The term was coined as a converse to a Utopia, and is most usually used to refer to a fictional (often near-future) society where current social trends are taken to nightmarish extremes. [ ] Often, the difference between a Utopia and a Dystopia is in the author's point of view. [ ] Dystopias are frequently written as warnings, or as satires, showing current trends extrapolated to a nightmarish conclusion. [ ] A dystopia is all too closely connected to current-day society.".
This idea of the difference between utopia and dystopia being the author's point of view is very interesting; the implication is that one person's idea of perfection is anothers nightmare.
Dystopia is not really about tomorrow, but rather about today. As Jonathan Swift put it, the idea is "reductio ad absurdum" i.e. to take an argument to it's logical extreme. A dystopia does not have to try and present a realistic vision of society, in fact that would just hinder it; the idea is too extend certain ideas and concepts to absurd extremes in order to make a point. This is something Swift did with Gulliver's Travels, and not really about tomorrow, but rather about today. As Jonathan Swift put it, the idea is "reductio ad absurdum" can be seen as the maxim for almost every utopian/dystopian writer that followed. Nevertheless, dystopian stories take invariably take place in the future. The year 1984 may have past, but George Orwell's story described a plausible future scenario when it was published for the first time in 1949 and it may still come true in a not too distant future. Interesting exceptions from this rule are uchronias, so called What-if? stories, like Fatherland (Robert Harris, 1992). Dystopias have always been a powerful rhetorical tool, which can make them controversial. A good example of this is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Flamingo, 1993). In the preface, Bradbury himself states:.
"By this time we were deeply into the McCarthy period.