The purpose of dystopian literature is to dehumanize the individual To what extent do the novels Nineteen Eighty Four and the Road support or refute this view?

The first 200 words of this essay...

'The purpose of dystopian literature is to dehumanize the individual'

To what extent do the novels Nineteen Eighty Four and the Road support or refute

this view?

The dystopian novels The Road and Nineteen Eighty Four demonstrate the push and pull between the utopian and dystopian societies in their narratives. Dystopian literature often seems to be a deterrent to the reader the nightmarish lifestyles presented to us by each individual protagonist characters dehumanized due to the desolate and barren lifestyles presented in each text. However, despite this, the bleak settings seem to send messages of optimism, and to some extent hope, through the interactions of characters in each novel.

In The Road the boy and the father are seen to be two people left who are not dehumanized by the new apocalyptic society. They do not conform to cannibalism, rape or murder; however their humanity is tested through the desolate landscapes and their lack of human contact and refusal to help those they do meet in this new society. Although the father only has the boy his humanity is clear as they are "each other worlds entire" showing he only lives for his son. We can