MANIFESTATIONS OF TOTALITARIAN EVIL: DYSTOPIAN SOCIETIES IN YEVGENY ZAMYATIN AND MIGUEL ÁNGEL ASTURIAS

Abstract

This paper analyzes dystopian depictions of a totalitarian, authoritarian state, wherein individuality is suppressed and the individual is coerced to become an executor of the directives of the great guiding mind that claims to act for the good of all. The aim of this analysis is to highlight the similarities in the portrayal of a totalitarian state by Yevgeny Zamyatin and Miguel Ángel Asturias, through their novels We and The President. Zamyatin's perceptions, shaped by his experience
of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, are similar to those of Asturias, whose worldview has been shaped by the dictatorial regime of Manuel Estrada Cabrera in Guatemala from 1898 to 1920.