Imagine you’re in a world where you think it is perfect, that everything you are doing and/or have done, its amazing… but really, it’s all wrong, and you have no idea. Wouldn’t you feel worried to be in a world where you need average intelligence, or a room could feel so realistic that you feel and think like you aren’t even in a room, or lastly even knowing that when you are going to have a kid, that the government knows what career they are going to have and a lot more, but you can’t know about it. I’ve currently read three great short stories called “Harrison Bergeron”, “The Veldt”, and “Ten With A Flag”. These stories have many examples of how the use of technology has improved within the future, how reading the stories is a way of escaping reality, and how the world within the story is a “perfect world”.

There are two main ways to escape today’s world, and that is in reading or watching movies. It is easy to get caught up in a book or movie, because most of them are future based which tend to lure people into watching them. “None of the humming hidden energy of the machines waiting to function at the tap of a button.” After everything was turned off in the house, none of the technology made a noise, and it was a normal house. With that comes the fact of knowing that most of the house was ran on technology.

The world we live in may not seem perfect, or be the best it can be, and some say that in the future it’s only gonna get worse, and some believe its better. Now with some stories they write about how they are a perfect world, such as “Harrison Bergeron”, and “The Veldt” these are both stores that show how they believe they are in a “perfect world”.

“A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up.” The government has control of everyone and their handicaps, that everyone within the same career must have the same “issues” as one another, so that it is fair treatment.

“‘I can’t imagine the room will like being turned off,’ said the father ‘Nothing ever likes to die - even a room.’” This shows that they are so use to using/ having technology, that they see technology as like being a human, and has feelings.

Within the few short stories read, there have been many examples for how the use of technology has taken many controls within the future. One of the many examples given would be from the story “Ten With A Flag” and “The Veldt”.

“‘I thought you said you wanted to drive?”, “I lied. I just wanted to talk to you without a speaker.” Citizens are under constant surveillance because the “Central” could take over the car, the destination, and the higher ranked cars don’t have a steering wheel, Central had control of everything. This works for Technological Control, because Central is a computer which pretty much has complete control of the peoples lives.

“His wife was standing in the middle of the kitchen watching the stove busy humming to itself, making supper for four.” Instead of actually having someone cooking the meals, technologically makes them. This also works with how the natural world is banished because people rely more on technology then being independent, they have technology cleaning their house, bathing their kids, and even making meals for the family.

We’ve read three short stories and all have their own examples of different dystopian elements. However, the meanings of those elements are quite different in each story. I believe the reason dystopian stories are rising in popularity today is because of what they offer the reader--the chance to escape reality, to view a “perfect society” and to see how the overuse of technology can affect us. The examples I used came from the stories “The Veldt” and “Harrison Bergeron”. Use of technology had many examples within the stories “Ten With A Flag” and “The Veldt”, from having most control of rooms and making to cars that can drive themselves.  Also with escape from reality, the examples came from the short stories “Harrison Bergeron” and “The Veldt”. These examples show that we read these kinds of stories to escape from the world we live in and escape from reality, they let us have an imagination, which leads us to imagine what the future will have in store for us. These are all the stories I’ve read that has the many examples of why might people read dystopian stories, and why they are rising in popularity.