Have you writing a strong social commentary or a literature report on another book by Ray Bradbury? Either way, there are a few pitfalls you should be careful not to fall into when you’re writing a powerful essay about dystopian society. Here is a list of things you should avoid to keep your grade from making you dysphoric.
Whether you’re commenting on society now or a fictional society of the future, it is too easy for students to rely on pathos and close-mindedly emotional statements in order to give the illusion of a powerful argument. In reality, it is important to analyze any concept not on its own inherent goodness or badness, but rather on the contradictions and fallacies that its implementation was built on. Incorrectness is the only thing that even arguably has inherent moral value, and you don’t want your essay to turn into a choppy Hollywood-directed political ad. By losing the italicized words for emphasis, the rhetorical questions, and the seemingly powerful exclamative sentences meant to act as a call for action, your paper will instead gain validity in the eyes of academia. It is more likely that your grader will appreciate your organizational skills, smoothness with words, and concise yet fallacy-free argument than a Swiss cheese paper filled with meandering disguised as disgust and anger.
If you are writing a paper highlighting the dystopian elements present not in a society of the future but rather of the society of today, you need to be sure to not come off as too dramatic. Don’t demand to be taken seriously when you trivialize the word “dystopian” by associating it with student debt. There is no doubt that today’s society has negative elements within it for certain people, but your professor is probably not one of the ones suffering. Therefore, instead of arguing for an overthrow of the proletariat, it will be more wise for you to calmly explain what trends in society need to be reversed before they get out of hand.