Day 14: Dystopian novels

Sorry that this is late. I spent all last night working on my personal statement and then I was too tired to do anything else!

My personal statement is actually the reason why I'm writing this blog post. In my statement, I'm trying to explain my passion for the genre of dystopian fiction. Hopefully, by exploring my ideas at length in a blog post, I can then write a summary sentence for my statement! (Of course, this may end up being cut out of my final statement.) If anyone else wants to offer ideas as to why this genre is so popular (both in the twentieth century and now, as it is making a hell of a comeback) and so interest, please do so.

In the past, I have often failed to distinguish between dystopian fiction and science fiction, as both are generally set in the future and therefore have futuristic technology. 'Brave New World', 'The Hunger Games' and 'Divergent' are all examples of novels (or trilogies) that fit into both genres. I hesitate to say that dystopian fiction is newer, but certainly is has always been the less popular of the two until recently. I'd say that there have been two waves of interest in dystopian fiction: the first in around the 50s and 60s (just after 'Nineteen eighty-four' was published) and the second over the past decade or so.

An interesting development in the field of dystopian literature is its movement during the 21st century to being young adult rather than adult fiction. 'Unwind' features rebellious teenagers who are killed and used for body parts (not so different from 'Never Let Me Go', which admittedly I've not read but (I can't believe I'm saying this) I have seen the film), which seems like a believable consequence of the youthful violence in 'A Clockwork Orange'.

Part of the appeal of futuristic novels is that the stories can be believable, since we have no idea how our society will have changed in the future. It seems perfectly possible that society will have forced humans into becoming mindless drones quite sure of our happiness, as in 'Fahrenheit 451' and 'Brave New World'; it is also conceivable that we will have created a culture of fear -- perhaps one of government control like in 'Nineteen eighty-four' or one of violence like in 'A Clockwork Orange'. As someone with a passion for equality and freedom, these sorts of societies are appalling to me, while also being fascinating.

'The Hunger Games' and 'Divergent', both young adult trilogies, focus on class systems and segregation. In the former, Panem (the US of the future) is split into The Capitol and the thirteen districts; the people of The Capitol live off the work of the districts and essentially live in luxury while the people of the districts are punished and starving. In the latter, everyone must choose a "faction" at age sixteen based on their personality and afterwards they are set apart from the other factions and are taught to dislike

'Uglies' and 'Brave New World' both feature cultures with a huge focus on physical beauty. In Scott Westerfeld's 'Uglies', teenagers are operated on at age sixteen (which seems to be a significant age in young adult fiction) to make them into "Pretties", i.e. the perfect humans, who are stronger, healthier, and more beautiful than humans today. Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' is less centred around the necessity of beauty, but the people in the novel have surgery and use cosmetics to enhance their appearance (doesn't sound so different from nowadays, does it?) and are therefore shocked and disgusted when they see Linda, a woman who has become middle-aged naturally and is fat and ugly, at least by comparison.

Really, there isn't a dystopian novel in existence that isn't just an exaggeration of one part of modern society. Violence in youths is feared by many older generations, so 'A Clockwork Orange' mightn't be so far from the reality they believe in. A search for perfection and beauty is certainly part of modern society, so why shouldn't everyone be surgically altered to be beautiful in the future? It's worrying, when you think about it, which is what makes it so interesting. I guess dystopian literatre exists to show us that the things we accept about society aren't necessarily as innocent as they seem.

I'm not sure I was very clear about my points, as I'm feeling a bit scatter-brained and trying to think about too many things at once. I hope it was interesting, though. There'll be a second blog post later today so that'll I'll be caught up.