keep the record

keep the journal

keep (make, break) the promise

Dystopian 反烏托邦式的小說

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas:

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a 1973 short story by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is a philosophical parable with a sparse plot featuring bare and abstract descriptions of characters; the city of Omelas is the primary focus of the narrative.

plot:

In the story, Omelas is a utopian city of happiness and delight, whose inhabitants are intelligent and cultured. Readers cannot be sure of every particular, because the narrator warns, "Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all." Everything about Omelas is pleasing, except for the city's one atrocity: the good fortune of Omelas requires that a single unfortunate child be kept in perpetual filth, darkness and misery, and that all her citizens should be told of this upon coming of age.

After being exposed to the truth, most of the people of Omelas are initially shocked and disgusted, but are ultimately able to come to terms with the fact and resolve to live their lives in such a manner as to make the suffering of the unfortunate child acceptable. However, a few citizens, young and old, silently walk away from the city, and no one knows where they go. The story ends with "The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."

Ursula Le Guin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin born October 21, 1929) is an American author of novels, children's books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. She has also written poetry and essays. First published in the 1960s, her work has often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality and ethnography.

• 美國科幻、奇幻與女性主義與青少年兒童文學作家。

• 其最廣為人知之作就是《地海》系列，此一系列常與J·R·R·托爾金之《魔戒三部曲》及C·S·路易斯之《納尼亞年代記 》並列三大奇幻小說系列。

• 她作品為分析對象的文學評論眾多，甚至出版專書探討。舉凡《地海傳說》的成長主題與道家思想、《黑暗的左手》的敘事方式與性別議題、《一無所有》的烏托邦與反烏托邦等等，皆對主流文學界產生重大影響。

Dystopian:

小說類:

●英國赫胥黎《美麗新世界》Aldous Huxley

Brave New World’s title derives from Miranda's speech in William Shakespeare's The Tempest

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

—William Shakespeare, The Tempest

This line itself is ironic; Miranda was raised for most of her life on an isolated island, and the only people she ever knew were her father and his servants, an enslaved savage, and spirits, notably Ariel. When she sees other people for the first time, she is understandably overcome with excitement, and utters, among other praise, the famous line above. However, what she is actually observing is not men acting in a refined or civilised manner, but rather drunken sailors staggering off the wreckage of their ship. Huxley employs the same irony when the "savage" John refers to what he sees as a "brave new world".

●《一九八四》Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four, sometimes published as 1984, is a dystopian novel by George Orwell published in 1948.

As literary political fiction and dystopian science-fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel in content, plot, and style. Many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, have entered everyday use since its publication in 1949.