A reflection upon the historical events in the twentieth century provides a crisis about the raison d'etre of utopian thought as well as utopian literature. That utopia demonstrates a society which is based on the values of unity and totalised system rather than individual freedom was deemed as less humane and, at worst, a model of totalitarian regime. This critical view of conventional utopia is strengthened in postmodern social and cultural debates. Postmodernists' political philosophies about difference and diversity endanger the "end of utopia", challenging the teleology of utopian discourse itself which provides a blueprint of a perfectly constructed, ahistorical community.

　However, contemporary writers do not cease to create both utopian and dystopian novels. This thesis analyses six novels of British and Japanese utopian literature and considers how the writers explore forms and themes in the face of postmodern consciousness. (In this thesis "utopian literature" embraces "dystopian literature" as its subgenre.)
The novels discussed in this thesis are: George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange (1962), Alasdair Gray's Lanark (1981), Abe Kobo's Inter Ice Age 4 (1959), Inoue Hisashi's Kirikirijin (1981), and Murakami Haruki's Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985). Undoubtedly, Orwell's text is one of the most important dystopian novels in the twentieth century. Yet the "paradox" of his novel reveals vulnerability in the sense that the author ultimately relies on the ideas of totality and transcendental meta-language in the pursuit of his intellectual mission. Burgess questions the degree of universality, wondering where to find the consensus in order to build up a society that satisfies everybody. Gray's novel highlights a "process" towards utopia rather than the final image of ideal place, thereby suggesting that the achievement of utopia is always deferred. Abe's novel brings the concept of the everyday into utopian literature. Inoue's novel manifests the possibility of creating a downsized, egalitarian "ecotopia". Murakami's novel explores utopia in the cultural styles of advanced capitalism.
The juxtaposition of these novels in this comparative study aims to construe the signs which the six novels show in their direction for the future of utopian literature.

　20世紀における社会的・政治的動乱は、ユートピア思想とその文学の存在意義をゆさぶることとなった。この傾向は「多様性」と「差異」という概念に依拠するポストモダニズムという精神構造の勃興によって一層強められ、ユートピア文学に見られる「完成の理想」や道徳および法の普遍性に対する信頼などが批判の対象となっている。

　本論文は、文学・文化理論を媒介に、20世紀後半に発表された６つのユートピア／ディストピア小説（ジョージ・オーウェル『1984年』、アントニー・バージェス『時計じかけのオレンジ』、アレスダー・グレイ『ラナーク』、安部公房『第四間氷期』、井上ひさし『吉里吉里人』、村上春樹『世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド』）を分析する。価値観が相対化され、個別化とともに世界の斉一化が進む今日において、現代のユートピア文学がどのような観点から普遍的ないし局所的な問題に取り組んでいるのか考察し、ユートピア文学というジャンルが新しい世界認識とともに再構築されていることを検証する。