Bill Clouse

Spring 2019

The Dystopian Boom and Why the Utopian Narrative Need Not Worry

          As mentioned in my midterm, adolescents seem more drawn to dystopian or dystopian-framed texts than any other texts taught in public schools.  My own students are reading 1984 and are already telling me they like it better than the other works we have read. For this post, I wanted to explore why.  I have always held that showing a connection between works of literature to the lives of adolescents is the most effective way to not only spark their interest, but to also sustain that interest (which is what is most important).  Students want to know, and will always ask the same question that all English teachers hear: What’s the point of reading this?

I then point to a poster I have tacked on my classroom wall:

Words may, through the devotion, the skill, the passion, and the luck of writers prove to be the most powerful thing in the world. They may move men to speak to each other because some of those words somewhere express not just what the writer is thinking but what a huge segment of the world is thinking. (Nobelprize.org)

I came across Golding’s Nobel Lecture as an undergraduate in one of my content-based pedagogical courses. My professor challenged us to explain the validity of literature to an indifferent audience most likely apathetic to “the literary.” In other words, a typical high school English class.

One single, simple sentence clarifies Golding’s point: words have power.  And if one were willing enough to sludge through the dystopian muck of dystopian fiction for a title that exemplifies Golding’s idea, then one need not sludge too far.  Ray Bradbury’s literate outlaw (aptly named Fable) insightfully remarks about the magical power of words—how they reveal what books say—serving as instruments that “[stitch] the patches of the universe together in one garment for us to use” (Bradbury 85).  But what is this “magic” that Fable speaks of?  What do books say to us?

For adolescents, the dystopian novel speaks of their world, which may explain the sudden boom in dystopian interest, particularly within Young Adult literature, over the last two decades (Wikipedia).  For Moira Young, the reason for the spike in YA dystopian literature is simple: a teenager’s interest in dystopian fiction “all comes down to the story” (2).  Aside from the conventional characteristics, features, and plotlines, all dystopian literature appears to share a common attribute.  Set in “either chaotic or strictly controlled societies,” these fictional worlds “mirror a teenager’s life at school, at home, [and] with their peers” (Young 1), which subsequently fosters a macrocosmic understanding of the world around them. They read about teenage protagonists unwillingly wrenched from normality into “a world of darkness and danger,” of questionable friends and foes, of oppressive authoritative figures; they read about the hero’s journey “towards their own destiny that will change their world” (Young 2). To a teenager, the line between dystopian fantasy and pubescent reality is indistinct; in many ways, the adolescent reader identifies with the dystopian hero.

Joining the surge of young adult dystopian interest is a surge of interest in the classics.  Alexandra Alter’s 2017 New York Times article discusses the rise in sales of classics like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, and of course, George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984. Alter posits the growing interest of these politically and socially driven dystopian narratives as indicative with what appears to be “a moment of heightened anxiety about the state of American democracy” occurring after the 2016 Presidential Election (1); coupled with presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” comment.[1] “Orwellian” and “Big Brother”—household names at one time, but of recent years had been relegated to the lounges of academia and the political zoo—recently tweeted their glorious return to popular discourse, most notably among a newer and younger generation (Alter 2, 3).  The sudden cognizant awareness of a nascent political circus caused many people to fall off the carousel, and as they try to make sense with the “jolting shift in American politics,” many of them “[turn] to dystopian novels for guidance and insight” (Alter 3).

Jill Lepore, writer for The New Yorker, calls this a “golden age for dystopian fiction” chiefly due to the genre’s “pessimistic [view] about technology, about the economy, about politics, and about the planet” (5).  By pairing current issues troubling society, such as cultural superficiality, nuclear threat, equal rights, and a mistrust in corporations, with multiple dystopian titles spanning five decades like Player Piano, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Feed, Lepore chronicles how the concerns implicit in those texts (among others) evolved with the evolving concerns of society, pointing out an ironic twist in the dystopian function:

Dystopia used to be a fiction of resistance; it’s become a fiction of submission, the fiction of an untrusting, lonely, and sullen twenty-first century, the fiction of fake news and infowars, the fiction of helplessness and hopelessness. (9)

Though the purpose of the dystopian text remained constant, its function, Lepore argues, transitioned from evoking a beat-to-quarters call for action, to accepting a “politics-of-ruin” level of resignation (9). If the function of a dystopian narrative seeks social and political change, what happens when the narrative itself submits?  Does the dystopian narrative cease to be a narrative?

          And what might this mean for utopian fiction, if the dystopian narrative has lost its will? Does this signify the end for the utopian narrative, the coup de grâce that sends it further into the realm of passé idealism? For if the dystopian narrative loses its drive to seek change, how can the utopian idea ever exist? However, if society continues to change, then naturally its “pessimism” changes with it, which keeps the utopian optimism alive. The paradox that characterizes the utopian genre will sustain the utopian narrative, for a variety of concerns yield a variety of answers. When one discovers a problem, another seeks a solution.  The “no place” then remains.

Works Cited

Alter, Alexandra. "Fears for the Future Prompt a Boon for Dystopian Classics." New York Times, Jan 28, 2017. ProQuest, https://libproxy.uhcl.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1862286097?accountid=7108. Accessed 22 March 2019.

Golding, William. Nobel Lecture. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2019. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1983/golding/lecture/. Accessed 1 April 2019.

Lepore, Jill.  “A Golden Age for Dystopian Fiction.” The New Yorker, 29 May 2017. The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/05/a-golden-age-for-dystopian-fiction. Accessed 23 March 2019.

Wikipedia contributors. "List of Dystopian Literature." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 25 March 2019. Web.

Young, Maria. “Why Is Dystopia So Appealing to Young Adults?” The Guardian. 22 October 2011. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/23/dystopian-fiction. Accessed 22 March 2019.