What is utopian about dystopia

Abstract

Dystopia, as a typically twentieth-century concept, is analyzed in this article starting from the assumption that it can be considered a sort of extreme utopia aimed at problematizing those contradictions that anguish the real through the formulation of an (only apparently) unreal dimension. On the other hand, in its literary form, dystopia can be considered akin to allegory since both, indirectly, express the idea of reality through “other” figures in an attempt to imagine a possible “potential” world. Dystopian and allegorical, in this sense, intertwine with a sort of gradation from a maximum of realistic representation (recognizable places, close dates) to a maximum of unreality (non-place, out of time), pursuing the same goal.