The word utopia, first created and used by author Thomas More during the Renaissance, is derived from ancient Greek meaning nothing or nowhere. Even though utopias ultimately shouldn’t exist, in the 1700’s many different philosophers tried to set up real-life utopias (Dunn 1) and even before that, people wrote about the concept of utopian societies as if they were real. After reading multiple dystopian articles, short stories and even a book, it is easy to see that the concept of a utopia is one that ultimately cannot exist and that utopias ultimately perish and turn into a dystopia. All of the stories mentioned in this essay share one theme: the government plays a role in what they do, what occupation they have, who they interact with, and …show more content…
Consequently, in the novelette Anthem by Ayn Rand, the government also has total control. After the main character, Equality, ultimately shatters his utopian world by creating illegal technology, he feels remorse and regret and is followed by it for the reminder of the book. On page 75, the text explicitly states, “But we ran. We knew not where we were going. We knew only that we must run, run to the end of the world, to the end of our days (Rand).” As explicitly exemplified by these two dystopian stories, government has control and will do whatever it wants to maintain and uphold that control, even if it means manipulates its people and ultimately corrupt them via their regret. Additionally, in the dystopian short story The Pedestrian, by Ray Bradbury, the author also creates a government similar to those found in Anthem and “Red Card”: a government that will stop at nothing to maintain control. This dystopian story follows the main character, Mr. Mead, as he is out walking, as he has done every day for over 10 years while everyone else in the city stays