Guest Rhiannon Hart on YA Dystopias

I'm thrilled to welcome fellow book blogger Rhiannon Hart to Dystopian February. I first became aware of Rhiannon's blog back when she reviewed Carrie Ryan's THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH and I've been eagerly reading her excellent reviews, especially of books in the dystopian genre, ever since. In fact, Rhi was one of my inspirations for Dystopian February via her Dystopia Challenge last summer where she read 22 dystopian novels over the course of four months (read her excellent dystopia challenge wrap-up).

Here's Rhiannon:

We’re in the second golden age of young adult literature and speculative fiction is thriving. Fantasy, science fiction, paranormal and dystopian novels color bookshop shelves with blacks, blood reds and swirling purples. But while paranormal books are now inhabited by cuddly vampires, ghosts are homecoming queens and zombies are boyfriend material, dystopian novels stay dark, grim and harsh. Suzanne Collins’ THE HUNGER GAMES, Scott Westerfeld’s UGLIES trilogy and Mary E. Pearson’s THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX are just some of the most popular recent young adult titles. But the grimness of events depicted in these books have led some to question whether they are suitable reading material for teenagers, and whether the bleakness of YA literature is spiraling out of control.

A dystopia is characterized by oppression, violence and terror. The lives of those within the society are inescapably bleak, and resistance is met with the worst kind of punishment. The setting is usually the not-too-distant future and the writer often reveals how our own world has become their terrifying vision of the future. In THE HUNGER GAMES, Collins describes a totalitarian society called Panem that grew out of the ruins of North America. In THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX, Pearson extrapolates on the future of transplant technology, and how use can quickly become abuse.

In young adult dystopias, it is usually adult authority figures who are the villains, and the persecuted are teenagers. This dynamic is significant as the reader is herself at the whim of parents and teachers, and has a growing awareness of the law and governing bodies. These books tap into teenagers’ feelings of a lack of agency and independence. Reading about characters subject to similar strains, albeit on an often grander and bleaker scale, is undoubtedly soothing.

Societies in these novels don’t go sour on their own. Ironically, it is the pursuit of perfection, whether through medical advancement, total control or standardization of citizens, or religious fanaticism, that causes the disaster. The powerful take their personal ideologies to the extreme and impose them on all. They act in what they perceive is others’ best interests, but their misguided good intentions result in catastrophe, and one they are often blind to. These novels illustrate that striving for perfection is not only foolish, but dangerous. Teenagers are put under immense pressure to succeed. It’s no surprise, then, that a genre that shuns perfection is embraced by them.

Dystopias also help make sense of a complicated world. Things are often black and white in a dystopia: the totalitarian government must be overthrown; nuclear war will bring about the end of life as we know it; it is never right to put children into an arena and make them fight to the death.

A recent Wall Street Journal article by Katie Roiphe (‘It Was, Like, All Dark and Stormy’, June 6, 2009) examines a handful of recent releases and bemoans that ‘Somewhere along the line our teenagers have become connoisseurs of disaster.’ Roiphe believes that the economic crisis and swine ’flu epidemic are responsible for the advent of this ‘new disaster fiction’, as if dystopian novels have sprung up overnight.

Many factors have led to an abundance of ‘disaster’ literature today, but these sorts of books for children are not a new phenomenon. During the Cold War many nuclear apocalyptic titles were written for a young adult audience, such as John Wyndham’s THE CHRYSALIDS (1955), Robert C. O’Brien’s sinister Z FOR ZACHARIAH (1975) and Isobelle Carmody’s immensely popular OBERNEWTYN (1987), all of which have appealed to generations of teenagers. More recently John Marsden has received worldwide acclaim for his invasion dystopia TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN (1993), and the subsequent books in the series.

Roiphe also states that ‘Today’s bestselling authors are careful to infuse the final scenes of these bleak explorations with an element of hope.’ Despite their bleak premise, there is always a strong thread of hope running through dystopian novels for a young adult audience. In the end, the hero either escapes the oppressive society, or they overthrow it. This is true for novels written decades ago, like THE CHRYSALIDS, or titles released more recently. Dystopian novels wouldn’t work without hope. The message to the reader is that things don’t have to turn out for the worst: we can prevent total annihilation of the human race or sinking to the depths of cruelty, as even under the most brutal circumstances, someone will always be fighting for justice and freedom. This is a genre convention, not a last-minute addition by a wary writer.

The dystopias written for today’s teenagers compared with those of previous generations are as grim, and infused with the same hope. While there are many factors at play that have led to their popularity, authors are clearly engaging with themes that resonate with their audience, and this should be interpreted positively rather than with an alarmist knee-jerk reaction.