Academic literature on the topic 'Dystopian YA'

The election of President Trump in the US has reignited discussions regarding reproductive rights and renewed interest in Margaret Atwood’s 1984 dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, which depicts a future society in which women are stripped of these rights. However, the novel does not explore how threats to reproductive rights might affect teenage girls. The gap left in Atwood’s novel has been filled by authors of dystopias for young adults who foreground the double threat to teenage girls because of their sex and age. This paper discusses the way in which these novels show teenage girls resisting against societies that seek to dictate how they use their bodies, with Megan McCafferty’s Bumped and Thumped having a particularly strong political edge. Through the insights of feminist critic Drucilla Cornell, this paper shows that the challenges to characters’ reproductive rights in these texts may encourage readers to consider themselves as sexual subjects and take responsibility for that sexual subject, even if it requires political action.

Drawing on Foucault’s examination of the gaze as a disciplinary mechanism, and de Certeau’s discussion of how people use tactics to resist oppressive power systems, this article advocates reading the gaze in young adult dystopian fiction. To illustrate the complex readings that doing so makes possible, the author examines three young adult dystopias—M. T. Anderson’s Feed, Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy, and Corey Doctorow’s Little Brother—to demonstrate how they depict adolescents as having varying degrees of agency to resist the gaze. To conclude, the author discusses the implications for teachers and students of reading the gaze in young adult literature.


 
 
 ‘Now tell me...’ Tobias says through a bursting breath, ‘what do you think learning strategy has to do with...bravery?’ The question reminds me that he is my instructor, and I am supposed to learn something from this. A cloud passes over the moon, and the light shifts across my hands.
 ‘It...it prepares you to act,’ I say finally. ‘You learn strategy so you can use it.’
 (Roth 2011, pp. 143–4)
 In this passage from Veronica Roth’s young adult (YA) novel Divergent (2011), protagonist Tris Prior is encouraged to make a connection between knowledge and action. More specifically, her instructor Tobias prompts Tris to articulate that strategy is necessary preparation for action. Implicit in this meta-teaching moment is an invitation for readers to embark with Tris on a journey that is exhilarating, but also instructive. Here Roth cues a generic feature of YA dystopian fiction: its function as a roadmap to agency. YA series such as Divergent (Roth 2011; 2012; 2013), The Hunger Games (Collins 2010a; 2010b; 2013), and The Maze Runner (Dashner 2010; 2011; 2013) all feature protagonists who move from inertia to action to engage with powerful enemies in a struggle for freedom and liberty. Given the genre’s overtly political concerns, this paper aims to consider what, if any, real-world empowerment might occur for readers who respond empathically to YA dystopian fiction. It explores how these texts might act as roadmaps to political agency and social activism, and asks whether—by mobilising readers’ affective responses—YA fiction might in fact immobilise young adults. In short, this paper examines whether there is there any evidence to suggest YA dystopian texts have the potential to empower a new generation of young adults to move from political inertia to action.
 
 

The article examines the concept of catastrophe as an art theme, which is extremely relevant in our time and is also marked by the entropy features. We can confirm that this phenomenon grows and affects many spheres of human life, both external (global, social) and internal (psychological). The author of the article focuses on how modern dystopia reflects an awareness of a catastrophe, which is happening or has already happened. We have analyzed two novels from this point of view: “Masha, or the Fourth Reich” by the French writer of Ukrainian origin Yaroslav Melnyk and “Never Let me Go” by the English writer of Japanese origin Kazuo Ishiguro. The article emphasizes that the dystopias of our time correct classical dystopia attitudes, because they tend to the diffusion of new genres, acquiring the features of a parable novel, a myth novel, an alternative history fiction, and a philosophical novel. We have also noted the controversial nature of new formations, which combine signs of utopia and dystopia. Regarding the ideological and thematic component, the author of the article states that Ya. Melnyk and K. Ishiguro focus on the traditional problems of humanism and the relationship between “man and society” and on individual’s catastrophic depopulation issues in the conditions of nowadays turbulent challenges. The purpose of the article is to study the specificity of catastrophism artistic embodiment in the novels “Masha, or the Fourth Reich” by Yaroslav Melnyk and “ Never Let me Go ” by Kazuo Ishiguro and its functions in the structure of the dystopia genre. To achieve this goal we used historical-literary, cultural-historical and hermeneutic research methods. It was determined that the catastrophism motif realization in the dystopia genre contributes to searching for new experimental forms, activates the processes of transformation and diffusion in the genre creation field, paradoxically and organically combines classic and modern elements of dystopia, renewing the poetics of the genre. Conclusion. Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel “Never Let me Go” demonstrates a powerful example of genre synthesis: “stream of consciousness” coexists with the classic English estate novel, which is emphasized by confessional and allegorical intonations and does not prevent the writer from resorting to some possibilities of a detective story. Features of the traditional parable form and mythological genre are also observed. Fantastic elements are interspersed with realistic ones. But allegorical, mythological, fantastic, and realistic features organically coexist in the novel, reinforcing the author’s main ideas. Yaroslav Melnyk in his novel “Masha, or the Fourth Reich” successfully synthesizes an alternative history novel, an adventure novel and a classic philosophical novel. Here conflicting utopia and dystopia also organically coexist, reinforcing each other. A dystopia genre structure becomes open and acquires unlimited hybridization, losing its classical features and even postmodern boundaries. Thus, the catastrophic reality of the 21st century promotes the search for new experimental forms, activates unpredictable processes in the genre creation field, and paradoxically and organically combines classical and modern elements of literary art. Once again, modern dystopian literature shows that “common issue” as a social slogan cannot satisfy individual human needs. The problem of egocentrism with the insufficient development of the political machine is becoming more and more acute. As a general phenomenon, consumer society does not justify itself and makes the lives of its sons doomed. Unfortunately, the heroes of modern dystopias less and less often choose to fight and more often to humble themselves or flee, which is the main difference from their classical predecessors. The prospects of further work are to deepen the understanding of the causes of stylistic and substantive differences in dystopias, the influence of socio-cultural reality on modern dystopias genre synthesis, the differences in the methods of utopian representation and artistic means of enhancing catastrophization within stories framework.

In this article we consider the absence of queer female protagonists in dystopian Young Adult (YA) fiction and examine how texts with queer protagonists rely on heteronormative frameworks. Often seen as progressive, dystopian YA fiction features rebellious teen girls resisting the restrictive norms of their societies, but it frequently sidelines queerness in favor of heteronormative romance for its predominantly white, able-bodied protagonists. We analyze The Scorpion Rules (2015) and Love in the Time of Global Warming (2013), both of which feature queer girl protagonists, and conclude that these texts ultimately marginalize that queerness. While they offer readers queer female protagonists, they also equate queerness with non-normative bodies and reaffirm heteronormativity. The rebellion of both protagonists effectively distances them from the queer agency they have developed throughout the narratives.

This article discusses Nanook: ele está chegando (‘Nanook: He Is Coming’) (2016), written by Brazilian author Gustavo Bernardo, a Brazilian dystopian apocalyptic young adult (YA) novel influenced by an Inuit legend that mixes science with mysticism and human subjectivity. In this book, 15-year-old Bernardo emerges as a harbinger of events that will occur in the narrative, when he affirms that ‘Nanook is coming’. From that point onwards, climatic and supernatural events happen, which affect the whole world, with consequences for Ouro Preto, the former capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, where the story takes place. These consequences include snowfalls, increasingly intense cold and the disappearance of some animals. Nanook: He Is Coming was selected by the Brazilian National Textbook Program (PNLD – Programa Nacional do Livro Didático) for high school students. This programme is designed to evaluate didactic, pedagogical and literary works and make them available for free to Brazilian students what are studying at public schools. This article concludes with an analysis of the text, using critical tools, which include Reception Theory to examine the communicability of the novel with its implicit reader, the dialogical relationship with that reader and the novel’s language, stylistic characteristics, the constitution of its narrative operators and its ideological discourse.

The coronavirus pandemic has stimulated a number of texts, which are aimed at helping children to cope with situations alien to them. For example, the picture book Staying Home by Sally Nichols and Vivienne Schwarz (2020) deals with the conditions of lockdown and family isolation, whilst Piperpotamus by Annis Watts endeavours to explain COVID-19. This pandemic is not the only such event in history. The Black Death swept across Europe (1347–51) followed by the Spanish flu pandemic (1918–20). Both of these have stimulated historical fiction for older children and Young Adults and have done so by employing differing literary approaches. For instance, Cat Winters’ In the Shadow of Blackbirds (2013) incorporates a ghost story set against the contexts of séances and spirit photographers as the bereaved hope to gain comfort, whilst Charles Todd’s An Unmarked Grave (2012) is a murder mystery. Dystopian science fiction has also been employed to examine the equivalent circumstances of such pandemics. The plague in Gone (2008–14) by Michael Grant follows a nuclear disaster, which has produced a world where only those under fifteen have survived beneath a dome created by a young autistic child at the point of the explosion. Unforeseen forces have erupted resulting in mutation where individuals have supernatural powers taking them into a posthuman state. Their world is later blighted by plague and the children have to deal with remaking their lives and their society without the help of adults. This article will consider the various ways that such texts have approached these world-changing disasters and the common themes, which emerge to give our current generation of children ways of thinking about their present and their future.

Coming of age and classification of adolescents In Salla Simukka’s YA-dystopias Jäljellä and Toisaalla
 Finnish YA-author Salla Simukka takes a current societal problem into the center of her novel pair Jäljellä (Left Over, not translated, 2012) and Toisaalla (Elsewhere, not translated, 2012). These novels criticize the current system, where even young children are forced to choose specialized studies and make decisions that affect their whole future. This is a consequence on a modern western information society, where branches of knowledge are differentiated. These theme Simukka’s novels handle with the methods off dystopic fiction.
 Both novels depict a dystopic world, where adolescents are classified into groups based on their personality and their talents. Both novels depict a world very much like our own, but the time of the story lies in the near future. As usual to the dystopic fiction the author pics up some existing progressions from the reality and then extends those conditions into a future, and this way the flaws of the current conditions are revealed. In my article I claim, that Simukka’s novels take under critical consideration the whole Western concept of coming of age. Especially crucial is the idea of growth as being something controllable. In western cultures the growing up of an individual is standardized and regulated by institutions and fields of science such us daycare, school, medicine, and psychology. In Simukka’s novels this idea is exaggerated but still recognizable. 
 The motif of classifications or sorting the adolescents has lately been popular in YA-fantasy and YA-dystopia. Simukka’s novels borrow from two bestsellers: J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter -series (1997–2007), and Veronica Roth’s Divergent-series (2011–2013). These examples seem to prove, that the idea of adolescents of being sorted or being classified is important in contemporary genre fiction targeting young audiences. Sorting or classification as motifs seem to be connected to the contemporary understanding of youth and growing up.
 In this article I consider the classification motif in Simukka’s novel. I consentrate especially to the connections between the motif and the wider theme of growing up. I examine the motif beside the Western ideas of growth and coming of age. Besides that I also study the different genre frames Simukka’s novels use to discuss of growing up in contemporary society. These genre traditions include dystopic fiction, YA-literature and fairytale. In this article I propose, that the classification motif allegorizes the demands set to adolescents in contemporary society but also appeals to the young readers as a fantasy of belonging to the group.

Resumo: O artigo apresenta a distopia enquanto gênero literário como reflexo do cotidiano, em narrativas que, em um primeiro momento, abordam um futuro imaginado. Nas distopias, esse futuro é encarado sempre como pior que o presente, porém, o que esse trabalho busca tencionar é o quanto tais narrativas já apresentam uma descrença com o próprio cotidiano do momento presente de escrita e apresentação da obra. Para tal, buscamos em um primeiro momento conceituar o gênero distópico e, após, trabalhar a noção de cotidiano, a partir dos autores Agnes Heller e Michel de Certeau, relacionando tais conceitos com as obras distópicas Nós, 1984 e Jogos Vorazes. 
 
 Abstract: The article presents dystopia as a literary genre and a reflection of everyday life in narratives that, at first, approach an imagined future. In dystopias, this future is always faced as worse than present, but what this study seeks to demonstrate is how these narratives already present a disbelief with everyday life of the present moment of writing and presentation of the story. To achieve this, we first sought to conceptualize the dystopic genre and, afterwards, to work on the notion of everyday life, from the authors Agnes Heller and Michel de Certeau, relating such concepts to the dystopic narratives We, 1984 and Hunger Games.
 
 Resumen: El artículo presenta el género literario de la distopía como reflejo de lo cotidiano, a partir de narrativas que, en un primer momento, abordan un futuro imaginado. En las distopías, ese futuro es encarado siempre como peor que el presente, pero, lo que ese trabajo busca pretender, es mostrar cuanto tales narrativas ya presentan una incredulidad con el propio cotidiano del momento presente de escritura y presentación de la obra. Buscamos, en un primer momento, conceptuar el género distópico y, después, trabajar la noción de cotidiano, a partir de los autores Agnes Heller y Michel de Certeau, relacionando tales conceptos con las obras distópicas Nosotros, 1984 y Los Juegos del Hambre.