UTOPIAN, DYSTOPIAN and UTOPIAN IMAGERY in SOCIAL IDEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTIONS

People have always thought that better social conditions of the time and place they live in were possible or could be in the past or in the future, and they have struggled in theory and practice to realize this and have produced realistic or surreal fictional works that describe these. Utopian works are literary but actually sociological texts that describe an ideal, happy and prosperous social order that is far beyond the current conditions. The future designs of utopia are in four periods, from divine-sacred to secular-worldly: Every utopia is the ideal of its creator and can be dystopian for others. In fact, there is a hidden dystopia in every utopian text, and an oppositional search for a way out in every dystopia. Margaret Atwood used the concept of “ustopia” to express this dual relationship, this intertwining. In this study, interpretations will be made on how they are actually utopian texts, based on utopian and dystopian imaginations and content analyses of sample works. Utopia and dystopia are actually fictional social orders shaped by specific historical experiences and ideological preconceptions that carry the spirit of their creator, time and place. In this study, the general theoretical sociological structural constructivism perspective as well as Karl Mannheim's approach to the relationship between utopia and ideology will be taken as basis.