definition of dystopia because I think it is more complete. This definition, in fact, distinguishes between dystopia and anti-utopia, an important distinction in my opinion. The excerpt has some dystopic qualities, as the author describes the men who work to survive hunger, war, fear, kept under-watch by “armed police guard. They are obliged to work for “a place to live and one warm meal a day”, forced by the government. Government that doesn’t allow people to think and have a own “morale”. People are cut off in a ghost city, where building are half-destroyed and rubble covers streets.
Nicola Truant
This passage reminds me immediately “1984” written by George Orwell. In his same way, Auster is building in the book a society based on people controlled by the government, who subjects everybody. The character we find here, does not think with his head, is subjects to the government and he is perfectly the same as the other. In this kind of society there are no differences between people who live there and who tries to change his situation is a peril for the state.
I prefer the last definition of dystopia,the which one in pink. I found it more complete and I think that corrisponds better to what Auster said in this estract.
Reading the estract it seemes to me that Auster wants to create a parallel world and so, dystopia may be modifying the actual world in a way that it becomes completely different to this world. This book is based on dystopia in my opinion and so all the descriptions give the idea of a very different place.
Auster uses very strong phrases that stopped the reader think a minute on what is said. When I read the passage I feel like one character of the story who observed and listened the conversation and beginn to reflect on what happen…
I think that the definition which fits better with the text is the third, because of the expressions “social control” and “totalitarian government”, which are the most appropriate and suitable words to summarize and define a dystopian society.
To put it as simply as possible, a dystopian society can be described as a dark vision of the future, a fictional (often near-future) society where current social trends are taken to nightmarish extremes, an imaginary place where people lead dehumanised and often fearful lives. The word ”dystopia” denotes so hypothetical societies containing images of worlds worse than our own, images that point fearfully at the way the world is supposedly going, in order to connote and suggest a change in direction. Dystopias in fact are frequently written as warnings or as satires, showing the trends of the present extrapolated to a nightmarish conclusion, as happened in Orwell’s “1984”.
The dystopian fiction (as “1984” or “In the country of last things”) looks at totalitarian dictatorship as its prototype, a society that puts its whole population continuously on trial. The “Sea Wall” in the text is the clearer example of all what I said. The wall represent the contradiction and the ambiguity of our society: the closer the population get to finish it, the further away they are from their freedom, until it becomes the wall of terror they are building around their own lives. It seems that this hypothetic world of law and order needs this wall in order to protect itself from freedom and justice. It’s simply absurd. The Sea Wall Project is for this reason a nonsensical building. It prevents people to get in or go out of the nightmarish Country of Last Things; it is a building that symbolize separation, isolation, urban alienation (actuality themes) and that represent the walling in of the space and the incinerating of the past.
The protagonist, Anna, decides to try to escape from the city, but all sea and land routes have been closed or are carefully guarded. The summit of the passage is achieved in the final lines, when she asks a guard about the possibility to escape using an airplane: “What’s an airplane?” replies the guard to Anna “in a puzzled sort of way”.
Alessandro Piccin
The excerpt taken from “in the country of last things” reminds me of the totalitarian society described in 1984 by orwell ,where the government led by the big brother censored everyone’thoughts feelings opinions and controlled his citizens thanks to screens hided in the walls,the eye of the government was always present and people couldn’t rebel to that regime,they were immediately eliminated or brainwashed as happened to the protagonist, who didn’t accept that tragic reality,he tried to change it,but unfortunately he got arrested and tortured. This passage written by Paul Auster deals with the same theme,he creates a dystopian society where the political leaders manipulate people’s mind and behaviour.even in this work the protagonist isn’t completely subjugated by the regime and still tries to escape but the perspective of a life in another place seems to be unaittanable.
Auster used words that recall the theme of oppression,the reader enters into the mind of the characters and feels the same sense of dejection,and anxiety,as if he were in a labyrinth.
The definition of dystopia that I prefer is the third one,I think it is the most detailed and explain very well the features of that kind of society.
My personal definition of dystopia is: a place where people aren’t human beings anymore, they haven’t feelings or personality they are only pawns moved by the oppressive hand of a despicable player who lacks values.
Montrasio Valentina
The passage reminds me a communist totalitarian regime because of the works at the Sea Wall Project contracted out at the Government (a state institution) and also for a strictly presence of police guards, who are the authority to make the workers respect the rules, also with the use of violence if necessary.
As far as the definitions of dystopia are concerned, I prefer the second one because I think it would better embody the concept a have of it. In fact, like an utopian world arises from a criticism of the present, of the reality in which the person/ the author lives, carrying out a better future(Thomas More), in the same way a dystopia is originates from fear of the future, for disagreement in the progress, which is seen as a negative thing. Actually I don’t share part of the third definition, in particular when Dystopia is considered antithetic of Utopia. As a matter of fact, also in a utopian novel like “the City of the Sun ”( written by the philosopher Tommaso Campanella) as in a dystopian one there is a totalitarian government, which takes control on everything and has also the power of deciding wedding between people (eugenics) .
Of the tree definitions above the only which fits more the extract taken from Paul Auster is the third, because are presented some elements (which I consider right for a dystopian novel):
• the oppressive social control (“armed police guards surveying the workers”)
• the authoritarian regime (“The government doesn’t like it when people make up stories. It’s bad for moral)
In my opinion a Dystopia is characterized by a pessimistic vision of the society and of the whole reality in which we live in, in which we feel imprisoned, like a room in which you are oblige to come in, without sureness of going out from there. In addition to the elements I have already pointed out , in a dystopian world you can’t keep in touch with answers at your questions, because this different dimension is completely dehumanized , out from a human way of thinking, so “every time you think you to know the answer to a question, you discover that the question makes no sense”. Eventually the totalitarian regime typical of the Dystopia is also characterized by fear in its enemies, so it is based on violence, aggressiveness and it always pays attention to have a efficient armed militia.
Carolina Braghin
The situation described in this passage reminds me obviously of Georg Orwell’s 1984. Even if many aspects are diffrent from Georg Orwell’s book, even this story takes place in a totalitarian regime characterized by an oppressive social control ( I choose the third definition of dystopia, as,in my opinion, it perfectly depicts what a dystopian society is about). In this regime the government imposes social rules, lots of prohibitions, a way of thinking (that becames THE way of thinking), it imposes how the population must behave, and, the most emblematic element that I want to add to the definition of dystopia I choose, is that the people are soo brainwashed by the government to act, think, behave in the way the System wants to, that they are no longer able to persive what is happening, they don’t notice that the government continues to mislead them, they don’t doubt and question what they are made to believe.
The words chosen by Paul Auster make me feel the astmosphere of psycological oppression, and the fact that there is no way out to this situation.
Chiara Pinardi
I think that the best definition of dystopia is the last one because firstly is the only one to determinate the role of the social control in the dystopian vision. In fact in all utopian and dystopian vision there is an important role of the totalitarian government that controls in good o bad way the society. In the utopia this political power is seen like a good thing that can order and improved the way of life of people. Dystopian vision otherwise see the social control as an oppression of a totalitarian goverment that does not serve the interests of citizens but uses his power to oppress them for political interests. Dystopian novels rappresent the fear to be controlled by authoritarism. The first greate example of dystopia was infact Orwell’s 1984. Orwell, since he lived in the period of totalitarisms, he criticize this tipe of social control after had seen its effect in his contemporary Europe. Orwell criticize the autoritarism also in the novel “animal farm” where the compre the comunistic party to a group of pigs that are able to reach the power by using the rhetoric. In this extract of Paul Oster we can see that the interlocutor of the protagonist was a brainwashing by the propaganda of the dictature.
All the definitions emphasize the significance of Dystopia, even if focusing on different aspects: the first as the juxtaposition to utopia, in which everything is going bad, the second as a result of social deprivation, for where everyone loses sight of its values, leading to a regression of society (in my opinion this definition is more effective and frightening than the first one, because it presents the Dystopia as if it were created by individuals themselves, as a gradual process that starts from our technological trends).
However, I think the definition that best clarifies the meaning of Dystopia is the third, since it talks of an oppressive social control, as can happen in an authoritarian and totalitarian government (and this is not something that can only be imagined, is something that has really existed, is something which has the power to deprive people of their individuality, to turn them into numbers, objects, tools).
In extract from “country of last things”, we understand perfectly what is the result of social oppression: the protagonist, as an outside observer, does not understand the logic on which wall construction is based; it seems absurd to build a wall, which construction will last 50 years, and that workers will not be paid, but will have only a place to live and eat. This is the most frightening and anguishing part of the extract: the fact that the social oppression and the lack of freedom gradually deprive men of ability to think and of the awareness of what they are doing (it seems that the workers know just what they are doing at that moment, that is nothing strange; everything seems to be normal and natural, they has no doubt about what must be done, and they consider the man crazy).
Federica Cozzarin