Dystopias

Through a close analysis of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series and Veronica
Roth’s Divergent series, it will be shown that these two-current young adult dystopian
book-film crossovers pose several relevant parallels to contemporary real-world
problems. By deciphering a pattern on what garners their popularity, and most
importantly analyzing the aspect of why they reached such levels of recognition, we can
then begin to close in on just how important these two series are in representing the 21st
century young American mindset. Taking into the equation also, how the overall-arching
genre of dystopia has evolved with the times and has now adapted to reflect
contemporary anxieties and fears. Looking into several elements such as a newfound
desire for strong female roles, persuasive antagonists that are inspired by realistic
historical precedents, and an unsettling desensitization towards violence and gore, we can
then see that the successful equation of The Hunger Games and Divergent series reflects
mainstream interests evocatively and effectively. It is not just an intervention into the encompassing utopian/dystopian tradition, but into today’s
sociology.

Intimate spaces play a key role in the development of human identity, constructing identity through an internalized experience of the house itself. Building on Bachelard's theories in The Poetics of Space, I argue that characters in Yevgeny Zamyatin's We and J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World gain a new awareness of self after experiencing nature as a substitute for the house. The emergence of a new identity occurs because nature offers protection from the forces that inhibit both D-503 and Keran's individual growth ; it offers the safety of the house that neither character is allowed in a private home : D-503 because of the panoptic space of the One state and Kerans due to the nature of the changing circumstances of the environment and his own biology that force him to accept his role as a "new" human and the jungle as "home".