For dystopian literature, most people still have relatively little understanding and contact with it, but it is undeniable that it has existed for nearly 200 years, and some works that we are familiar with have also emerged during this period. Therefore, this time, I will help you understand "dystopia" in a deeper level through some dystopian literature and film and television works.
The meaning of utopia: " Utopia (Utopia) originally means "no place" or "good place". It extends to the ideal and impossible good things. Its Chinese translation can also be understood as "wu" means there is no, "Tuo " is a sustenance, "state" is a country, and the three words "utopia" together mean "utopian country". The original proponent was the ancient Greek philosopher Plato . Thomas More, the founder of utopian socialism (UK Man) in his famous book "Utopia" (the full name is "a helpful and interesting book on the most complete state system and the new island of utopia"), a fictional navigator - Raphael Hisslar voyages A trip to an exotic "Utopia", where property is owned by the public, the people are equal, and the principle of distribution according to needs is implemented, everyone wears uniform work clothes, eats in public restaurants, and officials are elected by public elections. Private property , he believes, is the root of all evil and must be eliminated. [M1] ”
About 347 BC, Plato first proposed the concept and blueprint of Utopia. In the world he constructed, peace was the main connotation, so that it was the derivative of the early utopian socialism in Europe. Thomas More's "Utopia" mentioned, " Utopia is not only free, democratic, fraternity, but also extremely wealthy, where people are all beautiful and powerful gods. Utopia is also an amazing island. It is countless Decorated with gold and silver, millions of tons of a gleaming metal are produced every day—alloys. It has well-equipped ports and ships, and objects that can carry people to the sky [M2] .”
Once Thomas' idealism was put forward, it immediately received a great response from the society, and some of them opposed it, which was the basis of future dystopian literature.
Of course, let’s talk about utopia first. After the development of utopia , a rational void has gradually appeared. The most classic of which is the 600-day mouse experiment. Under the condition of sufficient material and peace created by human beings, about 600 days Rats die in the chaos of their own making. This series of utopian experiments finally brewed our theme, "dystopia".
The earliest literary work of dystopia is "Brave New World" written by Aldous Huxley . In this work, he also constructed a world with sufficient material and advanced technology, but, unlike Utopia, In the book, the value system and spiritual world of human beings are insensitive. In a unified educational environment, there is no personality development at all, so that human beings begin to live like machines.
* People suffer not because they replaced thinking with laughter, but because they don't know why they laugh and why they stop thinking. ⑴ [M3]
Rather than saying that the birth of Brave New World pierces the ineffective fantasy of utopian literature, it is better to say that it treats utopian literature dialectically. First of all, the two are not views of the cube, not like the contradiction between material and spirit. They have certain similarities in many aspects. For example, they will build a society with sufficient material, and the equality of this society is a necessary premise, but this Whether the equality of shares can continue is unknown. Moreover, we all know that extreme development may bring about eternal destruction, so how does this extreme equality develop? This topic leaves a lot of room for the imagination of dystopian literature scholars.
* But I don't want to be comfortable. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin. [M4]
Speaking of the origin of this dystopian literature, it shows the core connotation of many subsequent dystopian works.
1. Against absolute beauty
2. Finding turmoil in peace
3. Uniform institutional conditions
4. Suppression of Thought
These points basically constitute the general style of dystopian literature, so that in subsequent works, this feature is constantly displayed in various ways, the most representative style of which is " cyberpunk "
Abroad, dystopian literature has produced many literary works after being tempered, such as George Orwell's "Animal Farm", Eugene Zamyatin's "We" published in 1921, American Contemporary "The Cave of Steel" by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov , etc. Compared with the domestic dystopian literature, it started relatively late, so there are not many famous literary works. The work I took out to explain is the novella "Beijing Folding" written by science fiction writer Hao Jingfang . This novel was included in his in the novel "Deep Solitude".
"Beijing Folding" won the 74th "Hugo Award" for short stories on August 21, 2016. The novel tells that Beijing will be divided into three spaces according to social class in the future, and the old junk workers living in the third space , in order to allow his adopted daughter to receive education, he risked his life to travel through the three spaces to deliver letters to others. In the process, he saw the upper-class young women who married into wealthy families playing tricks on the middle-class young college students who relied on reading to change their fate, and was also rescued by kind people who struggled from the third space to the first space. After going through hardships and dangers, he finally Back to third space.
"Folding Beijing" sets up three mutually folded worlds, a metaphor for the upper class, the middle class and the lower class. The image of the double folding of space and time at the scale of the entire city is magnificent, reflecting people's deep anxiety about the trend of class separation in contemporary society.
[M5] "Beijing Folding" was completed at the end of 2012, and was originally published in the Science Fantasy Zone in the Cultural and Humanities Zone of the Forum Shuimu Community. In this novel, the specific point of view of dystopia can be deeply reflected, and the macro interpretation of the created Utopian world is described from the perspective of micro-physics.
In this novel, the interpretation of the 3D dimension is very different from previous science fiction works. First of all, the three dimensions are a folded world. They are blended together but are obviously independent. They are metaphors for a great class contrast. A peaceful and beautiful material society is used to wrap the poor life of the people at the bottom. Only after the sugar-coated cannonballs are exposed step by step from the perspective of one person, the truth slowly emerges in the public's field of vision.
The folding city is divided into three levels of space. One side of the earth is the first dimension, with a population of 5 million. The living time is from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. the next day. Space hibernates, the earth flips. The flip side is the second space and the third space. The second space is home to 25 million people, from six in the morning to ten at night, and the third space is home to fifty million people, from ten to six in the morning, and then back to the first space. Time has been carefully planned and optimally allocated, carefully segregated, with 5 million people enjoying 24 hours and 75 million people enjoying the other 24 hours. [M6]
On the whole, the dystopian elements of "Beijing Folding" are still very obvious. It frames a three-dimensional world that is more than the real world. It is not only full of sci-fi texture, but also has a revolutionary spiritual proposition, determined to break the unity. The system also highlights the artistic style.
After talking about literary works, let’s talk about film and television works. From the debut of “Metropolis” in 1974, the dystopian series of films began to be active on the film and television screen, so that the black and white silent film master Chaplin’s “Modern Times” also fully utilized With dystopian elements, this time I want to talk about a commercial film "The Matrix" with strong dystopian elements in science fiction films.
"The Matrix" is a series of action films released by Warner Bros., directed by the Wachowski brothers and starring Keanu Reeves , Kelly Anne Moss , Lawrence Fishburne and others. A total of three films, "The Matrix", "The Matrix 2: Reloaded " and "The Matrix 3: The Matrix Revolution ", were released on March 31, 1999, May 15, 2003, and November 2003 respectively. Released in the US on the 5th.
I believe everyone is familiar with "The Matrix". This series has always been a model of Warner Films' commercial film in Hollywood in the United States. The Wachowski brothers skillfully combined commercial elements and dystopian elements in the film. Now I will Let's talk about how "The Matrix" plays out the dystopian elements.
"The Matrix" is not just a product born from sucking the essence of Eastern and Western comics. From the very beginning, the Wachowski brothers used the methodology of making comics to prepare this avant-garde science fiction movie, and "The Matrix" It can also be said that the two very different mediums, comics and movies, were born after the fusion of water and milk.
Compared with Steve Scotch, Geofrey Darrow's role in "The Matrix" is even more heavy. In addition to drawing the sub-shot (storyboard), he also serves as a Conceptual Designer (Conceptual Designer). Many of the scenes and mechanical designs in the film were written by Dello. Including the mechanical sleep capsule where the protagonist Neo woke up from the virtual world in the first episode, the flying ship carried by the protagonists, the mechanical city Zion, the APU individual combat armored robot, the squid-shaped mechanical army under the parent's command, etc., all of which are Jovda Lo (Geofrey Darrow) is a proud work drawn by flying pen.
To expose the unsustainable reasons for its inhumanity and repression of human nature, which is to try to break through the limits of this existing world.
There are many dystopian series of films by the Wachowski brothers , such as "V for Vendetta", etc., as well as the latest "Destroy", which explores the soul of the dystopian world compared to the animal attributes of the original ecology. The series of works are constantly developing and evolving, just like in Hegel's dialectics to go to the root of the problem.
You are obsessed with hearing as false and seeing as believing. Most people like this have expectations for complete enlightenment. The consolation is that this is not far from the truth.
Baidu Encyclopedia Utopia
Thomas More "Utopia"
Aldous Huxley , Brave New World
Aldous Huxley , Brave New World
Baidu Encyclopedia "Beijing Folding"
Hao Jingfang "Beijing Folding"
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