Demajae Deshone Heisser

English 114B
Professor Hannah Jorgenson
January 30, 2014

When you bring up the term Dystopian Society, the average person may not necessarily
know what type of society it is being referred to. Societies that are consumed by corruption,
disease, false hope, or anything of such nature are known as dystopian societies. Through two
books a reader can see how a dystopian society is portrayed overall. One book I am referring to
being the highly popular fantasy novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This novel
shows a society ravaged by starvation and an oppressive governmental system that the citizens
can not seem to get themselves out of due to being ruled over. In this type of society, any type
of retaliation whatsoever is simply not tolerated under any circumstances or else this person
accused of the act can be sentenced to sudden death. The second a Science fiction novel titled
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick is a futurist book in which people have
left the planet Earth entirely and relocate on Mars due to Earth becoming so completely
polluted there is no other choice but to do so. These two novels give an inside look as to the
large effects of a dystopian society.
The aspect of false hope in the novel the Hunger Games comes from the fact that if
they win the games their family will be taken care of. The problem with this is that there are
strict class divisions in all of these types of societies. The class divisions cause those in district
twelve to focus more on survival at home than that of district one who live good an well off
lives and train to be in the hunger games. This novel in particular shows how the government
instills fear in all of its citizens. The capitol shows their power through the ability to take
children and pit them against one another for the sake of entertainment. But unfortunately,
only one person is supposed to survive. The government has various ways of controlling the
people in this society at all costs but here is the unfortunate catch. Say you are poor and
starving, you can opt to add your name in the pulling for the games more times in exchange for
tesserae. Each tessera is worth a meager year's supply of grain and oil for one person (chp.1,
pg.13). This is a way to keep the people around so that they can have people for the games, but
also so that they can get their names in as many times as possible for participation. Without the
people, the capitol has no hunger games and without the capitol the people basically have no
food. Another reason why this is that of a dystopian society is because the people who rule and
have power and control have the ability to break down the society to the point of no return.
The capitol has beaten these people down so much that a revolt against their reality is
seemingly inconceivable due to fear of death for themselves or their families.

There is also the fact that dystopian societies are set in the far off future. Along with
The Hunger Games, the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is set in a future where
androids exist but animals are far and few. These societies also usually contain advanced
technologies that are devised to reduce human emotions entirely. A merry little surge of
electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick
Deckard (chp.1, pg.3). The mood organ is a device used to control an individuals moods and
attempts to alter them whenever. This causes people to be happy, peppy, and cheerful most of
the time instead of showing feelings of severe despair and depression. There are also ways to
put down people to exclude people as a lower part of society which again, brings up the issue
of class divisions. Worse still he failed to pass the minimum mental facultys test, which made
him in popular parlance a chicken head (chp.2, pg.19). When everyone left the planet due to a
plague of dust killing animals, they left those individuals that were given a test that proved that
person to be inferior or lower class. In a dystopian society, the people that are seen as inferior
are usually the one to get left behind. The technology in these societies is purposely meant to
null emotions so that they do not know that they are feeling sad, mad, or depressed about their
general short comings in life.
Poverty is shown in one novel as the source of the problem it possesses. Even though
trespassing in the woods is illegal and poaching carries the severest of penalties, more people
would risk it if they had weapons. But most are not bold enough to venture out with just a
knife. (chp.1.pg.5). This quote from Katniss of The Hunger Games being so poor she has to
risk being killed in the dangerous woods and by peacekeepers in order to provide for her family.
So at this point in her life, she really has no choice but to do what she can to survive. These are
the kind of actions that dystopian societies dictate that a person take in order to survive. Rick
from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep has to deal with the poor quality of life having to
use a mood organ as a way to make himself happy for the day or have a good day at work.

Dystopian fiction can be shown in several different forms commonly through poverty
and sickness. Through this fiction we see what a future as a dystopian society could hold in the
future. Since all these novels which dystopian fiction is future based, it is trying to portray how
it could possibly end up in the future. The fiction is interesting to know that little events about
today are hints of the future these novels portray to its readers.