The literary history, as I conceive it, is an account of one strand, so to speak, in a very complex tissue: it is connected with the intellectual and social development; it represents movements of thought which may sometimes check and be sometimes propitious to the existing forms of art; it is the utterance of a class which may represent, or fail to represent, the main national movement; it is affected more or less directly by all manner of religious, political, social, and economical changes; and it is dependent upon the occurrence of individual genius for which we cannot even profess to account. I propose to take the history of English literature in the eighteenth century. I do not aim at originality: I take for granted the ordinary critical judgments upon the great writers of whom so much has been said by judges certainly more competent than myself, and shall recall the same facts both of ordinary history and of the history of thought. What I hope is, that by bringing familiar facts together I may be able to bring out the nature of the connection between them; and, little as I can say that will be at all new, to illustrate one point of view, which, as I believe, it is desirable that literary histories should take into account more distinctly than they have generally done.

The aim of this book is to shed light on dystopia within the circle of twentieth century literature by analysing the development of totalitarianism and its detrimental effects, such as dehumanisation and social unrest that shattered the unity of society in three basic forms as reflected in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1953), George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Thus, it explores the beginning of totalitarianism resulted from an inborn instinctive drive as reflected in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1953) first, then its formation and rise in George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945), then finally the ill effects of it in both society and in individuals in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Totalitarianism, together with “Fascism”, in the twentieth century can be confined to the period between 1922 and 1975. It starts with Mussolini; is followed by Hitler and Stalin, then ends with the death of Franco. It was during the rule of totalitarians that all ideals promising peace were abused to claim the rule, terror and fear factors were resorted to secure a totalitarian power at the expense of millions of deaths, torture and social unrest. In these novels, William Golding and George Orwell criticise how totalitarianism is established, and maintained by fear, manipulation and terror in the twentieth century.