REVISIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT: EDITING REALITY AND FICTION IN CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY DYSTOPIAS
REVISIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT: EDITING REALITY AND FICTION IN CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY DYSTOPIAS

Summary/Abstract: Rather than merely dwell on the strategies employed by the totalitarian regimes envisaged by Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury and Margaret Atwood to erase, censor or modify the various narratives of the past and present,this paper also aims to explore the recurrence of their familiar tropes and the addition of more topical ones in a number of contemporary texts, particularly those aimed at a younger readership. The analysis will revisit key concepts and interactions from Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Fahrenheit 451 and The Handmaid’s Tale in the light of recent political events and media practices but also focus on the role played by lies, censorship and manipulation in the dystopianscenarios delineated in novel series such as Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games,Veronica Roth’s Divergent and Lauren Oliver’s Delirium, in an attempt to establish the extent to which such texts, while lacking the originality and complexity of their obvious sources of inspiration, can help instill in their young readers critical thinking strategies and a general incredulity towards the narratives promoted or imposed by the establishment. It will pay a certain degree of attention to the treatment of public and personal history and the different ways in which dystopian subjects position themselves in relation to sources of authority, ostensibly resisting manipulation but more often than not perpetuating the same practices for their own ends, but will focus above all on the status of literary texts in dystopian scenarios and the relative threat posed by responses ranging from total obliteration to careful adulteration of the volatile truth of fiction.

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