FACTION BEFORE BLOOD: UPROOTEDNESS AND REGROUNDING IN DYSTOPIAN FICTION
One of the most salient aspects of dystopian societies entails the manipulation of identity parameters by replacing the natural bonds of love and kinship with artificial ties and enforced allegiances to the establishment. This paper examines the strategies employed by various fictional regimes to indoctrinate, brainwash, condition or rewire their inhabitants before pushing (or, alternatively, easing) them into convenient boxes. The analysis will briefly identify the main such mechanisms outlined in texts ranging from the classics (Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Fahrenheit 451 and The Handmaid’s Tale) to perhaps less familiar examples such as E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops,” Ayn Rand’s Anthem, Isaac Asimov’s The Naked Sun and Foundation and Earth and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? before focusing on the perpetuation and reconfiguration of the same elements in their young adult narrative descendants: Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Lauren Oliver’s Delirium and Veronica Roth’s Divergent series. Attention will be paid to endeavours ranging from rewriting the past (of select individuals or entire societies) and inventing new social castes and professional categories to the vilification and suppression of emotional manifestations, as well as to the extent to which such texts have succeeded in highlighting existing problems, anticipating future developments and hopefully prompting their readers to reassess their perception of human interaction and identity formation.
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