Utopian and Dystopian cycle in Buchi Emecheta’s The Rape of Shavi

Abstract

This research paper is to analyse the utopian and dystopian world of depiction in Buchi Emecheta’s The Rape of Shavi published in 1983.Shavi is an imaginary place situated on the edge of the African Sahara. The paper focuses on the similarities and differences between Thomas More’s Utopia and Buchi Emecheta’s Shavi. Utopia is an ideal world and perfect society where everyone lives in harmony and peace. Everything is done for the good of the citizens. Dystopian is just opposite to utopia. In this no one lives peacefully and they suffer from poverty and diseases. There is little hope for living. The utopian world of Shavians is brought back after tasting the civilization of the albinos and after entering into the dystopian. Finally the Shavians understood the consequences of weapon and blood of the dystopian world and return to the ancestors’ practice of the utopian Shavi. The Shavians decided that not to allow Shavi to be raped once again.

Utopia and dystopia are genres of speculative fiction that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction portrays the setting that agrees with the author's ethos, having various attributes of another reality intended to appeal to readers. Dystopian fiction is the opposite: the portrayal of a setting that completely disagrees with the author's ethos.