DEFINITION - The term “utopia” was created about 1516 by Thomas More. Literally meaning “no place”, it defines an island where everything is perfect. A “dystopia” would be a negative utopia, a place which everything is imperfect. A dystopian society is ruled by group with a private agenda shrouded in euphemisms or outright lies. This group will use conditioning or coercion to maintain their rule, which often mirrors such real-world systems as communism, Apartheid, and the Roman Catholic Church. The controlling group regulates most aspects of the individual’s existence, everything from one’s daily routine to their family unit and career. The individual is not important as anything more than a part of the whole. As long as the status quo is maintained, the individual is typically safe, anonymous in the crowd. As conflict is necessary in storytelling, no dystopian work would be complete without dissention. It may be one person or a Ferris – Dystopia - 3 group, and there will often be an event in a main character’s experience that reveals the rift between the way things are and the way things might be better. Common devices for this event are missing a dose of emotion suppressants, seeing the hidden inner workings of the ruling system, or the discovery of forbidden elements from ages past. This awakening will give rise to a spirit of individualism, an awareness of human rights, and the knowledge that all is not as it seems and must be brought to light and, if possible corrected. As with much of literature, the ending may either be positive or negative; it is the journey that matters. The message of the work can often be more easily delivered if the hero suffers a tragic end at the hands of the society, and many of these works offer this feature. In this way, many dystopian works read as morality tales, aimed at pointing out flaws of the present and extrapolating them into the future. There is little left for readers to sort out; they know which side is right and which side is wrong. What is left to interpret is where to align the stereotypes in the contemporary societies and systems. In short, a dystopian fiction centers on a dissenting person or group in a supposed perfect society, awakened to inhumanity and willing to affect a change. Using this definition, the authors of these works have provided each human being with instructions for recognizing and overcoming such systems in their own life. Ferris – Dystopia - 4 III. THEMES There are five major themes that this paper will identify and review: pluralism versus individualism; chaos versus order; the precision of language; war versus peace; and humanity