A KIND OF DYSTOPIAN WORLD: “TRADEMARK BUGS: A LEGAL HISTORY”

Abstract

It is an indisputable fact that there is a close relationship between science fiction and dystopian fiction. Science fiction is a genre that intends to build different kinds of imaginary worlds in which anything is possible with a harmony of science and advanced technology, and ordinarily, the futures of these worlds are presented in a dystopian setting. Basically, dystopian fiction refers to undesirable and dark futures in the world. In this sense, our story Trademark Bugs: A Legal History is a dystopian science fiction story. It is written by Adam Roberts, a British science fiction short story writer, in the form of a legal document. To comprehend clearly Roberts’s story, it should be analyzed the type of dystopia in the story. At this point, according to Raymond Williams, a sci-fi critic, dystopian fiction can be distinguished by four types (203). After analyzing, it can be said that Trademark Bugs: A Legal History is the third kind of dystopian world which is “the willed transformation, in which a new but less happy kind of life has been brought about by social degeneration, by the emergence or re-emergence of harmful kinds of social order, or by the unforeseen yet disastrous consequences of an effort at social improvement” (Williams 203). This means that the story indicates that how trademarks and commercialism turn into a repressive force over a society towards the end of the 2000s in the will of man. The aim of this paper is to examine the corruptions in the economic order, social structure, and political structure in Trademark Bugs: A Legal History with the change of the commercial concept during the 2000s that demonstrate that this work is the third type of dystopian fiction.

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