전복적 상상력: 아나키즘적 유토피아에서 전체주의적 디스토피아로

Revolutionary Imagination: From Anarchist Utopia to Totalitarian Dystopia - News from Nowhere and Nineteen Eighty-Four -

This article aims at comparing the utopian idea in William Morris’s News from Nowhere with the dystopian idea in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four from an anarchistic perspective. Though each writer used utopia and dystopia respectively as a literary technique, utopia and dystopia have something in common. Both of them criticize their contemporary societies, having anarchistic ideas. Morris criticizes European capitalistic civilization of the nineteenth century through the literary technique, utopia. Orwell bitterly criticizes industrial capitalism of the twentieth century and foresees a bleak future through literary technique, dystopia. First, this article investigates the backgrounds of both novels. Second it discloses why Morris used the literary genre of utopia and Orwell used the literary genre of dystopia. Third, it discusses work ethic, the process of social revolution, the views of education and the idea of machines in both novels from the view point of anarchism.