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"The Lost Horizon" as a Utopian Text
Summary: Frank Capra's 1937 film "The Lost Horizon" is a perfect examples of the conception of utopia in literature because it mirrors the values of the context in which it wsa produced and following the structure of the utopian literary form. The movie conveys the values of U.S. society of the 1930s by examining fears of another world war, the Great Depression and the Industrial Revolution.
Utopia, derived from two Greek words: Eutopia (meaning 'good place') and Outopia (meaning 'no place'), is essentially a place that is perfect. It can be an envisioned, or created paradise, based on the efforts of humans to achieve an ideal society. These efforts are usually improvements or rectifications of issues that have created a problematic society. It can therefore be said that a person's vision of Utopia will differ from another's, depending on each individuals experiences. For example, Utopia for people who lived during the times of the Black Plague would be a place where based on health and well being, whereas, Utopia for a person going through the Great Depression, would be one very much based on prosperity, or where there is no value for material things. That is not to say however, that just because contexts change so do the perceptions of ones utopia, for they...
This section contains 1,154 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |