Dystopia: a caricature of the world we live by

Abstract

This work makes a close reading of two novels, 1984 published by George Orwell in
1948, and Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley. My aim is to prove that their
dystopian format covers up not just a form of criticism of the social and cultural context in
which they were written. Furthermore, I believe that the dystopian novel is a hybrid form
that also hides a caricature of that society. My argument shows, that this hybrid format,
where fiction and reality begin to intermix in the first half of the 20th-century, is fostered by
the cultural climate and events taking place during that period.
My analysis draws not only on the two novels aforementioned. I make use of critical
ideas developed by Professor Fernando Ángel Moreno about dystopian works and science
fiction. I have selected works by two different authors in order to elaborate on a more
general framework for my idea. Fernando Ángel’s approach is an important contribution to
my theoretical background, and his essays have helped me to understand better the
belonging of dystopia to the Science Fiction genre and, more importantly, the contexts of
dystopian creation and its social rejection.
My paper is divided in four parts: 1) an introduction which deals with the historical
period during which dystopian works became widespread; 2) the theoretical background
which deals with Science Fiction as a genre and dystopia as a subgenre; 3) the body of my
research, where the novels become the subject of a formal and sociological analysis; and
finally, 4) the conclusion were a summary of the ideas presented is offered.