The Role of Mythical Dystopias in the Age of Fear

Abstract

The general state of anxiety and anguish that currently prevails in contemporary societies is a breeding ground for all kinds of proposals – such as dystopias – that seek to unravel, question, or simply make sense of the increasingly incomprehensible and indecipherable world in which humanity feels confined. Of all of them, it is probably those who, like the ancient myths of antiquity, use novels and stories to exorcise and conjure up their ghosts, reflecting on and symbolically expressing all that shocks and frightens them as individuals and as members of a society, that contribute most to reappropriating and coming to terms with their fears. This article proposes an in-depth analysis of a type of dystopia that could be described as mythical and whose extremely overwhelming presence in the contemporary political and cultural landscape is clearly indicative of the prevailing climate of fear and mistrust in our societies.

Keywords

• dystopia
• myth
• narrative
• modernity
• fear
• late capitalism