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Cojocaru, Daniel. "Violence and dystopia : mimesis and sacrifice in contemporary Western dystopian narratives." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f3f2848d-d349-4dcd-8bff-810010a2e8e3.
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Violence and Dystopia is a critical examination of imitative desire, scapegoating and sacrifice in selected contemporary Western dystopian narratives through the lens of René Girard’s mimetic theory. The first chapter offers an overview of the history of Western utopia/dystopia with a special emphasis on the problem of conflictive mimesis and scapegoating violence, and a critical introduction to Girard’s theory. The second chapter is devoted to J.G. Ballard’s seminal novel Crash (1973). It is argued that the car crash functions as a metaphor for conflictive mimetic desire and leads to a quasi-sacrificial crisis as defined by Girard for archaic religion. The attempt of the medieval propheta-figure to resolve the crisis through violence fails and leads to potential violence without end. The third chapter focuses on the psychogeographical writings of Iain Sinclair. Walking the streets of London he represents the excluded underside of the world of Ballardian speed. The walking subject is portrayed in terms of the expelled victim of Girardian theory. The fourth chapter considers violent crowds as portrayed by Ballard’s late fiction, the writings of Stewart Home and David Peace’s GB84 (2004). In accordance with Girard’s hypothesis, the discussed narratives reveal the failure of scapegoat expulsion to restore peace to the potentially self-destructive violent crowds. The fifth chapter examines the post-apocalyptic environments resulting from failed scapegoat expulsion and mimetic conflict out of control, as portrayed in Sinclair’s Radon Daughters (1994), Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Oryx and Crake (2003) and Will Self’s The Book of Dave (2006). In conclusion it will become evident that Girard’s theory forms an indispensable analytical tool uncovering the pivotal themes of imitation and scapegoating in the discussed narratives: themes largely ignored in current scholarship on dystopia and secondary literature on the focussed authors.
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麥雅琳 and Ngah-lam Elaine Mak. "Eugenics in dystopian novels." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2001. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31226516.
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Bakker, Barbara. "Arabic dystopias in the 21st century : A study on 21st century Arabic dystopian fiction through the analysis of four works of Arabic dystopian narrative." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Arabiska, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-27968.
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Dystopian fiction as intended in the Western literary tradition is a 20 th century phenomenon on the Arabic literary scene. This relatively new genre has been experiencing an uplift since the beginning of the 21st century and many works that have been defined dystopias have been published and translated into English in the last 10 – 15 years. In order to find out their main features, Claeys’s categorization of literary dystopias is applied and a thematic analysis is carried out on four Arabic dystopian works of narrative, written by authors from different parts of the Arabic world. The analysis shows that 21st century Arabic dystopias are political dystopias, with totalitarianism as their main variation. Rather than on society, their focus is on the individual, and more specifically on personal freedom. The totalitarian constraints are mainly caused by religious fundamentalism and bureaucratic procedures. Surveillance and control over population are implemented by means of religious precepts and bureaucratic constructions, together with, in some instances, control over language and technological devices. Political totalitarianism regardless of a specific political ideology is identified as main theme. The thesis suggests that a Western-based classification framework is only partially suitable for Arabic dystopian fiction of the 21st century and that further research, including but not limited to a specific classification theory for Arabic dystopian fiction, is necessary to properly investigate this new literary trend in Arabic literature.
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Bakker, Barbara. "Arabic dystopias in the 21st century : A study on 21st century Arabic dystopian fictionthrough the analysis of four works of Arabic dystopian narrative." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Arabiska, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-28495.
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Dystopian fiction as intended in the Western literary tradition is a 20 th century phenomenon on the Arabic literary scene. This relatively new genre has been experiencing an uplift since the beginning of the 21 st century and many works that have been defined dystopias have been published and translated into English in the last 10 – 15 years. In order to find out their main features, Claeys’s categorization of literary dystopias is applied and a thematic analysis is carried out on four Arabic dystopian works of narrative, written by authors from different parts of the Arabic world. The analysis shows that 21 st century Arabic dystopias are political dystopias, with totalitarianism as their main variation. Rather than on society, their focus is on the individual, and more specifically on personal freedom. The totalitarian constraints are mainly caused by religious fundamentalism and bureaucratic procedures. Surveillance and control over population are implemented by means of religious precepts and bureaucratic constructions, together with, in some instances, control over language and technological devices. Political totalitarianism regardless of a specific political ideology is identified as main theme. The thesis suggests that a Western-based classification framework is only partially suitable for Arabic dystopian fiction of the 21 st century and that further research, including but not limited to a specific classification theory for Arabic dystopian fiction, is necessary to properly investigate this new literary trend in Arabic literature.
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Hensley, Martin. "The Green World of Dystopian Fiction." TopSCHOLAR®, 2006. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/276.
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Northrop Frye was the first theorist to develop the green world archetype; Frye used the term to refer to a recurring motif in Shakespearean comedy. In several of Shakespeare's comedies, the protagonists leave the civilized world and venture into the green world, or nature, to escape from the irrational law of society, which is the case in such comedies as As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Elements of the green world can also be found in Shakespearean tragedy, where the natural retreat serves as a temporary escape for the protagonists. Such a green world exists in three of the most well known examples of dystopian fiction: George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and Yevgeny Zamyatin's We. In these three novels, the protagonists take flight from the repressive dystopia and journey into nature. In the green world, the protagonists attain individual freedom and identity and experience emotions, passions, beauty, the past, and the power of language. Each of these elements, which are associated with the green world, stand in opposition to the dystopian society's doctrine. The green world, then, becomes an escape, a place where the protagonists can temporarily live a free life away from the tyrannical powers of the dystopic society. The dystopian green world experience follows a pattern of flight, immersion, and departure. In the first segment, the protagonists flee from the oppressive society and into nature; in the second, they immerse themselves within the green world where they experience new sensations, emotions, and gain new insights and understanding; in the third, the protagonists depart the green world and return to the civilized world in order to confront it with the knowledge they have gained while immersed in the green world. This pattern can also be viewed as a symbolic cycle that moves from death to rebirth to death. The first death is the death-like stasis of the dystopia and of the protagonist, who is just a part of the whole and not truly an individual. The symbolic rebirth conies when the protagonists depart the green world as individuals with new know ledge and experiences. Lastly, the second symbolic, or sometimes literal death, comes when the protagonists confront the dystopia with their new knowledge, have that knowledge challenged by an agent of the dystopia, usually in the form of a trial, and, finally, are symbolically or literally destroyed by the dystopian agent.
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Mak, Ngah-lam Elaine. "Eugenics in dystopian novels /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 2001. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B23595954.
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Weiss, Katherine. "Beckett’s Ruined Landscapes: Dystopian Visions after WWII." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2016. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/2252.
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Johnson, Bryan W. "Dystopian Literature and the Novella Form as Illustrated Through Side Effects, an Original Novella." DigitalCommons@USU, 2012. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/1413.
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This master’s degree thesis exists in two parts: a critical introduction and an original novella entitled Side Effects. The critical introduction introduces and explains the theories on, literature surrounding, and literary uses of dystopian fiction, the novella format, and drug-based psychotherapy. Current opinion on dystopian fiction sees it characterized by a seemingly perfect societal setting that ultimately contains hidden or suppressed moral flaws. The ultimate purpose of dystopian fiction is commentary on contemporary society through a defamiliarized setting. The novella format is shown to exist in a middle-ground state between the short story and the novel, yet the format manages to maintain positive literary elements of both. Finally, a discussion on drug-based psychotherapy illustrates the use of chemical compounds to treat or cure psychological conditions, a topic of much debate amongst current psychology practitioners. The section on drug-based psychotherapy focuses largely on memoirs for purposes of first-hand experience and character creation for the original novella.
The novella, entitled Side Effects, follows the character Edward, a middle-aged man who creates and tests serums that suppress by mandate the emotions that his society deems toxic to the human condition. Edward remains ignorant of any life outside the symmetry and order of the Company, the corporation responsible for the maintenance of the society. That is, until a chance encounter with a young woman named Gabrielle causes Edward to explore a world outside the confines of his carefully crafted city and lifestyle. She introduces him to a community of people who reject the mandates of the Company and exist as the extreme opposition to its ideals. As Edward spends more time with this group, known as Splicers, he must confront his long-held standards and finally choose for himself what life he will live.
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Tan, Susan. "Between times : growing into future's history in young adult dystopian literature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708554.
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NEWMAN, CHINA RAE. "GENDER PERFORMANCE IN DYSTOPIAN LITERATURE THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/613347.
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This work analyzes the use and portrayal of gender in Jack London’s The Iron Heel (1908), George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968), and Stephanie Collins’ The Hunger Games (2008), four dystopian works written over a period of 100 years. It questions the reasoning behind the use of gender within each of the texts and looks at the changes in the use and presentation of gendered characters in each of the novels, considering the purpose of each text and the possible reasoning behind gendered portrayals of the characters in each story. Though a chronological analysis of these texts reveals a change from the portrayal of femininity as a singular good to a mindless weakness to a necessary balancing force, feminine characters remain subordinate to and weaker than masculine characters, even as a female protagonist takes the stage in the final novel. Finally, the work questions whether the conventions of the dystopian genre preclude the existence of a feminine dystopian hero or if the reason she has not yet been written is based on a cultural bias towards strong masculinity in main characters of any gender rather than the norms of the dystopian genre.
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Varsamopoulou, Maria. "Before Utopia : the function of sacrifice in dystopian narratives." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2010. http://etheses.nottingham.ac.uk/3771/.
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The aim of this study is to illustrate the ways in which the practice and logic of sacrifice in dystopian narratives is anti-utopian. There is a dearth of research on the dystopian fiction, very little which investigates ethical issues and none which consider sacrificial ethics. In the first half of the thesis, the concept of dystopia is delineated against definitions of utopia, concrete utopia and utopian literature. In the second theoretical chapter, major and minor theories of sacrifice are examined for their normative bias in order to question their function in practice. Two important literary examples are read in light of a cross section of sacrifice and utopia: the influential story of Isaac's near sacrifice by Abraham in Genesis 22, and Ursule Molinaro's The New Moon with the Old Moon in her Arms, a literary depiction of the ancient Greek sacrificial ritual of the 'pharmakos'. The works chosen are canonical examples of the genre and in each a different aspect of sacrifice is foregrounded. In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the structure of sacrifice and the rigid hierarchy it imposes engenders perpetual violence. In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, women's sacrifice of reproductive freedom renders them commodities which cannot sustain friendships. In Octavia Butler's Kindred, the scapegoating of women slaves prevents vertical relationships as a result of the severing of mothers from their offspring. In the final chapter, Ursule Le Guin's 'The Ones who Walk Away from Ornelas' and Lois Lowry's The Giver foreground the cost of utopia based on a sacrificial ethics and problematises the relationship between self and community. The questions of genre, gender, and ethics intersect at the anti-utopian function sacrifice performs in the totalitarian societies foregrounded in the various manifestations of dystopian fictional worlds.
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Marroquin, Melissa. "The New Dystopian Trend: Neoliberalism and the YA text." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2017. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1624.
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Since the success of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, the young adult text has functioned as a potential gold mine both in publishing and in commercial film. Within the YA realm, a trend has surfaced which features a formulaic narrative located within a dystopian society. This research closely analyzes two popular works of the YA dystopian boom, The Hunger Games and the Divergent series, in order to outline the vast appeal of such a trend. Once examined, it becomes evident that the trend is one consistently tied to neoliberal ideals of individual achievement.
Using neoliberalism as a lens of investigation, broader connections to youth culture within the contemporary cultural landscape are revealed. Investigating two mainstream favorites of the young adult dystopia has uncovered the notion of individualism that feeds the logic of consumer capitalism. Exploring a range of topics from the role of romance to government intervention, this work highlights the ways in which the trend reinforces the importance of the individual and her freedoms.
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Reber, Lauren Lewis. "Negotiating hope and honesty : a rhetorical criticism of young adult dystopian literature /." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2005. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd720.pdf.
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Kumbalonah, Abobo. "Mobility and the Representation of African Dystopian Spaces in Film and Literature." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1439460633.
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Garcia, Kristina. "Examining the proximity of power structures in dystopian and anti-utopian literature." FIU Digital Commons, 2011. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3866.
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The purpose of this research is to examine power in dystopian and anti-utopian literature as it relates to the proximity of power structures in relation to the populace. This research uses The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood; Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell; and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley to explore the different methods of gaining and maintaining power employed by the ruling parties in these texts. The research demonstrates an arrangement of control as it relates to implementing, solidifying, and perpetuating a hegemonic structure within a civilization. The conclusion of this research reveals an evolution of power, from physical to psychological to technological in the bid to maintain control over an extended span of time and shows the ruling party to be able to remove themselves from proximity by employing ever more invasive techniques of control.
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Cartwright, Amy. "The future is Gothic : elements of Gothic in dystopian novels." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2005. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1346/.
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This thesis explores the relationship between the Gothic tradition and Dystopian novels in order to illuminate new perspective on the body in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915), Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange (1962), Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Michel Houellebecq’s Atomised (1999). The key concerns are those of the Labyrinth, Dark Places, Connectedness and the Loss of the Individual, Live Burials, Monsters and Fragmented Flesh. A thematic approach allows for the novels to be brought together under common Gothic themes in order to show not only that they have such tendencies, but that they share common ground as Gothic Dystopias. While the focus is on bodily concerns in these novels, it is also pertinent to offer a discussion of past critical perspectives on the Dystopia and this is undertaken in Chapter One. Chapter Two looks at the narrative structure of the novels and finds similarities in presentation to Gothic novels, which leads to exploration of the position of the body in such a narrative of the unseen. The third chapter looks to the spaces inhabited by characters in the novels to examine their impact on the threat faced by these individuals. The Gothic convention of doubling is the focus of Chapter Four, which finds not only doubling operating in Dystopian novels, but the more complex relationship of triangles of doubling holding characters, fixing them in relation to those around at the expense of selfhood. Chapter Five takes Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s musings on the Gothic as its point of departure and finds that Dystopian bodies occupy a very similarly trapped position. Chapter Six identifies two types of monsters that inhabit the Gothic Dystopian space: those people who transform between the human and the monstrous, and those individuals who form a larger monster based on power that lives parasitically on transgressive bodies. The final chapter displays the impact of the Gothic Dystopia on individual bodies: ‘Fragmented Flesh’. The destruction of a coherent whole, a body with defined and sustainable boundaries, is the outcome of the novels where fear, repression, and the hidden combine to leave little space for cohesion and identification in the Gothic Dystopia.
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Welstead, Adam. "Dystopia and the divided kingdom : twenty-first century British dystopian fiction and the politics of dissensus." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/17104.
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This doctoral thesis examines the ways in which contemporary writers have adopted the critical dystopian mode in order to radically deconstruct the socio-political conditions that preclude equality, inclusion and collective political appearance in twenty-first century Britain. The thesis performs theoretically-informed close readings of contemporary novels from authors J.G. Ballard, Maggie Gee, Sarah Hall and Rupert Thomson in its analysis, and argues that the speculative visions of Kingdom Come (2006), The Flood (2004), The Carhullan Army (2007) and Divided Kingdom (2005) are engaged with a wave of contemporary dystopian writing in which the destructive and divisive forms of consensus that are to be found within Britain's contemporary socio-political moment are identified and challenged. The thesis proposes that, in their politically-engaged extrapolations, contemporary British writers are engaged with specifically dystopian expressions of dissensus. Reflecting key theoretical and political nuances found in Jacques Rancière's concept of 'dissensus', I argue that the novels illustrate dissensual interventions within the imagined political space of British societies in which inequalities, oppressions and exclusions are endemic - often proceeding to present modest, 'minor' utopian arguments for more equal, heterogeneous and democratic possibilities in the process. Contributing new, theoretically-inflected analysis of key speculative fictions from twenty-first century British writers, and locating their critiques within the literary, socio-political and theoretical contexts they are meaningfully engaged with, the thesis ultimately argues that in interrogating and reimagining the socio-political spaces of twenty-first century Britain, contemporary writers of dystopian fiction demonstrate literature working in its most dissensual, political and transformative mode.
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Selzer, Dominik. "Critical Thinkers through The Hunger Games : Working with Dystopian Fiction in the EFL Classroom." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk (SPR), 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-65374.
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This essay gives examples of possible ways to inspire young adults to become politically more aware and active using dystopian fiction in the EFL classroom. First, an overview of the dystopian genre and different ways of using it in the EFL classroom to improve critical thinking skills will be given. Subsequently, different scenes from The Hunger Games will be analyzed to show how young adults can be inspired to be more aware of social and environmental justice and to act. Finally, it is discussed why literary material in a classroom must relate to a student’s personal life and why the relevance must be explained to a student to raise their interest. As a conclusion, it is claimed that it cannot be expected that all students care for the world, but showing them why they should and how they could do it is a first step.
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Barendse, Joan-Mari. "Distopiese toekomsromans in die Afrikaanse literatuur na 1999." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/79916.
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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation investigates the increase in Afrikaans novels set in the future at the time of publication in the period after 1999. The following seven Afrikaans futuristic novels were published in this time: Oemkontoe van die nasie (2001) by P.J. Haasbroek, Hotel Atlantis (2002) and Raka die roman (2005) by Koos Kombuis, Miskruier (2005) by Jaco Botha, Die nege kerse van Magriet (2006) by Barend P.J. Erasmus, Horrelpoot (2006) by Eben Venter and Wederkoms – Die lewe en geskiedenis van Jannes Hoop (2009) by Louis Krüger. These novels are discussed within the framework of dystopian literature since they all portray a future South Africa that is worse off than it was at the time of the novels’ publication. It is discussed whether the socio-political climate in South Africa after 1999 contributed to the increasing popularity of the dystopian genre in Afrikaans in this time. Dystopian literature in general comments on the present rather than the future. The social commentary in these novels is therefore also discussed. The following aspects of dystopian literature, as identified by critics such as Raffaella Baccolini, Fredric Jameson, Tom Moylan, Lyman Tower Sargent and Brian Stableford, is focused on in the analysis of the seven novels: the typical narrative in dystopian works; the distinction between the classical dystopia, critical dystopia and pseudo-dystopia; the connection between dystopian literature and apocalyptic literature, and common themes within dystopian literature (for example the control of language and the media, history and ecological issues). This dissertation highlights the similarities to as well as differences between the seven Afrikaans dystopian novels and typical dystopian works. It is also discussed how the context of a postcolonial and post-apartheid South Africa makes these novels unique.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie proefskrif ondersoek die toename van Afrikaanse romans in die tydperk ná 1999 wat ten tyde van publikasie in ʼn toekomstige Suid-Afrika afspeel. Die volgende toekomsromans verskyn in hierdie tyd: P.J. Haasbroek se Oemkontoe van die nasie (2001), Hotel Atlantis (2002) en Raka die roman (2005) deur Koos Kombuis, Miskruier (2005) deur Jaco Botha, Eben Venter se Horrelpoot (2006), Die nege kerse van Magriet (2006) deur Barend P.J. Erasmus en Louis Krüger se Wederkoms – Die lewe en geskiedenis van Jannes Hoop (2009). Dié sewe romans word binne die raamwerk van distopiese literatuur bespreek omdat hulle voldoen aan Lyman Tower Sargent se definisie van ʼn literêre distopie: hulle beeld almal ʼn toekomstige Suid-Afrika uit waarin dit slegter gaan as die tyd waarin die romans gepubliseer is. Daar word ondersoek of die sosio-politiese konteks waarin die toekomsromans van ná 1999 verskyn, moontlik ʼn bydrae gelewer het tot die toename van hierdie tipe roman in die tydperk. Toekomsvoorstellings binne distopiese literatuur lewer dikwels eerder kommentaar op die tyd waarin die werke verskyn as op die toekoms. Daar word ondersoek of dit ook die geval is met die Afrikaanse distopiese toekomsromans van ná 1999. Na aanleiding van teorieë rondom distopiese literatuur deur kritici soos Raffaella Baccolini, Fredric Jameson, Tom Moylan, Lyman Tower Sargent en Brian Stableford word daar op die volgende aspekte van distopiese literatuur gefokus in die analise van die sewe romans: die handeling in tipiese distopiese werke; die onderskeid tussen die klassieke distopie, kritiese distopie en pseudo-distopie; die verband tussen apokaliptiese en distopiese literatuur en algemene temas binne distopiese literatuur (byvoorbeeld die beheer van die taal en media, die geskiedenis en ekologiese vraagstukke). In die bespreking word daar gewys op die ooreenkomste, maar ook die verskille, tussen die sewe Afrikaanse distopiese romans en tipiese distopiese werke. Daar word ook bespreek hoe die konteks van ʼn postkoloniale en postapartheid Suid-Afrika ʼn uniekheid verleen aan dié werke.
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Rimmasch, Meghan I. "Where Have All The Rebels Gone? Ideology and Conformity in Young Adult Dystopian Literature." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6754.
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By employing the critical studies of adolescence from Nancy Lesko, Roberta Trites, and Maria Nikolajeva and the study of positive and negative symbols of rebellion examined by Robert Lindner through Leerom Medovoi, I will interrogate the popular notion that female protagonists in dystopian Young Adult Literature (YAL) are strong, self-aware rebels who are positive role models to YA readers. Using the didactic nature of dystopian literature, I will examine how adult authors consciously (or unconsciously) set ideological standards for their YA readers through the female protagonists and how these standards are not as empowering as they initially seem. To address this disparity between what is promoted as rebellion and what is actually enacted by female protagonists, I will analyze Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy and Ally Condie's Matched trilogy. The analysis will conclude that the female protagonists are problematic, subscribing to specific, conservative ideologies presented in the novels which prohibits them from seeing through the rebellion they are involved in and that their choices are determined by male characters instead of their own self-awareness.
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Ventrucci, Virginia. "Translating and Analyzing Contemporary Italian Dystopian Fiction: Leonardo Patrignani's "Tu Non Esisti"." Bachelor's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2017.
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As the English-speaking book market is difficult to penetrate for authors who are not native speakers of English, it is important to analyze how writers of different languages can produce notable works. This dissertation sets to translate, analyze, and assess the literary value of "Tu Non Esisti", a short story written by Italian author Leonardo Patrignani, as an example of contemporary Italian dystopian fiction that could be successful abroad.
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Almqvist, Whilma. "”I Want to Make Them Think” : An Analysis of Teachers’ Use of Dystopian Literature in the Swedish EFL Classroom." Thesis, Jönköping University, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-51060.
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This study aims to investigate the role of dystopian literature in the Swedish EFL classroom. In particular, it intends to investigate and analyze the method that Swedish EFL teachers use to employ this genre into the classroom, as well as the aim for the usage. The study is qualitative and has been carried out through the conducting of semi-structured interviews consisting of open-ended questions. The findings of the study show that there are a number of common aims and methods among the respondents. The aim for the using of this particular genre was commonly to increase the students’ willingness to read by working with literature that would hopefully be appealing to them. Common methods for using this genre of literature include discussions in different group-constellations, as well as employing films and shorter video clips as a complement to the standard literature used during lectures. Further findings show that teachers are inclined to adapt their teaching depending on the individual student groups. In other words, there is a tendency among the respondents to be flexible in their teaching, in order to favor students’ development in the English language.
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Baran, Katarzyna Agnieszka. "The past, memory and trauma in young adult dystopian writing." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/385857.
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Els últims vint anys han estat testimonis d'un interès sense precedents en la literatura distòpica per als adolescents. Durant la dècada de 1980 i principis de 1990 el camp interdisciplinari d'estudis de la memòria va començar a guanyar un reconeixement més generalitzat. Dins d'aquesta eclèctica àrea d’investigació, els estudis sobre el trauma es va convertir en un dels punts d'enfocament. D'altra banda, des de principis del decenni de 1990, hi ha hagut un augment en el nombre de llibres per a nens sobre el trauma. No obstant això, fins ara, hi ha hagut poca recerca acadèmica en els conceptes de trauma i memòria en la literatura distòpica per als adolescents.
L'objectiu principal d'aquesta tesi és analitzar com el passat, la memòria i el trauma es reflecteixen en els recents textos distòpics destinats als adolescents. La tesi examina novel•les d'escriptores americanes i britàniques: Lois Lowry, Doris Lessing, Ursula K. Li Guin i Allie Condie. Amb l'ús de les teories del camp dels estudis de memòria, aquesta tesi traça com en aquestes novel•les la memòria, el passat i la història són utilitzats pels règims repressius per reforçar el statu quo. La tesi explora també l'ambigua funció de la memòria, que pot ser no només una eina d'opressió, sinó que també d'alliberament. D'altra banda, aquesta tesi se centra en la representació de trauma en distopies per a adolescents.En los últimos veinte años hemos asistido a un auge sin precedentes del interés por la literatura juvenil distópica. A finales de los ochenta y principios de los noventa el campo multidisciplinario de los Estudios sobre la Memoria comenzó a gozar de un reconocimiento generalizado. Dentro de este campo de investigación tan ecléctico los estudios sobre el trauma se convirtieron en uno de los aspectos que más atención ha recibido. Por otro lado, desde principios de los noventa el número de libros sobre trauma dirigidos a un público juvenil ha ido en aumento. Sin embargo, los estudios académicos sobre los conceptos de trauma y memoria en la literatura juvenil distópica son todavía escasos. El principal objetivo que se marca esta tesis es analizar cómo se reflejan el pasado, la memoria y el trauma en obras distópicas juveniles de reciente publicación. La tesis analiza una serie de novelas de autores estadounidenses y británicos como son Lois Lowry, Doris Lessing, Ursula K. Le Guin y Allie Condie. Mediante teorías procedentes de los estudios sobre la memoria, en este trabajo se perfila el modo en que los regímenes represivos utilizan el pasado y la historia para fortalecer el estatus quo. Se analiza también la función ambigua de la memoria, que puede ser no solo opresiva sino también liberadora. Por otra parte, la presente tesis centra su atención en la representación del trauma en distopías juveniles.
The last twenty years have witnessed an unprecedented interest in dystopian literature for young adults. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the interdisciplinary field of memory studies began to gain a more widespread recognition. Within this eclectic area of research, trauma became one of the most significant points of focus. Moreover, since the early 1990s, there has been an increase in the publication of children’s books on trauma. However, to date, there has been little scholarly research into the concepts of trauma and memory in dystopian literature for young adults. The main aim of this dissertation is to analyse how the past, memory and trauma are reflected in recent young adult dystopian writing. The thesis examines a selection of novels by American and British writers: Lois Lowry, Doris Lessing, Ursula K. Le Guin and Allie Condie. With the use of theories from the field of memory studies, the thesis traces how, in these novels, memory, the past and history are used by repressive regimes to strengthen the status quo. Moreover, the function of memory is ambiguous as it can be oppressive - but also liberating. The complexities of this process are examined together with the representation of trauma in young adult dystopias.
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Beckett, Steven Nels. "Katniss Shrugged : the problematic legacy of Ayn Rand in contemporary American young adult dystopian literature." Thesis, Durham University, 2019. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12945/.
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In this thesis, I examine Ayn Rand's magnum opus 'Atlas Shrugged' and her philosophy of Objectivism, in order to explain how contemporary American young adult critical dystopias are the literary heirs to Rand's Americanist sociopolitical female-driven novels of rebellion in the face of totalitarian governments. Interwoven with my study on Rand, I focus on four trilogies: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau, Matched by Ally Condie, and Divergent by Veronica Roth. In examining these works through an Objectivist lens, I make an original contribution to the field of literary criticism by addressing the legacy of Rand's political and ethical philosophy in these contemporary YA critical dystopias. I focus on Ayn Rand, her influence on politics and literature, and the similarities between her work, Atlas Shrugged, and these contemporary YA critical dystopias. I argue that Rand created an archetype of the female rebel that we now see emerging in the identified texts, the coming-of-age Randian heroine; i.e., a young female protagonist with an ethical system that is congruous with Objectivism. It is through the use of this archetype, that these contemporary YA critical dystopias promote a political and ethical philosophy that is consistent with Rand's Objectivism. Furthermore, that these works provide young adult readers with a uniquely Objectivist solution to contemporary American social concerns through the actions of their coming-of-age Randian heroines. I conclude by addressing the need for further research into how Rand's work has influenced other areas of literature, philosophy, politics, and society in America and beyond.
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Wesche, Gretchen M. "Control and Creativity: The Languages of Dystopia." Miami University Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=muhonors1304482313.
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Sardenberg, Thiago Silva. "The all-seeing mirror: reflecting on vampires as allegories in socio-culturally sensitive literary works." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2012. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=4730.
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Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar a figura do vampiro na literatura como poderosa ferramenta de leitura e interpretação dos medos e angústias que afligem um determinado espaço sociocultural. Ao olhar para a evolução do vampiro literário através dos séculos dezenove, vinte e vinte e um, notamos que cada uma de suas encarnações difere dramaticamente da anterior, e no que o vampiro é reinventado, ele engaja-se num diálogo pertinente e coerente com questões de seu próprio tempo, nunca perdendo assim sua relevância. Sua existência heterogênea, explicitada na dissertação primariamente através das obras Carmilla, de Sheridan LeFanu, Dracula, de Bram Stoker, Eu Sou a Lenda, de Richard Matheson, Entrevista com o Vampiro, de Anne Rice e Fledgling, de Octavia Butler, e as diferentes questões suscitadas em cada uma dessas obras como a sexualidade, a alteridade e o hibridismo nos levarão ao entendimento de que o vampiro pode potencialmente desempenhar importante função alegórica, tornando-se um espelho da própria humanidade através da qual se sustentaThe present work aims at looking at the figure of the vampire in literature as powerful means of reading and interpreting the fears and anxieties of a specific socio-cultural space. By looking at the evolution of the literary vampire through the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we are able to notice that each of its incarnations dramatically differs from the previous one, and as vampires are reinvented, they engage in a coherent dialog with issues pertaining to their times, in a way that they never lose their relevance. Their heterogeneous existence, explicited in the dissertation primarily through Sheridan LeFanus Carmilla, Bram Stokers Dracula, Richard Mathesons I am Legend, Anne Rices Interview with the Vampire and Octavia Butlers Fledgling, and the different theoretical questions brought on by each of them such as sexuality, alterity and hybridity will lead us to the understanding that the vampire may potentially function as a powerful allegory as it becomes a mirror of the very humanity on which its life depends
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Davis, Megan S. "A R(EVOLUTION) OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS: YOUNG-ADULT DYSTOPIAN FICTION AS A VEHICLE FOR ECOCRITICAL AWARENESS." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2019. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/787.
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Prominent within various scientific journals, news media outlets, and online publications are conversations surrounding what is dubbed “climate anxiety.” This wide-stemmed social unrest is caused, in large part, by the unrelenting, consistent data from the scientific community reporting rising sea levels, species extinction, and “record-breaking” heatwaves as well as an increasing average of global temperatures, that seem to top the next every year for the past decade. However, an underlying thread to these reports remains largely consistent. Unless serious regard is given to our natural surroundings and how we have come to interact within it, regions of the Earth considered desirable for human life will likely become uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable to humans and other species. When addressed so simply and plainly, it seems that the response to such life-altering implications ought to be simple: do whatever it takes to ensure that a diversity of life, including that of humankind, can continue on the planet Earth. Voices of the scientific community have decreed that a driving force behind the lackadaisical approach to deterring such dire climatological circumstances, is the inability to grasp the immense scope of climate change issues.
This thesis, then, aims at proposing a directive to correct this problematic mentality, and a specific generation to combat this nature. Using the lens of ecocriticism, the study of literature and the environment, combined with cutting-edge theoretical findings in the field, I will focus on the literary portrayal of climate change within young-adult dystopian fiction.
While regarding the scholarship on the recent increase of YA fiction that takes a critical approach to human ethics and the portrayal of the demise of the natural environment in those texts, I will examine how this trend responds to my ideas of young-adult fiction functioning within Ecocriticism. Moreover, you will see a pattern charting how literature can revolutionize and evolve the mind frame of human ethics on a planetary scale, starting with the young adult readers. Further, I will highlight how these ideologies could and ought to be incorporated into a composition classroom. Composition already has a strong history of grounding itself in the notion of identity, and how contingent factors (social, political, economic, ecological, etc.) are integrated into the construction of that identity. This thesis poses that if we can introduce a sense of how those factors affect our ability to act in the natural world and potential consequences of these actions by way of pop culture outlets like YA Climate Fiction, readers can begin to re-shape our identities and actions, individually and collectively, towards Ecocritical ethics and awareness.
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Silva, Diogo Cesar Nunes da. "Histórias do futuro e a arte do pensar-contra: utopia, esperança e pessimismo distópico." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2011. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=5875.
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Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de JaneiroA protagonista do presente trabalho, a Utopia, a arte do pensar-contra, foi apresentada e definida, nas sendas da Filosofia da Esperança de Ernst Bloch, como uma consciência antecipadora que não se conforma com o está-aí das coisas, com a realidade fática; e como um logos, linguagem-ação que cria furos no tempo saltando para-adiante, para o topos-outro. Negativa e Esperançosa, ela representa a verdade-de-fora: não é o irreal, pois existe. E a existência do topos de fora, o topos-outro, se justifica pelo fato de que a vida e o mundo não são sistemas fechados, porque seus horizontes estão em aberto: atravessados por possibilidades, ainda-não-são. Contra o que é estático, o que é fatal e fático, se posiciona o sonho utópico, abrindo espaços no fluxo do mesmo. Ao fazê-lo, cria duas frentes reciprocamente reais: o aqui-e-agora de quem sonha e o aqui-e-agora do sonho, o u-topos. Assim, tanto seu caráter de projeção ao porvir quanto, na sua base, o descontentamento com o atual, revelam seu comprometimento com o presente. Negando e afirmando a história, transformou-se em conteúdo e, sobretudo, forma, de Morus a Fourrier, de Marx a Orwell. E é por comprometer-se com o futuro, o presente e o passado, que, nos tempos sombrios do início do século XX, ela subverte a si mesma e faz vir ao mundo sua versão pessimista: a Distopia. Articulando e fazendo dialogarem as obras distópicas de Orwell, Aldous Huxley e Jerome K. Jerome com os pensamentos de Adorno, Marcuse, Horkheimer, Hannah Arendt, Karl Kraus e Walter Benjamin, tentamos encaminhar a pergunta originária da nossa pesquisa: é possível uma utopia pessimista? Será este pessimismo, ainda, uma Utopia?
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Rocha, Luana. "Fear and manipulation in George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four and Alan Moores V for Vendetta." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2015. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=9278.
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O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar a questão da política do medo e das várias formas de manipulação da realidade encontradas nas narrativa de 1984 (1949), de George Orwell, assim como na narrativa gráfica de V de Vingança tanto na sua versão em quadrinhos, de Alan Moore (1982-88), quanto na sua adaptação cinematográfica, escrita pelos Wachowskis (2005). Em particular, tenta demonstrar similaridades nas técnicas usadas, assim como na análise dos personagens, procurando embasar certos questionamentos com a ajuda de filósofos políticos, estudos de psicologia, culturais, e distópicos. Ao final, este trabalho tenta identificar a importância da influência dos autores estudados, assim como outros autores distópicos, na criação e desenvolvimento de uma nova geração social de mentalidade inconformistaThis dissertation aims to analize the question of the politics of fear and the many forms of manipulation of reality found in George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), as well as in Alan Moores graphic novel V for Vendetta (1982-88) and its film adaptation written by the Wachowskis (2005). In particular, it tries to show similarities among the used techniques, as well as in the character analysis, trying to support these findings with the help of political philosophers, as well as psychological, cultural and dystopian studies. In the end, this work tries to identify the importance of these authors, as well as other dystopian authors, and their influence on the creation and development of a new generation of nonconformists
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Reber, Lauren Lewis. "Negotiating Hope and Honesty: A Rhetorical Criticism of Young Adult Dystopian Fiction." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2005. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/284.
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Young adult dystopian fictions follow the patterns established by the classic adult dystopias such as George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, but not completely. Young adult dystopias tend to end happily, a departure from the nightmarish ends of Winston Smith and John Savage. Young adult authors resist hopelessness, even if the fictional world demands it.
Using a rhetorical approach established by Wayne Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction and The Company We Keep, this thesis traces the reasons for the inclusion of hope and the strategies by which hope is created and maintained. Booth's rhetorical approach recognizes that a narrative is a relational act. At issue in this study is the consideration of what follows from viewing a narrative as a dynamic exchange between text, author and reader. Through a focus on rhetoric as identification, the responsibilities of both the author and the reader to a text are identified and discussed.
Three young adult novels, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, The Giver by Lois Lowry and Feed by M.T. Anderson will be analyzed as case studies. Together the analysis of these novels reveals that storytelling is an act of forging identifications and forming alliances. The reader becomes more than just a spectator of the author's rhetoric; the reader is a fully involved member of the interpretive and evaluative process.
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Parent, Robin A. "A Feminist Examination of How Girls and Women Engage with a Female Protagonist in Dystopian Young Adult Literature." DigitalCommons@USU, 2015. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/4483.
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This qualitative research study used a theoretical framework of third-wave feminism and reader response theory to examine two research questions: How do girls and women relate to the female protagonist in dystopian young adult literature (YAL)? and How are the responses to dystopian YAL similar and different for the targeted teen audience and the adult audience? A group of four teenaged girls and another group of three adult women read and discussed the YAL dystopian text Uglies. For this project, I collected participant journals and transcripts from individual interviews and book club discussions. I selected quotations from each data source that highlighted the participant’s reactions to the protagonist.
Data were analyzed in two phases. In phase one, I used discourse analysis, and in phase two I used constant comparative analysis. The analyses revealed that participants from both groups identified with the protagonist’s attempts to improve society, which aligns both groups’ responses with inclusive aspects of third-wave feminism. However, other aspects of feminism were incorporated into their answers as well. The women participants demonstrated a broader societal concern, such as those shared by second wave feminists. The girls, in contrast, were firmly situated within individualist aspects of third-wave feminism. Whereas, the women related to the protagonist on both a personal and broader societal level, the girls related only on a personal level. Findings from this research extend reader response theory by showing that responses to literature are strongly shaped by generational position.
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Viteri, Marquez Elisa Andrea. "Literary masculinities in contemporary Egyptian dystopian fiction : Local, regional and global masculinities as social criticism in Utopia and The Queue." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för Asien-, Mellanöstern- och Turkietstudier, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-184262.
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In the aftermath the 25th January Revolution of 2011, two Egyptian dystopian novels stand out as particularly relevant: Utopia (2008) by Ahmed Khaled Towfik, and The Queue (2013), by Basma Abdel Aziz. Due to the absence of studies that pay attention to how gender relations are portrayed in Arabic dystopian novels, this study focuses on the literary representation of men and masculinities in Utopia and The Queue. This thesis uses narratology and content analysis in order to show that, although patterns of local masculinities are different in both novels, regional and global models of masculinity clearly point out men as controlling, violent and hypersexual, which is supported by multiple institutions, such as the state, media, and the religious establishment. The inclusion of relevant ethnological studies of masculinities in Egypt confirms that the social criticism of the novels include gender relations, and refers to the time in which the novels were written. This study points out the need for recognizing Arabic dystopian fiction as a valuable instrument that carries meaningful and intricate social criticism, as well as the need for the inclusion of gender as a category of literary analysis.
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Byrnes, Claire D. "Blood on her hands: A practice-led approach to exploring violent heroines in dystopian fiction." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2018. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/121424/2/Claire_Byrnes_Thesis.pdf.
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This creative practice-led research project investigates the creation of violent female protagonists in dystopian fiction in order to discover what these type of characters reveal about society's ideas of gender. The outcome of the project is research product or artefact, a work of fiction titled 'Swan Song'. The work is deliberately poetic in presentation to encourage readers to consider the complexity of female gender construction. The project accomplishes this by incorporating aspects of evocative practice research, action research, and fiction in the research methods.
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Simpson, William David. "The American Adams and Eves : gender, simulacra, and post-history in the eco-dystopian landscapes of West Coast literature." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/32066.
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The protagonists in eco-dystopian literature are Adams in the city and usually have adversarial interactions with the Eves in the city who are depicted in the texts as tempting them to eat the metaphorical apple, destroying nature in pursuit of wealth and the placation of women. This relationship leads men to act in ways that are, paradoxically, destructive to the species, yet necessary for the short-term propagation of their own genetic line. In fact, this relationship, in which men are encouraged to attain material wealth, much of it with no actual intrinsic value or practical purpose, at the expense of the natural environment, is the cause of the eco-dystopian landscapes these texts depict. The subconscious knowledge of this paradox places extreme stress upon the psyches of men, and the results of this stress play out in the noir, cynicism, and male-centeredness of eco-dystopian literature. Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep lets us see an eco-dystopian world through the eyes of Detective Marlowe, a private detective who is keenly wary of femme fatales and who, at least in this text, manages to avoid the snares of multiple women. Douglas Coupland's Generation X achieves a similar effect by delivering a narrator who is very close to being devoid of gender. In sharp contrast, at least from the perspective of gender, Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club may very well be the most masculine text ever written, and Tyler Durden may very well be the most hyper-masculine character. This text actually portrays the literal split of a male mind, so traumatized by the constant pressure to destroy in order to profit, that it creates a separate personality, one that does not obey the male gender role. Lastly, William Gibson's Neuromancer explodes the whole dilemma by not just disobeying the male gender role, but by actually abandoning what is male altogether - that being the physical body. The main character, Case, has developed a distain for his own flesh, and desires to escape it and exist within the matrix, a computer generated cyberspace in which a human consciousness can exist outside the confines of flesh.Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate
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Lueckel, Wolfgang. "Atomic Apocalypse - 'Nuclear Fiction' in German Literature and Culture." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1281459381.
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Brandstedt, Nathalie. "The Complexity of Motherhood in Dystopian Novels : A comparative study of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Lois Lowry’s The Giver." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Akademin för lärande, humaniora och samhälle, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-44202.
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This study explores how motherhood is depicted in Margaret Atwood’s and Louis Lowry’s dystopian novels The Handmaid’s Tale and The Giver. It examines the negative social and psychological consequences of forced surrogacy in the novels’ state-constructed nuclear families, looking closely at a lack of maternal love and care. Using feminist and psychoanalytic criticism, this essay examines the link between the broken connection of mother and child and the protagonists’ search for maternal love in other relationships. It contrasts the protagonists’ rebellion to the social backlash effect and shows how motherhood emerges as a form of resistance against the social engineering of the dystopian societies.
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FRANCISCO, RAFAEL DA CUNHA DUARTE. "WE ARE THE DEAD: THE AESTHETICS OF PROGNOSIS IN REALISTIC DYSTOPIAN LITERATURE OF ALDOUS HUXLEY, GEORGE ORWELL AND YEVGENY ZAMYATIN." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2014. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=24932@1.
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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIROCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
Este trabalho tem como objetivo central analisar comparativamente três dos principais romances distópicos escritos na primeira metade do século XX: We (1924) de Yevgeny Zamyatin, Brave New World (1932) escrito por Aldous Huxley e 1984 (1949) escrito pelo romancista e jornalista inglês George Orwell. Não se trata aqui de pensar apenas em como essas obras foram moldadas por um ou outro conjunto de pressões históricas, mas sim procurar refletir especialmente se e como essas obras também podem possuir uma dimensão propositiva comum a todas elas. Elabora-se, a partir desse esforço, a categoria de estética do prognóstico, no interior do próprio pensamento crítico e ensaístico de Aldous Huxley. Partindo da obra de Huxley e posterioremente testando a força dessa categoria de estética do prognóstico frente aos dois outros romances, fomos capazes de perceber como a ficção opera a construção de uma encenação que pretende ser mais do que mera encenação. Pretende ser ela mesma uma espécie de realismo do futuro, chamado por nós de realismo distópico. Mas esse realismo não encontra o ponto máximo de sua representação da realidade na literatura ao profetizar (prognosticar) os meios pelos quais a sociedade do futuro irá se desenvolver, mas sim nas tópicas centrais à construção de seus protagonistas: o amor e a morte.
This work is mainly aimed at comparing three of the main dystopian novels written in the first half of the twentieth century: We (1924) by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Brave New World (1932) written by Aldous Huxley and 1984 (1949) written by the english novelist and journalist George Orwell. We re not only interested to think of how these works were shaped by either set of historical pressures, but rather trying to reflect especially if and how these works may also have a common propositional dimension to all of them. Draws up from that effort, the category of the aesthetic of prognosis, built inside the critical and essayistic thought of Aldous Huxley himself. Starting from the work of Huxley and then testing the strength of this category of aesthetic of prognosis compared to the other two novels, we were able to understand how fiction works to build a staging that aims to be more than mere acting. Want to be itself a kind of realism of the future, called by us the dystopian realism. But this realism did not find the peak of its representation of reality in literature prophesying (predicting) the means by which the society of the future will develop, but on the construction of the central protagonists issues: love and death.
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Siegler, Jacqueline. "How Political Hegemony is Secured Through Technology What 21st Century Dystopian Literature Can Teach Us About How Political Institutions Affirm Legitimacy." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2019. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2127.
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This thesis examines an array of Dystopian literature of the 21st century to analyse how speculative fiction uses technology as a method of tyranny. This thesis argues that technology within dystopias always serve the political hegemony. Further, this thesis argues that the system of control that is born from technology leaves no room for consciousness or identity.
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Correa, Sotelo Ruth Elvira. "The concept of identity in postmodern literature: the urban subject in the dystopian city : Paul Auster's In the country of last things." Tesis, Universidad de Chile, 2012. http://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/112718.
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Facultad de Filosof?a y HumanidadesDepartamento de Ling??stica
Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciada en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa
Introduction From the emergence of the term Utopia in Thomas More?s book of the same name, many controversial and prolific discussions have appeared throughout time. These discussions involved not only cultural and sociological aspects, but also those concerned more with the inner dimension of the self: his desires, ambitions and transformations. What More really meant by using this term we have no certainty, because in it he refers to several different factors that have an effect in the life of the island portrayed in his book. In opposition to Utopia, meaning ?a happy place where a person has nothing to worry about because his/her government provides everything they need?, there is Dystopia, which could be defined as ?a society being controlled by a repressive state, in both individual and collective ways?. Starting from this point, the general topic that gives rise to the object of study in this work is the urban subject, Anna Blume in Paul Auster?s In the Country of Last Things, immersed in a dystopian city nearly to be extinguished and conditioned by spaces that exert powerful forces on the prevalence of the self.
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Grow, Anne E. "The Meaning of Sexuality: A Critique of Foucault's History of Sexuality Volume 1." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6744.
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Michel Foucault is a celebrated post-structuralist theorist that has helped shape gender and sexual theory. In A History of Sexuality Volume 1 Foucault dismantles many longstanding sexual traditions and morals by exposing them as societal constructs. According to Foucault, anonymous yet fully invasive power sources have shaped and continue to shape sexual culture and more importantly, individual beliefs about sexuality. However, Foucault's obsession with the influence of power limits his sexual theory in three particular ways. First, he disregards the female sexual experience; second, he undermines individual agency; and third, he undermines the innate desire for love and family. The first half of the paper focuses on his dismissal of the female experience and individual agency. This section of the thesis relies heavily on other feminist scholars, social studies, and the work of historians. The second half of the paper focuses on the human desire for love and family and looks to dystopian literature to help critique Foucault. Dystopian literature has often been paired with modern cultural criticism, including psychoanalysis and post-strucutralism as both act as critiques of the permeating effects of societal control at a community and individual level. However, even dystopian literature leaves some room for individual agency and explores the innate desire for love and family.
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Gosser-Duncan, Jennifer. "Religion, Power and Gender in Margaret Atwood’s Dystopian Societies : A Reading of The Year of the Flood and The Handmaid’s Tale." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-160236.
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Women are traditionally counted among the victims or losers in religious power plays. On the surface, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novels give the impression that women will be the underdogs in these stories as well. However, on closer examination and application of Michel Foucault’s techniques of power, it can be seen that women indeed have and use power to put up resistance in otherwise seemingly hopeless situations in male dominated religious societies. The religious societies in The Year of the Flood and The Handmaid’s Tale will be compared as to how they appropriate religion and power to their advantage and how women make use of power techniques such as witnessing through discourse and the forbidden written language, use of their bodies and the fraying threads of power as opportunities, as well as community and solidarity and forgiveness to turn their situation around and fight for their futures.
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Hansson, Johanna. "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and The Hunger Games : Implementing critical literacy in the EFL classroom when reading Suzanne Collins’ dystopian novel." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk (SPR), 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-74892.
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The primary aim of this master’s thesis has been to examine how the dystopian, young adult novel, The Hunger Games (2008) by Suzanne Collins could entail depictions of violations against the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). The analysis has been conducted based on a theme-based close reading of the novel using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a contextualization device. In addition, the literary analysis has been divided into three sections, namely global, group and the individual perspectives of how incidents in the novel hypothetically violate the Universal Declaration of Human rights. The division was made in order to delineate the social perspective of how literature can amplify the understanding of human rights and societal issues. Furthermore, the secondary aim of this master’s thesis has been to discuss how upper secondary students, when using a critical literacy lens in the English as a Foreign Language classroom, may establish an awareness about other people’s living conditions and fundamental rights that are present in their immediate social vicinity and in this novel.
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Ivanovici, Cristina. "In search of Utopia : a study of the role of German and Romanian academic and literary communities in the production and evaluation of Margaret Atwood’s Utopian/Dystopian fiction." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2011. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/1716/.
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This study investigates the contribution of Romanian and German academic and literary communities to the formation of readerships for Margaret Atwood’s dystopian fiction and examines various conceptualisations of the Canadian writer as a literary celebrity in Romania and Germany by taking into account the response to and institutionalisation of the writer’s literary dystopias in the two countries both before and after the fall of communism in 1989. It aims to demonstrate that publishing, translation and cultural policies complicate the cultural reception of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian fiction in Eastern European countries and re-evaluates critical representations of Eastern European readerships and publishing contexts as invisible within the global literary field. By investigating the strategies which publishers, editors and translators employed in the dissemination and institutionalisation of Atwood’s work in Romania and Germany, this thesis examines paradigm shifts both in translation, publishing and marketing strategies and conceptualisations of literary celebrity as shaped by cultural state policies. To this end, the first chapter highlights representations of literary markets and readerships in the Atwood archive, and analyses how the Atwood literary archive values celebrity and translation. The second chapter charts the first translation projects which were carried out in both East Germany and communist Romania and points out how forms of censorship have impacted upon the production, dissemination and circulation of her work in translation. The third chapter draws upon interviews with Romanian academics and examines teaching and reading practices employed within a post-communist context. Finally, the study suggests how further examinations of the response to both Canadian and dystopian fiction within Eastern European contexts might proceed.
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Lewis, Abby N. "“It could have happened to any of you”: Post-Wounded Women in Three Contemporary Feminist Dystopian Novels." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2021. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3883.
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My goal for this thesis is to investigate the concept of (mis)labeling female protagonists in contemporary British fiction as mentally ill—historically labeled as madness—when subjected to traumatic events. The female protagonists in two novels by Sophie Mackintosh, The Water Cure (2018) and Blue Ticket (2020), and Jenni Fagan’s 2012 novel The Panopticon, are raised in environments steeped in trauma and strict, hegemonic structures that actively work to control and mold their identities. In The Panopticon, this system is called “the experiment”; in The Water Cure, it is personified by the character King and those who follow him; and in Blue Ticket, it is the social structure as a whole reflected in the character of Doctor A. To simply label these novels’ woman protagonists as ill would be to ignore that their behavior is not mental illness but in fact rational behavior produced by the traumatic dystopian environments.
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Chizmar, Paul Christopher. "Miranda's Dream Perverted: Dehumanization in Huxley's Brave New World." Kent State University Honors College / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ksuhonors1335827209.
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Charléz, Sara. ""A Mere Dream Dreamed in a Bad Time" : A Marxist Reading of Utopian and Dystopian Elements in Ursula K. Le Guin's Always Coming Home." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-156031.
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In Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel Always Coming Home, utopian and dystopian elements interact according to patterns inspired by anarchism and Taoism to criticise material excesses and oppressive social structures under capitalism. Via discussions of gender, state power, and forms of social (re)production, this Marxist reading proposes that the novel’s separation of utopia from dystopia hinges on the absence or presence of a state. The reading also suggests that the novel’s utopia is by its own admission a “mere dream” with limited relevance to anti-capitalist politics, and employs the novel’s own term “handmind” to show that the aesthetic and philosophical dimensions of its anti-capitalist sentiments encourage a reconsideration of utopia, to be viewed not as a fixed future product – a good-place – but as a constant process of becoming – a no-place.
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Nienaber, J. E. "Distopie in die grafiese roman : V for Vendetta as voorbeeld." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/21688.
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Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2008.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis examines the genre of dystopian fiction in the graphic novel, V for Vendetta in which a futuristic police state, run by a totalitarian regime is portrayed. Since V for Vendetta draws on a number of other dystopian texts, New Historicist theory is employed which begins its analysis of literary texts by attempting to look at other texts as well as the historical context in which it originated, to aid in the understanding of that text. Therefore, V for Vendetta with its thorough character development and multi-dimensional storyline that the larger format of the graphic novel allows, is studied alongside other highly regarded novels. The characteristics of the nightmarish anti-utopia is identified and analysed in V for Vendetta by looking at real examples of totalitarian regimes from history. The chapters are divided into what I identified as the main themes of the totalitarian dystopia. Chapter one explains the concept of the utopia in order to grasp the concept of dystopia, and more specifically, the Totalitarian dystopia. Chapter two looks at the social structure of V for Vendetta as well as the common Totalitarian dystopia. Chapter three discusses the issue of censorship which is a recurring theme in dystopian fiction. Chapter four examines the manner in which the totalitarian regime manipulates the populace of the dystopia through propaganda. Chapter five discusses the systems of surveillance and lack of privacy in the Totalitarian dystopia and a chapter on the protagonist in dystopia concludes this study.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie studiestuk word die genre van distopiese fiksie in die grafiese roman, V for Vendetta behandel, wat ’n futuristiese polisiestaat teen die agtergrond van ’n totalitêre staatsbestel uitbeeld. Omdat V for Vendetta by soveel ander distopiese tekste leen, word dit vanuit die teoretiese oogpunt van New Historicism bestudeer, wat in die ontleding van ’n roman ander tekste asook die geskiedkundige konteks van daardie roman ondersoek, ten einde dit beter te begryp. Daarom word V for Vendetta, wat vanweë die grafiese roman se langer formaat wat ruimte skep vir deeglike karakterontwikkeling en ’n veelvlakkige storielyn, as volwaardige roman naas ander hoogaangeskrewe romans behandel. Aan die hand van ware voorbeelde van totalitêre regimes uit die geskiedenis word die eienskappe eie aan ’n nagmerriestaat in V for Vendetta geïdentifiseer en geanaliseer en dit is waardeur ek my laat lei het ten opsigte van die hoofstukindeling. In hoofstuk een word die begrip van utopie eers duidelik gemaak om die distopie, en meer spesifiek die Totalitêre distopie te verstaan. In hoofstuk twee word daar gekyk na die sosiale samestelling en magstruktuur binne V for Vendetta en die Totalitêre distopie in die algemeen. Hoofstuk drie bespreek die kwessie van sensuur - ’n gewilde tema in distopiese fiksie. In hoofstuk vier word ondersoek ingestel na die manier waarop die Totalitêre-distopie die burgery breinspoel deur propaganda. Hoofstuk vyf bespreek die verskynsel van bewaking en die skending van privaatheid in die totaliêre distopie en in die sesde hoofstuk word daar gefokus op die protagonis in die distopie.
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Vachon, Lauren Marie. "Glow: A Novel." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1374695902.
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Casagrande, Eduardo Vignatti. ""Each one of us goes through life inside a bottle" : a reading of Brave new world in the light of Zygmunt Bauman's theory." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/141236.
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Esta dissertação propõe uma leitura do romance Admirável Mundo Novo (1932) de Aldous Huxley sob a luz dos conceitos de Zygmunt Bauman da Modernidade Líquida. A narrativa ocorre em uma Londres futurística no século 26, no ano 2540 de nossa Era Comum, ou – na narrativa no ano 632 AF (Após Ford). Subjacente ao cenário distópico de avanço tecnológico e organização altamente desenvolvida, porém, os temas discutidos no romance remetem à circunstância do tempo e lugar de sua produção, o início dos anos 1930, em um contexto de desenvolvimento industrial, tensão política e crise econômica. Nesta pesquisa, eu busco a resposta para a seguinte pergunta: “De quais maneiras a ficção de Huxley antecipa o tipo de sociedade seus leitores vivem no tempo presente, três-quartos de século após sua publicação? Com ajuda das teorias do Professor Zygmunt Bauman, eu construo minha interpretação das metáforas encontradas no romance, que prognosticam as atuais condições de capitalismo de mercado livre, consumismo, obsolescência programada que determinam a ética, a estética e a forma de pensar de nosso tempo presente. As hipóteses de Bauman concernem a liquidez do mundo atual, no qual nada deve durar muito. Esta premissa gera um grande número de consequências, tais como: fragilidade dos laços humanos, pensamento crítico superficial e supremacia dos contatos virtuais sobre ocontato de fato entre as pessoas. A dissertação está dividida em quatro capítulos. No primeiro, eu contextualizo o conceito de distopia. No segundo, eu trago a contextualização necessária sobre o tempo, a obra e o autor. No terceiro, eu introduzo os conceitos de Bauman sobre modernidade sólida e líquida e os conecto com o estudo de Admirável Mundo Novo. No capítulo IV, apresento minha leitura da obra. Ao final da pesquisa, espero encontrar respostas para a questão proposta estabelecendo inter-relações entre os aspectos ficcionais do romance e os traços sociais de nosso tempo atual.The present thesis proposes a reading of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) in the light of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of Liquid Modernity. The plot of the novel unfolds in the futuristic London of the 26th century, in the year 2540 of our Common Era, or – in the narrative – in the year 632 AF (After Ford). Underlying the dystopian scenario of technological advancement and highly developed organization, however, the themes discussed in the novel actually address the circumstances of the time and place of its own production, the beginning of the 1930’s, in a context of developing industrialization, political tension, and economic crises. In this research, I pursue the answer to the following question: “In what ways does Huxley’s fiction anticipate the kind of society its readers would be living in at our present time, three quarters of a century after its publication?” With the help of Professor Zygmunt Bauman’s theories, I build my interpretation of the metaphors found in the novel, that prognosticate the current conditions of free-market capitalism, consumerism, programmed obsolescence, that determine the ethics, the aesthetics and the ways of thinking of our present times. Bauman’s assumptions concern the liquidity of the contemporary world, where nothing is meant to last long. This premise generates a number of consequences such as overconsumption, frail human bonds, superficial critical thought, and supremacy of online over factual contacts among people. The thesis is devised in three chapters. In the first, I contextualize the concept of dystopia. In the second, I bring the necessary contextualization about the time, the work and the author. In the third, I introduce Bauman’s concepts of solid modernity and liquid modernity and connect them with the study of Brave New World. Finally. In Chapter IV, I present my reading of the novel. At the end of the research, I expect to find the answers to the posed question by establishing critical interrelations between the fictional aspects of the novel and the social features ongoing in our present time.
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Llewellyn, Jana Diemer. "Rape in feminist utopian and dystopian fiction Joanna Russ's The female man, Margaret Atwood's The handmaid's tale, and Octavia Butler's The parable of the sower and The parable of the talents /." Click here for download, 2006. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/villanova/fullcit?p1432523.
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