The Age of Dystopia: One Genre, Our Fears and Our Future 1443886947, 9781443886949

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The Age of Dystopia

The Age of Dystopia: One Genre, Our Fears and Our Future Edited by

Louisa MacKay Demerjian

The Age of Dystopia: One Genre, Our Fears and Our Future Edited by Louisa MacKay Demerjian This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Louisa MacKay Demerjian and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8694-7 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8694-9

For my family

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Louisa MacKay Demerjian Chapter One ................................................................................................. 5 Dystopia and the Promethean Nightmare Riven Barton Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 19 ‘The People in the Chaos Cannot Learn’: Dystopian Vision in Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy Patricia Stapleton Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 35 Victims of Global Capitalism in Margaret Atwood’s Dystopian Imaginary Terra Walston Joseph Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 47 Post-Apocalypse, Post-Human: Some Recent Dystopias Karen F. Stein Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 59 Dystopian Drama: Imagining Science without Limitations Jeanne Tiehen Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 73 Narrating Trauma: The Value of Violence in YA Dystopian Fiction Laura Poladian

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Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 91 Who Are You When No One’s Watching? The Hunger Games, Surveillance and the Search for Self Molly Brost Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 101 The Hunger Games in the Arena of Dystopian Literacy Nicole du Plessis Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 129 What Makes a Young Adult Dystopian Hero? Louisa MacKay Demerjian Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 141 ‘Last Girl Alive’: Kirsty Murray’s Dystopian YA Novel Vulture’s Gate Charlotte Beyer Contributors ............................................................................................. 163 Index ........................................................................................................ 167

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to the Northeast Modern Language Association as this work grew out of my panel at the 2014 NeMLA Convention in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Thanks so much to all of the contributors to this book for all their hard work and dedication to this project. More than anything, thanks to my family who make everything worthwhile.

INTRODUCTION

George Orwell’s 1984 is the expression of a mood, and it is a warning. The mood it expresses is that of near despair about the future of man, and the warning is that unless the course of history changes, men all over the world will lose their most human qualities, will become soulless automatons, and will not even be aware of it. —Erich Fromm “It’s a sad commentary on our age that we find Dystopias a lot easier to believe in than Utopias: Utopias we can only imagine; Dystopias we’ve already had.” —Margaret Atwood

In what ways are we now living in an Age of Dystopia? What dystopian themes have become less speculative and more familiar? Reading classics like 1984 and Brave New World, it is striking to recognize Orwell’s telescreens in our smart phones and flat screen televisions. It is no longer surprising to see notices such as “THIS AREA UNDER SURVEILLANCE” or to see cameras picking up our every moves; it is impossible to know when someone is really watching but as with Bentham’s Panopticon, we must always assume we are being watched in the same way that Winston Smith assumed he was constantly being monitored. Scientific advances make Huxley’s image of engineered babies not that far-fetched, which makes the question of what should be done more pressing as the list of what can be done becomes more and more extensive. Dystopian works reflect society’s worries. What do we have to worry about? Income inequality, the financial crisis, power in the hands of a few—a few anonymous, wealthy and powerful elite—which brings to mind the elite group of the Party insiders in 1984. Science and technology are impacting our lives and changing who we are as people when few of us understand how these things—genetic engineering, software engineering —are done. Climate change—we don’t know what the seasons will be like over time and we don’t know how many cities are going to be under water or, on the other end of the spectrum, completely dried out. We don’t know how our changing environment will impact food production but we know that there are pollinators at risk. Some argue that genetically

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Introduction

modified food production is the answer but others argue that the unknown potential impacts may bring more instability and make the situation worse in the long run. The world is more “connected”—financially and technologically—than ever before and while that could mean that we all keep each other afloat, it could mean we all go down together.

Our Text The first half of this book examines some of the literature, drama, film and television produced in recent years and endeavors to put it in context. In “Dystopia and the Promethean Nightmare,” Riven Barton shows how dystopian works reflect the changing content of our “collective nightmare” and our “fear of our own ‘progress.’” Patricia Stapleton’s “‘The People in the Chaos Cannot Learn’: Dystopian Vision in Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy” shows the parallels between the science and technology in our world and that of Margaret Atwood’s recent dystopian trilogy. Terra Walston Joseph considers how Atwood’s trilogy treats the topic of global capitalism, specifically the unforeseen, or at least unacknowledged, casualties of the global economy. Karen F. Stein compares and contrasts Atwood’s trilogy and the older Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler in the ways in which they speculate about the future of humanity. Finally, Jeanne Tiehen considers how dystopian plays serve up warnings about the dangers of science without limitations. The second half of this book focuses on dystopian works geared toward young adult audiences. First, Laura Poladian asks whether or not it is appropriate for young people to be reading stories with traumatic events portrayed such as those in the Hunger Games trilogy and how those young readers might be impacted by their reading experience. Next, Molly Brost considers how surveillance impacts self-definition, relationships and power dynamics between the watched and the watcher. Then, Nicole duPlessis looks at the significance of literacy in the world of Panem. My chapter asks the question of how we are shaped by our environments and what circumstances allow for heroism in young adult dystopia. Finally, Charlotte Beyer widens the scope as she considers the relationship between context, landscape and gender codes in Vulture’s Gate, an Australian young adult novel.

Reason to Hope The recent popularity and scope of dystopian literature does seem to signal something about our society, or as Atwood puts it “is a sad

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commentary on our age” (Atwood, “Writing Utopia” 95). But if dystopia

provides a warning, there must be potential for change and therefore hope for the future. Referencing the television show The X-Files, Jeremy Adam Smith and Pamela Paxton write about its motto and the American mood: In fact, “trust no one” has essentially served as Americans’ motto over the last two generations. For 40 years—the years of Vietnam, Watergate, junk bonds, Monica Lewinsky, Enron, the Catholic Church sex scandals, and the Iraq war—our trust in each other has been dropping steadily, while trust in many institutions has been seriously shaken in response to scandals. i

However, Smith and Paxton say their research suggests that “humans are hardwired to trust” and that our society’s broken trust can be rebuilt. Again, the parallels between our real world and that of dystopian worlds become apparent; worlds might fall apart but, if we heed the warnings, there is hope for the future.

Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. “Writing Utopia.” Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose 1983-2005. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005. 92-100. Print. Fromm, Erich. Afterword. 1984. By George Orwell. New York: Signet, 1949/1961. 257-267. Print. Smith, Jeremy Adam and Pamela Paxton. “America’s Trust Fall.” Greater Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life. 1 Sep 2008. Web. 17Aug 2015. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/americas_trust_ fall

Notes i

“This trend is documented in a variety of national surveys. The General Social Survey, a periodic assessment of Americans’ moods and values, shows a 10-point decline from 1976 to 2006 in the number of Americans who believe other people can generally be trusted. The General Social Survey also shows declines in trust in our institutions, although these declines are often closely linked to specific events. From the 1970s to today, trust has declined in the press (24 to 11 percent), education (36 to 28 percent), banks (35 percent to 31 percent), corporations (26 to 17 percent), and even organized religion (35 to 25 percent). And Gallup’s annual Governance survey shows that trust in the government is even lower today than it

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Introduction

was during the Watergate era, when the Nixon administration had been caught engaging in criminal acts. It’s no wonder popular culture is so preoccupied with questions of trust.” (Smith and Paxton)

CHAPTER ONE DYSTOPIA AND THE PROMETHEAN NIGHTMARE RIVEN BARTON PHD

“A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world that will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain” (Orwell 1984)

The shadow of the modern, industrial and post-industrial eras is manifest as the dystopian nightmare of popular fiction. The disturbing world described in George Orwell’s novel 1984, points to an innate fear of our own “progress.” Our obsession with the post-apocalyptic and dystopian in contemporary fiction is an indication of a larger need to acknowledge the shadow of all this “advancement” and to take into account the tremendous environmental, psychological, and sociological destruction that it has caused over the last few centuries. The dystopian landscape is one where the virtues of the individual and the family are trampled upon and destroyed in the name of development and control. We have paid a heavy price for our technologies and conveniences, and like Dr. Frankenstein, we unconsciously fear that we will not be able to control the monster of our own creation. Dystopian fantasies allow us to acknowledge these collective shadows in a space and temporality safely outside of our everyday existence. They highlight our collective fears and allow us to process them in a nightmarish fantasy. In this paper I will be looking at dystopian fiction from the early 20th century to the present, its reflection of our collective cultural fears as well as our unconscious desires for the future. The millennial obsession with the apocalypse marks the end of an epoch. Apocalyptic thinking acknowledges the loss of a former way of life. People become apocalyptic when the traditional mores, beliefs, and societal constructions no longer resonate with an emerging zeitgeist.

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Dystopian fantasies, as well as apocalyptic projections, often accompany large cultural and technological shifts. They give a fictional voice to that which is too terrifying or disorienting for the collective to express outwardly. According to Jungian Psychologist Edward Edinger in his book Archetype of the Apocalypse, dystopian and apocalyptic fantasies act to reorient humanity away from aspects of civilization that have grown stale and inappropriate, in order to promote new and more viable ways of operating collectively. They both acknowledge what has become incongruous in the present culture and lament what has been lost from the past. The swiftness and totality of cultural change since the industrial era is unprecedented in human history. The utopian projections of the Enlightenment period and its endless praise and hope for human ingenuity, collided with the unforeseen consequences of industrialized society. The swiftness of the change made the collective reconciliation between these two seemingly opposed realities difficult. The severity of the dystopian projection is in direct correlation with the overtly positive utopian projections placed on the hopes and goals of an era. According to C. G. Jung, there is an overarching process within the psyche to maintain and regain balance when a particular figure, image or ideal is thought of only in solitary terms, such as all good or all evil. This natural correction process that he calls enantiodromia (CW 6 709) is a tendency for things to become their opposites and emerges when a projection becomes too completely one-sided. The overtly utopian projections of the Enlightenment period and the subsequent industrialized and commercial cultures bred dystopian projections not only to compensate for its one sidedness, but also to acknowledge the shadow of the lived experience. It is this lived experience that differentiates the dystopian from the apocalyptic. An apocalypse is an end: it is the moment of judgment. The apocalypse is defined as “The complete final destruction of the world” or “an event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale.” (Oxford). The term apocalypse is Biblical and it comes from the Greek Apo and Kalypto which means to “take away” and “to cover and hide.” It is a punishment or a final judgment for human sin and hubris. On the other hand, dystopias signify a continuation of life after the apocalypse has already happened. Regardless of how horrible it may be, a dystopia is not an end, but a struggle for continuation. They are shadow projections of current society, hyper-exemplifying problems and potential fears that already exist. A dystopia is: a futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control. Dystopias, through an

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exaggerated worst-case scenario, make a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political system (readwritething.org).

The emphasis on the future creates an important distinction between a dystopia in the contemporary sense, and other imaginary, sick or dysfunctional societies. Religion, mythology, and folklore are filled with tales of dystopian-like societies. The horror stories of overtly gluttonous, violent, or morally depraved communities acted as fables, warning people against the dangers of behaving in culturally unethical ways. Often these depraved communities were severely punished or completely obliterated in the apocalyptic wrath of the gods. However, more modern or contemporary versions of dystopias are almost entirely set in the future. They too act as warnings not of the repetition of past punishments but of a new possibility all together. The dystopias of the present are not frightening because of a proposed retribution from a divine being but are terrifying because of their familiarity. The possibilities presented in these fictions, although highly exaggerated, are reminiscent of contemporary society. They are less allegorical about human folly in general, and more specific to the actual dangers that current society could potentially create in the future. Dystopias are direct reflections of our own societal fears.

The Modern Dystopia: Collectivism and the Industrialization of Humanity 1800-1950 The industrialization and modernization of the cities of Europe and the United States was almost complete by the beginning of the 20th century. Mechanization had become the norm and was applied to almost every function of society and life including food production, manufacturing, communication, and transportation. Almost everything that had been previously done by hand was replaced by machine. Efficiency and productivity became undeniable virtues of the post-industrial world. In addition to the large scale production and distribution of goods came new ideas about how these goods should be distributed and shared; how society itself could become more efficient and unbiased. While many of these notions initially had utopian projections, their actual implementation sometimes had horrific consequences. The rise of fascism in Europe along with the industrialization of warfare left a shadow on the human conscience that could not be erased. Dystopian literature emerged out of early 20th century America and Europe, not because it was a fantasy, but a witnessed reality. The two

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world wars, destruction of pastoral life, the industrialization of cities, and environmental degradation, all made a dystopian reality seem like a very real possibility. The consequences of applying the virtues of efficiency and productivity to human life and the natural world brought about unforeseen costs to life itself. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have given us as much terror as we can take. We have paid a high enough price for the nostalgia of the whole and the one, for the reconciliation of the concept and the sensible, of the transparent and communicable experience. Under the general demand for slackening and for appeasement, we can hear the mutterings of the desire for a return of terror, for the realization of the fantasy to seize reality. (Lyotard 81-82)

In our efforts to gain knowledge and understanding, for efficiency and control, we often forgot to pause and ask ourselves about the moral, social, and environmental consequences of our actions. Post-modern philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard’s lamentation of the price of the “whole and the one,” speaks to the terror and destruction that the past two centuries have produced in pursuit of the sensible, the comprehensible, and the productive. The great dystopian novels of early twentieth century fiction: Brave New World, Anthem, and 1984, all feared the loss of individual identity and the utility of humanity. They feared that the tireless pursuit of the One, would lead to the sacrifice of the many. The Self, who had been the ultimate triumph and hero of the Enlightenment, was suddenly threatened by the mechanization and collective organization of early modernity. The emergence of communist and socialist principles, along with the dangers of totalitarian regimes in Europe, made the threat to individual autonomy and freedom a palpable reality. Individuality gained almost religious implications and rose to the status of a martyrdom in these fictional narratives. The idea that the individual ego could be obliterated by a fascist regime was not an abstract notion, but an observed reality. The result was the emergence of new fields of study such as existential philosophy, psychology, and of course the proliferation of dystopian literature. The “I” suddenly found itself at odds with the One, the whole, and the collective. The ultimate tragedy for the modern, dystopian, protagonist is not the loss of life, but the loss of individual identity. Take for instance Ayn Rand’s dystopian novel Anthem. The protagonist has been robbed of all individual distinctiveness: name, the choice of work, partner, home, or even the ability to be alone. He does not even have the word “I” that can indicate his singularity. In the introduction he tells us: “Our name is

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Equality 7-2521” (6). “All men are good and wise. It is only we, Equality 7-2521, we alone who were born with a curse. For we are not like our brothers. And as we look back upon our life, we see it has ever been thus…” (7) Though he is born and raised in the collective, his life experience is distinctly “other,” he cannot fit into the machine. He finds himself in an existential conundrum where he begins to question everything around him and the entire structure of his society. He is searching for the identity that is not the collective “we,” but the unique “I.” Indeed in the end of the book the final climax and triumph for the protagonist is the discovery of the first “sacred” word “I” and the second “sacred” word “EGO.” Again in Brave New World and 1984 we see the protagonists struggle with their own identity against and outside of the collective societal norm. The protagonists feel trapped in a life where there is no hope for the future, and no memory of the past. Their lives do not belong to themselves. Their sole purpose is to serve society. They are cogs in a larger machine that must operate efficiently and be detached from personal outcome or reward. Complete and unquestioning obedience is required. Individual preference is of no concern or value and any emphasis on personal choice is dealt with swiftly and with severe punishment. Human beings are treated with the hyper efficiency of a factory. These factories and machines that were supposed to minimize labor and increase productivity are envisioned as nightmares of consumption. The horrific living and working conditions of industrial era factories are seen as ubiquitous inevitabilities in these fictional dystopias. The lives of the characters are filled with endless, mindless work and drudgery. The allusion to mechanized slavery reminds the reader of factory conditions and industrialized animal production. Instead of more leisure time and freedom as was promised by the mechanization and industrialization of the world, people began to find themselves working harder and longer than ever. The fear of industrialization and its cooption of identity is evident everywhere in modern dystopias. Any reference to personal heritage or history is obliterated in these fictional societies. In the opening scene of Brave New World, the reader finds herself on a tour of a baby factory where children are created and manufactured in test tubes and jars and then properly “conditioned” according to the different jobs that they will fulfill in their adult lives. Each fetus is given a prescribed amount of intelligence sufficient enough for him or her to accomplish assigned tasks, but not enough for them to question their assignments. The terms “mother” and “father” are dirty, primitive words in a world where children are

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raised, trained, and conditioned from their very conception to not prefer anything outside of society. Similarly in Anthem the children were not raised by biological parents, but institutionalized in large dormitories where they were conditioned to obey and eventually fulfill their duties. Families were portrayed as taboo in all three of these novels. Even in 1984 where families were depicted as an unfortunate necessity, children were conditioned from an early age to be spies and were encouraged to turn on their parents, thus destroying the sacred familial bond. Along with questions of personal identity and purpose, the loss of family and personal history is ubiquitous throughout dystopian fiction. The family is genetic memory. It situates one in space and time; history and biology. It is family that gives us our uniqueness, our separate identity, and our differentiated tribe, regardless of how small it might be. The loss and destruction of the family means to symbolically destroy one's connection to history. Part of what makes a dystopia so disturbing is its lack of context. Even if we are told the reasons or events behind the collapse of the society, which often we are not, there is always an element of the unknown, something incongruous that leaves us feeling slightly disturbed and off kilter. In modern dystopian literature the identity of the self and the continuity of the family are consciously and systematically destroyed by the ruling factions of the society. However, as we start to move into the post-modern, questions regarding origin, identity and self, become far more elusive. Dystopian portrayals of origins move from a highly regulated and oppressive system, to one that questions origins themselves. The destruction of identity is not explicit in post-modern dystopias, but implicit in its entire fabrication.

The Post-Modern Dystopia: The Self as Other 1965-1995 The term post-modernism, which in a philosophical context is generally thought to have emerged in the late 1970’s with Lyotard’s publication of the Postmodern Condition, and continued through the mid to late 1990’s, generally deals with questions of reality, the loss of reference, and even definition. According to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning. (1)

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It is this very loss of the referential that becomes the primary conundrum in the post-modern, dystopian narrative. The 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s were marked by huge technological shifts. Computers were beginning to become commonplace, the field of robotics was growing, and a newly conceived Internet was just beginning to emerge. There were, throughout this time period, ethical and philosophical questions about the growth and potential of technology. Could it become more powerful than us? Could it become autonomous? When does a creation become something “other” of its own accord? In post-modern literature and discourse the sense of the “other” takes precedence. The protagonist of the post-modern dystopia is not just an outside observer evaluating society, but instead questions every aspect of what he previously considered his reality. The protagonist’s issue moves from the modern “Who am I?” to the post-modern “What am I and am I even real?” Post-modern dystopias are worlds of replication and simulation. The two fictional works that I will deal with here, the films Blade Runner and The Matrix, both deal with simulated versions of reality. In the 1982 film Blade Runner, the world is populated by a series of androids, or “replicants” who were designed and manufactured to be soldiers, workers, and sexual surrogates in a dystopian world of the future. The replicants, in this world, have become so human that they are virtually impossible to tell apart from “real” human beings. They have even begun to develop their own emotions and desires begging the questions: “What does it mean to be human?” Again, in the film The Matrix, the diversion between perceived “reality” and actual objective, “autonomous” reality is brought into question. This film takes place in the 1990’s in a seemingly ordinary time frame and reality. However, throughout the film, the protagonist discovers that everything he thought was real is actually an illusion. The world that he thought he was living in had been destroyed long ago. The “actual” world had been overtaken by sentient machines that use human beings as batteries, kept in a constant state of artificial sleep. What they thought was reality was actually a manufactured dream. This disconnection from reality was a reoccurring theme during the post-modern period. The notion that something could become so convincingly and repeatedly replicated that it became something entirely other and autonomous from an original is what philosopher Jean Baudrillard called a simulacrum: that is a copy of a copy of a copy so far removed from the original that it no longer holds reference to it (Simulacra and Simulation). The simulacrum, from this perspective is no longer a simulation, but something else entirely. In Blade Runner, the replicant is

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Chapter One

no longer an android, nor is it human, but something other entirely. Brian Massumi writes in Realer Than Real that: The simulacrum is less a copy twice removed than a phenomenon of a different nature altogether: it undermines the very distinction between copy and model...A copy, no matter how many times removed, authentic or fake, is defined by the presence or absence of internal, essential relations of resemblance to a model. The simulacrum, on the other hand, bears only an external and deceptive resemblance to a putative model. The process of its production, its inner dynamism, is entirely different from that of its supposed model; its resemblance to it is merely a surface effect, an illusion (2).

By blurring the line between what is real or original, and what is a copy or simulation, the protagonist in the dystopian fantasy experiences “otherness” not just because he is different from the society around him, but because the authenticity of his experience is unverifiable. In the film Blade Runner the juxtaposition between real and simulation is exemplified by two of the main characters: Rick Decker, a Blade Runner agent who is hired to hunt down and “kill” the replicants, and Rachel, a replicant who believes she is human. Throughout the film we are uncertain of the “real” identity of either character. Decker, who is supposed to be human, has never actually tested himself to find out if he is indeed real. He is without real connections or history. In contrast, Rachel, who is supposed to be a replicant, has memories, emotions, and dreams. The real and the unreal have collided in this fantasy, making the question of otherness not just one for the protagonist, but for the society as a whole. In the movie The Matrix, identity is again brought into question. The human body, the physical identity has become disconnected from the perceived reality of the individual. While in reality their bodies are rendered inert and used as batteries to power the machines, their minds are caught up in a vast collective dream that they perceive to be real. Again, this scenario evokes questions: “Which is real? The body or the dreamed identity?” Here too the “other” is not just the individual, but is the illusion of the entire society. While the modern protagonist resisted assimilation, the post-modern wondered if it had already happened and he just didn’t know about it. In the post-modern, the sense of history and fantasy has become distorted. Knowledge and memory of the past do not guarantee its existence. Rachel thought she was real because she remembered her “childhood,” however, these “memories” were only implanted and simulated. Similarly, in The Matrix all of Neo’s memories of childhood

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were digital programs, locking him in an artificial time period which had long since passed. Rachel and Neo were not born and raised, but created for a purpose. The family is destroyed because what is human has been destroyed. Like the modern dystopian projections of industry and the factory, post-modern dystopias feared the domination of technology. In our unbridled Promethean desire to control the world with our inventions, we fear the abduction of our reality. Indeed the destruction of the world in dystopian fantasy is seen as already complete. Besides questions of identity, loss of family, and the debates with reality that dominate dystopian fictions, the loss and restriction of the natural world is also a reoccurring theme. The dystopian landscape is bleak and formidable. Access to nature is limited or non-existent. It is a world dominated by human beings in every aspect and destroyed by our excesses. While the protagonists in post-modern and modern dystopias contend with finding their place in a world already coopted and destroyed by human excess and folly, contemporary versions rally against it. As the very real consequences of “progress” over the past two centuries have begun to manifest themselves in Climate Change and other environmental and social problems, the fear has moved from a hypothetical dystopian future, to an acknowledgement that the dystopian may be already happening. The question then moves from “Who am I?” and “What is real?” to “What can I do to change what has already begun?”

Contemporary Dystopia: The Savior and the Martyr 2000 to the Present The contemporary protagonist in dystopian fiction knows who she is. She sees the world around her and is aware of its implications and consequences. Unlike the modern or the post-modern protagonist, the contemporary dystopian hero is not looking for her identity, but her purpose. She is not drawn into the story by existential anxieties, but is forced into confrontation with a world beyond her power and her will. The contemporary protagonist finds herself as “other” because it is her very being that makes her the antithesis of society itself. While the previous versions of dystopias discussed were all narrated from primarily adult, male perspectives, the contemporary protagonist is predominantly adolescent and female. Both the victim and the hero, she is pulled against her will into a totalitarian, patriarchal underworld, forced to emerge as a warrior and a symbol of defiance. The adolescent girl portrayed in contemporary fiction is distinctly Artemesian in nature: she is fierce and heroic, a natural leader and a symbol of salvation for her fictional world.

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Artemis is the virginal goddess of the wild. She is the shadow of her twin brother Apollo, god of logic and light. She represents the divine balance to over-rationalized thinking and operation. She is the goddess of the waxing and waning of the moon, instinct and change. Armed with a bow, she is the untamed, virginal goddess of the hunt, a fierce defender of the young and the vulnerable, particularly adolescent girls and women in childbirth. It is her job to protect the innocent and virginal against violation, sexual or otherwise. In contemporary dystopian fictions such as The Hunger Games, Divergent, Revolution, and the film Children of Men, the adolescent girl emerges as the reluctant heroine in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The cultural atmospheres of these fictional worlds represent a perversion of our own cultural ideals. Extreme inequality, limited personal freedoms, and the maldistribution of food and wealth are all prevalent in these dystopian atmospheres. In contrast, the lives of our protagonists and their families are strikingly primitive and plagued by deprivation and repression. The emergence of our young Artemesian heroines from such dire origins not only highlights their abilities to be defenders of the weak and the poor, but exemplifies their perseverance and symbolic capacity to inspire those around them. The etymology of the word Artemis is not Greek, but is thought to be derived from the Hellenic word Arktemis, meaning “bear” or “north.” One of her incarnations, known as the Brauronian Artemis, related more closely to her tribal origins where she was the divine patron of a bear cult that emerged on the Northern shores of Attica. Once every five years at her temple in Brauron, little girls from Athens would gather and dress up like bears. They wore saffron robes to represent the animal’s natural coloring and acted like ferocious bears, growling and frightening the people in honor of the wild and untamable goddess. This encounter with the bear spirits was thought to be incredibly powerful for the young girls. In a culture that was as misogynistic as ancient Greece, it was vital for the mental health of the women to have an outlet for their strength and vitality. Women were not allowed to convey these animalistic behaviors at home, but in reverence to the goddess, these little girls were allowed the freedom to growl and embody the nature of animal and hunter. Though we are no longer plagued by the extreme patriarchy of ancient Greece, contemporary women, particularly adolescent girls, are still hounded by unhealthy type-casting, body images, and gender stereotypes. In many ways, girls are still given the impression that their power lies solely in their beauty and sex appeal. The heroines in these contemporary fictions, however, offer a different model. The young women of these

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stories are still extremely beautiful, but their power is their own: they are fierce, knowledgeable, and independent. These heroines not only know how to empower themselves, but create revolutions from the examples of their strength. The women in these dystopic fantasies find themselves in worlds rife with exploitation, perversion, and voyeuristic fantasy; however, what makes these young women particularly remarkable is that they are able to endure these violations without being fundamentally tainted or traumatized. They utilize the violations as fodder for resistance and the questioning of the status quo. In Artemisian myth, the goddess responds to violation with swift and harsh punishment. In the tale of Acteon, when the unfortunate hunter accidentally stumbles upon the bathing goddess, Artemis responds by turning him into a stag that is hunted and killed by his own hounds. The archetypal Artemesian woman utilizes the strength of the violator against himself. It is Acteon’s expert training of his hounds that ultimately becomes his own downfall. In a similar turn of fate, Katniss Everdeen, in The Hunger Games, utilizes the platform of her own exploitation to empower herself and inspire a revolution. The “Games,” a gladiator style reality television show where children are pitted against one another in a fight to the death, are used as voyeuristic tools of control and entertainment. Katniss, however, seizes the opportunity to have the country’s attention and plays upon their empathy to save both herself and her companion, while simultaneously exposing the gross exploitation and brutality of the ruling factions. Comparably, Charlie, in the television show Revolution, utilizes the tragedy and misfortune in her life to fuel her resolve to overthrow the fascist, dominant regime. The attacks on her own person and the deaths of her loved ones, particularly her brother, not only fail to repress her, but radicalize and inspire her. Artemis is immune to the pressures of the collective and the “civilized” world. It is not in the Artemesian nature to languish in the comfort of the cultivated world, nor is she one to tremble before an impending threat. This indifference to collective manipulation can again be seen metaphorically in the Divergent novels where the main character, Tris, is found to be immune to the serums and inoculations used to control the populations of her world. Again it is this inability to be manipulated that allows her to expose the hypocrisy and manipulation of the controlling regime. The last and perhaps most unique example of Artemisian resilience comes from the main character in the film Children of Men. Kee could easily be described as both an Artemesian figure, and a Madonna symbol. The film, which takes place in the not-so-distant future in London,

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portrays a world where the women have all become infertile and no child had been born for over 18 years. The society has become increasingly xenophobic and racist. Kee, a young immigrant woman of color, is the sole pregnant woman on earth. She is both reviled for her status as an immigrant and a foreigner, and revered for the promise of life in her womb. Again this young heroine becomes a paradoxical symbol: she represents the lowest tier of society, but holds the hope of the entire world in her very body. It is this juxtaposition of strength and weakness that makes her, like the other contemporary heroines, inspiration for movement and change. These characters bring attention to the marginalized factions of society: the weak, the repressed, and the violated, while overseeing and facilitating the birth of a new paradigm. Like Artemis, they are acting as midwives to collective change. The choice of Artemis as a redemptive figure, whether conscious by the authors or not, is particularly relevant in this first half of the 21st century. If indeed, as I have proposed, these dystopian fantasies are recognitions of our own industrial hubris, then it is the goddess of the wild who gives voice to the voiceless and the planet as a whole. Unlike the journey of the hero, the heroine’s journey is one of descent and reemergence. It is the journey of the earth and the seed, the movement deep into darkness before the emergence of spring. The journey of the heroine follows the path of Inanna and Persephone into the underworld. In alchemy it is the nigredo, or putrificatio stage, the necessary destruction of the prima materia before it can be transformed into the philosopher’s stone or emerge as a new paradigm. We must experience, even if just imaginarily, the degradation and destruction of our predominant paradigm or myth in order to allow a new one to emerge. Apocalyptic fantasy has been the constant companion of large cultural shifts. The transition of each millennia has been accompanied by dreams and predictions of the end of the world. The old gods must die and fertilize the ground to give strength to the emergence of a new mythos. The goddess is the appropriate guide. She acts as the psychopomp, navigating the worlds and guiding us through the acknowledgement of our own cultural shadows. This is not the place of the hero but the realm of the heroine. With the fictional death of one historical perspective comes the opportunity for the emergence of another. Fiction allows us to explore truths that would be otherwise outside of what is culturally acceptable or even conscious. The problems that we face in the twenty-first century are not limited to topography, national boundary, or even individual ecosystems, but are deeply integrated into the life-community as a whole. While this can be overwhelming, we can use story as a bridge. Fiction

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allows us to explore that which is unthinkable, unapproachable, taboo, or overwhelming. The dystopian in popular fiction acts as a mirror of our collective fears and as a warning of potential behaviors. It can bring about awareness and help us to play out our collective shadow in a place and time safely separate from our own, engaging in the dangers and fears of a future while addressing the challenges of the present.

Works Cited “Apocalypse.” Oxford Dictionary. Web. May 3, 2014. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Print. Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Daryl Hannah. Warner Brothers, 1982. Film. Children of Men. Dir. Alfonso Cuarón. Perf. Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Charlie Hunnam. Universal Pictures, 2006. Film. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2008. Print. “Dystopia.” readthinkwrite.org. 2006. Web. 28 May 2014. Edinger, Edward. Archetype of the Apocalypse: Divine Vengeance, Terrorism, and the End of the World. New York: Open Court Publishing Inc, 2002. Print. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Buccaneer Books, 1946. Print. Jung, C. G. The Undiscovered Self. New York: Routledge Classics, 2002. Print. —. Collected Works. Volume 6: Psychological Types. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976. Print. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. Print. Massumi, Brian. “Realer than Real: The Simulacrum According to Deleuze and Guattari.” Australian National University. 1987. Web. May 20 2013. The Matrix. Dir. The Wachowski Brothers. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano. Village Roadshow Pictures, 1999. Film. Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Random House Publishing, 1992. Print. “Postmodern.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2005. Web. June 1, 2014.

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Rand, Ayn. Anthem: A Dystopian Novel. New York: Dutton Press, 1995. Print. Revolution. Dir. Eric Kripke. NBC. 2012. Television. Roth, Veronica. Divergent. New York: Harper Collins, 2011. Print.

CHAPTER TWO ‘THE PEOPLE IN THE CHAOS CANNOT LEARN’: DYSTOPIAN VISION IN ATWOOD’S MADDADDAM TRILOGY PATRICIA STAPLETON

Introduction Dystopian texts and films reflect political and cultural fears of their era. During the Cold War, the destructive Godzilla was an embodiment of the devastation wrought by the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and anti-Communist paranoia can be found in stories about body snatchers and pod people. Among recent dystopian fiction, a common theme reveals how afraid we are of our own “progress” – human development that leads to natural disasters, world-ending climate change, and science and technology run amok. Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy lays bare these fears. 1 As she notes in the final volume’s acknowledgments, “Although ‘MaddAddam’ is a work of fiction, it does not include any technologies or bio-beings that do not already exist, are not under construction or are not possible in theory.” 2 Atwood takes advancements in science and technology, specifically in the field of genetic engineering, and walks us through them to their apocalyptic results. This chapter addresses the key elements of the dystopian world that Atwood envisions in our near-future: the rising power of multinational corporations; the disintegration of the political state; an almost complete environmental collapse; the cresting fever pitch of human egotism; and the arrival of a posthuman future. It shows how in Atwood’s dystopia, human greed and narcissism, coupled with unrestrained scientific advancements, are pushing humanity to the brink of extinction. These themes mirror central fears in American culture. In particular, the chapter focuses on how developments in biotechnology contribute to these trends, linking the main components of the apocalypse in the MaddAddam series to the arguments

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made by environmentalists and by opponents of genetic engineering. In this way, the chapter argues that Atwood’s fiction reflects the political and cultural fears of our present era: namely, that humans are too narcissistic to learn in the chaos they have created.

Science fiction as reflection and speculation Before delving into the details of Atwood’s dystopia, we must first address how analyzing science fiction (sf) can reflect the political and cultural fears of our time and speculate about the conditions of our future. Neil Gerlach and Sheryl N. Hamilton provide a broad review of the ways in which sf studies have become incorporated into social science and humanities studies.3 Gerlach and Hamilton point to the 1970s as a time when sustained use of sf in the social sciences began, with academics in anthropology, sociology, and political science using sf as a pedagogical tool for teaching social theory.4 In this way, sf narratives provide students with illustrative examples of social structures, problems, and relationships.5 But the role of sf has evolved from that of a pedagogical tool into “an intellectual mode with a direct cultural impact on technoscientific practices and futurological thinking.” 6 Thus, sf authors have engaged more directly with critical social analysis, which in turn has revealed sf texts to be situated “in larger sociocultural contexts, with the work of criticism itself becoming a form of social analysis.”7 As a result, by analyzing sf texts and offering critiques of them, we are able to provide insight into particular moments in history and culture. Moreover, sf narratives can reveal the fears we have about our future. The sustained presence of dystopianism and apocalyptic visions in sf narratives can be traced to the post-World War II era, when humanity pondered the possibility of complete annihilation at its own hands. Andrew Feenberg tracks the development of doomsday myths in the nuclear age, and concludes that anxieties about the bomb also invoked worries about other natural disasters of a planetary scope.8 Science fiction as “the literature of the ‘other’ culture, the culture of science and technology” captured the feelings of the postwar era in two strands: one “spread apocalyptic fears,” while the other “played on emerging dystopian anxieties.”9 Apocalyptic narratives center on the inability of humans to control the knowledge they have turned into power. Feenberg notes that “In the postwar years a constant theme recurs both in serious essays on public policy by scientists and in science fiction: knowledge of man has lagged behind knowledge of nature, and the rift between the two explains the

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apocalyptic results of natural scientific inquiry.”10 Or, in short, “man has the power; now he needs the wisdom to use it…”11 The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki seriously called into question humans’ ability to judge the appropriate use of a technology so powerful that it could destroy the world. Dystopian narratives center on the question of who controls power through technology. Feenberg argues that “Dystopian fiction reflects a new society in which the principal cleavage divides the masters of the modern technological system from those who work and live within it.”12 Again, the dropping of the atomic bombs became a turning point, shifting the public’s perception of science as neutral and rational to that of a more destructive force. After the end of World War II, “a suspicious and hostile public saw the scientific community as a demonic force, untrustworthy and menacing.” 13 Despite often appearing in two distinct strands, it is through this shift in the public’s perception of science that dystopian fiction and apocalyptic visions can be linked in narratives. In Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, we are privy to the details of the dystopian world that Snowman 14 and the others inhabited before Crake unleashes his apocalyptic “Waterless Flood.” And, it is in the details of that dystopia – a world where the masters of the modern technological system are literally physically separated from those who live and work within the world they have wrought – from which the possibility of the apocalypse springs. The particular kind of dystopia that Atwood depicts in the MaddAddam series also has its roots in a cultural shift in the 1970s. Chris Berg argues that post-WWII, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four exemplified “the archetypical dystopian society in response to the [sic] Stalinist communism – an omnipotent, omnipresent state with a singleminded control of its citizens.” 15 But Paul Erlich’s 1968 book, The Population Bomb, set a different tone for a new type of dystopia emerging in the early 1970s: one rooted in environmental tragedy.16 In these types of dystopias, “… the blame for humanity’s fall no longer lies with powerseeking bureaucrats and dictators, but with humanity itself. In the view of environmental doomsayers, our own failure to keep pollution and population under control inadvertently leads us towards a dystopian future.” 17 Berg does see some similarities between the two types, concluding that even if environmental dystopias appear to reflect a new cultural fear, they also eventually reveal the more “traditional” dystopian fear of a “monolithic organisation exerting super normal controls over an unwilling or ignorant population.” 18 In Atwood’s near-future, environmental degradation as a result of humanity’s inability to curb its consumption has set it on a crash course to complete societal collapse.

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Yet the monolithic organization exerting control is no longer the state, which seems to be completely absent or at least vestigial; instead, the world is run by multinational biotech corporations. As such, the state’s monopoly on violence is replaced by the hired henchmen of the biotech corporations, the CorpSeCorps. Despite the threat of violence by the Corpsmen, the super normal controls over the ignorant population in Atwood’s environmental dystopia are really inflicted by the corporations themselves through biological interventions. Thus, Atwood’s work offers a speculative evaluation of biopolitical “progress”: cultural fears of a dystopian communist nightmare in sf from the Cold War period have been replaced by fears of a dystopian capitalist nightmare. Atwood does not provide the details of how our political systems become subverted to corporate interests. But surely the reader can recognize that, like the technologies and bio-beings mentioned, the trends towards more corporate power in politics are under construction or possible in theory, if not already in existence. The possibility of this takeover is built into the increasing biopower of the modern state. As Sherryl Vint notes, “Under biopolitics, life itself becomes the object of political governance, and political governance becomes the practice of steering biological 19 life of individuals and species.” What better way to exert control over

citizens and bodies than through direct biological interventions created by corporations with a vested interest in maintaining those same citizens as consumers? In this way, corporate goals and state goals become merged. And, eventually, state biopower cedes to corporate biopower. Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy thus fits into the two categories of analytical use for science fiction: both as reflection of the political and cultural fears of our time and as speculation about the conditions of our future. Looking to sf narratives can help address the ethical concerns about and potential impacts of advancements in science and technology. Vint also argues that, In a biocultural age, understanding the speculative discourses of biopolitics is imperative, and sf is in a privileged position to help us think through its anxieties and contradictions: the complicated parenting of [in vitro fertilization] and other assisted reproductive technologies…; the fear of pandemics, often conflated with the spectre of bioterrorism…; [and] the new economics of patented life forms and privatised food...20

The dystopian and apocalyptic visions that may appear in the genre can serve as warnings for where humanity might end up, if its narcissism and the biopolitical aspirations of capital remain unchecked. Accordingly, in addition to using sf as “an invaluable tool for analysing the current

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malaise” of our socially and ecologically decomposing state, we can also engage it to envision alternatives.21 However, eradicating human narcissism rooted in a desire for immortality seems to be impossible, and impossibly linked to consumption, in Atwood’s dystopia. Humans are willing to buy and consume products that promise them eternal youth, and they believe in the power of science and technology that will allow them to cheat death in a posthuman future. When talking about texts that demonstrate concerns about such a vision, Christina Bieber Lake echoes Feenberg, stating “that [humans’] scientific knowledge and technical skill will ultimately give us complete control over our own evolutionary future.… Whether the ability to control the destiny of the human species will turn out to be a good thing remains to be seen.”22 We are developing the scientific and technological techniques that could save us as a species, but it is unclear if we can learn to use them wisely or if they will bolster the power of super normal controls. Stephen Dunning’s analysis of the first novel in the trilogy, Oryx and Crake, offers deeper insight into what we can learn from Atwood’s speculative discourse: “… while Oryx and Crake may not offer much by way of substantial hope, it stands as a clear warning of what we must hope to avoid. Science, freed in the novel from all restraints, threatens human survival, even without Crake’s radical intervention.”23 In Atwood’s nearfuture, the subversion of the state has removed all regulatory oversight of scientific experimentation and ethics. And, like the turning point created by the development and deployments of the atomic bomb in the 1940s, advancements in the field of genetic engineering have humanity considering who controls power through technology and whether the knowledge that has been turned into power can be controlled. But Atwood’s dystopia differs from the more traditional type in that it is not a totalitarian regime that rules an unwilling populace by exploiting technological advancements; rather it is the biotech corporations’ ability to capitalize on the mob’s narcissism, greed, and seemingly unfettered access to choice that has pushed humanity to the brink.

Reflection and speculation in the MaddAddam trilogy The MaddAddam trilogy reflects particular fears of the early twentyfirst century, namely the growing power that multinational corporations wield in our everyday lives, the disintegration of regulatory protections by the state, and severe environmental degradation due to climate change. Although the dystopian features of the narrative provide background for the entire series, Atwood alludes to most of them in the first installment,

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Oryx and Crake.24 Over the course of the novel, and occasionally later in the series, these details of the near-future reveal elements of both traditional dystopias and environmental dystopias. As mentioned above, traditional dystopian narratives depict a world where a monolithic organization exerts super normal controls over an unwilling or ignorant population. In the world of MaddAddam, states still loosely exist; there are references to other countries and foreign and domestic cities, for example. But in actuality, the power rests with the biotechnology corporations and their security forces, the CorpSeCorps. It is telling that one of the few references to other states comes in the context of discussing competition among biotech corporations. 25 The names of nations are still there, but what matters is the power and dominance of the biotechnology firms in the global market. This becomes even clearer when we look at Atwood’s depiction of the United States. Bieber Lake summarizes the imminent American social and political structure presented in the MaddAddam series: … the social and political landscape has been divided between the “Compounds” and the “pleeblands.” The Compounds are highly organized and environmentally protected spaces where the real political power resides in corporations like HelthWyzer. The pleeblands, in which most of the population resides, are urbanized, more free, environmentally degraded, and less secure…. The economic culture of the Compounds, which exploits the desires of people there and in the pleeblands, rewards technological innovation that boosts the bottom line.26

The more powerful corporations are the body-oriented ones, like HelthWyzer, OrganInc Farms, and RejoovenEsense. These companies control the population by exploiting human vanity and fear of death with genetically-engineered products like NooSkins for Olds, infants built to parental specifications, or replacement organs from pigoons.27 In this way, biotech corporations manage the reproduction, health, and deaths of the population. In short, they have complete control over a citizen’s life – cradle-to-grave – through the exercise of biopower. But these companies have not achieved such a level of pervasive control merely through corporate growth or by effectively responding to the human desire to remain young. Rather, they have also manipulated the need for their products by creating public health problems in the first place. Crake, the antagonist in Atwood’s tale, shares his discovery of the scheme with Jimmy (Snowman). He presents a hypothetical situation to Jimmy: What are companies to do once they have cured all known illness? They need to find more sick people or new and different diseases. 28 Crake

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explains to Jimmy that it is not saboteurs or terrorists that are releasing diseases, it is the corporations themselves: “[HelthWyzer has] been doing it for years…. They put the hostile bioforms into their vitamin pills… Random insertion of course, they don’t have to keep on doing it – if they did they’d get caught, because even in the pleeblands they’ve got guys who could figure it out…. Naturally they develop the antidotes at the same time as they’re customizing the bugs, but they hold those in reserve, they practise the economics of scarcity, so they’re guaranteed high profits.” “Are you making this up?” said Jimmy. “The best diseases, from a business point of view,” said Crake, “would be those that cause lingering illnesses. Ideally – that is, for maximum profit – the patient should either get well or die just before all of his or her money runs out. It’s a fine calculation.”29

Atwood reiterates this account of how the firms operate in The Year of the Flood when Pilar explains to Toby that Toby’s mother was unknowingly selected as a HelthWyzer guinea pig.30 By creating both the illness and the cure, the biotech corporations manufacture crisis and salve, which reinforces their biopolitical hegemony. In addition to becoming dependent on them to have basic needs met, the population relies on the biotech firms to provide an escape from the dystopian reality that the world has become. Thus, the demand for age-defying and pleasureenhancing treatments goes hand-in-hand with the rapidly decaying environment. As Crake explains it, “Jimmy look at it realistically. You can’t couple a minimum access to food with an expanding population indefinitely. Homo sapiens doesn’t seem able to cut himself off at the supply end. He’s one of the few species that doesn’t limit reproduction in the face of dwindling resources…. “How do you account for that?” said Jimmy. “Imagination,” said Crake. “Men can imagine their own deaths, they can see them coming, and the mere thought of impending death acts like an aphrodisiac. …human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else, some new version of themselves and live on forever.”31

Or, as Crake puts it more succinctly later in response to Jimmy’s question about what pays for the extravagance of the RejoovenEsense compound: “‘Grief in the face of inevitable death,’ said Crake. ‘The wish to stop time. The human condition.’” 32 Even when confronted with planetary disaster and food shortages, humans will not stop consuming or reproducing, which stretches already thin resources to their limit. In this way, the traditional dystopian vision is married to the environmental

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dystopian vision: a collapsing global environment is exploited by dominant corporations through biopolitical controls. In the world of MaddAddam, Atwood presents the population as ignorant, rather than unwilling, in the face of this corporate authoritarian regime. Atwood does not describe any significant resistance to the rise of the biotech corporations or pushback against the disintegration of the state, noting that people liked it at first when the CorpSeCorps was consolidating its power because local police forces had collapsed due to lack of funding.33 Jimmy remembers that his mother, “moan[ed] on about stuff” like when “you could fly anywhere in the world, without fear” or when “voting mattered,” just like any other parent .34 But although there are small groups of subversives working to disrupt the biotech corporations’ power and the population may not be happy about the loss of liberty, the main nonconformists depicted in the text are prophetic in nature, not revolutionary. The God’s Gardeners preach about the impending Flood, but they do not look to induce it. By far, Atwood presents the general population as mollified by mind-numbing forms of entertainment and willfully ignorant to the truth.35 Unlike the God’s Gardeners who hope that people will see the error of their ways and repent for their narcissistic and capitalist sins, Crake plays the role of revolutionary in the face of humanity’s grim prospects. But Crake is not seeking converts for his cause; his vision of revolution goes beyond radical overthrow of the status quo. As noted above, Crake believes that humans cannot stop themselves from reproducing, even when facing a planetary catastrophe, because of their desire to see themselves live on in some way. Thus, when he explains his BlyssPluss Pill project to Jimmy, he reveals that in addition to protecting the user against sexually transmitted diseases, providing unlimited libido, and prolonging youth, the pill will also act as “a sure-fire one-time-does-it-all birth-control pill, for male and female alike…”36 Crake claims that he is motivated to sterilize the unwitting population because global environmental conditions are rapidly approaching a precipice. In justifying BlyssPluss, Crake tells Jimmy that: ‘As a species we’re in deep trouble, worse than anyone’s saying. They’re afraid to release the stats because people might just give up, but take it from me, we’re running out of space-time. Demand for resources has exceeded supply for decades in marginal geopolitical areas, hence the famines and the droughts; but very soon, demand is going to exceed supply for everyone.’37

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Atwood has sprinkled details about the dire conditions of the environment throughout the series, describing mass extinctions,38 extreme weather,39 and a ruined landscape.40 Devastation also pervades the social and political spheres: democracy has been eradicated, global wars and disorder rage on, 41 and authoritarian control and violence by the CorpSeCorps is prevalent.42 For Crake, humans have created this suffering on Earth, and they must be stopped. Unlike the leader of the God’s Gardeners, Adam One, who believes that people can rise above the impending mass extinction of Homo sapiens if they return to nature and shun biotech products, Crake does not believe that humans can learn from their mistakes. Consequently, they must be controlled through biological intervention for their own good. Toby describes Crake’s thoughts about his Waterless Flood as such: The people in the chaos cannot learn. They cannot understand what they are doing to the sea and the sky and the plants and the animals. They cannot understand that they are killing them, and that they will end by killing themselves. And there are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. And when you tell them to stop, they don’t hear you. So there is only one thing left to do. Either most of them must be cleared away while there is still an earth… or all must die when there are none of those things left. … But shouldn’t you give those ones a second chance? [Crake] asked himself. No, he answered, because they have had a second chance. They have had many second chances. Now is the time.43

Toby appears to give Crake the benefit of the doubt, assuming that he intended for some humans to survive. But Crake did not believe that anyone would be able to hold out from taking the BlyssPluss Pill, not even the “crank religions.” 44 In truth, the only logical option remaining for Crake is an apocalyptic end for Homo sapiens, and a posthuman future brought forth with hominids in his own image to populate the Earth.

Sources of anxieties Like Vint’s assertions about analyzing sf narratives, examination of the MaddAddam trilogy allows us to think through the anxieties and contradictions of biopolitical “progress” of the twenty-first century. While Atwood includes many potential examples of cultural and political concerns, this section focuses on ones in the realm of genetic engineering, namely genetic modification in food production. By linking these

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examples from Atwood’s dystopia to trends in the real world, we are able to see how her fiction reflects this moment in history and culture. Biotechnology has become the core organizing principle of Atwood’s dystopian near-future in the political, economic, and social spheres. All characters in the MaddAddam series are impacted by the biotech corporations in some way: as employee, as consumer, as dissenter, or, in the case of the Crakers, as invention. The pervasiveness of the biotech companies and their products in Atwood’s stories reflects growing concern in the United States regarding the power of multinational corporations. In 2011, Forbes reported that a review of 43,060 transnational corporations and share ownerships, which link over 37 million companies and investors worldwide, revealed that 147 firms control 40% of the wealth in the network, with 737 firms controlling 80%.45 The majority of Americans are concerned about this type of power. Polls show that 78% of Americans think that “too much power is concentrated in hands of too few companies” 46 in general, and that 86% of Americans think that big companies have too much power and influence over government specifically.47 If we look at multinational corporations in the agriculture and food production industry, we find that about ten major companies control the global food supply chain. The agriculture and food production industry employs about one billion people globally, or approximately a third of the global workforce, with the top ten companies directly employing over 1.5 million people in 2013.48 Moreover, “nine of these ten companies were among the 100 largest media spenders in the world in 2012.”49 As such, they wield a huge influence over issue areas that can significantly impact millions of lives, such as advertising, food ingredients and labeling, environmental impact, and labor practices. 50 In addition to being concerned about the significant power of multinational corporations, Americans also exhibit a lack of trust specifically in food corporations. A poll from 2013 showed that only one in ten Americans believe that packaged food companies are generally honest and trustworthy. 51 Furthermore, the Harris Polls reveal that trust in packaged food companies has eroded in the twenty-first century. In 2003, 23% of respondents agreed with the statement that packaged food companies are generally honest and trustworthy, but by 2013 that number dropped to 11%.52 In the MaddAddam trilogy, most food before the Waterless Flood is produced by the biotech companies, largely out of necessity due to environmental degradation. Products like ChickieNobs – geneticallyengineered chicken parts grown out of an animal-protein tuber – are widely consumed, despite the initial “yuck” factor of “test tube” meat.53

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We can assume that the fictional ChickieNobs (or the shrimp substitute CrustaeSoy or the SoyOBoy sardines) are a reflection of scientists’ real efforts to produce lab-grown meat 54 and of the efforts by a handful of biotech startups to create food alternatives. 55 Framed as a response to environmentally-harmful farming practices and concerns about sustainability in the face of an ever-increasing global population, “cultured” meat is supposed to satisfy increasing global demand through more sustainable and humane production. Yet, after explaining the ChickieNobs project to Jimmy in the lab, Crake remarks that the students who have successfully created them are going to “clean up” because they would get half the royalties for their invention, which was a “fierce incentive” for students. 56 At the root of innovation then is capitalist greed, which is what the public fears: that food safety and public health will be sacrificed for profit. A closer look at the real-life lab-grown beef project reveals that Sergey Brin, the cofounder of Google, is a main financial backer.57 Thus, the potential success of the project will hinge not only on consumer interest, but on the interest of the major food corporations and major financial players. These concerns are also readily apparent in contemporary debates on the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the food supply. Polled Americans express skepticism regarding the safety of GMOs.58 The overwhelming majority also indicate that they support the labeling of GM ingredients in food products.59 Consumers do not believe that corporations can be trusted to act transparently. In a poll performed by the Center for Food Integrity on consumer trust, less than a quarter of respondents (23%) agreed with the statement, “I have access to all of the information I want about where my food comes from, how it is produced and its safety,” while almost the same number (22%) strongly disagreed. 60 Thus, the prevalence of genetically-engineered products and the dominance of the biotech corporations in Atwood’s novels mirror fears of the power that major food corporations wield and concerns about what a lack of transparency in food sourcing and production may mean for consumers and the environment.

Conclusion In the tradition of the sf genre, Atwood’s MaddAddam series offers both a reflection of contemporary political and cultural concerns and speculation about what our future may look like. Atwood’s narrative serves as a warning about unrestrained science and the narcissistic belief that we can innovate ourselves out of the environmental nightmare that we

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are creating. But does Atwood’s dystopian vision leave us with any hope? Can humans learn from the chaos before it is too late? We might be inclined to believe that humanity might have a chance, due to the survival of the God’s Gardeners and a number of other humans. The apocalyptic element of the narrative fails in that humanity is not completely destroyed, although it does represent the end of the world as we know it. But do the survivors depicted truly represent a glimmer of hope? The survival of God’s Gardeners implies that humans can learn to coexist peacefully with each other and with nature. Yet, in addition to the God’s Gardeners, there are survivalist criminal elements like the Painballers. And the disappearance of Zeb, who sets out to track down a nearby encampment of humans, at the end of MaddAddam does not bode well for the peace of the survivors’ colony. Furthermore, interbreeding between both humans and the Crakers ensures that Homo sapiens characteristics will be passed on to new generations. Among these traits are human features that Crake had hoped to eradicate from his progeny: interest in leadership, myth-creation, and knowledge acquisition. The trilogy ends with one of the young Crakers named Blackbeard taking up pencil and paper to record the story. As we have already seen, knowledge does not amount to wisdom. Thus, the dystopian vision remains: only certain individuals within the group have power over technology, however primitive. Crake may have cleared the chaos away, but the people have not learned.

Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. MaddAddam. New York: Doubleday, 2013. Print. —. Oryx and Crake. New York: Anchor Books, 2003. Print. —. The Year of the Flood. New York: Doubleday, 2009. Print. Berg, Chris. “‘Goddamn You All to Hell!’ The Revealing Politics of Dystopian Movies.” IPA Review March (2008): 39-42. Web. Bieber Lake, Christina. Prophets of the Posthuman: American Fiction, Biotechnology, and the Ethics of Personhood. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2013. Print. The Center for Food Integrity. 2011 Consumer Trust Research. Motherjones.com. 2011. Web. 12 Aug 2014. Corso, Regina. “Americans Less Likely to Say 18 of 19 Industries Are Honest and Trustworthy This Year.” Harris Polls. 12 Dec. 2013. Web. 15 Aug. 2014.

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—. “PACs, Big Companies, Lobbyists, and Banks and Financial Institutions Seen by Strong Majorities as Having Too Much Power and Influence in DC.” Harris Polls. 29 May 2012. Web. 15 Aug. 2014. Dunning, Stephen. “Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake: The Terror of the Therapeutic.” Canadian Literature 186 (2005): 86-101. Web. Feenberg, Andrew. Alternative Modernity: The Technical Turn in Philosophy and Social Theory. Berkeley: UCLA Press, 1995. Print. Fiegl, Amanda. “Will Your Next Burger Come from a Petri Dish?” National Geographic. 6 Aug. 2013. Web. 12 Aug. 2014. Gerlach, Neil and Sheryl N. Hamilton. “Introduction: A History of Social Science Fiction.” Science Fiction Studies 30 (2003): 161-173. Web. Griggs, Brandon. “How test-tube meat could be the future of food.” CNN. 5 May 2014. Web. 15 Aug. 2014. Hess, Alexander E.M. “Companies that Control the World’s Food.” USA Today. 16 Aug. 2014. Web. 15 Aug. 2014. Jha, Alok. “First hamburger made from lab-grown meat to be served at press conference.” The Guardian. 5 Aug. 2013. Web. 15 Aug. 2014. Kopicki, Allison. “Strong Support for Labeling Modified Foods.” The New York Times. 27 July 2013. Web. 15 Aug. 2014. Langer, Gary. “Poll: Skepticism of Genetically Modified Foods.” ABC News. 19 June 2014. Web. 12 Aug. 2014. Moore, John and Karen Sayer. “Introduction.” Science Fiction, Critical Frontiers. Eds. Sayer and Moore. New York: St. Martin’s Press, LLC, 2000. xi-xiii. Print. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. “Section 3: Fairness of the Economic System, Views of the Poor and the Social Safety Net.” Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology. 26 June 2014. Web. 17 Aug. 2014. Schonwald, Josh. “The Frankenburger Is Coming Sooner Than You Think Thanks to Google.” TIME Magazine. 15 Aug. 2014. Web. 15 Aug. 2014. Swanson, Emily. “GMO Poll Finds Huge Majority Say Foods Should Be Labeled.” Huffington Post. 4 Mar. 2013. Web. 12 Aug. 2014. Upbin, Bruce. “The 147 Companies That Control Everything.” Forbes. 22 Oct. 2011. Web. 17 Aug. 2014. Vint, Sherryl. “Introduction: Science fiction and biopolitics.” Science Fiction Film and Television. 4.2 (2003): 161-172.

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Notes 1

Margaret Atwood produced the three books in the MaddAddam series over the course of a decade, from 2003 to 2013. The series includes: Oryx and Crake, published in 2003; The Year of the Flood, published in 2009; and MaddAddam, published in 2013. 2 Atwood, MaddAddam, Doubleday: New York, 2013. 3 Neil Gerlach and Sheryl N. Hamilton, “Introduction: A History of Social Science Fiction,” Science Fiction Studies, vol.30, 2003, pp. 161-173. 4 Gerlach and Hamilton, 162. 5 Gerlach and Hamilton, 162. 6 Gerlach and Hamilton, 164. 7 Gerlach and Hamilton, 166. 8 Andrew Feenberg, Alternative Modernity: The Technical Turn in Philosophy and Social Theory, UCLA Press: Berkeley, 1995. 9 Feenberg, 43, 42. 10 Feenberg, 47. 11 Feenberg, 47. 12 Feenberg, 42. 13 Feenberg, 48. 14 The character “Snowman” is known as Jimmy in his life before the flood; he names himself Snowman after. 15 Chris Berg, “‘Goddamn You All to Hell!’ The Revealing Politics of Dystopian Movies,” IPA Review, March 2008, pp. 39-42. Here: 39. 16 Berg, 39. 17 Berg, 39-40. 18 Berg, 40. 19 Sherryl Vint, “Introduction: Science fiction and biopolitics,” Science Fiction Film and Television, vol.4.2, 2003, pp. 161-172. Here: 161. 20 Vint 161-162. 21 John Moore and Karen Sayer, “Introduction,” Science Fiction, Critical Frontiers, edited by Sayer and Moore, St. Martin’s Press, LLC: New York, 2000, pp. xi-xiii. Here: xi. 22 Christina Bieber Lake, Prophets of the Posthuman: American Fiction, Biotechnology, and the Ethics of Personhood, University of Notre Dame: Notre Dame, IN, 2013. p. xii. 23 Stephen Dunning, “Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake: The Terror of the Therapeutic,” Canadian Literature, vol. 186, pp. 86-101. Here: 98. 24 Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake, Anchor Books: New York, 2003. 25 As Crake explains what he is working on at RejoovenEsense to Jimmy, he notes that the competition is “ferocious, especially what the Russians are doing, and the Japanese, and the Germans, of course. And the Swedes. We’re holding our own though, we have a reputation for dependable product” (Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 287). 26 Bieber Lake 112-113.

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27 NooSkins are described as a method where the entire older epidermis of an individual is replaced with a fresh one (Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 53), while pigoons are officially sus multiorganifers: genetically-engineered pigs that grow human-tissue organs that could be harvested for transplants (Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 22). 28 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 210-211. 29 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 211. 30 Atwood, The Year of the Flood, Doubleday: New York, 2009, pp. 104-105. 31 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 119-120. 32 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 292. 33 Atwood, The Year of the Flood, 25. 34 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 63. 35 In MaddAddam, Toby (one of the survivors of the Waterless Flood) recalls how “speculations about what the world would be like after human control of it had ended” were briefly a popular form of entertainment, but that people had quickly turned to mindless drivel instead because it was “so much more palatable than the truth” (Atwood, 32). 36 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 294. 37 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 294-295. Emphasis in original. 38 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 80; Atwood, The Year of the Flood, 100. 39 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 173. 40 Atwood, The Year of the Flood, 56, 84. 41 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 27, 257; Atwood, The Year of the Flood, 85. 42 Atwood, The Year of the Flood, 24-25, 30. 43 Atwood, MaddAddam, 291. 44 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 295. 45 Bruce Upbin, “The 147 Companies That Control Everything,” Forbes, 22 Oct. 2011, online (http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companiesthat-control-everything/). 46 Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Section 3: Fairness of the Economic System, Views of the Poor and the Social Safety Net,” Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology, 26 June 2014, online (http://www.peoplepress.org/2014/06/26/section-3-fairness-of-the-economic-system-views-of-thepoor-and-the-social-safety-net/). 47 Regina Corso, “PACs, Big Companies, Lobbyists, and Banks and Financial Institutions Seen by Strong Majorities as Having Too Much Power and Influence in DC,” Harris Polls, 29 May 2012, online (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/mid/1508/arti cleId/1069/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/Default.aspx). 48 Alexander E.M. Hess, “Companies that Control the World’s Food,” USA Today, 16 Aug. 2014, online (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/08/16/companies-thatcontrol-the-worlds-food/14056133/). 49 Hess. 50 Hess.

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Regina Corso, “Americans Less Likely to Say 18 of 19 Industries Are Honest and Trustworthy This Year,” Harris Polls, 12 Dec. 2013, online (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCust om%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/1349/Default.aspx). 52 Corso, “Americans Less Likely to Say 18 of 19 Industries Are Honest”. 53 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 202. 5454 Although success in producing enough beef to create a hamburger came after the MaddAddam trilogy was published, scientists have been working on lab-grown meat for years. Amanda Fiegl, “Will Your Next Burger Come from a Petri Dish?” National Geographic, 6 Aug. 2013, online (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130806-lab-grown-beefburger-eat-meat-science/); Alok Jha, “First hamburger made from lab-grown meat to be served at press conference,” The Guardian, 5 Aug. 2013, (http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/aug/05/first-hamburger-lab-grownmeat-press-conference). 55 Brandon Griggs, “How test-tube meat could be the future of food,” CNN, 5 May 2014, online (http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/30/tech/innovation/cultured-meat/). 56 Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 203. 57 Josh Schonwald, “The Frankenburger Is Coming Sooner Than You Think Thanks to Google,” TIME Magazine, 15 Aug. 2014, online (https://time.com/3118571/lab-grown-meat-frankenburger-google/). 58 Several polls indicate that Americans are not sure about the safety of GMOs or believe them to be unsafe, although with varying ranges: 52% believe GMOs are not safe to eat (Gary Langer, “Poll: Skepticism of Genetically Modified Foods,” ABC News, 19 June 2014, online (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97567); three-quarters of Americans expressed concern about GMOs in their food (Allison Kopicki, “Strong Support for Labeling Modified Foods,” The New York Times, 27 July 2013, online (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/science/strong-support-for-labelingmodified-foods.html); 35% of respondents say that GMOs are dangerous to eat (Emily Swanson, “GMO Poll Finds Huge Majority Say Foods Should Be Labeled,” Huffington Post, 4 Mar. 2013, online (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/04/gmo-poll_n_2807595.html)). 59 93% of respondents said that “the federal government should require labels on food saying whether it’s been genetically modified, or ‘bio-engineered’” (Langer); a percentage duplicated in The New York Times poll (Kopicki). 60 The Center for Food Integrity, 2011 Consumer Trust Research, online (http://www.motherjones.com/files/cfi_research_booklet_final_web.pdf): 15.

CHAPTER THREE VICTIMS OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM IN MARGARET ATWOOD’S DYSTOPIAN IMAGINARY TERRA WALSTON JOSEPH

The relation between dystopian narrative and the global has strengthened in recent years as writers like Margaret Atwood have used this mode to think about the human costs of a global economic system. One primary impetus for current dystopian imaginaries is the widening division—both financial and geographic—between elite status individuals and those in poverty. In a neo-liberal era where markets are intended to be borderless, films and novels portray a world where human movement, especially from metaphorical global South to North, is intensely circumscribed. Even within national borders, these texts frequently feature gated communities or exclusionary definitions of citizenship premised on race, class, or genetics. Such recent novels and films as David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (2004), Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005), Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men (2006), Atwood’s Maddaddam trilogy (2003, 2009, and 2013), Len Wiseman’s remake of Total Recall (2012), and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium (2013) interrogate ideas about global and national citizenship by figuring the opposition between privileged individuals able to cross borders at will and immigrants or second-class citizens trafficked or confined to ghettoized spaces. 1 Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003) in particular is an exemplar of this trend, juxtaposing the elite, sheltered upbringing of its protagonist Jimmy and his friend Crake with the commodified childhood of Oryx, a trafficked child-victim of sex tourism featured in pornographic videos. Ultimately, Atwood’s narrative stresses the effects of a highly stratified social structure on human rights, pointing to the limitations of democratic principles in a capitalist global economy. In its depiction of the interplay between the local and the global, Oryx and Crake also interrogates the mutually constitutive relation between

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utopia and dystopia. Within a global capitalist system, Atwood shows that the seemingly utopian bounded spaces of privilege are always contextualized within a global social structure premised on inequality, and as such are inextricably interwoven with the dystopian elements of othered geographies. Indeed, Atwood argues in “Dire Cartographies: The Roads to Ustopia,” an essay on why she turned from realism to dystopian fiction, that writing about imaginary places or times is often a project of mapmaking, and as suggested by her coinage “ustopia,” utopia and dystopia collapse into each other throughout the Maddaddam trilogy. Oryx and Crake signals these overlaps of utopia and dystopia on a number of levels, crucially in Atwood’s attention to the geography of a pervasive capitalist global economy, as well as in the complex novelistic structure interweaving present with past. Yet she also signals ustopia in linking the mental fragmentation of Snowman, one of the few human survivors of the JUVE virus, to the firmly bordered mind of Jimmy, his pre-cataclysmic privileged self. Atwood writes that “every landscape is a state of mind, but every state of mind can also be portrayed by a landscape” (“Dire” 75), and as such, Jimmy/Snowman’s bifurcated self is a testament to the lack of borders between utopia and dystopia. Utopian and dystopian fictions have historically engaged with the most pressing social questions of their eras, and the same is no less true of the question of how globalizing processes have restructured economic relations among classes and nations from the imperial nineteenth century through the twenty-first century. As technologies like railroads, steamships, and telegraph cables shrank the world and eroded clear bounds on national identities, the late-nineteenth century simultaneously saw a veritable explosion of speculative romances, including books like Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race (1871) and George Tompkins Chesney’s The Battle of Dorking (1871), that departed from the historical dominant idea of bounded utopias in order to feature an emergent sense of disastrous global interconnection. In “Dire Cartographies,” Atwood— herself a scholar of the Victorian metaphysical romance—suggests that narratives like this were just the beginning of “a strain of increasingly darker and more horrifying dystopias” that continued to gain traction over the course of the twentieth century in the wake of WWI (81). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, these dystopias were the product in part of the global contests between competing industrial empires as well as the economic exploitation perpetrated on colonized peoples. Such questions and contests have only become magnified since WWII as writers have responded to the rise of fascism, communism, and late capitalism across the globe.

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The postmodern prompting of this dystopic shift is, perhaps, easy to parse. Dystopias proliferate in times of ideological and material instability and in the twenty-first century in particular, the superabundance of dystopian narratives coincides with global economic downturn, the wars of the new century, and increasing recognition of the dangers of climate change. As such, the interest in dystopian and apocalyptic scenarios by popular and literary writers as well as audiences alike has skyrocketed. But of course many of these phenomena are also testaments to the fact that the world of the twenty-first century is driven by a tension between the global and the local, between the desire for local or national self-definition and the overwhelming forces of globalization marked by world markets and the information age. The rise of the dystopian and the corresponding decline of utopian narrative bear an inescapable connection with the tensions over globalizing processes. Writing of the decline of literary utopianism as well as utopian social theory, Krishan Kumar cites Zygmunt Bauman’s notion that early concepts of “utopia” as a “no-place” reflected the developing nation-state. In texts like Thomas More’s seminal Utopia (1516), utopias were spaces that existed separately in a topos, a governable, bounded space that could be protected from outside influence (Kumar 559). Geographically isolated areas were precisely what allowed writers to explore how new societies could be perfected as they abolished private property or reconstituted power relations among classes. But Kumar goes on to note that the same modern problems that compromise the integrity of nation-states in the twenty-first century make the idea of utopia as a bounded space difficult to imagine. Gone is utopian sovereignty and its “managed order” safe from disruption, for such autonomy cannot exist in a world where “global multinational entities and elites have seized center stage, marginalizing the nation-state and its territorial space, and as global capitalism sets in train a constantly destabilizing search for new forms of satisfaction, one that is present rather than future oriented” (Kumar 559). In the context of these changes, dystopian worlds structured by global capitalism are far easier to imagine and even where utopian spaces appear, they often prove illusory because they are so contingent on an exploited laboring class, whether domestic or international. Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy instances just such a perspective, tracing the ways that rampant consumerism and economic inequities lead to global collapse. In Atwood’s first installment of the Maddaddam Trilogy, readers encounter a post-apocalyptic future where the majority of humanity has been killed off by Crake, a scientific genius who engineers a virulent pathogen, the JUVE virus, that he hides within a popular product

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he names BlyssPlus. But even before this near-apocalyptic scenario unfolds, Atwood’s portrait of a future world structured by extreme economic inequality feels both dystopian and hauntingly familiar. Indeed, one of the most remarkable features of Oryx and Crake in comparison to the earlier The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) is in Atwood’s attention to global operations of power and commerce. In Atwood’s world, the power of the nation-state itself seems to have largely crumbled in the face of the more powerful economic systems that dictate the flows of people and products. While Atwood’s novel refers briefly to conflict between countries, the dominant power structures in her dystopic future are corporate, such that local police and national armed forces seem to have been almost entirely subsumed by the Corp-Se-Corps, a security force that primarily serves the interests of the corporations. Inequality and class separation are the defining characteristics of Atwood’s world, with poorer countries exploited by wealthier ones, but even within apparent national boundaries, the wealthy, highly educated elites reside in militarized gated communities known as Compounds while the poorer, less privileged classes live in the chaotic pleeblands, or cities filled with “the addicts, the muggers, the paupers, the crazies” (Oryx and Crake 27). While the primary setting of the novel is situated within the United States, national identity has been displaced by references to class strata, as individuals define themselves primarily in terms of their residence in Compounds, pleeblands, or the intermediary Modules. Though Atwood has described the opposition between the two extremes as the difference between “a technocracy and an anarchy” (“Dire” 91), the structure as a whole functions as a corpocracy, in which the corporations hold all the power to determine who lives in comfort and who does not. Before the epidemic, the Compounds operate as semi-utopian spaces within the novel, described by residents like Jimmy’s father at times in idealistic terms, especially when compared to the pleeblands. The pleeblands have “leaky” public security, are “unpredictable,” and “seemed so boundless, so porous, so penetrable, so wide-open. So subject to chance” (27, 196). Though the inexperienced Jimmy finds the pleeblands appealing because they are dangerous and exciting, he also recognizes them as a seedbed of crime, commercialism, and poverty, where “there was no life of the mind” (196). Compound scientists, on the other hand, indulge in total intellectual freedom exempt from oppressive state controls. Indeed, they splice DNA from various animals as hobbies that “made you feel like God” (51). Corporation names like OrganInc Farms, AnooYou and RejoovenEsence—along with the adult Crake’s own Paradice dome later in the narrative—similarly highlight the ability of

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privileged individuals to conquer age and death and accentuate the differences between the haves and have-nots. Atwood further links the Compounds to a utopian nostalgia for bourgeois Americana, a recent past where things were “the way it used to be when Jimmy’s father was a kid, before things got so serious” (27). That past embodies an ideal of freedom that contrasts sharply with the heavily policed atmosphere the Compounds actually have. Nevertheless, in the semi-utopia the Compounds offer, people can still ride bikes, purchase ice-cream cones, and do not have to confront the poverty endemic to the pleeblands and the poorer countries. The core function of such spatial separation as Bauman notes in Globalization (1998), “the forcible perpetuation of estrangement,” which in turn “reduces, thins down and compresses the view of the other” (106), consequently justifying the inequalities produced by the global economy. In Atwood’s novel, this reduced, thinned, and compressed view of others is augmented by the sense of unreality that teenage Crake and Jimmy cultivate about those less privileged than themselves. Though their assumptions about the pleeblands are formed through the influence of parents and guardians, their sense of the global, on the other hand, is a product of the Net. They watch beheadings in China, “thieves having their hands cut off” in the Middle East (82), electrocutions, and lethal injections, yet Crake insists that “these bloodfests were probably taking place on a back lot somewhere in California” (82). As he reflects to Jimmy about everything they watch, “What is reality?” (83). Crake inhabits— along with Jimmy—a sort of solipsistic space; he is unable to fully understand other people as human because he views them as performers in a deceptive entertainment that is global in scope. Crake’s and Jimmy’s sense of the global is also cultivated through the computer games they play, which reduce human value to economic worth and human experience to violent contest. One of Atwood’s more intriguing inventions is the computer game “Blood and Roses,” a game that weighs “atrocities on a large scale […] Massacres, genocides, that sort of thing” against human artistic achievements and scientific invention (78). The game instills a nihilistic sense of humanity’s worth, as ultimately the Blood player usually wins though “winning meant you inherited a wasteland” (80), but it also works off a sense of violence and human invention as fungible—as tradable goods with precise economic values within the context of the game. This economic worldview—where “one Mona Lisa equalled Bergen-Belsen, one Armenian genocide equalled the Ninth Symphony plus three Great Pyramids” (79)—coupled with Crake’s and Jimmy’s sense of global reality as simulacrum together devalue

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human life at the same time they reify extant social injustices and economic inequalities. Atwood critiques these global operations of power and commerce through the story of the titular Oryx, whose story exemplifies the way Crake and Jimmy’s way of thinking yields human rights abuses. The teenage Jimmy recalls the first time he saw Oryx, an eight-year-old girl featured on “HottTotts, a global sex-trotting site” (89). At the site, Oryx is offered up as an exotic spectacle along with supposedly real sex tourists “doing things they’d be put in jail for back in their home countries” (89). Atwood’s introduction of this character features her as a national Other— possibly from Cambodia or Vietnam—whose identity has been erased by human trafficking: “Her name wasn’t Oryx, she didn’t have a name. She was just another little girl on a porno site” (90). Like any other product in a capitalist global economy, her history prior to consumption has little value or meaning and is, in fact, an impediment to a consumer’s ability to enjoy consumption. Oryx’s origin story is, moreover, clearly the result of an economic division between the developing global South and the North. Jimmy learns from the adult Oryx years later that she was sold by her mother in the wake of her father’s death, in an act that is one of the only resources of a woman in a patriarchal rural society. She was sold to the “villagers’ bank, their insurance policy, their kind rich uncle” (118), whose services are in high demand as a result of global warming; indeed, Oryx’s sale is linked to the fact that “the weather had become so strange and could no longer be predicted” (118), resulting in crop failures that decimate the local economy. While climate change impacts the entire planet, current predictions indicate that the developing countries will continue to suffer the worst effects, as changing weather patterns exacerbate problems such as famine, desertification, and water scarcity in already unstable economies. 2 Many of the worst contributors to the warming planet are those who live in postindustrial nations, polluting in their countries with the wasteful use of fossil fuels, but also driving the production of consumer goods in developing nations. As such, less developed geographies are ultimately paying the price of a global capitalist system that primarily benefits wealthy Western nations (Goodman 501). Oryx’s story is, in many ways, emblematic of the North-South divide in the sense that it reveals human rights to be largely contingent on geographic location. As Jimmy notes of the setting of Oryx’s pornographic films, “The locations were supposed to be countries where life was cheap and kids were plentiful, and where you could buy anything you wanted” (89-90). In this, Atwood takes inspiration from real life circumstances in

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much the same way she did when writing The Handmaid’s Tale, where her guiding principle was that she “would not put into this book anything that humankind had not already done” (“Dire” 88). Even a very basic understanding of contemporary human trafficking reveals that Oryx’s story is not uncommon in our own era and the victims of this modern slavery are more likely to be people—and particularly children—from the global South. The 2014 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime notes, for example, that both intraregional and transregional trafficking typically move individuals from poor to more affluent countries (7). Indeed, the United Nations has mandated a report on human trafficking since 2010 and, as such, Atwood’s 2003 novel anticipates the growing recognition of human trafficking as a global problem. Oryx experiences both intraregional and transregional trafficking as she is first moved from her poverty-stricken rural community to a city ostensibly across one national border, and then later moved to North America. Oryx’s body is valuable insofar that it is a desirable object for predatory consumption, primarily by white sex tourists and anonymous Net viewers like Jimmy and Crake. Yet this nameless girl has the capacity—with a single glance—to call Jimmy’s first-world spectatorship into question, as well as his and Crake’s reduction of human experience outside of the Compounds to an easily quantified simulacrum designed purely for their entertainment. While the girls he has seen in other pornographies strike him as “digital clones,” dehumanized by their distance and their roles in formulaic pornographic plots, Oryx’s power comes from her ability to return his first-world gaze: [S]he looked over her shoulder and right into the eyes of the viewer—right into Jimmy’s eyes, into the secret person inside him. I see you, that look said. I see you watching. I know you. I know what you want. […] Jimmy felt burned by this look—eaten into, as if by acid. She’d been so contemptuous of him. The joint he’d been smoking must have had nothing in it but lawn mowings: if it had been stronger he might have been able to bypass guilt. But for the first time he’d felt that what they’d been doing was wrong. Before, it had always been entertainment, or else far beyond his control, but now he felt culpable. At the same time he felt hooked through the gills […] (91)

Jimmy’s guilt is that of a privileged teenager who has just learned that his consumption has produced her abjection—that he is complicit in her objectification. At the same time Jimmy is all too correct in his observation that Oryx’s objectification was “far beyond his control,” for of course global capitalism has little to do with individual choice and far

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more to do with class structures reinforced by the dynamics of the global marketplace. While Jimmy may curb his addiction to such objectification, too many other consumers from wealthy countries are willing to continue. But of course Jimmy does not curb his addiction. Now “hooked through the gills,” he simply engages in a new mode of consumption once he meets the adult Oryx: one of ineffectual liberal outrage. When asked by Jimmy about an image of her childish self, looking at him, Oryx claims it isn’t her at first, and when asked what she was thinking, she replies “You think I was thinking? […] Oh Jimmy! You always think everyone is thinking. Maybe I wasn’t thinking anything” (92). Jimmy has a strong desire to know her and to know her past, but Oryx’s primary response to his attempts to find out her past are boredom. She won’t confirm her location of origin and her approach to her past chiefly is wrapped up in the words “It didn’t matter” (115). But Jimmy’s desire to continue consuming her story—and Oryx herself—continues unabated. Atwood frames Oryx’s story with Jimmy and Oryx eating a pizza together, the story-telling having made Oryx hungry as she must continue to feed his appetite for prurient details even as he fails to take any action that might change the lives of girls like her. It seems important to Jimmy for Oryx to play the role of victim, even though she refuses to see herself in this way. On Oryx’s part, we only see pragmatic acceptance of the realities of capitalist exploitation. Indeed, she says the children like her: had no more love, supposing they’d had some in the first place. But they had a money value: they represented a cash profit to others. They must have sensed that—sensed they were worth something. Of course (said Oryx), having a money value was no substitute for love […] but love was undependable, it came and then it went, so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you would make sure you were fed enough and not damaged too much. (126)

Even as an adult, Oryx maintains this view, becoming an adept businesswoman who further victimizes other sex workers by encouraging Crake’s use of them as human subjects in scientific research. For Jimmy, however, listening to her story gives him some modicum of control over her narrative, continuing the exploitative tendencies he’d had since his teenage years. As such, Atwood’s narrative perhaps begs this question: Are we, like Jimmy, consuming this story so that we can be complacent in our own smugness—our own liberal critique of a late capitalist society that we nevertheless refuse to challenge in any material way?

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In any case, Atwood ironically makes Oryx—an emblematic figure for global economic exploitation—a primary vector for the virus that kills off the majority of humanity. As a child, Oryx’s movement is constrained by her traffickers; in adulthood, her geographic mobility mirrors that of the privileged tourists responsible for her victimization and it is this new mobility that results in a worldwide cataclysm. While Crake recruits Jimmy to advertise BlyssPlus, the adult Oryx travels the world selling the pill to unsuspecting consumers who crave this “must-have pill” (295), believing wholeheartedly that Crake can change the world for the better through the global economy. Advertised as a prophylactic pill meant to boost libido among other things, BlyssPlus becomes a global health craze, but as Oryx and Jimmy discover too late, “There was a time-lapse factor built in to allow for wide distribution” (346). Thus the global marketplace becomes the key mechanism of social collapse. This collapse is moreover simultaneous with the collapse of the structured utopian privileged spaces like the Compounds, which are afterward littered with the material goods people took with them while they tried to escape the JUVE virus. Crake’s motives for creating the JUVE virus are never entirely clear. Is it revenge on the corporations for his father’s death? Is it his awareness that the human race is destroying the planet coupled with his larger investment in sustainability, which can only be resumed if flawed humanity in its extant form is removed from the picture? Is it his sense of detachment from real people, as he does not have many (if any) meaningful relationships? Whatever his motives, it is clear that the JUVE virus Crake engineers and its devastating results would not have been possible without an embedded global economic system predicated on reinforcing social inequalities. In fact, Crake’s success at world annihilation is a product of his ability to mimic the language of the corporations. As he recruits Jimmy to advertise his BlyssPlus Pill, he speaks the language of the marketplace: “The investors are very keen on it, it was going to be global” (294). He also imitates its practices, drawing his human subjects for clinical trials from “the poorer countries. Pay them a few dollars, they don’t even know what they’re taking. Sex clinics, of course—they’re happy to help. Whorehouses. Prisons. And from the ranks of the desperate, as usual” (296). Though a critic of the Compounds from a young age, Crake is at least temporarily complicit in their exploitative behaviors. Without the avarice of his investors, who are more interested in financial rewards than the ethics of research on human subjects and without Crake’s own ability to pitch his project in the economic terms they can understand, he would not have been able to effect his plan.

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The introduction of the JUVE virus ultimately demonstrates the violability of the artificial borders between the utopian Compounds and the rest of the world, but Atwood dispels the utopian rhetoric of the Compounds even before this by emphasizing the destructive effects of gated communities on their own occupants. Compound residents far outrank pleeblanders, yet their agency is constrained by the corporate model. Jimmy’s father tells Jimmy that the Compounds serve the same function as castles in a fantastical Middle Ages populated with knights and dragons: Castles were for keeping you and your buddies nice and safe inside, and for keeping everybody else outside. “So are we the kings and dukes?” asked Jimmy. “Oh, absolutely,” said his father, laughing. (28)

Thus, Jimmy’s father reveals that the essentially privileged position of Compound residents depends on the sacrifice of privacy for security. Indeed, the corporations heavily monitor their valuable employees to ward against corporate espionage and own the very homes employees live in. Crake’s father, for one, is covertly executed after he discovers the corporation’s unethical behavior, which, if exposed, would threaten the company’s bottom line. The panoptic surveillance of the corporations as well as the disciplinary mechanisms that punish individuals who challenge the profit motive work in tandem to produce individuals like the young Jimmy, who is willing to accept such treatment with complacency and cultivated blindness. Throughout his childhood, Jimmy is confronted with multiple examples of the ways the Compounds strip individuals of agency in service of the profit motive, yet unlike Crake, who quietly begins to understand and plot revenge against those he holds responsible, Jimmy fails to fully comprehend the systemic forces at work. Indeed, though his own mother escapes the Compounds to become an activist because of a crisis of conscience over the direction of biological research she had once been engaged in, Jimmy reads her departure less as a political act than a personal affront to himself. His childish narcissism continues into adulthood, however, as an inevitable result of Compound life. After the JUVE virus has done its worst, Jimmy/Snowman remembers his blindness to all the warning signs that Crake might have a long game plan of revenge against the corporations: “There had been something willed about it though, his ignorance. Or not willed, exactly: structured. He’d grown up in walled spaces, and then he had become one. He had shut things out” (184). Jimmy’s psychological compartmentalization acts as the psychic

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equivalent of the semi-utopianism of the Compounds. Indeed, Jimmy’s structured ignorance mimics the impermeable controlled topos of utopian space, and the impossibility of sustaining the illusion of Compound perfection and its artificial exclusions is precisely what later produces the fractures in Snowman’s mind. Utopia—both in the bounded space of the Compounds and in Jimmy’s structured mental space—was always a fiction in Atwood’s world. As Atwood writes in “Dire Cartographies,” she coined the unique term “ustopia” as a linguistic equivalent of the borderlessness of utopia and dystopia because, she notes, “in my view, each contains a latent version of the other” (“Dire” 66). In a reflection of the erosion of cartographic differences between utopia and dystopia, the appearance of Snowman, Jimmy’s post-JUVE fissured self only serves to highlight the inescapability of these intertwined concepts. Though he has the means to obtain clothing, Snowman wears sunglasses with only one lens, a broken watch, no shoes, and a filthy bedsheet that he wears like a toga instead of a shirt. Just as the notion of utopia has collapsed along society, so too has the fragile, structured boundaries of Jimmy’s mind, his sartorial choices evidence of the eroded boundaries of identity between self and other and between self and environment. Like Marx, Atwood’s novel anticipates the inevitable collapse of a vastly unequal society, though in her vision, the power of a singular individual with access to financial resources and the necessary scientific know-how can dismantle the system entirely. Yet if Snowman’s borderless mind signifies the collapse of one utopian imaginary and the embrace of the dystopian post-JUVE subsistence-level existence it also signifies openness to a new kind of utopianism: one signified by the Crakers. Crake’s prize creation is a species of people genetically engineered to avoid the worst characteristics of humans and, unbeknownst to his investors, replace humanity altogether. Though Crake markets the Crakers as “floor models” meant to illustrate the raw potential of his ability to modify genetic code (302), his real interest in them is not driven by market forces but instead by the desire to replace Homo sapiens sapiens with a new people organically connected to their environment and immune to the ideas of power endemic within a capitalist economy. Initially instructed by Oryx in the Paradice dome in an updated version of the Eden story, Crake’s project is clearly utopian in nature. He initially creates a bounded space wherein the Crakers are kept ignorant of humanity’s religious beliefs and moral failings, but as is characteristic of Atwood’s approach to “ustopia,” these borders collapse by the end of Oryx and Crake as well as the end of the Maddaddam trilogy as a whole. In Maddaddam (2013), the

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conclusion to Atwood’s trilogy, the remaining human survivors have worked out a functioning truce with both the Crakers and a highly intelligent genetically-engineered species Atwood calls “pigoons.” Interestingly, these groups seem to be able to associate in an organically symbiotic relation rather than in the exploitative and hierarchal fashion. By the conclusion of the trilogy, the births of several human-Craker hybrid children further illustrate a point Atwood makes throughout the trilogy: that hope for humanity rests not in the purity of any utopian vision, nor in the maintenance of separate classes, but in collaboration and cooperation at the local—rather than the global—level.

Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York: Anchor Books, 2004. Print. —. “Dire Cartographies: The Roads to Ustopia.” In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination. New York: Anchor Books, 2011. Print. Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization: The Human Consequences. Columbia UP: New York, 1998. Print. Goodman, James. “From Global Justice to Climate Justice? Justice Ecologism in an Era of Global Warming.” New Political Science 31.4 (2009): 499-514. Academic Search Premier. 20 Apr. 2015. Web. Kumar, Krishan. “The Ends of Utopia.” New Literary History 41.3 (2010): 549-569. Project Muse. Web. 20 Sept. 2014. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2014. New York: United Nations, 2014. Web. United Nations Development Programme. Human Development Report 2007/2008: Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK and New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 2007. Web.

Notes 1

Cuarón’s film is a significantly revised adaptation of P.D. James’s novel The Children of Men (1992) and Wiseman’s film reworks Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall (1990), which is itself an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966). 2 See the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2007/2008, particularly Chapter 2, for an extensive discussion of the disproportionate impact of climate change on developing countries.

CHAPTER FOUR POST-APOCALYPSE, POST-HUMAN: SOME RECENT DYSTOPIAS KAREN F. STEIN

Are humans hell-bent on destroying ourselves and planet Earth? Some recent dystopian fictions claim that we are. For example, Octavia E. Butler in the Lilith’s Brood trilogy and Margaret Atwood in the MaddAddam trilogy portray post-apocalyptic futures in which a radically changed planet Earth is inhabited by post-human hybrids and genetically modified plants and animals. In contrast to the sense of impending disaster found in much of contemporary America speculative fiction, the last decades of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth were hopeful times, at least in fiction. 1 However, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries we find a prevalence of dystopias fraught with cynicism, mistrust of government, worries about technology, and fear for the future of our planet. And the source of the problems in these recent dystopias has changed from political causes to environmental ones.

Causes of Dystopia: from Political to Environmental Problems Whereas the fictional dystopias of the twentieth century such as 1984 (1949) and Brave New World (1931)—reflecting the anxieties generated by the unstable economic and political conditions that produced the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War—tended to blame totalitarian governments as the source of the problems confronting the world, current dystopias tend to invoke environmental catastrophes—usually instigated by intentional or unintentional human actions— for the upheavals. Instead of too much totalitarian government, there is not enough (or good enough) government to mitigate climate change or to control greedy, lawless

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corporations. But as the responsibility for the dystopian situation is perceived to shift from government to human nature, the solution to the problem also shifts. Governments may possibly be changed and improved through political or military means. However, if human nature itself is the cause of the dystopian condition, then we must look to more radical solutions, to changing human nature itself. And the fictions I will address here aim to do just that. Instead of political dictators, the agents in some recent dystopias are scientists or alien species ostensibly motivated by the praiseworthy aim of saving humanity from extinction. Their solution to the problems caused by humanity is to re-design people through genetic manipulation and/or hybridization. What happens if new post-humans arise, by accidental or planned genetic mutations? Fictions exploring that possibility ask fundamental questions: what does it mean to be human? How much might we humans want to—or even have to—give up or modify so that we can prevent an apocalypse or, if necessary, survive in a post-apocalyptic future world? In this paper I will consider two trilogies focusing on the postapocalyptic, post-human: Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood and Margaret Atwood's MaddAdddam. Dystopias are meant to warn readers of the dangerous course we are following. They argue that most of the ills that threaten our extinction as a species stem from human action, inaction, or just plain stubbornness or laziness. These dystopias accuse humanity of greed and failure to face the consequences of our actions.2

Causes of Dystopia: Innate Human Defects Do humans have innate characteristics that will inevitably doom them—us!— to extinction? In Octavia E. Butler's trilogy Lilith's Brood, an alien extra-terrestrial species, the Oankali, have their own diagnosis: humans have an inherent genetic flaw, a conflict or contradiction, namely the combination of intelligence and hierarchy. In Dawn, the first—and most dystopic—book of Butler’s trilogy, a nuclear holocaust has obliterated much of planet Earth’s human and animal inhabitants. The Oankali have rescued some survivors and hope to repopulate a cleaned-up Earth with human-Oankali hybrids, termed “constructs,” and thereby remediate the human flaws through this hybridization because they “know to the bone” that humans will destroy themselves if allowed to continue unmodified. Crake in Atwood's Oryx and Crake also alleges that humans have fatal flaws. He blames the human propensity for self-destruction on our genetic

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make-up, and lists the failure of humans to keep the population in check, sexual jealousy, and other defects of "the primate brain" as leading directly to over-population, over-exploitation of resources, war, and other problems. His solution is to bio-engineer a race of humanoids without the negative traits he finds in humans.

A Brief History of Hybrids: Servants or Improved Humans? Before we consider the plans promulgated in these novels, let's briefly consider a few previous fictional attempts to improve humans or to hybridize them. The history of these projects is a grim one, and the results are usually negative or disastrous. In Greek and Roman mythology, gods occasionally intervened to endow individual people with special, superhuman traits such as strength or the ability to see the future. Unfortunately, these gifts often led to other problems for the transformed humans. Their fictional descendants, the modern comic book superheroes, achieve unusual powers through accidents of birth, spider bite, or exposure to radioactivity or other toxic chemicals. These heroes, police on steroids, strive to protect the race of vastly inferior humans but remain celibate, and therefore produce no progeny. There are also hybrids in Greek and Roman mythology such as satyrs (goat / human), centaurs (horse / human), and the Minotaur (bull / human). These hybrids are viewed as monstrous, and, with a few exceptions, are seen as dangerous and hostile beings. 3 The Middle Ages similarly produced a host of fictional hybrids, also seen as savage and alien creatures outside the borders of civilized society (Thimann). At the start of the Industrial Revolution the idea arose that people could use the available technologies to manufacture improved human beings. Mary Shelley conceived of the possibilities of assembling a human from spare parts, and, if Frankenstein had succeeded he would have created a new race. Unfortunately, his plan backfired. Because Frankenstein rejected his super-humanly strong creature, the abused creature turned on him, lamenting that God had protected Adam, but his maker scorned and abandoned him. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1946) Frankenstein's solitary project is updated into a government-run assembly line process, and human embryos are mass produced. They are raised in vats where they are chemically treated so as to hatch into people with different grades of intelligence and ability. These incipient humans are downgraded or

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upgraded to fit the needs of the state. While Frankenstein is a single misguided actor, Huxley's novel imagines a totalitarian state regulating the development of its citizens from conception through death. A long line of robots, cyborgs, replicants, humanoids, chimeras, and androids follows. Films and fictions continue to imagine the possibilities of human-machine hybrids, and genetically altered humanoids. In general, while these beings are usually stronger, smarter, and faster than people, they are formed to serve humans; they are short-lived, meant to be obedient, and they lack reproductive ability. If they overstep their boundaries they must be destroyed, as are the replicants in Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). As we shall see, some recent fictions view hybrids in a more positive light. A new urgency arises about the people-improving project in the last decades of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first. What interests me here is what I see as a new trend, the dramatic change in the perception of hybrid humanoids. Hybrids were previously seen to be dangerous and those who produced them were either evil or guilty of serious errors of judgment. The two trilogies I address here bring those judgments into question. Can a new race of hybrid humanoids actually surpass humans in a range of admirable qualities and prove more effective guardians of planet Earth? Potential catastrophic climate change, resource over-exploitation, increasing population, and related conditions carry the threat of planetary damage and human extinction unless humans take drastic action to curtail their profligacy. Dystopian and science fiction writers address this issue and find the human will to change lacking. Thus, in hopes of shocking us into action they employ the threat of apocalypse which Lawrence Buell calls the most powerful metaphor of environmentalism. And, some authors may suggest that production of new hybrid humanoids may avert impending disaster. One dystopic strategy is to morph humans into less destructive, improved, new trans-human forms. This may be intended as a warning to us--or perhaps some may even imagine such transformations to be a viable solution to the problem of our destructive tendencies. And science now appears to have the techniques for achieving such a goal.4 Bio-engineering possibly offers the tools to produce a brave new race of human-like beings, trans-humans. In the film Gattaca (1997) many parents (probably the wealthiest, although the film does not specify this) consult with geneticists when they plan to have children. The counselors help them produce designer babies

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by selecting the best traits offered by the parents’ gene pool to combine for their progeny. Reviewing the film, Roger Ebert remarks “what is genetic engineering, after all, but preemptive plastic surgery? Make the child perfect in the test tube, and save money later” (Ebert). These engineered people have the highest social status and the best jobs. One minor character has had further genetic manipulation; he is a concert pianist with twelve fingers, able to play music that people with ten fingers cannot. The people who have not been engineered may have flaws such as poor eyesight or genetic predisposition for various diseases. The un-engineered people---however bright, healthy, motivated, and capable they may be--- are termed Invalids, and are consigned to the menial tasks, in the manner of the inferior class of Epsilons in Brave New World. In The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (2009), Emiko is a genetically engineered humanoid. In the novel the Japanese, faced with an aging population, produce humanoids who are very intelligent, faster, and stronger than humans to “provide labor” (297). In their country they are called “New Japanese,” but in Thailand they are outcasts, mocked and vilified. Designed as servants, they have Labrador retriever genes which compel their loyalty to their masters. In the world of Gattaca, Emiko would have been in the upper social class of genetically modified beings. But in the world of this novel she is a tool, a possession. She was the secretary, translator, and sexual plaything of a high-ranking Japanese diplomat who did not want to pay the airfare to bring her home when he left his post in Thailand. Although she was supposed to be composted when he discarded her, she somehow becomes the possession of a nightclub owner who entertains his patrons by having her sexually abused for their viewing pleasure. When she is violated beyond her extraordinary level of tolerance she lashes out and murders nine male abusers barehandedly. Although now a fugitive and outcast, Emiko outlives many of the other characters because she is immune to some of the diseases ravaging the population. When the dikes are breached by the rising sea level, Emiko lives by fishing and trapping some of the smaller genetically engineered mammals. She was created to be sterile, but a geneticist she meets at the novel’s conclusion promises to clone an offspring for her. Whereas the hybrids and genetically modified beings in previous fictions such as Dick’s and Bacigalupi’s novels were produced to be physically superior to the humans they were intended to serve and obey, the hybrids in Butler’s and Atwood’s novels are meant to be vastly improved beings—both physically and morally superior to, and ultimately replacements for, humans. Their physical and moral traits equip them to

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live sustainably on the post-apocalypse planet Earth. Previous science fiction novels usually provide genetically modified or hybridized constructs with short lifespans and sterility. This is not entirely the case in Butler’s and Atwood’s trilogies: both sets of hybrids are fertile, and Butler’s “constructs” (as well as the aliens) are long-lived. In fact, in Octavia Butler’s trilogy the aliens manipulate human genes to extend human lifespans.

Octavia E. Butler Lilith’s Brood Butler’s trilogy begins with the novel Dawn (1987) in which Lilith Iyapo, along with other humans, has been rescued by the Oankali from planet Earth which has been devastated by a nuclear war. Although the Oankali consider her to be rescued and protected, Lilith feels herself a captive. She is sheltered in an organic environment, fed, clothed and instructed in the mission for which her rescuers have selected her, to return to an Earth that the Oankali have cleansed and regenerated. The Oankali have extraordinarily sensitive sense perceptions. For example, the construct Jodahs observes: River water. . . : when I swam in it, I noticed that it had two distinctive major flavors – hydrogen and oxygen? – and many minor flavors. I could separate out and savor each one individually. . . . But I learned them quickly . . . so that only occasional changes in minor flavors demanded my attention. (523)

Because this heightened sensitivity makes them extraordinarily aware of their surroundings, they are eager to keep the environments they inhabit clean. The Oankali have strong family ties and communicate through widespread sensory networks. Their sexuality involves three genders: males, females and neuters, termed Ooloi. The Ooloi are especially sensitive, have capacious memories, and have special healing powers that enable them to correct genetic flaws. The Oankali describe themselves as traders; they explore new worlds seeking new genes so that they can continue to evolve. They find that Lilith has genes for cancer, which they perceive as giving them great power when controlled properly. Using the cancer genes they are able to regenerate and repair damaged or missing limbs and organs. They cure Lilith and endow her with great strength and longevity. Lilith is eager to return to Earth but unwilling to accept the price they set, the requirement that she mate with a human male partner through the

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mediation of an Ooloi and bear hybrid human-Oankali offspring. Despite her reluctance she assumes that responsibility when she learns that the Ooloi have already used her genes to produce a hybrid child, a “construct.” Although the grayish, tentacled Oankali appear repulsive to humans, these aliens are benign, caring, gentle, and helpful. They are on a mission to clean up Earth and other planets, and to improve and preserve the natives they encounter on their interplanetary travels. The novel represents the Oankali as supremely respectful of life. Their egalitarian, communal society is built around close-knit extended families that function through consensus. Imagery of plants, fertility, and growth characterizes them and their society. In short, they lack the flaws and destructive tendencies that seem to bedevil humanity. As we have seen, the Oankali are environmentally conscious. Their spaceship is a living organism that grows and meets their needs for shelter, warmth, and food. They eat the banana peels and orange rinds; to throw them away is wasteful. What they don’t use is composted. This novel is told from Lilith’s point of view, and its mood is dystopic. Earth has been destroyed, Lilith is held against her will by alien beings, and many of the humans she encounters turn against her. The two subsequent novels, Adulthood Rites (1988) and Imago (1989) take place on the reconstructed, verdant Earth where Lilith is now living with her Oankali and hybrid extended family. The points of view in books two and three of the trilogy are those of two of Lilith’s Oankali-human hybrid children, called constructs. Through their narration we learn that the Oankali are patient and peaceful. When attacked by angry and hostile humans they may sting their assailants into temporary paralysis, but they refrain from killing them. When they find people who are ill or disabled they offer to heal them. Akin is the focalizing character of Adulthood Rites and Jodahs, an Ooloi, is the first person narrator of Imago. They are sensitive, kind, and endowed with great abilities for healing humans and themselves. In these two novels the constructs and their families are viewed sympathetically. The organic, sustainable technology that prevailed on the Oankali spaceship continues in the villages they produce on Earth. As a baby, Akin is kidnapped by three human men who hope to sell him to people who are unable to bear children. The Oankali somehow keep the “resistors”—humans who have refused to mate with each other through Ooloi intervention—sterile. Akin is adopted by a human family that is sympathetic to him and thus he comes to know and understand human communities. He learns, through observation and painful experience, of the suspicion, betrayal, and violence that humans inflict on

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each other. When he matures he comes up with a plan to make Mars habitable and to lead a cohort of resistors to occupy that planet. Because the Oankali make decisions communally, they all must agree to this plan. After much thought they decide either to agree or to abstain so as not to prevent the project. Akin, now a hero to the resisting humans, leads a group of settlers to Mars. The third book starts with Jodahs counseling a pair of humans who are pondering whether they wish to join the Mars settlements. It tells them: “I understand that Humans must be free to go . . . I’m Human enough for my body to understand that. But I’m Oankali enough to know that you will eventually destroy yourselves again [perhaps in war] or maybe you’ll find some other way to do it. . . . There is a lethal genetic conflict in Humanity, and you know it.” (530)

It continues: “The Oankali know to the bone that it’s wrong to help the Human species regenerate unchanged because it will destroy itself again. To them it’s like deliberately causing the conception of a child who is so defective that it must die in infancy.” (532 italics in original)

Just as the second book, Adulthood Rites, ends with a new settlement about to take place, the concluding book of the trilogy, Imago, ends with a new village of humans, Oankali, and constructs about to start. Jodahs produces from his mental storehouse of concepts a seed that he plants to grow another organic village. Thus the last two books are more optimistic, and conclude with new beginnings, with growth and fertility. The Mars settlement may succeed, or it may indeed be doomed to eventual destruction, but the new village on a restored Earth holds hopeful promise for the future, a future in which humans are genetically modified and mingled with beings that are now alien to us, but physically and morally superior in many ways.

Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003), the first book of the MaddAddam trilogy features hybrids who are as kind, gentle, and environmentally conscious as the Oankali, although far less powerful. The novel begins in a near-future, post-apocalypse, dystopic planet Earth. The narrator, Snowman (who was Jimmy before the apocalypse), believes himself to be the last remaining human. He struggles to find food, shelter,

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and protection from wild genetically modified animals in a hot and humid environment where collapsing structures from a flooded city (probably Cambridge, Massachusetts) loom in the nearby sea. Before the apocalypse, his brilliant friend Crake created a race of humanoid beings, called Crakers. He vaccinated Jimmy against the plague that he was secretly developing to wipe out humankind. Jimmy was naively unaware that Crake intended him to keep watch over the child-like, innocent, grasseating Crakers who now, post-apocalypse, are Snowman’s only companions. Snowman’s narration of his present life alternates with flashbacks of “the time before,” and his memories of the events that led to the obliteration of humanity. Crake is a new incarnation of Frankenstein, the scientist, the logician (or, as Shuli Barzilai argues, the eponymous Dr. Moreau of the H.G. Wells novel). He argues that humans are destroying the earth because of greed, jealousy, hierarchy, suspicion, and other negative traits of “the primate brain.” To save the Earth Crake decides to destroy the people who inhabit it, ironically thus himself acting out of negative traits such as pride, impatience, and arrogance. In the near future of Crake’s time before the apocalypse society is marked by extremes of wealth and poverty. Mass extinctions have wiped out many animal species; while scientists and technologists have produced genetically modified species for fun or for profit. (These animals, such as the bio-engineered pigs with multiple organs and enhanced brain capacity, will run wild and multiply after the viral plague decimates the humans who invented and controlled them.) Government has disappeared while corporations wield great power. A cadre of corrupt corporate police enforce what order remains in the affluent gated cities inhabited by the scientists and other members of the prestigious class. They live in comfort and eat real food, usually from genetically modified or endangered species of plants and animals, while the remainder of the population lives in the Pleeblands, the polluted and festering slums outside the gated compounds. Pleeblanders must scrounge for ersatz edibles and mystery meat, in constant danger of robbery or attack from roving gangs. Crake’s project is one of egocentric domination and mastery. He pushed genetic modification further than most of us would feel comfortable with: he engineered a race of humanoids designed to be without the “destructive features” of the “ancient primate brain” (305) and thus to live in harmony with each other and the environment. Of course, in order to eliminate these negative traits, Crake must eliminate – by means of a fast-acting virus he develops in secret– the people who possess them, the entire human race.

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Crake designs the genetically modified humanoid Crakers to live sustainably in the post–apocalypse environment where cities have been destroyed, and drenching rains fall every afternoon. He explains to the strangely naïve Jimmy that he “had already developed a UV – resistant skin, a built in insect repellant, an unprecedented ability to digest unrefined plant material. As for immunity from microbes, what had until now been done with drugs would soon be innate” (304). Crake uses genes from cats to give his bio-engineered humanoids the ability to purr at a frequency that heals wounds. Rabbit genes enable them to consume their excreted caecotrophes and thus adjust to a diet of grass and leaves. Moreover, he has designed these new beings without negative emotions such as jealousy. Because they have no private property, they will have no hierarchy; because fatherhood is uncertain (due to their system of multiple matings every three years when a woman undergoes estrus) they will treat all the children well. The second volume of Atwood’s trilogy, The Year of the Flood (2009), is also dystopic. The focus, as in Oryx and Crake, alternates in time between the pre-apocalypse of Jimmy’s past, and the post-apocalypse of Snowman’s present. Before Crake’s viral plague, life in the Pleeblands is difficult and dangerous. Government has disintegrated; violence is endemic. A religious cult, the God’s Gardeners, attempts to live simply in harmony with nature, but the nature they wish to preserve has been already degraded by human encroachments. They are vegetarians who live as squatters in abandoned buildings, raise bees, and cultivate vegetables in gardens on the rooftops. They scavenge for food and clothing. The cult’s members learn strategies that help its few survivors live in the novel’s post- apocalypse present. Toby and Ren, two survivors from God’s Gardeners, live in precariously straitened circumstances independently of each other in the novel’s post-apocalypse present. The third volume of the trilogy, MaddAddam (2013), has a more positive tone than the previous two novels; indeed, it is almost utopian. In this novel a group of humans—mainly God’s Gardeners-- who have somehow managed to survive the viral epidemic live harmoniously together in a pastoral community. They share the required tasks as they herd the genetically modified sheep, grow vegetables, and raise bees. They form an alliance with the Crakers, and human-Craker hybrid babies are born. Life seems peaceful. As Tom Ashbrook commented to Margaret Atwood in a radio conversation, this book seems like a “how-to” manual for life after the apocalypse. This novel, like Imago, the concluding novel of Butler’s trilogy, ends with the formation of a pastoral, environmentally conscious social order,

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with the birth of humanoid hybrids. These two trilogies start in dystopias and conclude in new Edens populated by small groups of environmentally conscious humans and humanoid hybrids.

A Post-Human Future? The open-endedness of Atwood’s novel leaves many questions about these new human-Craker hybrids: will they subsist solely on vegetation and caecotrophes, or will they dine on an omnivorous diet? Will they be able to mate and produce hybrid offspring? Will the humans corrupt the Crakers? What will the lifespan of the hybrids be? Indeed, how long can the few remaining non-hybrid humans live, given the constraints they face in their post-apocalypse environment? Will there be human-human matings that produce human offspring? Butler’s trilogy raises similar questions: will the humans on Mars establish a sustainable society under the guidance of the Oankali, or will they behave destructively as the Oankali fear? Have the Oankali been completely successful in remediating the dangerous human traits in the human-Oankali hybrids? But larger more-encompassing questions haunt the novels. Are we on the path to extinction, doomed to self-destruction through the greed, jealousy, and suspicion of our “primate brain”? But which part of the brain is to blame? Dystopian fiction appeals to emotions to motivate people to change. Will these fictions, combined with the facts we are learning about the causes and consequences of climate change and widespread environmental pollution, move us to avert apocalypse? Can we act to contravene the convictions of Crake and the Oankali? Can we transform or eliminate our destructive human traits and thereby achieve a new Edenic state? Or, to put this question another way, are these novels merely warnings, or are they prophetic predictions of a possible future? Will we need to accept some sacrifice of traditional human qualities in order to survive? Does the future belong to the hybrids?

Works Cited Ashbrook, Tom. “Margaret Atwood will make you afraid of her tomorrow.” On Point. PBS WGBH. 20 September 2013. Atwood, Margaret. MaddAddam: A Novel. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2013. Print. —. Oryx and Crake: A Novel. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2003. Print. —. The Year of the Flood: A Novel. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2009. Print.

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—. “Time capsule found on the dead planet." The Guardian 25 September, 2009. Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl. San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2009. Print. Barzilai, Shuli. “From H. G. Wells’s Island to Margaret Atwood’s Paradice: Bio-perversity and its Ramifications.” Critical Insights: Margaret Atwood. Ed. J. Brooks Bouson. Ipswich, MA: Salem Press, 2013. 99-121. Print. Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995. Butler, Octavia E. Lilith's Brood. New York: Aspect/Warner Books, 2000. Print. Ebert, Roger Gattaca. Review 24 October, 1997. Web. Gattaca. Dir. Danny DeVito, Columbia Pictures, 1997. Perf. Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman. Film. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. 1931. New York: Harper & Bros., 1946. Print. Orwell, George. 1984: A Novel. New York, NY: New American Library, 1977. Print. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Rpt. Johanna M. Smith, ed. Boston: Bedford Books, 1992. Print. Thimann, Heidi “Marginal Beings: Hybrids as the Other in Late Medieval Manuscripts” Web.

Notes 1

Between 1889 and 1920 there were 593 utopian fictions published in the US and England. For example Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888) predicted a utopian world in the year 2000; his novel inspired many utopian fictions. The Women’s Movements of the late 19th century and the 1970s produced numerous utopias. 2 Margaret Atwood’s short parable “Time capsule found on the dead planet" places the responsibility for the destruction of earth on greed. 3 Conversation with Dan Carpenter, Kingston, Rhode Island April 8, 2014. 4 The Atwood manuscript collection at Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto has a file of clippings Atwood collected about scientific advances with genetically engineered animals such as the goat / spider and examples of xenotransplantation such as pig heart valves.



CHAPTER FIVE DYSTOPIAN DRAMA: IMAGINING SCIENCE WITHOUT LIMITATIONS JEANNE TIEHEN

The possibility of a realized dystopia appears more imminent than ever before. Raffaella Baccolini and Tom Moylan describe dystopia as a “prophetic vehicle…warning us of terrible sociopolitical tendencies that could, if continued, turn our contemporary world into the iron cages portrayed in the realm of utopia’s underside” (2). Within theatre, dystopia has repeatedly emerged through a particular thematic exploration, or what Dragan Klaiü titles “The Menace of Science” in his book The Plot of the Future: Utopia and Dystopia in Modern Drama. We live in an age where scientific advancements shape our world faster than we can imagine, and some playwrights have prophetically imagined the dystopian consequences of what could happen if a scientist were granted unlimited authority. In this essay, I analyze the dynamic intersection of dystopian dramas with scientific themes by examining Caryl Churchill’s A Number, Clive Barker’s Frankenstein in Love, and Wallace Shawn’s Grasses of a Thousand Colors, demonstrating how theatre can interrogate a future of science that may affect the course of our society. The significance of dystopian works is their social critique: the frightening circumstances presented alert us to the possibilities of what it would look like if our worst fears, and sometimes misguided utopian hopes, came true. Scientific and technological advancements often straddle this very tension, inciting anxiety about where they are culturally leading us. In his book, Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning, cosmologist and astrophysicist Martin Rees weighs the likelihood of the end of humankind. Amongst the many possibilities, Rees evaluates the prospect of scientific research “creating dangerous pathogens,” how the cloning of humans may take “only a matter of years,” and that someday soon the risks of nanotechnology may require many precautions (75, 78, and 81). Rees argues that the “views of scientists should not have special weight in



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deciding questions that involve ethics or risks,” and that the public should “ask of any innovation whether its potential is so scary that we should be inhibited in pressing on with it, or at least impose some constraints” (78 and 81). Geoff Brumfiel’s 2012 article, “Controversial research: Good science bad science,” contemplates scientific innovations, including the separation of radioisotopes, brain-scanning technologies, geoengineering in response to climate change, and the capacity for attaining the full genetic sequence of an unborn child. While these various research avenues have not resulted in dystopian-like consequences and could prove to yield extraordinary results, Brumfiel and several scientists in the article deliberate the hypothetical risks outweighing the benefits. Brumfiel asserts that there is a relatively thin line “between research that's a blessing and research that's a threat.” Evident by Rees’s and Brumfiel’s concerns, the future of science is a future of uncertainty. Within this uncertainty, there is an appeal to the public to take interest in scientific research given the potential precarious ethical dilemmas it may lead us toward. What theatre offers to this conversation, through dystopian dramas, is a chance for the hypothetical consequences to be represented on stage and served as a vivid, embodied social critique. Eva-Sabine Zehelein’s writes in her book Science: Dramatic, “Western societies in particular have to renegotiate their future by questioning scientific progress and maybe (re)define what science should or/and could do for, but not against us” (84). Zehelein’s work explores “science plays” that have historical context (characters are often significant scientists from history) or engage real science (she is more interested in plays that depict science-as-is than science-that-could-be). Zehelein would be unlikely to view dystopian dramas as science plays because of the fictionalized science within them; however, what she deems important about science plays is just as relevant to dystopian dramas with scientific themes. Both types of plays question “scientists’ ethical responsibilities,” and through dramatization can provoke an audience to consider “what kind of research can, could, or should be permitted, regulated, or enforced” (Zehelein 9). Through theatre the contemplations about scientific ethics and research limitations are not relegated to abstract concepts. Instead, the “theatrical experience uniquely enables us to take responsibility for political action, motivated by concern for the welfare of the Other with whose distress we are confronted,” writes Zahava Caspi in her examination of apocalyptic aesthetics within plays (153). With the merging of dystopia and science, the audience is confronted by the potential ramifications of scientific progress before the employment of a new innovation. Compared to film or literature, dystopian plays are often narrower in scope, dictated by the constraints of



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the physical stage. In exploring Caspi’s statement, however, in missing the dystopian novel’s wider survey that describes the effects of sociopolitical changes on an entire society, plays depict dystopian consequences through an in-depth focus on particular characters. From the characters’ experiences with scientific advancements, we experience the risks of such progress through our personal and empathetic connection to the individuals on stage. As audiences relate to characters in dystopian dramas, their conceptualization of the dystopia is perceived through the treatment of people. Whereas dystopia can be a rather broad concept, in this essay I reference Merriam-Webster’s definition of dystopia as “an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives.” This dehumanization is to strip one of human integrity, and to “treat them as though he or she is not a human being” (Merriam-Webster). With these definitions in mind, Churchill’s portrayal of cloning, Barker’s exploration of generating life, and Shawn’s investigation of altered food chains exhibit the potential of dystopian dehumanization when scientific progress is not ethically questioned in ways Rees urges. As a result, these plays raise issues about the direction of science in the present and the future. Science and technology have brought unparalleled advances to society. Yet, M. Keith Booker asserts many of the achievements in the last two hundred years “offered hints that science would not have an entirely emancipatory effect on humanity,” and these changes have “become symbols not only of human capability, but of human weakness and limitation” (6). Playwrights have responded to these realizations through dystopian drama. As I hope this essay demonstrates, dystopian dramas offer a chance to reflect on scientific progress in a critical manner, and may engage an audience in reconsidering what we hope our future looks like or never becomes.

A Number: Dystopia Shaped by Cloning Caryl Churchill’s A Number is an intelligently chilling play about the consequences of cloning. Of a 2014 production in Nuffield, Southampton, critic Lyn Gardner for The Guardian accurately describes the play as “no simple warning against the perils of science messing with nature, but a complex and humane study of parental guilt, regret and responsibility.” The audience never meets the scientist who conducts the cloning. It is suggested that somewhere his work was done with little thought of the ramifications. By leaving the scientist out and focusing the play on those who are cloned, Churchill allows the audience to identify cloning as a



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profoundly life altering act rather than as an intellectually remote enterprise. It is said of the scientist, early on in the play, “He’s dead, he was some old and they’ve just found the records” (13). Noticeable by this quotation, the dialogue is written distinctly and often without punctuation, illustrating an overlapping of thought between characters. The play is cleverly constructed as a two-man play, and the action follows sixty-year old Salter and his son, Bernard, who has been cloned. We first meet Salter as he tells Bernard (B2) that the multiple clones are the result of “some mad scientist,” who Salter claims did the cloning illegally and without his permission (Churchill 11). We are thrown into this conversation, unsure how many clones there actually are—the “number” is revealed at the play’s end. Salter distances himself from any involvement in the cloning, suggesting the scientist took the scrape of cells when Bernard was born or at some point visiting the hospital for a minor injury. Apparent in this opening exchange, Salter regards the clones as clones and not people, pointing to the dehumanizing effects of the scientific procedure. For Salter, the only concern is how cloning affects his son and himself—he is indifferent to the other clones. B2 corrects Salter when he calls the clones “things,” stating, “I think we’ll find they’re people…Because I’m one” (Churchill 11). Bernard 2 does not want to participate in the dehumanization. Salter consequently tells Bernard 2 “they’ve damaged your uniqueness, weakened your identity” (Churchill 14). Adding to the eeriness of the conversation, “they” continues to be referenced but never defined, and “they” seemingly have great control over everything involving the cloning of Bernard. It is a dystopian evocation of Orwellian-like conditions; we see a glimpse of absolute power that could go so far as controlling your genetic material. This is a future in which your identity and genetics are up for grabs, without your say. Salter’s comment illustrates how the science of cloning dehumanizes, evident in a larger, ethical consideration of identity related to humanity. Not only was this cloning supposedly performed without any consent from Bernard or his father, which already negates what would seemingly be a basic human right, but the act itself has challenged a fundamental essence of being human: individuality. The play questions the science of cloning as it infringes on individuality because different people share identical genetic material with an original person. Churchill’s play asks if this were to happen, what does shared genetics mean for our individuality? She also asks us to consider the difference between genetics and environment on shaping the life and personality of an individual. As we learn, Bernard 2 is not the original but rather a clone. Salter loves him as if he were his only son. Salter says to B2, “I don’t want a number of sons, thank you, you’re plenty, I’m fine”



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(16). Little else is said about the scientist or “they” but his work and their decisions linger over the entirety of the play. Complicating the narrative of the mad scientist gone astray, Salter’s less-than-innocent involvement in the act of cloning is revealed. In Act Two, the truth emerges as we meet the original Bernard, also known as B1, who is now forty. B1 is a disturbed, angry man, reminding Salter he was sent away as a young boy and cloned through a “painless scrape” of cells (Churchill 25). Salter tries to shirk his responsibility by telling Bernard the scientist promised there would only be one clone. B1 is unmoved; he tells Salter if B2 had a child “I’d kill it” (Churchill 34). The uncanny meeting of the two men, the clone and the original, transpires offstage. In Act Three, B2 tells Salter he has met B1, and he is struck by how he is simultaneously similar and different (Churchill 36). Bernard 2 clarifies he is not “frightening” like Bernard 1, but is unsettled that “there’s this person who’s identical to me…who’s not identical, who’s like…not very like but very something terrible which is exactly the same genetic person” (Churchill 39). B1’s aggression has scared B2, and it has made the concept of his genetic origins a real thing, a real person. It has also shattered B2’s sense of security in Salter’s lies, and more truths are revealed. Salter had the traumatized Bernard cloned after his wife’s suicide in order to have a fresh start with his son. He pleads with B2 saying he was “good I tried to be good I was good to you” (Churchill 44). Only it is too late for B2 and Salter. Bernard 2 has seen the damage his father did to Bernard 1; he has witnessed the dehumanization of his original. B1 was never treated like a human being once he was cloned without his permission or knowledge. His father essentially discarded him once B2 was alive. In the revelation of truths, B2 is also dehumanized. He now lives a fearful life, realizing he is a genetic match of someone like B1. Moreover, he now has a terrifying understanding of the kind of man his father is, and that his entire existence is based on lies. B1 confesses murdering B2 in the fourth act. The devastated Salter asks B1 whether B2 is “the only one you hated because I loved him,” reminding the audience there are more clones out there (Churchill). Bereft, he tells B1, “I could have killed you…I spared you” (Churchill 51). Salter fails to understand by having Bernard cloned, he never spared him; his life has never recovered because of the profound loss of self-identity in the knowledge he had been cloned and replaced. In the last act Salter meets another clone, Michael Black. It is the only Bernard clone that the audience meets aside from B2, but we learn that Salter plans on “me[eting] the others” and that there are “nineteen more” clones (Churchill 54 and 62). The fact that Michael is identified by a full character name is at fist



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surprising since Bernard 1 and 2 are referenced only as B1 and B2. However, after meeting the character of Michael his individual name makes more sense because he seems to be the most fully realized as an individual, unaffected by the process of cloning that dramatically altered the course of B1’s and B2’s lives. Still grieving the loss of B2 and uncertain of what to make of the recent suicide of B1, it appears Salter is seeking some sort of redemption. In Michael he finds someone untroubled, reasoning all humans share genetic material. Michael states, “I think it’s funny, I think it’s a delight…all these very similar people doing things like each other” (Churchill 60-61). Michael’s indifference is striking: that he is not unnerved makes the act of cloning more sinister in the ease of its acceptance. Salter admits to Michael, “I miss him so much. I miss them both” (Churchill 62). The original 2002 production of A Number was met with positive critical response. Charles Spencer in The Telegraph writes, “Churchill creates a play that is as emotionally upsetting as it is intellectually and morally profound.” Critic Michael Billington similarly describes it as an Dzastonishing play rais[ing] many issues: the meaning of identity, the conflict between nature and nurture, the ethics of cloning.” Undeniably, A Number presents an exaggerated, worst-case scenario of science without ethical limitations. However, while the specific fear of human cloning may be inflated in this work, examining A Number with a broader thematic lens exemplifies a fear of science moving ahead without regard for the repercussions. Thrilled at the prospect of what is possible, the scientist performs the act of cloning with little concern for what is potentially dangerous or what could be irrevocably dehumanizing. The act of cloning is committed with no apparent deliberation of its effects on Bernard or his many clones. The audience observes the rippling effect this decision has had on all the characters as the scientist’s work hauntingly lives on. Looking at science the way A Number does may seem like a reductive way of turning scientists into bogeymen, but the play’s examination of fear related to scientific ethics overshadows the characterization of the scientist. There is abundant political and media commentary about the perilous “evils” of stem cell research as a gateway to human cloning. The cultural memory of Dolly the cloned sheep and the 1997 TIME magazine cover asking, “Will there ever be another you?” triggered anxieties that the near future would be altered through our own genetic duplication. The play epitomizes the union of dystopian drama and scientific themes, reflecting a fear about cloning that became a part of our cultural lexicon and is used within debates about scientific limits. The play presents a dystopian world based upon acting before thinking in the name of



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scientific possibility. It is a dystopia in which the human has little say on what happens to his identity or sense of self under the guise of science. A Number is not a morality play, but as a dystopian science play it presents an alternative future where realized possibilities in the present outweigh unforeseen ethical consequences ahead.

Frankenstein in Love: A Future of Regeneration More recent stem cell conversation has turned away from cloning to regenerative medicine, “where cells cloned from a patient would be used to grow into transplant organs to treat diseases and injuries such as paralysis” (Vergano). Clive Barker's Frankenstein in Love is a dystopian portrayal of regeneration, accomplished through grotesque experimentation. The play presents the quintessential unpredictable scientist. Building on Mary Shelley's classic novel, Barker's adaptation brings Frankenstein into the modern world. The play interrogates the same question all Frankenstein adaptations have: what happens when a scientist achieves the incredible but does not hold himself responsible? Barker’s adaptation is a bold retelling. In this adaptation, Dr. Frankenstein is decades older than he normally appears. In the play, he has never stopped working on his reanimation science, and has created a series of beings after the success of his first Creature. At the start of the play we are told, “Some of this story has already happened, but the worst is yet to come…this was the operating room of Dr. Joseph Frankenstein…Atrocities were committed here in the name of God and Science” (Barker 156). The play is set in a fictional Latin American country under the rule of a corrupt government that turns a blind eye to Frankenstein’s experiments, reflecting the common dystopian device of a totalitarian government. The dictatorial governmental power accentuates how the world of this play is one in which there is no course for retribution or justice for those inhumanely treated. There is an irony that a dystopian play portrays dehumanization through what is essentially an inhuman, undead creature. Here the Creature is named El Coco. He is the play’s anti-hero, capable of living again, even after Dr. Frankenstein orders him to be disassembled. Frankenstein obsessively reanimates dead flesh and attempts through his masterpiece creature, Veronique, to “produce undying human children. Capable of endless regeneration of their bodies” (Barker 216). The dehumanization is apparent in the government that cares little for the rights of its people, the scientist who cares little about the consequences of his experimentation, and the creatures who must find a way, despite their fear, to fight back against their maker and their government.



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El Coco leads a rebellion against the dictatorship, usurps power, and confronts his creator Frankenstein, stating, “I’ll kill you quickly…I understand your nature, father. The selfless pursuit of life against all reason” (Barker 238). These words are an indictment of Frankenstein’s unlimited and profoundly corrupt scientific research. In the end, it is the experimental creature Veronique who kills Dr. Frankenstein by ripping out his heart. Steven Earl Forry in Hideous Progenies: Dramatizations of Frankenstein from Mary Shelley to the Present calls the play “arguably the most challenging adaptation ever written,” but also writes, “Many excellent scenes could be quoted at length to illustrate the fervor of Barker’s prose and the intensity of the play” (116 and 119). The play is complex, shocking, darkly humorous, and presents a new world with new rules when power enables the regeneration of life itself. The play is set in a future not far off, but from the play’s beginning we are told it “is the last, long night of the world…Expect an apocalypse” (Barker 156). The apocalypse in this dystopian world is one where the wrongs are bizarrely righted, the undead live on, and the scientist is finally stopped in a gruesome manner. Despite its absurdity and gore, Frankenstein in Love has been restaged in theatres across the world since 1982. Christopher Shea for Time Out Chicago writes of a 2008 production, “Barker has a bleak, unambiguous vision: the cholera-ridden, South American nation in which his tale sets may run short on subtlety, but it sure doesn’t lack for pathos.” Barker’s play demonstrates an overlap between horror, science fiction, science, and dystopia. There are certainly specificities to each of these genres, but they share common ground worth more comprehensive analysis. Barker’s play possesses horror genre features, common to his work, seen in the undead monster-like creatures and the visceral gore in his stage descriptions. Yet, the play is also indebted to Mary Shelley’s original novel, often referred to as the first science fiction story. While the science is horrific and fantastical, Dr. Frankenstein’s diabolical pursuit for success taps into a dystopian interrogation of limitless scientific ambition. It is essential that in Barker’s play it is not just any scientist, but it is Dr. Frankenstein we are watching. Jon Turney’s book Frankenstein’s Footsteps: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture explores how Frankenstein has become our symbolic reference used to describe ethical problems with scientific achievement in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Each time the name “Frankenstein” is evoked it marks “a deep disquiet at the potentialities inherent in a scientific discovery” (Turney 36). Dr. Frankenstein is the scientist we know to fear, because in every Frankenstein adaptation he achieves something we are not ready for, if we ever will be. In Barker’s world Dr.



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Frankenstein goes even further, creating more creatures, because he is finally granted power. The play triggers anxiety as the complicity of power, government, and science is evident and frightful, and not a far notion from national interests that may herald scientific and technological progress at contestably endless costs. Moreover, the costs and unintentional effects of scientific and technological progress are not always apparent from the beginning. There was a recent report by USA Today about Chinese scientists modifying human embryo genes, prompting fears of a new type of eugenics. Journalist Andrew Griffin writes, Scientists are worried that using the technique to snip out bits of DNA that are viewed as problematic could have terrible consequences for subjects’ descendants…Because the alteration will be coded into the “heritable line,” they will be passed down to future generations—and nobody is really sure what effect that would have over time.

This news will inevitably provoke debate amongst scientists and hopefully generate interest from the public, and as it does so, at least one media source will likely reference it as “Frankensteinian” science. Science pursued for the benefit of humans does not always prove to be endlessly beneficial. One can think about the possible consequences of genetically modified food, pesticides, or even the rise and fall of antibiotics, which at one time seemed like the fruitful solution to ending illness that have now led to super-strains of antibiotic resistant disease. Science has offered us capabilities never before imaginable, but a play like Frankenstein in Love shows the darker underbelly, countering the narrative that science alone can solve all of life’s profound problems, even mortality itself.

Grasses of a Thousand Colors: Food Shortage and a Dystopian Solution Wallace Shawn’s Grasses of a Thousand Colors is a complicated depiction of what could happen if we run out of food. John Lahr for The New Yorker accurately describes the work as a “futuristic dream play, [where] eating and being eaten are important leitmotifs.” Ben narrates the play and says in the first few pages “most of you know me…as a scientist” (Shawn 9). Ben tells the audience he was among the many scientists who realized the problems of food shortage, describing “an enormous crowd of entities…looking for something to eat; and on the other hand, there was a tiny inadequate crowd of entities available on the planet to be eaten” (Shawn 11). Tinkering with the food chain and environment, he pioneered a way for animals to feed on corpses from the same species and created



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atmospheric changes that permitted previous herbivores to become omnivores. It is a sensational image of geoengineering with disturbing consequences on humans’ and animals’ appetites. A picture of a dog is presented on the screen above the stage, and Ben says, “here was the very first large mammal ever to be raised entirely on the meat of members of his own species” (Shawn 12). The main action of the play traces Ben’s sordid relationships with a few females, including one with a white cat named Blanche. His relationships are highly sexual, and Ben often delves into lengthy discussions about his genitals. Ben reveals that such conversations have become the social norm. With the collapse of the normal food chain, humans have become more animalistic, debased, and as crude as Ben: they are dystopically dehumanized in this particular fashion as humans no longer possess a level of integrity. The play is riddled with animal imagery such as, “I could see my face as a dog’s face. Then her face became a dog’s face, too. Her jaws opened, teeth bared” (Shawn 32). This is a description of foreplay. The unrelenting sexual appetite of Ben and those around him parallels the inability to feel satiated with the modified food. Ben frequently jumps in and out of each of his fragmented relationships, making it hard to sense what is real and not, as if changing the environment changes reality itself. The audience learns the alterations to animals and the environment are flawed. Cerise, Ben’s wife, describes seeing dogs pressing their muzzles into the ground, “as if they were trying to bury themselves to stop the pain” (Shawn 16). Cerise later explains: I felt a terrible pain in my stomach…And within a week everyone in the city was using this whole new vocabulary---“food problems,” “problems with food.”…yes, the food had changed, but we ourselves had changed…The things that were there to be eaten had raced off in one direction, and our own poor digestive machinery had raced off in another… (Shawn 70)

Ben’s relationships dissolve around him as he begins to demonstrate the common symptoms of extreme nausea, vomiting, and unusual behavior. The landscape turns black and animals die off. At the play’s end, meeting with Blanche the cat (who now has transformed into a memoryof-sorts of the dead Cerise), Ben is “sent off on [his] way across the meadow” (Shawn 88). Exhausted, he lies down in “a very pleasant mossy spot,” much like an animal, and dies (Shawn 88). Critical responses to the play were varied when it was staged at the Royal Court in 2009 with playwright Wallace Shawn playing Ben.



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Nevertheless, Michael Billington for The Guardian describes the play’s message as “an attack on scientific arrogance” that illustrates “nature always fights back.” John Lahr for The New Yorker writes, “Like all dreams, ‘Grasses of a Thousand Colors’ resists interpretation, even as it blurs the distinction between the natural and the civilized.” The play is a notably provocative but engaging dystopian drama, whose ideas intriguingly reflect on the loss of humanity, metaphorically and literally. The play presents a complex character that is responsible for the end of human civility and civilization due to his scientific achievement. In this dystopia, where the lines of animal and human boundaries are broken on almost every level, there is a graspable commentary on ecological sustainability wrapped in an unusual package. Shawn has said the play is about humans today who do not think they are a part of nature, and yet we “see that our special abilities enable us to extinguish all living things and life itself” (Paris Review). Science is not exempt from furthering this possibility.

Reconsidering our Scientific Future The relationship between society in the present and its trajectory toward and within an unknown future is essential to dystopian drama. Part of this relationship is commonly forged through the theme of science; that which causes mere anxiety today is portrayed as causing dehumanization tomorrow. Churchill’s play depicts a father who embraced a cutting edge scientific solution that could never provide the emotional solace he desired due to his failed relationships. Barker’s play demonstrates that all life is significant, regardless of who is in power and regardless of daring, unachieved scientific possibilities. Shawn’s play portrays a society that did not heed the warnings and ran out of food, forcing scientists to find alternative solutions that led to more devastation. The scientific pursuits in these plays led to dystopian dehumanization, hopefully provoking audiences to consider how such paths can be avoided. In his chapter “The Menace of Science,” Dragan Klaiü suggests that dystopian dramas’ “purpose seems to be more frequently to examine the ultimate dystopian consequences of human action than to display in detail the mechanism that initiates the dystopian process,” but, regardless, these plays offer searing critiques of the “consequence[s] of misdirected or misapplied knowledge” (75). Accordingly, we do not know the specificities of cloning in A Number or how exactly Dr. Frankenstein regenerates life, nor can we assess their potential realities. But while the science in these plays is not real or fully explained, dystopian dramas



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possess valuable criticism about the limitations of science by giving dimensionality to the unexpected costs of misguided science. A disconcerting problem regarding science in our age is that the public simply does not know enough or engage enough in the future of science, despite science’s influence in almost every aspect of our lives. Jane Gregory and Steven Miller in Science in Public: Communication, Culture, and Credibility describe this occurrence giving countless examples of how scientists are now told to communicate their work to the public to increase awareness and to stimulate public support. They write, The power and limits of science are matters of considerable debate. Defining them is just part of the problem; whether or not to communicate them is just as large a concern. For while the scientific community enjoys its reputation as a trustworthy solver of problems, it also berates the public for unrealistic expectations and exaggerated fears and the media for fostering extreme views of what science can and cannot do. (Gregory and Miller 59)

The aforementioned dystopian science plays shine light on these fears, some of them legitimate and others hopefully passing anxieties of the day. As a theatre scholar, I argue these dystopian dramas provoke contemplations about the future of science, but do not serve as a means simply to foster unsubstantiated fears. As Klaiü argues, dystopian dramas can be viewed as works “in which issues of great importance, concerning the collective destiny of humanity, are discussed” (6). These plays elucidate the very real concern that it should not be scientists alone that navigate how our future is shaped by science, but rather a social and cultural conversation that thoughtfully weighs the benefits and risks. The act of an audience confronting dystopian possibilities is an act of cultural value. M. Keith Booker articulates, “dystopian fictions provide fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices that might otherwise be taken for granted or considered natural and inevitable” (19). Plays go a step further by embodying the social and political practices, so they are seen, heard, and felt through empathetic connections to the characters on stage. By doing so, these three plays offer a counterpoint to the utopian ideals so often placed on science and technology. They make us pause before we move ahead and encourage the new technological gadget, applaud the next scientific advancement in the biosciences, or believe that only good can come from these seemingly inevitable changes. Ronald Wright examines the power of the myth of progress, writing how it is ideologically blinding, and how western cultures, America in particular, want to believe better days are always ahead. In his book A Short History



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of Progress, Wright cites Martin Rees and his prediction that we have fifty-fifty odds of surviving our present century. He explains that some of our escapes from disaster, such as nuclear war, were “more by luck than judgment, and are not final” (Wright 132). A dystopian drama returns our sight to the reality of what we are doing now and how we cannot simply depend on luck. And yes, part of this means asking what role science plays and will continue to play in our society, interrogating whether progress is the best measure of its value. Returning to Rees, he writes that scientifically fueled dystopian, Doomsday-like catastrophes may never happen, “but they raise in extreme form…whether to proceed with experiments that have a genuine scientific purpose…but that pose a very tiny risk of an utterly calamitous outcome” (2). Dystopian dramas with scientific themes remind us that the risk is not negligible, and we cannot only continue to hope for the best. If we keep blindly pushing ahead with the progress of science, we may not like the dystopian future we find ourselves in. It also may push us toward a future in which scientists are left to conceive even more unpleasant solutions. Dystopian dramas depict what may happen if we fail to deeply reconsider our relationship to science and its limitations. These plays remind us to pursue a sensible path where science continues to be our ally and is not reconstructed as our dehumanizing foe.

Works Cited Baccolini, Raffaella and Tom Moylan. “Introduction. Dystopia and Histories.” Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination. Eds. Raffaella Baccolini and Tom Moylan. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. 1-12. Print. Barker, Clive. “Frankenstein in Love, or The Life of Death” in Incarnations. New York: Harper Prism, 1995. Print. Billington, Michael. “A Number-review.” The Guardian. 7 October 2010. Web. 15 May 2013. —. “Grasses of a Thousand Colours.” The Guardian. 19 May 2009. Web. 20 April 2013. Booker, M. Keith. The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. Print. Brumfiel, Geoff. “Controversial research: Good science bad science.” Nature. 25 April 2012. Web. 13 April 2015. Caspi, Zahava. “Black Rain: The Apocalyptic Aesthetic and the Spectator’s Ethical Challenge in (Israeli) Theater.” SubStance 42.2 (2013): 141-158. Web.



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Churchill, Caryl. A Number. New York: Theatre Communications Group Inc., 2002. Print. “Dehumanized.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster 2011. Web. 3 Mar 2014. “Dystopia.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster 2011. Web. 3 Mar 2014. Forry, Steven Earl. “Historical Introduction.” Hideous Progenies: Dramatizations of “Frankenstein” from Mary Shelley to the Present. Ed. Steven Earl Forry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. 3-107. Print. Gardner, Lyn. “A Number—review.” The Guardian. 14 Feb. 2014. Web. 4 April 2014. Gregory, Jane and Steven Miller. Science in Public: Communication, Culture, and Credibility. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 1998. eBook. Griffin, Andrew. “Fears as Chinese modify human embryo genes.” USA Today. 23 Apr. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. Klaiü, Dragan, The Plot of the Future: Utopia and Dystopia in Modern Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991. Print. Lahr, John. “Catnip: Wallace Shawn’s first new play in more than a decade.” The New Yorker, 1 June 2009. Web. 11 August 2013. Rees, Martin. Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning. New York: Perseus Books, 2003. Print. Shawn, Wallace. Grasses of a Thousand Colors. New York: Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 2009. Print. —. “Interview: Wallace Shawn, The Art of Theater No. 17.” By Hilton Als. the Paris Review. Web. 8 Aug. 2013. Shea, Christopher. “Frankenstein in Love.” Time Out Chicago. 28 September 2008. Web. 17 July 2013. Spencer, Charles. “A Number, Menier Chocolate factory, review.” The Telegraph. 5 October 2010. Web. 13 May 2013. Turney, Jon. Frankenstein’s Footsteps: Science, Genetics, and Popular Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Print. Vergano, Dan. “Human embryonic stem cells are cloned,” USA Today. 15 May 2013. Web.12 September 2013. “Will There Ever Be Another You?” Time Magazine. 10 Mar. 1997. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. Wright, Ronald. A Short History of Progress. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004. eBook. Zehelein, Eva-Sabine. Science: Dramatic: Science Plays in America and Great Britain, 1990-2007. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2009. Print.



CHAPTER SIX NARRATING TRAUMA: THE VALUE OF VIOLENCE IN YA DYSTOPIAN FICTION LAURA POLADIAN

“…it is under the weight of this realization I truly begin to break” —Katniss Everdeen, Catching Fire

Last night, a young reader picked up a book and buried a spear in a twelve year-old’s stomach and a hatchet into a stranger’s skull. This reader entered the bloody battlefields of The Hunger Games alongside Katniss Everdeen. Another day, this reader (or another one) went sledding down a snowy hill and sailing on serene seas only to suffer a sunburn and compound fracture with Jonas in The Giver. Through Jonas, the reader meets a boy “glistening with wet, fresh blood” and “ragged flesh and splintery bone” (Lowry 150), an infant with “a needle [in his] forehead, puncturing the place where the fragile skin pulsed” until he lay limp (Lowry 188) and through Katniss, an elderly woman killed by a chemical gas that “stabs…burns” and paralyzes (Collins CF 296–301), and many more characters born into these books only to become corpses. Maybe it’s not so safe to be lost in a book beneath the bedsheets, even with a flashlight. Then again, shocking violence in texts intended for pre-adult readers is not new news. According to Maria Tartar’s Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood, “When it came to violence, the collectors of folktales… instead of disguising it or blotting it…preserved and often intensified it” (5). With the First Golden Age of Children’s Literature, following the cheaper and more efficient book production of the industrial revolution, came the Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland taking up the chorus of “Off with her head!”, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, who kills not only “many” but “tons” (Barrie 5)

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and introduces “the hook that shoots forth…[followed by] a tearing sound and one screech, [before] the body is kicked aside” (Barrie 64), as well as George McDonald’s goblin queen, “her face streaming with blood, and her eyes flashing lightning green through it… her mouth open, and her teeth grinning like a tiger’s” from The Princess and the Goblin. This tradition of violence in texts intended for a younger audience continued into the Second Golden Age of Children’s Literature, marked by the rise of the fantasy genre, and included authors who explicitly address the violence in their works. Roald Dahl explains in an interview for The Pied Pipers: Interviews with the influential creators of children’s literature that “there’s quite a bit of the stuff you are referring to [mutilation] in children’s books. There’s plenty of it in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, for instance—children getting mashed up in the pipes and so on” (Wintle and Fisher 107). In her interview for The Pied Pipers, Madeleine L’Engle explains that “One reason [Meet the Austins] was rejected so often is that it begins with a death. The effects of that death had to be weakened—the effects on all the relationships between all of the characters” (Wintle and Fisher 252). In a 2004 PBS interview with Bill Moyers, Maurice Sendack offers a blunt reference to violence in his texts: “We’re animals. We’re violent. We’re criminal… And if I’ve done anything, I’ve had kids express themselves as they are.” Through each age of Children’s Literature, from fairy tales to fantasy, the readership has experienced violence. Likewise, in “the recent explosion of dystopian fiction for young adults” (Basu et al), the violence experienced by characters and exposed to the readership has a nuanced presentation and purpose. Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy and Lois Lowry’s The Giver, are widely read and watched. The Giver, which has now been in publication for over twenty years, arguably created the market that The Hunger Games capitalizes on. Before exploring the violence of these books, the readership and publication histories of both The Hunger Games and The Giver are worth briefly noting. As books, Collins’s and Lowry’s works are understood as YA fiction, a newer development of readership in the complex pre-adult population. Both have turned into movie franchises, and as Lowry comments in a new introduction to The Giver, the book in movie form “has simply… grown larger, and begun to glisten in a new way” (Lowry xiii), renewing conversations surrounding Jonas’s story and ones like it. In joining those conversations, this chapter will treat The Giver as a standalone novel and The Hunger Games as a trilogy. The Giver quartet was composed over the course of twenty years, and the Hunger Games was published in three consecutive years, so many of

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Lowry’s followers have experienced The Giver as a singular novel, while The Hunger Games is generally understood as a trilogy. While both books have parallels that have been explored in many casual conversations and critical compositions, reading them for a specific common feature (literal violence—or broken bodies) allows us to consider a shared, controversial function—traumatizing readers through that violence. A reader’s internalization of violence by sheer exposure to it leads parents, librarians, and educators to censor children’s reading lists. Lois Lowry and Suzanne Collins both appear on the American Library Association’s (ALA) “Most frequently challenged authors in the 21st century list” at least twice, and their books have each been added to the top list of Banned Books more than once as well. While protests to these texts range from specific concerns, such as sexually explicit material, to broad denouncement as inappropriate for the intended age group, “violence” is a reoccurring reason for their respective challenges. While adults rate movies and video games and use safety settings on the internet and TV to keep young children from viewing undesirable images and hearing undesirable sounds, books are more difficult to control; they offer free access to an onslaught of disturbing passages through public and school libraries. There is no redacted version of these texts for the parent who would like a softer available version for a child. While adults control the flow of information to children, the preface to Crosscurrents of Children’s Literature: An Anthology of Texts and Criticism explains how access to information in books affects the child-reader: In short, children almost certainly often find in children’s books guidance about what they, as children, are expected to be and become. Thus viewed from one perspective, children reading books are engaged in the alwayscontinuing process of responding to (or reacting against) the process of socialization… Whenever children choose the books they enjoy and want to read, they are expressing a preference about the kinds of ideas and values they want to incorporate in their imaginative lives. (Stahl et al. 4)

The child-reader does not blindly incorporate but responds and reacts in the socialization through literacy. Readers are not passive. Then, the danger or violence that permeates The Giver and The Hunger Games trilogy has the potential to traumatize readers. It is not totally separate from the reality of the reader who seems safe from outside of the actual storyline. The events in the book incorporate into the reader’s world. In this way, they are quite real. A bond exists between the broken and traumatized characters of the dystopian worlds and the broken and traumatized readers. These texts,

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filled with the nightmares of mutts and children for Katniss, the memories and moments of pain and loss for Jonas, still offer mostly positive claims. These are not claims that exist despite the most negative elements of the texts but are actually realized because of them. Reading the texts as narratives that redeem violence in YA dystopian fictions requires exploring the complexities of the bond between the characters and readers: 1) how the characters experience violence 2) how the reader is inextricably tied to the trauma caused by this violence through the narrative form 3) what is tragic for the characters actually improves the reader. Ultimately— how the literal readers interact with the text and how the concept of a reader is addressed in the text—as well the function of the text– trauma through the “breaking” of character’s bodies and beliefs— is a resituating act that transforms negative images into positive experiences.

Locating Trauma in the Characters Exploring the purpose of traumatic reading experiences depends on first examining the source of trauma--- here, the kind of violence offered up in the texts. Violence inhabits the space of different texts (made different by the time period of production, intended audience, or genre) in distinct ways. Maureen Nimon’s “Violence in Children’s Literature” offers competing models of violence including demonstrations of courageous qualities or reflections of a more violent society (1). In terms of a single genre, David Boudinot’s “Violence in Fear and Folktales” suggest that violence acts as a “method of helping children learn about safety”. The kind of violence offered in The Giver and The Hunger Games trilogy begins with the breaking of bodies. This breaking of bodies creates a realistic sense of suffering that Rebecca Carol Totaro notes is a defining feature of a dystopia in “Suffering in Utopia: Testing the Limits in Young Adult Novels”. Totaro explores Sir Francis Bacon’s “The New Atlantis”, a foundational text in the conception of the utopia, to point out that “Certainly Bacon’s visionary mind could have conceived a world without the particularly physical suffering” (127), but the absence of suffering (physically and socially) is key to utopia. The introduction to “Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults: Brave New Teenagers” explains that dystopia “differs from the utopia in that its prescription is negative, rather than positive” (2-3). This definition of dystopia in conjunction with Totaro’s ideas on suffering means that dystopian worlds are built on suffering. For Lowry’s and Collins’s work that suffering starts with violence—or physical pain and its effects.

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The Giver’s violence is made incredibly shocking because of its extreme concentration. Jonas must endure all of negative experience for his community when is he elected as “The Receiver.” No discomfort, physical or emotional, exists in his society. It is controlled because it is contained in a single vessel. As the memories of all of humanity before the formation of Jonas’s current society enter him, the images in the novel become increasingly violent. This escalates from memories of sunburn to a slow death on a Civil War battlefield. Eventually, Jonas creates rather than receives his own memory of physical pain in the extreme cold of hard wilderness during an attempt to escape his role and reality. Because the physical pain is felt only by Jonas, because it is singular, Totaro describes the ultimate effect of Jonas’s pain as “isolation” (131). Following the development of physically painful experiences in the text, Jonas’s suffering is compounded by the emotional issues of experiencing physical suffering and coming to know loss. Even the release from pain in The Giver is painful. It is not the memories that Jonas cannot endure but the realities of the society in which he lives. He is most broken by the suicide of The Giver’s daughter Rosemary, a character who elected to end her life in reaction to extreme emotional pain, as well as the murders Jonas’s father commits by “releasing” imperfect children through assisted suicide. Likewise, Collins not only provides graphic descriptions of physical pain, this pain is compounded by its effects beyond the physical. While there are many violent events to be read in the trilogy (including bloodbaths at the opening of each annual Hunger Games, the butchering of one girl by a group, neck-snapping, child-spearing, and death by stinging), the injuries that ultimately break the heroes are signified on their bodies in a very literal moment when Katniss and Peeta’s skin is disfigured following the explosion of the parachutes at the Capitol. They do not have the attractive scars of symmetry. They “are both fire mutts now” (Collins MJ 368-9). Mutt is something made inhuman or less human, aligned with monster (290). The new grotesque form of the body is the visual representation of the effects of culminating trauma in the book. On a physical level, Katniss knows, I am on fire. The balls of flame that erupted from the parachutes shot over the barricades through the snowy air, and landed in the crowd. I was just about to turn away when one caught me, ran its tongue up the back of my body, and transformed me into something new. A creature as unquenchable as the sun. A fire mutt knows only a single sensation: agony. (348)

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She describes this in terms of her role as Mockingjay, which symbolizes or summarizes her spirit by the third book. Her “wings begin to falter” and “The feathers of the flame that grow from her body” are “inescapable” because “Beating [her] wings only fans the blaze” (Collins MJ 348). Here is the union between her literal destruction of body and the simultaneous destruction of spirit. The more she fights the flames, the more she burns; the more she fights the Capitol, the worse circumstances become for her— until she finally loses her sister. They are one and the same, and in the height of the experience they become inseparable—they blur. The ultimate breaking of the characters comes when their most severe anxieties are realized.—the destruction of their identities and worldviews. Before Katniss and Peeta competed in The Hunger Games, they made but two promises to themselves. It was not to survive, though they did. It was not to have better or easier lives, though they might have left the struggles of starvation behind. They may no longer be hungry—no one needs a loaf in the rain (MJ 32, 38, 39). They did not strive to be the pioneers of a better world for someone else, though the Mockingjay is the emblem of a nation’s revolution, and Peeta’s smile won the population. It was this: Katniss promises herself that Prim won’t get hurt. After the reaping, she explicitly passes this promise onto her mother when she says, “You can’t clock out and leave Prim on her own. There’s no me now to keep you both alive… You have to promise me you’ll fight through it!” (Collins THG 35). In this moment, Katniss believes she “can’t win” (Collins THG 36), but because she does not die, Prim’s safety is her continued fight and is never fully passed on to her mother. Ultimately, Prim endures the heroic death that Katniss is so willing to accept on her behalf when Prim dies in the exact space of the City Circle Katniss is invading in order to save all citizens from the tyranny of the Capitol (Collins CF 347). The little sister meets the very end Katniss works so hard to assume on her behalf when she pushes Prim out of the way to volunteer (Collins THG 22). Prim was no more safe than the moment before her protector volunteered. Peeta too makes a pre-game promise in the first book. Even if he dies, Peeta only wants to keep his sense of self. On that night before the 74th annual Hunger Games, he confesses the singular hope that “Only I want to die as myself... I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not” (Collins THG 141). He wants to be “more than just a piece in the Games” (Collins THG 142). He makes a claim that absolutely foreshadows the unstable Peeta he becomes after being caught in Catching Fire. Prim’s death and Peeta’s “hijacked” identity are the most tragic possibilities. As the promises that undergird Katniss and Peeta’s perception of the world are broken, each character is broken.

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Katniss and Peeta’s popular love story is a sign of more breaking in the novel rather than healing and hope. Peeta is tortured to the point of losing his identity. He is “tortured… deranged … Hijacked” so that, not only does he lose himself, he loses his perception of people, places, and relationships that had previously defined who he was (Collins MJ 179). Peeta and Katniss’s need for each other is a product of spiritual and emotional breaking; they can no longer sustain their identities on their own, and rely on the game of “real or not real” to interpret their present experiences, a constant reminder of a loss of self-identification, a dependence on someone else to be identified. Steven Mailloux, in his study on “Thinking with Rhetorical Figures: Performing Racial and Disciplinary Identities in the Late-Nineteenth-Century America”, explains identity as an interpretive act: “Identity is the being you are interpreted as by yourself or by others, including how you interpret others as interpreting you (a form of double-consciousness) and how others accept or reject your self-identifications” (Mailloux 698). By this logic, identity is constituted by three distinct, yet interrelated, moves: 1) how you interpret yourself, 2) how others interpret you, 3) and how you interpret yourself based on how others interpret you. Never by this standard, will Peeta assume complete identity because he has lost the ability to identify himself. The violence endured by the characters in Collins’ and Lowry’s work is not senseless for the reader. Even for the characters, the violence serves a purpose. In The Giver, it is to store the violence in an individual in order to preserve the community, and in The Hunger Games trilogy, it is to host an annual event of shocking violence to deter future mass violence. For the readers, there is some sense in coming to know the violence of these texts. Through “Suffering in Utopia”, Totaro argues that “Writers of young adult novels…educat[e] their readers through the pains of social and physical metamorphosis while entertaining them” in order to offer useful suffering that “with hope and action emerges into a less painful adulthood” (Totaro 136). Totaro sees the catalyst of this action as the “realistic worlds” (Totaro 135) of the characters, but The Giver and Hunger Games trilogy share a more concrete catalyst in the particular narrative form of the texts. The characters and their worlds go beyond relatable to the readers. Rather than the reader seeing elements of the literal world reflected in the texts (which may be true), the character’s experience becomes the reader’s experience as it is transferred through narrative form. These texts create an empathetic connection rather than an example of experience.

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Transferring Trauma to the Readers David Herman’s “Narrative Worlds: Space, Setting, Perspectives” discusses the reader’s ability to engage in “the larger process of cocreating storyworlds” and asks, “Where did/will/might narrated events happen relative to the place of narration—and for that matter relative to the interpreter’s [or reader’s] current situation?” (Herman 98). What is the reader’s relationship to the setting, and for that matter the characters of a story, especially in the case of dystopian works, which can only go so far as reflecting real places and people? Though a reader may be reminded of Panem or Jonas’s community, no visits will be made to either location because those places do not exist. There is also a gap between the reader and the characters. There is the space between the end of the reader’s nose and the words on the page that constitute the character, a space between the corporeal and the imagined. What, then, is the reader’s proximity to the trauma of the characters? Are the readers observers who, based on their “relative…current situation[s]” conjure feelings derived of their own experiences? (In the case of young adults, this may even be modified to mean limited experiences.) The narrative experience of reading The Giver and The Hunger Games trilogy actually affects the gap between the characters’ trauma and the readers’ proximity to that trauma. The Giver closes the gap by requiring more interaction on the part of the reader following Jonas’s traumatic shift towards increased narrative capacity, whereas Hunger Games trilogy closes the gap by conflating the reader with Katniss, the narrator of the trilogy. In the dystopian community of The Giver, characters lack narrative power. Jonas begins with a limited ability to narrate his own life through the prescriptive process of “the evening telling of feelings” (Lowry 6), a ritual by which the members of the society are expected to reduce their daily experiences to statements of how they felt so that other members of the family can intervene to tell them how they should feel and why per societal standard. Life is more largely narrated for them by “the Speaker,” an overhead announcement system that gives them orders, corrective measures, and constant reminders of how they should and should not behave. Characters are also limited in their narrative abilities through their use of language. Characters cannot narrate their identities, even as far as naming. Names are predetermined and provided. Jonas’s family is committing a crime in calling an infant they care for by his name, Gabe, before it has been announced (Lowry 84). They cannot narrate death. When characters die their names are no longer allowed to be spoken (Lowry 85). Precision of language is a principle in the society, so that

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“Jonas was careful about language”, whereas his friend Asher was at best laughable and at worst physically punished for using “too strong an adjective” and nonliteral language (Lowry 4). This restriction of language was not only externally observed but also embedded in the characters’ worldviews. Jonas, even in his thinking, self-corrects to avoid “too strong an adjective” (Lowry 4). The change in Jonas’s descriptive strategy as a Receiver highlights the gap between observing and experiencing in language. When Jonas receives his first memory, sledding down a hill, “No voice made an explanation. The experience explained itself to him” (Lowry 103). A reader can more readily access images of “the rasping voice through the speakers” (Lowry 2) and the bike Jonas dropped in the opening pages of the novel than the whole of the memories that Jonas goes through (even though the descriptions of these memories can range from a paragraph or two to a page or two.) His language becomes less precise, defined by more abstract common nouns: “It simply was—whatever the thing was” (Lowry 118). This requires more interpretive work on the part of the reader who has moved from simplicity in language at the beginning- to words that are still simple in terms of reading level- but now do not have simple semiotic associations. Finding meaning in “whatever,” “thing,” and “experience” require more contextual attention and connotative effort. In becoming “The Receiver,” Jonas is given freedoms that are denied the general populace of the community, and these freedoms require him to act differently than the rest of the community. According to the list of rules Jonas is given, he is “prohibited from dreamtelling” and permitted to “lie,” which gives him freedom in language. The exemption from being rude through the ability to “ask any question of any citizen…[which] didn’t compel him to be rude; it simply allowed him the option” (Lowry 86) means Jonas interacts more freely with the other characters in the text, as well as creating an increased interaction between the words of the text and the reader. Ken Hyland’s “Stance and engagement: a model of interaction in academic discourse” assigns questions as strategy for positioning readers of a text. He explains that “Questions are the strategy of dialogic involvement par excellence, inviting engagement… They arouse interest and encourage the reader to explore an unresolved issue” (Hyland 185). While Hyland’s study is aimed at reviewing the effect of questions on a reader of academic works (and the research on questions promoting engagement is often carried out in the educational field), the essence of this idea underlies the effect Jonas’s questions have on a reader. Up until the point that Jonas is permitted to ask questions, he asks simple questions with clear, singular answers. He asks his father, “Did you find

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it?” (Lowry 15) in reference to the Naming List, from which Gabe’s name was gleaned. The reader does not know nor has any impetus to answer this question. The reader does not know the father is looking for the Naming List until the sentences directly preceding the question, and the reader knows the answer immediately after the question is asked. In developing a relationship between questions and engagement, is interesting to note that Jonas’s motivation for asking the questions was his fascination. Once permitted to ask questions as the Receiver, the frequency and intensity of his questions escalate. The questions are no longer as direct and readily accounted for as “Did you still play at all, after Twelve?” (Lowry 22) and “Did everyone applaud, even though they weren’t surprised?” (Lowry 21). As the Receiver, Jonas asks more complex questions in order to try to understand and challenge his dystopian world (Lowry 39). What is the relationship between the growing complexity in Jonas’s questions and the reader’s engagement? In “The Art of Asking Questions—A Pragmatic Approach of Interrogatives,” Bianca-Oana Han weaves together scholarship on the value and practice of a good question. She quotes Maryellen Weinmer’s online work on teachers designing thought-provoking questions in saying that “questions promote thinking even before they are answered” (Han 171). Han also shares Marshall Goldsmith’s The Art of Asking Questions, which explains: Ask an information-seeking question and you get only an answer or a fact. Ask an understanding-seeking question and you unleash a more powerful chain of events. The human brain is often compared to a computer, but it’s very different. Most computers are information-storage devices. Ask an information-seeking question, and the computer goes into a retrieval mode. Ask an understanding-seeking question, however, and the mind has to make up an answer. Computers cannot make up answers. An understanding-seeking question stimulates mental activity that creates insight. As the mind turns to respond to an understanding-seeking question, special new synapses are activated, triggering an insight experience. The more the mind experiences creative discovery, the more it hunts another insight. This pursuit of insight or discovery is curiosity. To the mind, curiosity is its own reward. The by-product of perpetual curiosity is wisdom. (Han 171)

In saying that questions position the readers’ engagement with the text and that complex questions promote thinking, the argument could be readers gain wisdom alongside Jonas. However, the idea here is that as the reader enters the text as an interlocutor through the questions, the reader gains what Jonas gains through the questions—frustration, hopelessness, sadness, confusion-- the emotional and mental trauma caused by the stress

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of being exposed to concentrated violence in the text. By the last sentence of the book, Jonas and the reader are more closely aligned. The first sentence of The Hunger Games trilogy signals an immediate relationship between Katniss and the reader upon awakening: “When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold” (Collins THG 3). In this sentence “when” Katniss comes into conscious being, so does the reader. On the very first line of the very first book, the reader and Katniss wake up together in the world of The Hunger Games. This blurring of forms, the self and character, underlies the story’s formation. Suzanne Collins describes the inception of The Hunger Games in an interview with James Blasingame at the 2008 National Council of Teachers of English Convention: The very moment when the idea came to me for The Hunger Games, however, happened one night when I was very tired and I was lying in bed channel surfing. I happened upon a reality program, recorded live, that pitted young people against each other for money. As I sleepily watched, the lines of reality started to blur for me, and the idea for the book emerged. (Blasingame 727)

Herein lies how readers experience the particular narrative form of first person, present tense texts. Readers blur with Katniss because they and Katniss both identify with the first person pronoun “I” and the reader both exist in a present moment. Robert M. Pirsig describes the effect of this in the Introduction to his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as the “magic” achieved “through the use of the first-person narrator” by explaining that: the first person is the most difficult form because the writer is locked inside the head of the narrator and can’t get out. He [the writer] can’t say ‘meanwhile, back at the ranch’ as a transition to another subject because he is imprisoned forever inside the narrator. But so is the reader! And that is the strength of the first-person narrator. (Pirsig xiii)

The power of the first-person narrator is its limited nature: a passionate relationship forms between the narrator and her reader because of an acute awareness of that narrator’s wants, needs, and desires. Likewise, readers are intensely concentrated in the “now” with Katniss. The Hunger Games reader internalizes Katniss’s experience. Wolfgang Iser’s “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach” describes the relationship between the reader and a written work as “The convergence of text and reader [that] brings the literary work into existence” (Iser 279). In this way, readers actually wake Katniss when

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they read the first lines. He uses “sequent sentences” to establish the idea that reading happens in time. Readers cannot absorb a work in a swallow, and reading is a process: the textual “word does not pass before the reader’s eye like a film”. As readers move from sentence to sentence, “The individual sentences not only work together to shade in what is to come; they also form an expectation in this regard. Philosopher Edmund Husserl “calls this expectation ‘pre-intentions’” (qtd. in Iser 282). Reading, sentence by sentence, an entire literary work does not bring about a “fulfilment of the expectation so much as a continual modification of it. For this reason, expectations are scarcely ever fulfilled in truly literary texts” (Iser 282). Prim dies by a similar expectation/modification process. She runs into a bombed area with an expectation of rescuing other children. This is modified as “the rest of the parachutes” explode (Collins MJ 347). Though Peeta and Katniss depend upon the “real or not real” game to confirm their own identity, the reader does not need to play the “real or not real” game and can distinguish what Katniss cannot in terms of reality. However, the reader expectations Iser defines, create a scenario in which some aspects of the reader’s understanding are destabilized along with Katniss’s because some of the readers’ expectations are Katniss’s expectations. In the Hunger Games arena, Katniss realizes strings are being pulled; she has the sense of “being played with” and “without consent, without knowledge” through an “elaborate plan” where she is meant “to be a piece” of a game out of her control (Collins CF 385). Even if a reader is somehow clever enough to predict the entire series and meet no shock other than waking up to find “the other side of the bed is cold” (Collins THG 3), the reader has experienced “a continual modification” of expectations because Katniss has. Readers’ certainty, an identity making quality, and their relationship to larger forces are shaken. Because of the proximity of the reader to the main character created through language as the text’s world is destabilized so is the reader. This happens too, in The Giver, when the reader comes to realize that Rosemary did not fail as the first Receiver because of a weakness. When Rosemary requests to be released, she takes control by poignantly injecting herself with whatever aid to suicide it contains. Here, the catharsis that ultimately reaches the reader outside of the book begins in the book.

The Value of Violence in the Age of Dystopia The form of broken beings in the text—the trauma and the experience of that trauma in the reader—is the negative aspect of the works. The

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function of the text—the outcomes and experience of reading it—is the positive. It is not positive because the ending is happy. On the level of characters this is clear, if Peeta and Katniss’s relationship comes to be understood as the tragic union of broken beings, where Katniss still “wake[s] screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children” (Collins MJ 388). The end of The Giver is not perfectly hopeful. Though Jonas heads towards a scene of family and happiness, the text poignantly ends with the phrase: “But perhaps it was only an echo” (Lowry 225), which works to temper the certainty of a joyful conclusion. Both Collins’s and Lowry’s work ends with new sets of problems rather than clear solutions for the characters, but there is some change in what constituted the negative circumstance for the characters. In “Utopia, Dystopia, and the Quest for Hope,” Jack Zipes explains that “Utopian and dystopian literature form a great discourse about hope” and, of young readers, claims that “once ‘struck with hope’ for a more humane world, children will want more” (Zipes xi). This argument rests on an increased activism in the readership or an abstract sense of positive potential. In reading The Hunger Games and The Giver, there is a more concrete way of thinking about the positive change that occurs in the readership. An emotive alteration changes the present reader’s experience of the world rather than thinking on the future. Aristotle’s Poetics develops the idea that tragedy “accomplish[es] by means of pity and terror the catharsis of such emotions” (Aristotle 92). This means that the outcome of the internalization of trauma is to purge the pity and fear that inspired it, a pity and fear empathetically gained through narrative proximity. Erika Gottlieb’s Dystopian Fiction East and West: Universe of Terror and Trial suggests that “there is a significant structural-thematic connection” between tragedy and modern dystopian fiction. (Gottlieb 3). However, Gottleib sees “the catharsis implied in the protagonist’s predicament…is there only for the reader who has finished the narrative, and it is contained more in an insight… in the cerebral recognition accompanying political satire than the emotional catharsis of tragedy” (Gottlieb 32). This would be a key difference in dystopian fiction for young adults, where the emotional catharsis of tragedy is still the product left for the reader based on the incredibly emotive (even if seemingly negative) experience of trauma through violence in literature. While young adult readers are made aware of and learn about the political and social worlds through the texts, they experience these worlds through the feelings of a traumatized protagonist, and this is what they come to know best in reading.

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In doing so, young readers have positive experiences that help them grow emotionally through exposure to violence. This sets violence in literature apart from the other popular forms of media violence. Whereas The Giver and The Hunger Games promote empathy through narrative strategy, “How Violent Video Games Communicate Violence: A Literature Review and Content Analysis of Moral Disengagement Factors” finds that “embedded in the narratives and actual game play of 17 top ranked first-person shooters” (Hartmann et al 310) there are “factors or cues that… influence the way in which individuals frame their violent acts” (Hartmann et al 312), including language-based such as “euphemistic labeling” or referencing opponents by dehumanizing names and perspective-based issues such as a limited view of the aftermath of violent acts. Embedded in the narratives of The Giver and The Hunger Games trilogy are language-based strategies that engage the reader in considering the position of the other (like when Katniss takes on the term “mutt” for herself) and perspective-based strategies that require the reader to remain in the aftermath of violence (like when Jonas must process, without fair or clear answers, the aftermath of difficult memories). The rise of Dystopian YA fiction may not only provide an alternative experience of the physical suffering inherent to the genre that is positive for young readers but also a way of acclimating readers towards the violence they will experience in different representational modes. In reading characters within a violent culture, readers are brought to an understanding of violence rather than simply an exposure to it. Many other forms of entertainment perform only the latter service. In her article, “Fueling the Spectacle: Audience as ‘Gamemaker’”, Shannon R. Mortimore-Smith poignantly imagines how “readers” or users figure themselves into other available forms of entertainment: It is inconceivable to fathom ‘arenas’ large enough to house the millions of viewers who tune in from the comfort of their recliners each week to watch American Idol, Survivor, Teen Mom, and Jersey Shore. Yet these millions, with one hand planted firmly on the remote control and the other buried in a bowl of buttered popcorn, continue to influence the outcomes of those they observe. Like Capitol fans who watch the Hunger Games, insulated by their own apathy and far from any ‘real’ danger or consequences, our audiences relish the ruin and humiliation, the unpredictability, and the spectacle that unfold in the lives of their beloved reality television stars. (Mortimer-Smith 159)

In regards to The Hunger Games trilogy, Mortimore-Smith writes “readers are no doubt entertained, but have they learned, like Katniss, the importance of practicing critical reflection and conscientious pause?”

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(Mortimer-Smith 165). I would assert that yes, readers have learned but not because she has shown readers what critical reflection is, but because they have practiced it with her. They have walked with Katniss across a bloody battlefield and known the righteousness of singing Rue to final sleep. While the characters in The Hunger Games trilogy and The Giver are exposed to extreme violence, the text makes no argument for continued violence. The dangers of violence are not only presented and transformed in fiction but can also be directly addressed by that same fiction. The Hunger Games trilogy and The Giver themselves form arguments about how to approach trauma productively. The collective thinking produced by the experience of this novel is much larger than its individual characters and much more positive than their experiences. By the end of the traumatic experiences, Collins and Lowry offer ideas on the value of their own texts. The text reinforces the value of art when in the final pages of The Mockingjay, the reader encounters the production of a book, painting, and a song (Collins MJ 387-90). At the last moment, the reader is reminded of the very form he or she holds in hand, a book. The power of the emotive experience of reading is the crux of the novel’s meaning, the bread of it. Katniss and Peeta will tell their children of Panem through a book. Similarly, Jonas discovers “certainty and joy” (Lowry 225) in the sound of music and people singing and thus The Giver presents music and art as valuable tools, by which readers can find direction. There is value in young adult readers finding violence in dystopian worlds. These books have often been banned because of adults who fear the violence will be too much for young readers. However, banning rather than finding a way to understand and treat violence is counterproductive. In his article “’Not Censorship but Selection’: Censorship and/as Prizing,” Kenneth Kidd notes that censorship counterintuitively creates value for it. This alone suggests we question the value of censorship. Young people are exposed to violence on TV, computers, video game consoles and the internet; for those parents who would shelter their children, there’s also the risk of uncontrolled conversations with children who do watch these things. Even the formidable Capitol and the Speaker in Jonas’s world could not successfully keep everything from those children (or adults) they were supposed to shelter. People are often brave or curious enough to test their supposed limits and escape despite the obstacles put in their way.

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Works Cited Aristotle. "Poetics." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. By Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. 88-118. Print. Barrie, J. M. Peter Pan. USA: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911. Print. Banned and Challenged Books. The American Library Association, 04 Mar. 2009. Web. Jan 2015. Boudinot, David. "Violence and Fear in Folktales." The Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children's Literature 9.3 (2005). Web. 1 Jan. 2015. Basu, Balaka, Katherine R. Broad and Carrie Hintz. Introduction. Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults: Brave New Teenagers. By Basu, Broad and Hintz. NY: Routledge, 2013. 1-15. Print. Collins, Suzanne. Interview with James Blasingame. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 52.8 (May 2009): 726. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Jan 2015. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print. —. Catching Fire. New York: Scholastic, 2009. Print. —. Mockingjay. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Print. Foerstel, Herbert N. Banned in the U.S.A.: A Reference Guide to Book Censorship in Schools and Public Libraries. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994. Print. Gottlieb, Erika. Dystopian Fiction East and West: Universe of Terror and Trial. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2001. Print. Han, Bianca-Oana. "The Art of Asking Questions - A Pragmatic Approach of Interrogatives." Studia Universitatis Petru Maior-Philologia 17 (2014): 169-172. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 1 Jan. 2015. Hartmann, Tilo, K. Maja Krakowiak, and Mina Tsay-Vogel. "How Violent Video Games Communicate Violence: A Literature Review and Content Analysis Of Moral Disengagement Factors." Communication Monographs 81.3 (2014): 310-332. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 11 Aug. 2015. Herman, David. "Narrative Worlds: Space, Setting, Perspective." Narrative Theory. David Herman, James Phelan, Peter J.Rabinowitz, Brian Richardson and Robyn Warhol. Columbus: Ohio State U, 2012. 98-102. Print. Hyland, Ken. "Stance and engagement: a model of interaction in Academic Discourse." Discourse Studies 7.2 (May 2005): 173-192. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 1 Jan. 2015.

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Iser, Wolfgang. "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach." New Literary History (Winter 1972): 279-299. JSTOR. Web. 11 Aug 2015. Kidd, Kenneth. "‘Not Censorship but Selection’: Censorship and/as Prizing." Children's Literature in Education 40.3 (Sept 2009):197-216. Web. Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. Print. Mailloux, Steven. "Thinking with Rhetorical Figures: Performing Racial and Disciplinary Identities in Late-Nineteenth-Century America." American Literary History18.4 (Winter 2006): 695-711. JSTOR. Web. 1 Jan. 2015. McDonald, George. The Princess and the Goblin. Project Gutenburg. 27 Sept. 2008. Web. May 2015. Mortimore-Smith, Shannon R. "Fueling the Spectacle: Audience as ‘Gamemaker’" Of Bread, Blood, and the Hunger Games: Critical Essays on the Suzanne Collins Trilogy. Ed. Mary Pharr and Leisa A. Clark. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 2012. 158-166. Print. Nimon, Maureen. "Violence in Children's Literature Today." Ed. Dreams and Dynamics: Selected Papers from the Annual Conference of the International Association of School Librarianship. Adelaide, South Australia. (1993): ERIC. Web. 1 Jan. 2015. PDF file. Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York: Harper Torch, 2006. Print. Sendak, Maurice. “Where the Wild Things Are.” NOW ON PBS. By Bill Moyers. 12 March 2004. Web. May 2015. Stahl, J. D., Tina L. Hanlon, and Elizabeth Lennox Keyser. Preface. Crosscurrents of Children's Literature: An Anthology of Texts and Criticism. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. xxxv-xli. Print. Tatar, Maria. Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1992. Print. Totaro, Rebecca Carol Noel. "Suffering in Utopia: Testing the Limits in Young Adult Novels." Utopian and Dystopian Writing for Children and Young Adults. Ed. Carrie Hintz and Elaine Ostry. New York: Routledge, 2003. 127-138. Print. Wintle, Justin, and Emma Fisher. "Roald Dahl Interviewed by Justin Wintle."The Pied Pipers: Interviews with the Influential Creators of Children's Literature. New York: Paddington, 1975. 101-112. Print. Wintle, Justin, and Emma Fisher. "Madeleine L'Engle Interviewed by Justin Wintle." The Pied Pipers: Interviews with the Influential Creators of Children's Literature. New York: Paddington, 1975. 240262. Print

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Zipes, Jack. "Utopia, Dystopia, and the Quest for Hope." Foreword. Utopian and Dystopian Writing for Children and Young Adults. By Carrie Hintz and Elaine Ostry. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.

CHAPTER SEVEN WHO ARE YOU WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING? THE HUNGER GAMES, SURVEILLANCE, AND THE SEARCH FOR SELF MOLLY BROST

Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the protagonists of Suzanne Collins’ best-selling Hunger Games series, manage to survive both the seventy-fourth Hunger Games, a televised competition in which the government of Panem forces teenagers to fight to the death, and the following year’s Quarter Quell, which pits previous victors against each other. However, Peeta is left with a question for Katniss: “Did you love me?” (Collins, Mockingjay 231). Captured by the government following a botched escape attempt from the Quarter Quell, Peeta has withstood horrific torture, including, but not limited to, “hijacking,” a painful procedure that distorts the victim’s memories. The hijacking has left Peeta terrified of Katniss, the girl he once professed to love, and, perhaps even worse, unable to judge which of his memories are “real” or “not real.” Though Katniss has managed to avoid similar torture, performing for so long in front of a televised audience has left her similarly confused: does the fact that her romance with Peeta was initially staged for the cameras mean that it wasn’t real, in spite of all that she and Peeta have been through together? Are her feelings for childhood friend Gale more real just because they developed off-camera? And when so much of her day-to-day life continues to involve fighting for survival, should romance really be at the top of her list of concerns, anyway? Though the dystopian society that Peeta and Katniss inhabit is horrific, to be sure, it is not completely unfamiliar. One review of the first novel of the series compared it to contemporary reality television, “in which the ‘stars’ are real people from dire circumstances who have fabulous wealth dangled in front of them only to have it snatched away at the last moment” (Blasingame et. al.). Further, it is not unusual for dystopian novels to use

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familiar (albeit distorted) fare as subject matter; scholars G. Wesley Burnett and Lucy Rollin suggest that “dystopias usually exaggerate contemporary social trends and in doing so, offer serious social criticism” (77). Margaret J. Daniels and Heather E. Bowen clarify that dystopian fiction typically “dramatically addresses universal fears of a monstrous situation” (423). However, as journalist Charles McGrath observes, “most young adult novels are not written by young adults. They’re grown-up guesses or projections about what we suspect or hope might be on the minds of teenagers” (9). Scholar Kay Sambell further notes the “educational and ethical responsibilities typically associated with the act of addressing a non-peer audience,” stating that such perceived responsibilities are often based “upon the notion of the adult informing, guiding, and protecting the child” (251). Thus, while young adult dystopian fiction may or may not feature issues that real teenagers are concerned about, they offer their adult authors the opportunity to alert young readers to the trends and practices in their lives that might be considered problematic or disturbing. With that in mind, in a world where social media and reality television are increasingly part of everyday life for both teenagers and adults, it makes sense that technology and surveillance play a large role in Collins’ Hunger Games series. Rather than claim that such things have caused the dystopian society present in the novels, however, Collins instead interrogates the ways these things affect the lives of the surveilled and televised contestants of the Hunger Games. Constantly being watched, she seems to argue, not only puts one in the position of being held constantly accountable for their actions; it leads the individual to change his or her behavior consciously, deliberately. While this gives those being watched some power over how they are perceived and even how others respond to them, it ultimately results in individuals who are distrustful of and uncertain about their relationships, emotions, and identities.

Surveillance, Dystopian Fiction, and Contemporary Society Surveillance is not a new theme in utopian and dystopian literature. Scholar Peter Marks states that “fictional works from [Thomas] More through [George] Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and beyond have long provided vivid, provocative and critically informed accounts of surveillance practices and trends” (222). Nineteen Eighty-Four has provided particularly iconic terminology and imagery regarding surveillance. As novelist Anthony Burgess notes, “there are many who, not knowing Orwell’s novel

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Nineteen Eighty-Four, nevertheless know such terms as doublethink and Newspeak and Big Brother” (8). However, as scholar Mark Andrejevic observes, while “Big Brother may have been portrayed as hostile and forbidding during the Cold War era,” attitudes toward surveillance have changed in contemporary society (252). Journalist Ari Melber argues that “Growing up online, young people assume their inner circle knows their business. The ‘new privacy’ is about controlling how many people know—not if anyone knows” (22). Young people, then, do not expect to have total privacy; they simply expect to have some control over the information and images that are broadcast. Melber cites Facebook and similar sites as playing a large role in this, asserting that “social networking sites are rupturing the traditional conception of privacy and priming a new generation for complacency in a surveillance society” (22). Andrejevic believes that such complacency is highly profitable for some: [Big Brother] is currently receiving a glossy Hollywood makeover as a poster boy for the benefits of high-tech surveillance. His rehabilitation is a crucial component of the online economy, which is increasingly reliant on the economic value of information gathered through sophisticated interactive communication technologies. However, before he can be openly embraced by online commerce, he has to win public acceptance as a non-threatening—even entertaining and benevolent--pop-culture icon. (252)

Interestingly, this is similar to how the Party in Oceania, the dystopia described in Nineteen Eighty-Four, would have ideally wanted Big Brother to be viewed by the public. Burgess notes that “[Big Brother] must be obeyed, but he must also be loved” (6). Some have noticed that this is indeed happening. According to scholar Justin Lewis, the reality television show Big Brother illustrates this change in attitude. As he states, In an elegant twist, George Orwell’s metaphor has turned in on itself, as people compete with one another to live in a house under constant surveillance—watched not by shadowy government officials but by people in search of entertainment. The connotations of the phrase “Big Brother” are no longer sinister but benign, a chance for people defined as ordinary to reach the modest heights of C-list celebrity stardom. (296)

Thus, in some cases, people are not only willing to be watched, but eager. However, scholars John M. Sloop and Joshua Gunn wonder about the consequences of being so comfortable with surveillance; as they ask, “What happens when we no longer fear surveillance but actually

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experience the gaze as a form of pleasurable or compulsory publicity?” (290). The Hunger Games provides an avenue to examine the relationship between those surveilling and those being watched. While the characters in The Hunger Games do not necessarily enjoy being under surveillance, the Games are televised and the contestants therefore have the opportunity to respond to and, at times, utilize surveillance in ways that are new for them. At home in the districts, the citizens of Panem are concerned about the possibility of surveillance and avoid saying anything too subversive for fear the Capitol might be listening and punish them. After being chosen for the Hunger Games, though, they can assume that they are almost always being watched, meaning that they understand and accept the necessity of appearing appealing for the viewing audience. They also, at times, are able to use the surveillance to their own advantage.

The Power of the Watcher The process of being made appealing for the viewing audience begins as soon as the contestants arrive at the capitol of Panem to prepare for the games; each contestant is assigned a prep team to help them look good on camera. Katniss arrives in the “Remake Center,” where, she tells us, after her first three hours there, “[…] my prep team have addressed some obvious problems. This has included scrubbing down my body with a gritty foam that has removed not only dirt but at least three layers of skin, turning my nails into uniform shapes, and primarily, ridding my body of hair” (Collins, The Hunger Games 61). She not only is cleaned, made up, and styled to fit the Capitol’s standards of beauty, but also is told (sometimes by her stylist, Cinna; sometimes by Effie Trinket, who has escorted the District Twelve contestants to the Capitol; and sometimes by Haymitch Abernathy, a previous victor from District Twelve who serves as Katniss and Peeta’s mentor) to behave in specific ways in order to gain the favor of sponsors, who might send useful things during the competition. Most notably, this involves fabricating a romance with Peeta, the other contestant from her home, District Twelve. Peeta surprises her by announcing to the world that he has a crush on her during his televised pre-competition interview. While she is initially angry, Haymitch helps her realize that Peeta has actually helped her: “He made you look desirable! And let’s face it, you can use all the help you can get in that department. You were about as romantic as dirt until he said he wanted you. Now they all do. You’re all they’re talking about. The star-crossed

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lovers from District Twelve” (Collins, The Hunger Games 135). When Katniss protests that she and Peeta aren’t star-crossed lovers, Haymitch dismisses her: “It’s all a big show. It’s all how you’re perceived” (Collins, The Hunger Games 135). The audience’s perception is more important in the context of the Games than reality. This preoccupation with audience perception is something that is also of great concern in contemporary reality shows. Marks observes the power that the audience can have, stating that in actual reality shows such as Big Brother […] levels of danger, raunchiness, and absurdity have been increased to satisfy or create audience demand. The television audience in [the fictional 1998 film] The Truman Show, like those watching reality shows at home, […] would no doubt reject any links to Orwell, but it seems undeniable that collectively they play a powerful part in contemporary regimes of surveillance now accessible from home (228).

Because of the audience’s power, then, cast members often play to them. As Lee Barron notes in his analysis of Big Brother, “because [the contestants] are the subjects of such pervasive inspection, they must strive to put on a show in order to survive. If they do nothing of note to endear themselves to the viewers and their housemates, eviction is a risk” (36). Thus, it makes sense that Katniss’s team would encourage her to “put on a show” for the cameras. However, this can be somewhat risky, as well; as Barron asserts, “too much of a performance risks denunciation—on the grounds of being a fake—by spectators and contestants alike” (36). Reality show contestants must appear “real” even when trying to get the audience’s attention. With this in mind, it stands to reason that Katniss has the most success when she is “being herself,” both in the Hunger Games and in televised appearances after the show. In Mockingjay, after Panem has descended into war, Katniss reluctantly becomes the face of the revolution. However, her initial attempt at a taped television spot, in which she is simply to say the line, “People of Panem, we fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice!,” is a disaster: “And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies,” Haymitch quips (Collins, Mockingjay 72). Afterwards, looking for alternative strategies, the characters brainstorm moments when Katniss genuinely moved them during the Hunger Games; all were “unscripted” moments when Katniss wasn’t being told what to do or say, such as, for example, when she volunteered to take her sister’s place in the competition, and when she paid tribute to fellow contestant Rue following

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Rue’s death. Audience members could sense when she was being “genuine,” and preferred her in that state. Further, even Peeta, who was also a contestant on the show and thus aware of the importance of gaining audience support, is upset at the end of the first novel when he learns that Katniss was sometimes “acting” for the cameras. Though he later admits that it “wasn’t fair to hold [her] to anything that happened in the games” and that she was “just keeping [them] alive,” he continues to grow frustrated any time he learns that Katniss is being less than honest with him (Collins, Catching Fire 51). In Catching Fire, the second novel in the series, for example, when he and Katniss take a “Victory Tour” of the districts of Panem following their Hunger Games win, he is angry when he learns that Katniss has hidden the fact that their lives may still be in danger: “…after all we went through in the arena, don’t I even rate the truth from you?” (Collins 66). This is perhaps understandable; as scholars Estella Tincknell and Parvati Raghuram observe, the relationships on reality television are “formed in isolation, without access or reference to the outside world, and [are] intensified to a far greater degree than in ‘real life’” (259). It is no wonder that Peeta feels offended when it seems that Katniss is being dismissive of him, or careless with his feelings. It is equally understandable, however, that Katniss would be uncertain of her feelings for him. For all of the intense feelings that might develop on reality television, after all, some have realized that many contestants never forget that they are on camera; as television producer John Kalish noted of the cast members of the first United States season of Big Brother, “they were always talking about how they were being edited, story lines, looking into cameras, being aware of it” (326); in fact, he stated, they never “let go of the idea of being observed…They always referred to themselves as ‘characters’ as opposed to people” (326). For some, it is virtually impossible to “be yourself” in front of the camera; with that in mind, it is unsurprising that Katniss would question whether there was any substance to the relationship she formed with Peeta during the Games.

The Power of the Watched In spite of the insecurities that might develop from constantly being watched, however, many scholars argue that reality television in and of itself is not wholly a bad thing. As scholar Su Holmes notes, “the development of Reality TV has made it impossible to escape the fact that we have seen an appreciable rise in the number of ‘ordinary’ people appearing on television” (111). While she acknowledges that critics still

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find the relationship between Reality TV and its participants exploitative, she states that “others have adopted a position which conceives of the ‘ordinary’ person as evidence of the ‘democratising’ [sic] ethos of reality TV” (111-112). Laurie Ouellette and Susan Murray further assert that “its use of real people or nonactors contributes to the diversification of television culture. Survivor, for example, has made it a point to use people from diverse age, racial, geographic, class, and sexual backgrounds” (8). Thus, reality television provides opportunities for a wider range of people to appear on television. In Collins’s fictional world, however, very few want to appear in the Hunger Games, as participation on the show is almost certainly a death sentence. What’s more, the deck is unfairly stacked against the poorest residents of Panem; as Katniss points out, though every child between the ages of twelve and eighteen has his or her name entered in the Hunger Games lottery at least once, you can opt to have your name submitted more times in exchange for grain and oil—hot commodities in a society where many of the residents are starving. Further, the wealthier contestants have an unfair advantage; as Katniss tells us, “the kids from the wealthier districts…have been fed and trained throughout their lives for this moment” (Collins, Hunger Games 94). Thus, Collins would likely see the idea of reality TV as a democratizing force as a joke; while in the contemporary United States, contestants do have a choice whether or not to appear on reality television and the stakes are not nearly as high, the idea of instant wealth and celebrity is undoubtedly more appealing to those who do not have access to those things in their everyday lives. That is not to say that the contestants, either on contemporary reality television shows or in the Hunger Games, have no power. Scholar Pamela Wilson, for example, recalls an instance in which Big Brother contestants planned a mass walkout from the show; as she states, “seeking their ‘chance to make history’ and to make a profoundly anti-capitalist statement as they chose friendship over prize money, they gravely threatened the very premise of the show’s competitive commercialism and the network’s ability to continue its run” (327). Though the walkout “was ultimately defused and contained by the producers…the producers’ hold over the narrative outcome was tenuous for a few days as chaos from outside intervention and internal rebellion threatened to radically alter the program’s planned plotline” (327). Because the editors cannot predict all of the cast members’ actions even within the staged environment they have created, they must find ways to turn what the cast members throw at them into “good TV.”

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There is similar interplay between the gamemakers of the Hunger Games and its contestants. For example, when the gamemakers fear that things are getting a bit dull, they might throw additional obstacles at the contestants or draw them into battle with each other. Katniss finds herself running from a gamemaker-created fire at one point in the games; later, after the competition has been narrowed down to only six contestants, the gamemakers invite them to a feast where each of them will find a backpack containing something that they badly need for survival. This tactic provides great amounts of drama, as Katniss drugs Peeta in order to go after the backpack, then finds herself in a battle with fellow contestant Clove that she only survives thanks to a third contestant, Thresh. However, though the gamemakers believe that they are always in control, Katniss and Peeta are ultimately able to survive the Hunger Games—a game which traditionally has only one winner—by manipulating the system. They force the Capitol to declare them both winners by threatening to eat poisonous berries rather than kill each other. Later, in the Quarter Quell, Katniss and other contestants even manage to work together to escape from the competition.

The Consequences of Surveillance It is here that we see that even for those who “win” in surveillance culture, there are consequences. Not only does the government see Katniss and Peeta as potential threats for defying the rules of the Hunger Games, but in response to the question Peeta asks Katniss following his hijacking—“Did you love me?,”—Katniss can only respond, “Everyone says I did” (Collins, Mockingjay 231). It is only long after the end of the Hunger Games, the Quarter Quell, and, indeed, the fall of Panem as they know it, that Katniss can confidently assert her feelings for Peeta, and he can be confident that she’s telling the truth. It seems, then, that though intense feelings might develop within the confines of a surveillance culture, it is only when the cameras are turned off that one might be able to determine with any degree of certainty whether those feelings are real.

Works Cited Andrejevic, Mark. “The Kinder, Gentler Gaze of Big Brother: Reality TV in the Era of Digital Capitalism.” New Media and Society. 4 (2) (2002): 251-270. Print. Barron, Lee. “From Social Experiment to Postmodern Joke: Big Brother and the Progressive Construction of Celebrity.” The Tube Has Spoken:

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Reality TV & History. Eds. Julie Anne Taddeo and Ken Dvorak. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010. 27-46. Print. Blasingame, James, et al. “The Hunger Games.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 52 (8) (2009): 724-739. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 July 2011. Burnett, G. Wesley, and Lucy Rollin. “Anti-Leisure in Dystopian Fiction: the Literature of Leisure in the Worst of All Possible Worlds.” Leisure Studies. 19 (2000): 77-90. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 July 2011. Burgess, Anthony. 1985. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1978. Print. Collins, Suzanne. Catching Fire. New York: Scholastic Press, 2009. Print. —. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press, 2008. Print. —. Mockingjay. New York: Scholastic Press, 2010. Print. Daniels, Margaret J., and Heather E. Bowen. “Feminist Implications of Anti-leisure in Dystopian Fiction.” Journal of Leisure Research. 35 (4) (2003): 423-440. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 November 2011. Holmes, Su. “‘All you’ve got to worry about is the task, having a cup of tea, and doing a bit of sunbathing’: approaching celebrity in Big Brother.” Understanding Reality Television. Eds. Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. New York: Routledge, 2004. 111-135. Print. Lewis, Justin. “The Meaning of Real Life.” Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture. Eds. Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York: New York University Press, 2004. 288-302. Print. Marks, Peter. “Imagining Surveillance: Utopian Visions and Surveillance Studies.” Surveillance and Society. 3 (2/3) (2005): 222-239. Print. McGrath, Charles. “Teenage Wastelands.” New York Times Magazine. 20 February 2011. Web. 3 November 2011. Melber, Ari. “About Facebook.” The Nation. 7/14 January 2008. Web. 25 July 2011. Oullette, Laurie, and Susan Murray. “Introduction.” Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture. Eds. Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York: New York University Press, 2004. 1-15. Print. Sambell, Kay. “Carnivalizing the Future: A New Approach to Theorizing Childhood and Adulthood in Science Fiction for Young Readers.” The Lion and the Unicorn, 28 (2) (April 2004): 247-267. Project Muse. Web. 30 April 2015. Sloop, John M. and Joshua Gunn. “Status Control: An Admonition Concerning the Publicized Privacy of Social Networking.” The Communication Review. 13 (2010): 289-303. Print. Tincknell, Estella, and Parvati Raghuram. “Big Brother: Reconfiguring the ‘Active’ Audience of Cultural Studies?” Understanding Reality

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Television. Eds. Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. New York: Routledge, 2004. 252-269. Print. Wilson, Pamela. “Jamming Big Brother: Webcasting, Audience Intervention, and Narrative Activism.” Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture. Eds. Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York: New York University Press, 2004. 323-343. Print.

CHAPTER EIGHT THE HUNGER GAMES IN THE ARENA OF DYSTOPIAN LITERACY NICOLE DU PLESSIS

“A small, white-haired man who seems vaguely familiar is reading a book. He holds up a finger as if to say, ‘Give me a moment.’ Then he turns and my heart skips a beat. I’m staring into the snakelike eyes of President Snow.” —Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

When, in the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy Catching Fire, President Snow appears in Katniss’s house in Victor’s Village to confront her about the subversive “trick” that saves her and Peeta at the conclusion of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, everything about their encounter is calculated to intimidate and unsettle Katniss. Although he is positioned in the upstairs room for no other reason than to meet with her, Snow makes Katniss wait, conveying—in a power-play that is also a quintessential “busy adult” gesture—that the current object of his focus is more significant than she. The object in question is a book—one of only three books that enter the action of the trilogy, and its subject is unknown. In wielding the book as a power symbol, President Snow joins the ranks of literate oppressors in dystopian literature, alongside Mustapha Mond in Brave New World, Captain Beatty in Fahrenheit 451, and the Commander in The Handmaid’s Tale. In each of these classic works, political power is very deliberately and explicitly tied to the ability to read. Including 1984 in the list yields four prominent dystopian texts in which literacy is not only tied to power, it is also a means of controlling the populace. In a genre that frequently, conspicuously institutionalizes restriction of literacy, however, the Hunger Games trilogy stands out as an exception. In spite of Snow’s use of the book as a symbol in Catching Fire, his book never becomes anything other than a symbol. In addition, there is no evidence that literacy is deliberately censored or forbidden in Panem. A reader may

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completely overlook literacy as an issue in the novels, focusing instead on media manipulation, the individual in an oppressive society, cultural desensitization, and violence. Yet scenes of literate activity—reading, writing, collaboration on and use of texts—though rare, intersect with key themes of power and survival, situating Collins’s novels in dialogue with the dystopian literacy fiction of the twentieth century. While demonstrating the continued relevance not only of dystopia, but of the literacy theme, Collins’s trilogy emerges as a distinctively twenty-first century, postliterate dystopia—one that assumes literacy or takes it for granted, as its audience is likely to do—even as it underscores the power of written texts. For a writer of dystopian fiction in English, as for its readers, certain texts are so closely associated with the genre as to be touchstones—points of reference for placing a novel within the genre and for characterizing its treatment of prominent themes. With The Hunger Games, one superficial point of reference is Lord of the Flies, with its depiction of the spontaneous savagery and cruelty of children—even the most “civilized” —in the State of Nature.1 Meanwhile, in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, Collins evokes—whether deliberately or not—the setting of Huxley’s Brave New World and the climax of Orwell’s 1984. When Katniss discovers, in her suite in the training facility, the different buttons, soaps, and functions of the shower, or when Peeta jokes about pressing the wrong button and smelling like roses as a consequence, a reader familiar with Brave New World might recall the scent machines of the engineered society, and John Savage’s bewilderment by the technology. When Katniss dreams that the victor from District 4, old Mags, transforms into a rodent and gnaws at her face, it is impossible to overlook a reference to Orwell’s 1984. Along with Brave New World and 1984, two other dystopian texts become important for a reading of The Hunger Games that considers the place of literacy in Panem: Fahrenheit 451 and The Handmaid’s Tale. These texts, which form a foundation of prominent dystopian fiction in English, are notable because each demonstrates a preoccupation with the function(s) of literacy in society and in the life of an individual.

Literacy in Dystopia Perhaps because dystopian fiction depicts more obvious or novel means of oppression— dehumanizing advanced technologies, for example —criticism of dystopian fiction tends largely to bypass the problem of print-based literacy. Even in analysis of Fahrenheit 451, a novel preoccupied with displacement of books by what we have come to know

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as flat screen televisions, critics have tended to identify censorship as the primary theme rather than how “the public itself stopped reading of its own accord” (Bradbury 87). In response to the half-century of criticism, Ray Bradbury “corrected” the dominant interpretation of the novel in 2007, via the L.A. Weekly: Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands. This, despite the fact that reviews, critiques and essays over the decades say that is precisely what it is all about. Even Bradbury’s authorized biographer, Sam Weller, in The Bradbury Chronicles, refers to Fahrenheit 451 as a book about censorship. Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature. (Johnston)

Bradbury’s statement suggests that even when not readily identified by critics as an urgent concern, representation of literacy can and should be considered an important part of the dystopian vision. The position that dystopian fiction occupies either in dialogue with utopian fiction and utopian ideals or as a foil gives another indication of the importance of literacy in particular, and education more broadly, in considerations of dystopia. Utopian literature, in presenting an ideal vision of society, generally includes ideal models of education that may or may not include traditional “book learning.” 2 By contrast, dystopian fiction, often divided into the categories of “anti-utopia” and “critical dystopia,” presents a criticism of society that challenges utopian ideals by logically extending the social engineering that produces an ideal society, or by issuing a warning about the result of contemporary society’s current trajectory. The bleak, dystopian counter-vision is often one in which printbased literacy is devalued, absent, or restricted. As an example of how utopian ideals can influence depictions of widespread prohibition of literacy, D. H. Lawrence’s Fantasia of the Unconscious offers an ideal vision of the place of education in society in order to counter the problem of literate humanity as “fretting our lives away and hating to die because we have never lived” (Lawrence 88). Lawrence proposes what is essentially a totalitarian state that would give individuals the freedom of being able to live without worrying: The secret is, to commit into the hands of the sacred few the responsibility which now lies like torture on the mass. Let the few, the leaders, be

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Giving the responsibility into the hands of the few who would remove responsibility from the masses to provide for their happiness creates a system by which individuals would not need to think, and in which having ideas could be dangerous to the function and stability of the whole. In their depictions of dystopian states that prohibit literacy, Huxley, Orwell, and Bradbury dramatize the extreme consequences of utopian theories about the nature of thought, responsibility, and happiness. The earliest in what might be considered a discursive progression of dystopian literacy fiction, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, with its depiction of a society in which individuals are conditioned—physically and psychologically—to accept their societal roles, offers a vision in which limited, utilitarian literacy and decontextualized, poetic literacy contrast with the robust, well-informed literacy of the dictator. June Chase Hankins, in an article emphasizing the need to foster critical analysis in students, observes how “Brave New World can be read as one vision of what happens when a culture abandons the written word as its dominant medium of public discourse and adopts electronic media instead” (43). While the correspondence is not exact, she describes the society of Brave New World in terms of “secondary orality,” a state described by Walter Ong “in which new orality is sustained by telephone, radio, television, and other electronic devices that depend for their existence and functioning on writing and print” (Ong 11). Hankins further characterizes the upper-caste citizens’ reading in Brave New World as “[n]ot illiterate but passively literate,” as “citizens read the same way they take in messages from television, radio, loudspeakers, tape recordings, and feelies: only to receive facts, values, and sensations from their rulers. Citizens never read, write, listen, or watch critically or analytically. They encounter books only as reference tools—repositories of facts—never for philosophical reflection” (44). In the early pages of the novel, for example, upper-caste students take notes “[s]traight from the horse’s mouth into the notebook,” without processing the information, or even writing legibly (Huxley 4-5). “Feelies”—films that stimulate the senses—are preferable to reading Shakespeare, particularly as a distraction for young people, who are not encouraged “to indulge in solitary amusements” (Huxley 163). Rescued from the “New Mexican Reservation,” John Savage, who imposes his “exaggerated individualism,” rigid moral code, and judgmental tendencies (Hankins 45) on the engineered society, seems representative of traditional literacy in Huxley’s novel because he learns to read outside of the constraints of civilization. While John’s devotion to

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Shakespeare’s texts stands in contrast to the absence of true literature and philosophical reading, his near-mystical use of the texts and lack of cultural context for understanding the plays’ meaning ultimately fail to give him the tools to process new information about the world, or to adapt to new circumstances. By contrast, Mustapha Mond, the World Controller, emerges as the most highly literate figure in the civilized world, because, as the one who makes the laws regarding literacy, he “can also break them” (219). Among the catalog of books he has read are Shakespeare, the Bible, Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ, William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience, and volumes by Cardinal Newman and Maine de Biran; his astute observations about art and beauty, or the inverse relationship between great literature and social stability clearly result from his broad study of literature and philosophy (219-221). Having chosen to put his intellect in the service of the Sovereign Good, he has educated himself on the cultural capital that has been rejected in favor of collective happiness. He is thus able, in his role as censor, to anticipate the influence of ideas disseminated in print on the most intelligent members of the society. When analyzing a paper that he ultimately denies publication, Mond gives insight into the power of literacy to destabilize the social engineering that keeps the citizens in a state of contentment: It was a masterly piece of work. But once you begin admitting explanations in terms of purpose—well, you didn’t know what the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes—make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere; that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. (177)

Even when the ideas themselves are not subversive of the social order, books, in addition to providing cheap entertainment in an economy based on consumption, encourage speculation and a possible conflict of interest between the intellectual and the State. George Orwell, who is famously concerned with language, depicts institutionalized punishment for literacy in his bleaker dystopian vision 1984 for a similar reason—because the State wishes to avoid conflict with individuals capable of reasoning and analysis, who would ultimately form subversive ideas. To underscore the danger of literacy, the most dangerous symbolic object—so dangerous it cannot be mentioned freely—is a book purportedly written by Goldstein, the Enemy of the People (15), but

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ultimately created by propagandists to out subversives. Accordingly, Winston’s first act of rebellion, in the first pages of the novel, is not even to write in, but simply to possess a journal (9). In these early pages, the impact of literacy on an individual becomes clear as, in contrast to his previous inability to remember details of his childhood, the act of writing allows Winston to recover a memory from the morning that he had lost (7, 11-12). The impact of restricted literacy is equally clear; without practice “[i]t was curious that he seemed not merely to have lost the power of expressing himself, but even to have forgotten what it was he had originally intended to say” (10). However, it is because of its benefits for the individual that literacy is to be feared by the State in 1984; “[f]or if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves,” inevitably leading to an overthrow of the oppressive government (Orwell 156-157). Like 1984, Fahrenheit 451 echoes Brave New World, with the greatest good for an individual being, according to Captain Beatty “happiness,” which resembles something like contentment. Happiness comes from entertainment by way of sensory stimuli, rather like the use of “feelies” in Brave New World: “Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn’t that right? Haven’t you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren’t they? Don’t we keep them moving, don’t we give them fun? That’s all we live for, isn’t it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these.” (Bradbury 59)

Though the idea of happiness keeps books away from people in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and in Brave New World, in Bradbury’s novel, the people and their technology are agents of their own oppression. As Captain Beatty tells Montag the “unofficial” history of book burning, he reveals that “[t]here was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick…Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time” (Bradbury 58). In Fahrenheit 451, books are suspect because they are not simple; they contain contradictory information (38). Book-learning sets the ‘bright’ person apart from others (58). And, inevitably, contradictory ideas and bright people are a danger. Captain Beatty, who “has read enough so he has all the answers” explains further that “[a] book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?

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Me? I won’t stomach them for a minute” (89, 58). In such a society, the book-burning “firemen” are “custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior” (59). What the society of Brave New World has accomplished through biological engineering and sleep conditioning, the society of Fahrenheit 451 accomplishes through technology and book-burning. The actual distractions again recall Brave New World; rather than “sleep taught wisdom,” Montag’s wife Mildred has the Seashell Radio—an earbud buzzing music in her ear, keeping her humming and by implication, preventing her from thinking. Instead of soma, she has “sleep lozenges” (18). Entertainments also include watching the wall-screens and driving at speeds well over 100 mph, while teens “break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball. Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lampposts, playing ‘chicken’ and ‘knock hubcaps’” (30). Fahrenheit 451 also captures the literacy theme of 1984. Books operate on the mind in a way that is similar to 1984, with the absence of books depriving people of memory. Conditioned by diversions and electronic mental distractions into an emotionally and intellectually empty state, Montag struggles with the inability to know another person, to mourn death, or to remember the circumstances of his first meeting with his wife (43-44). Easily the most disturbing of the literacy dystopias, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is the most contemporary novel in the progression, and, while women in Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 are arguably conditioned more easily than men to take pleasure in superficial entertainment, Atwood portrays the only dystopian society to gender literacy explicitly. Atwood’s novel offers a snapshot of dystopia at a unique moment in its history—the period of transition from a version of late-twentieth century reality to an oppressive theocracy in which women are deprived of all rights, including literacy. Mario Klarer in his article “Orality and Literacy as Gender-Supporting Structures in Margaret Atwood’s the Handmaid’s Tale” makes a case for interpreting the novel as a dialogue with feminist attempts to claim non-literacy, orality, or “different” literacy in opposition to male "ecriture," but does so largely through building an inaccurate case for "orality" in The Handmaid's Tale. Rather than portraying women’s orality, the narrative of The Handmaid’s Tale depicts the consciousness of a character who has been fully literate before the political shift that disenfranchised women and made them servants to men. The handmaid, named Offred to signify Fred’s possession, has limited contact with print literacy—only the pillow in her room embroidered with “Faith,” the game of Scrabble and the books in the

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Commander’s forbidden study, the Latin inscription left by a former handmaid in a cupboard, and the signs on shops that have only recently had their names blotted out. Nevertheless, she struggles with a limitation on her experience of reality caused by deprivation of literacy as she narrates her “tale,” often with uncertainty or a willingness to substitute an alternate version of her experience for the reality she endured. The postmodern narrative voice, preserved in the printed text, is an artifact of the shift from the robust, educated literacy of her former life, to the semiliterate consciousness that begins to supplant it.

Literacy, Inaction, and Katniss Everdeen In each of these classic dystopian novels, literacy is presented on both a societal level—restricted or forbidden, often as a potential agent of societal or political instability—and also for its function in the life of the individual, represented by the “everyman” protagonist. In The Hunger Games, Panem, which consists of twelve Districts and the Capitol, resembles dystopian visions of an engineered, oppressive society, but without explicit reference to the censorship or restriction of literacy. The Districts—and District 12 in particular—represent 1984’s mass of humanity “normally stupefied by poverty” (Orwell 156). The technology and mass exploitation that displace books in Fahrenheit 451 are the tools of the Capitol’s control, but are not treated in the narrative as an engineered substitute for contemplative activities. Nevertheless, while it controls the Districts using media, spectacle, poverty and hunger, and the “tribute” system, the Capitol does live in fear of subversion and of independent action by unified Districts—particularly after Katniss’s subversion of the Capitol’s most high-profile, televised, engineered, and edited form of control (and entertainment): the Hunger Games themselves. It is a dramatic departure from the norm of literacy fiction that Katniss is subversive not because of literacy, but because of action. Katniss’s relationship with literacy provides the first indication that literacy is not regarded in the same way in The Hunger Games—a “post-literate” dystopia—as it is in the novels of Huxley, Orwell, Bradbury, or Atwood. When Katniss struggles with literacy, her struggles are more understated, more literal, and less political and esoteric than Offred’s struggle simply to maintain her literacy in The Handmaid’s Tale. In fact, Katniss is not particularly troubled by literacy—neither by its acquisition, nor by the need to retain or exercise the ability to read. Although she is literate, and attends school—with a reference to school in the first ten pages of the novel—Katniss’s life in District 12 is not characterized by her use of

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literacy, which is slight. In this, she is unlike John Savage, who is devoted to the works of Shakespeare without understanding, Helmholtz Watson, who wants to do more with literacy, Montag, Winston Smith, and Offred, who simply want to rediscover and participate in literacy. Rather, in a post-literate novel, a reader can assume the protagonist’s ability to read and write, and also take it for granted. Katniss’s position as a nonreader places her in two conspicuous categories: dystopian protagonists who do not struggle with literacy, and female protagonists in children’s or young adult literature who are not readers or writers. Rather than self-identify as a reader or writer, or even as the oppressed victim, Katniss focuses on action and survival, which serve her where literacy would not. In this, she is distinct from many heroines of the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries, who form a trope in children’s and young adult literature of the female reader who is distinguished by the literacy that often prevents her from “fitting in.”3 As a nonreader in a children’s or young adult dystopian fantasy novel, Katniss seems to epitomize Amie A. Doughty’s claim in “Throw the Book Away”: Reading versus Experience in Children’s Fantasy (2013) that “[d]espite the importance of teaching children to engage in reading, books, readers, and reading in children’s fantasy fiction are secondary to action” (8). Positioning herself in opposition to Claudia Nelson, who asserts that “one of the standard messages of children’s metafiction is simply ‘Read!’” (Nelson, qtd. in Doughty 140-141), Doughty claims that “action is as important if not more important than reading” (Doughty 141), setting up a dichotomy between action and reading that children’s literature must negotiate. If preference for action over reading and depictions of reading as dangerous are pervasive in recent children’s literature, these are even more familiar tropes than the literate heroine. In Dante’s Commedia, imaginative literature, typified by Cassella’s song in the Purgatorio and by Paolo and Francesca in the Inferno, can produce—at best—inaction and distraction from life’s purpose, or, at worst, can seduce one into adultery. Similarly, Cervantes’s Don Quixote is a cautionary tale about the dangers of reading and pursuing the escapist novels of chivalry. In the early twentieth century, influenced by compulsory education, near-universal literacy, and the development of psychology, writers such as E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf—contemporaries of Aldous Huxley—speculated on the effects of literacy on the mind of an individual, and dramatized in their own works the ways in which literacy could negatively influence a reader’s ability to function in society, even as Forster and Woolf championed literacy. 4 In “The Dead,” for example, Joyce’s Gabriel Conroy finds that his hyper-literacy renders him incapable

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of conversing with a woman who is his intellectual equal, deciding whether to omit or include a line from Browning in a speech, or of being intimate with his wife; Gabriel’s introspection, a product of his high level of literacy, renders him impotent. E. M. Forster presents a similarly ambivalent vision of literacy in both his novels and in shorter fiction. For Forster’s characters, literacy has potential to improve one’s social status (given the right supporting framework and opportunity), to help an individual cope with change in circumstance, and to transcend undesirable circumstances through imagination; however, literacy can also expose an individual to harm and censure, and in extreme cases, alienate and remove the reader from reality.5 In Fantasia of the Unconscious, D. H. Lawrence anticipates Doughty, moving well beyond Joyce and Forster, who never directly condemn literacy, to assert that individuals lose their vitality through reading, and particularly through reading newspapers. Clearly setting (text-based) ideas against action, Lawrence asserts that “[t]here should be no effort made to teach children to think, to have ideas. Only to lift them into dynamic activity” (78). He rails against schools as “hot-beds of the self-conscious disease” and newspapers and books as “the tissues of leprosy” (87), which, by implication, eat away at the active self. For girls in particular, Lawrence recommends “[a]nything to keep her busy, to prevent her reading and becoming self-conscious” (87). For each of these authors, and for Lawrence in particular, literacy makes you stop. It makes you ponder. It takes you away from living. It makes you fear action. And certainly in the Hunger Games trilogy Katniss, engaged in a fight for her existence, cannot afford the luxury of stopping to think. From the first page of The Hunger Games, the reader recognizes that Katniss is focused on action. The trilogy begins, somewhat jarringly, with the phrase, “When I wake up,” and continues in Katniss’s first person, present tense narrative voice throughout all three novels. Notably, a present tense narrative cannot be a reflective narrative. The narrative forbids reflection because reflection requires distance—in a first person narrative, this is often the distance of the past—and these events are, according to the narrative tense, happening as the reader is reading. Thus, while the first-person narrative prevents the reader from having advantages over the character’s own self-awareness, as in the insight of an omniscient or semi-omniscient narrative, the present tense narrative reinforces a sense of moving forward rather than looking backward and reflecting. Katniss, who narrates, does not have the opportunity to stop and look back. However, her lack of introspection is not entirely a feature of narrative constraint. Rather, the present tense—which forces the reader onward along with Katniss—grows out of and reinforces her personality,

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which develops out of her experiences. She does not ruminate like Joyce’s Gabriel Conroy in “The Dead,” which is written in the free indirect style— a past tense, semi-omniscient narrative that slips between the filter of individual consciousness and objective reality. But what if she did? In contrast to Modernism’s hyper-literate paralysis, or even Anne Shirley from L. M. Montgomery’s Avonlea series, whose literate imagination interferes with the practice of domesticity, Katniss cannot operate in the typical mode of a highly literate or hyper-literate character. 6 Her circumstances require quick and decisive action. In the time frame of The Hunger Games, Katniss’s first spontaneous action is to volunteer to take her sister’s place in the Reaping. However, her need for action reaches back further, to her father’s death, her mother’s subsequent depression, and her family’s near-starvation: At eleven years old, with Prim just seven, I took over as head of the family. There was no choice. I bought our food at the market and cooked it as best I could and tried to keep Prim and myself looking presentable. Because if it had become known that my mother could no longer care for us, the district would have taken us away from her and placed us in a community home. (HG 27)

While the situation of her family and of District 12 in relation to the Capitol might seem cause for introspection, Katniss resists. Unlike Gale, her friend and hunting partner, she recognizes that focusing on their plight is pointless: His rages seem pointless to me, although I never say so. It’s not that I don’t agree with him. I do. But what good is yelling about the Capitol in the middle of the woods? It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make things fair. It doesn’t fill our stomachs. In fact, it scares off the nearby game. (HG 14)

Even Katniss’s reason for letting Gale yell orients them toward survival: “Better he does it in the woods than in the district” (14). Stopping to consider the injustices of living in the districts rather than the Capitol produces ineffectual rages that arrest rather than aid survival. Later, in the context of the arena, analysis of a situation occurs while it is happening—much as in the narrative as a whole—as a means to decide what to do next in order to survive. If contemplative thought of the type produced by reading books—though not in District 12—slows reflexes, it is the enemy of survival. After the 74th Hunger Games, because she has to continue to survive, Katniss does not want to analyze, to philosophize, to ruminate either on the purpose of her existence or on her past trauma.

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Throughout The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, Katniss, though resourceful, emerges as the antithesis of the literate heroine. Instead, as in her role as Mockingjay for the rebellion, other characters recognize Katniss’s strength in action, which she is unable to see in herself. They cite her most moving moments as those in which she acted spontaneously: When I took Rue on as an ally. Extended my hand to Chaff on interview night. Tried to carry Mags. And again and again, when I held out those berries that meant different things to different people. Love for Peeta. Refusal to give in under impossible odds. Defiance of the Capitol’s inhumanity. (75)

As a non-introspective character, Katniss is not able to perceive these things about herself, in spite of her self-awareness. Her spontaneity and lack of introspection—which are connected—again identify her as a nonreader, since introspection is a key symptom of the literate consciousness according to Walter Ong. Drawing on the work of Eric Havelock, Ong observes that “[b]y separating the knower from the known (Havelock 1963), writing makes possible increasingly articulate introspectivity, opening the psyche as never before not only to the external objective world quite distinct from itself but also to the interior self against whom the objective world is set” (Ong 105). 7 While Ong means this to be a positive trait of literacy, the discourse on literacy that permeates Modernist writing identifies liabilities that accompany literate introspection. The level of literacy that Katniss has—functional, largely overlooked because it is not extraordinary—may be as necessary to her survival as her skill with a bow. However, this is not to say that literacy is unimportant for Katniss. It simply does not influence her action—even as it does not impede it. Beyond the problem of whether reading produces introspection, thereby arresting action, is a practical problem: is it possible for Katniss to be a literate heroine in District 12? Leisure is necessary for imaginative reading or study, and even in the Capitol, where the people are more likely to engage in leisure activities, citizens are occupied with media, fashion, and frenetic activity—much like the citizens in Brave New World. Before the Games, Katniss lacks the opportunity to read for its own sake, for pleasure or the development of her mind, even had she been inclined; after, for the brief period before she is swept back into action, she tries to avoid thinking to avoid reliving the horrors she has experienced. Beyond Katniss’s own experiences, however, life in the Districts—the way in which society is engineered—does not allow for imaginative or scholarly

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pursuits. In the organization of Panem, ideas do not come from books because books function primarily as the tools of basic literacy education, and basic literacy education revolves around the work of the districts. While there are no explicitly forbidden texts—assuming that forbidden texts have not been obliterated by the Capitol—and reading and writing are in no way illicit occupations, intellectuals are more scarce in Panem than in Brave New World or Fahrenheit 451; there is neither evidence of intellectuals, nor place for them. Books are scarce, though found in privileged locations like Victor’s Village and in President Snow’s mansion (MKJ 351), the dwelling places of the only people who would have the leisure to read. In Fahrenheit 451, Faber, a former English professor, identifies the three things necessary for a satisfying existence: “Number one, as I said: quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on the first two” (Bradbury 84-85). As in other dystopias, leisure time is nonexistent for most in the districts; when a tribute wins the Hunger Games, he or she is supposed to take up a talent to fill the new leisure time created by not having to work or attend school (CF 39). Although Peeta’s job decorating cakes for his parents’ bakery translates into a talent for painting, Katniss ultimately fails to develop a talent that is not related to survival. Eventually, Katniss does use literacy to fill the gap, but when she finds a use for literacy, it, too, is tied to survival.

Literacy, Oppression, and Power in Panem Perhaps more effective than a ban or subliminal- or genetic conditioning, the Capitol regulates literacy by weaving it seamlessly into the fabric of oppression in the districts. Superficially resembling the more utilitarian, vocational models of contemporary education, school functions as a tool of the Capitol—for indoctrination and to teach each district’s citizens about its industry. In District 12, education is geared primarily toward coal mining, conditioning children to their role in production. Katniss observes that “[s]omehow it always comes back to coal at school. Besides basic reading and math most of our instruction is coal-related. Except for the weekly lecture on the history of Panem” (HG 41-42). When she asks Prim about school, Prim replies that they “learned about coal byproducts” (CF 158). The glimpses that the reader has of other districts suggests that education is similar in each district; when, for example, Katniss encounters the refugees from District 8, Twill and Bonnie are teacher and pupil, respectively (CF 144). While no details about instruction emerge, immediately after school, teacher and student “spent a four-hour

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shift at the factory that specialized in the Peacekeeper uniforms” (CF 144). Although the ability to work in the mines signals the end of formal education in District 12, Bonnie’s education in District 8 seems to involve learning to work a factory job while still in school. During the Quarter Quell, Beetee tells Finnick that in District 3, which specializes in electronics, school children learn a technique of sampling voices and manipulating them electronically (CF 346). Even in District 13, which is free from the Capitol’s direct control, school follows a utilitarian and vocational model appropriate to District 13’s emphasis on practical use and careful conservation of resources. While District 13 requires a broader range of skill, and one former resident of District 12 remarks that “school’s much more interesting” (MKJ 190), there is some indication that education is tailored to the individual’s use to the district rather than that district’s use to the Capitol. Katniss and Johanna study Military Tactics books in District 13, while Prim, only 13 years old, takes medic courses because she has an aptitude for healing (MKJ 244, 149). If there is an exception to the model of utilitarian education, it is District 11, arguably the most rebellious district. During Katniss and Peeta’s Victory Tour in Catching Fire, evidence of literacy surfaces in the dome of District 11’s Justice Building, where “the coat of dust blanketing everything is so thick it’s clear it hasn’t been disturbed for years” (CF 64). The dome is “a huge place filled with broken furniture, piles of books and ledgers, and rusty weapons” (CF 64). Because reading material is so sparse in the Hunger Games trilogy, the presence of books anywhere, and particularly outside of expected places like schools and libraries, demands attention. In the context of a dystopian society, in a district poised for rebellion, books, however innocuous, when positioned alongside rusty weapons, evoke a tenuous connection between literacy and subversive activity. The books’ abandonment in an attic suggests that District 11, the agricultural district, may be the only illiterate district, either because agricultural jobs do not require literacy and may be performed even by children, or because the population of this district is considered dangerous, not to be armed with books or weapons. As the workers in District 11 are exclusively African American, this one-sentence tableau forms a powerful allusion to anti-literacy laws designed to keep slaves and even free blacks from becoming literate in the antebellum South.8 Significantly, all of the information that the districts have about one another come from school. For example, Katniss reflects on her conversation with Rue, who is a tribute from District 11: It’s interesting, hearing about her life. We have so little communication with anyone outside our district. In fact, I wonder if the Gamemakers are

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blocking out our conversation, because even though the information seems harmless, they don’t want people in different districts to know about one another. (HG 203)

Katniss mentally acknowledges that information is strongly regulated, even as literacy itself seems not to be. Similarly, she rejects the idea that District 13 manufactured nuclear weapons because she is locked into her belief in the annihilation of District 13. She rests on the authority of her education, even as she begins to question it: “‘They were graphite miners,’ I say. But then I hesitate because that’s information I got from the Capitol” (CF 147). Although the Capitol, with President Snow at the head, regulates literacy through manipulation of education in the districts and controls the dissemination of information by way of electronic media, the narrative that spans the three books of the Hunger Games trilogy emphasizes that literacy is not, in fact, essential to political power. Since in the districts literacy supports production, the districts have no means of using literacy against the Capitol. When the rebellion becomes a reality in Mockingjay, the rebels’ strategy is to use broadcasts rather than to publish propaganda. Indeed, there are no direct references to publishing, even when Katniss has an idea to write a book. Thus, when books and print-based literacy are displayed by agents of the Capitol, they function as relics of authority. When President Snow appears in Victor’s Village, it registers as a pivotal literacy moment, demonstrating where a book belongs in dystopia—in the hands of the dictator. However, the book functions symbolically, as the “reading of the card” for the Quarter Quell does as well; neither literate gesture represents a true relationship between literacy and authority. When Katniss enters the study, Snow registers first as a “small, white-haired man who seems vaguely familiar…reading a book” (CF 17). He “holds up a finger” to make her wait while he finishes what he is reading. Like the conversation that follows, his use of the book in this scene is measured and deliberate. Just as deliberately, the narrative follows the book through the scene. For a few pages, it is unclear whether he is still holding it. Then, “[h]e places his book on the corner of the desk” to allow room for the tea tray, only a moment after admitting that Panem is “fragile, but not in the way that [Katniss] suppose(s)” (CF 22). “He drops the napkin and retrieves his book” as he leaves (CF 29). Snow handles the unnamed book with an intentionally casual attitude, signifying that its content is not particularly important; he is reading to pass the time. Nevertheless, his casual reading will not be interrupted for Katniss. By taking the book when he leaves, Snow indicates that the potential rebellion of the districts, which Katniss must help diffuse, does not interrupt his reading. The book

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punctuates the scene, demonstrating Snow’s control over the conversation, over Katniss, and over Panem. Unlike Mustapha Mond in Brave New World, who evokes the knowledge contained in books, President Snow uses the book as a prop, emphasizing that even as books symbolize power, knowledge and power in Panem do not derive from books. Curiously, the reader does not know whether he brought the physical object into the scene or took it from the study; given his control over Panem, his ownership of the book is not subject to questioning. In the “reading of the card” for the Quarter Quell, President Snow again uses literacy to evoke authority, even as he undermines the presumed truth of written records. The “rows of yellowed envelopes” from which Snow chooses the Quarter Quell challenge represent preparation for “centuries of Hunger Games”: When the laws for the Games were laid out, they dictated that every twenty-five years the anniversary would be marked by a Quarter Quell. It would call for a glorified version of the Games to make fresh the memory of those killed by the districts’ rebellion. (CF 172)

In reading the “small square of paper” from the year’s Quarter Quell envelope, President Snow gestures toward the authority of the past in order to justify the annihilation of the living tributes, who are, according to the card and because of their status as victors, the strongest among the districts (CF 172, 173). While Snow can certainly accomplish the annihilation of the past tributes without the weight of the History of Panem, he chooses to incorporate the authority of the written word as part of his media spectacle. By doing so, he remains blameless to the citizens of the Capitol, who are attached to their champions, at the same time he is making a public threat towards the rebellious districts—that if they rebel, the retribution will be worse than the terms of the last treaty, which they are still living (CF 194). It is the timing, perhaps, of this rhetorical gesture that reveals the lie. When she recovers enough to process the announcement, Katniss questions the authenticity of the Quarter Quell announcement as too appropriate to the current historical moment: I see the wooden box in the little boy’s hands, President Snow drawing out the yellowed envelope. Is it possible that this was really the Quarter Quell written down seventy-five years ago? It seems unlikely. It’s just too perfect an answer for the troubles that face the Capitol today. Getting rid of me and subduing the districts all in one neat little package. (CF 175)

As artifacts of the 75-year-old war, the yellowed envelopes and the square pieces of paper with writing carry authority; the expectation is that

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the written and sealed record has been preserved unaltered. Ong addresses the authority of the written word at length; how a “present-day literate usually assumes that written records have more force than spoken words as evidence of a long-past state of affairs” (Ong 96). While Snow relies on this perception, the narrative reveals literacy’s tenuous relationship with truth. Only President Snow reads the words; that he does so “without hesitation” suggests that he has previous knowledge of the envelope’s contents. Similarly in District13, Katniss reflects that “[a] verbal promise behind closed doors, even a statement written on paper—these could easily evaporate after the war. Their existence or validity denied” (MKJ 34). Written evidence can be destroyed and denied; written records can be altered, even as their historical authority is evoked. Because Panem is post-literate rather than preliterate, books and written records still carry authority that can be exploited in personal interactions or in media broadcasts. However, having moved away from traditional literacy, the people of Panem cannot access or verify the records themselves, or even think to question the Capitol’s strict control over Panem’s history.

Literacy as an Imperfect Medium As a trilogy of post-literate novels, The Hunger Games depicts the dystopian society of Panem for readers who register the prevalence of media, the assumption of literacy, and the understated presence of books and written material as familiar—or certainly unremarkable. Even as—or perhaps because—the narrative permits the reader to overlook literacy as a theme, The Hunger Games novels theorize the importance of literacy, but not, as typical dystopian texts, its capacity to make a protagonist selfaware, or its potential to destabilize an oppressive State. Rather, the Hunger Games directs the contemporary reader back toward personal uses of books and writing rather than dramatizing literacy’s social and political implications. Literacy, however, is never uncomplicated; beginning in Catching Fire, personal uses of literacy evoke familiar problems. In Panem’s media-informed culture of secondary orality, Katniss—a protagonist defined by action—struggles with the artificiality of written language, its removal from human contexts, and its imperfect relationship with thought; she also recognizes that writing renders a potentially subversive thought discoverable. In Catching Fire, Cinna helps Katniss counterfeit a “talent” for the people of Panem: “He [Cinna] hands me a small stack of cards. ‘You’ll read these off camera while they’re filming the clothes. Try to sound like you care’” (CF 40). Where she falters in rehearsal but ultimately performs

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in the immediacy of live television in The Hunger Games, here Katniss must read convincingly—her first experience of scriptedness. Because the prevalence of media in Panem suggests a culture of secondary orality, the narrative addresses the issues of what it means to be recorded and, more importantly, to be scripted. Derived from Marshall McLuhan, “secondary orality” is refined by Ong, who explains the precise relationship between literacy and media that produces secondary orality: Electronic technology has brought us into the age of ‘secondary orality’. This new orality has striking resemblances to the old in its participatory mystique, its fostering of a communal sense, its concentration on the present moment, and even its use of formulas (Ong 1971, pp. 284-303; 1977, pp. 16-49, 305-41). But it is essentially a more deliberate and selfconscious orality, based permanently on the use of writing and print… (136)

As a scripted medium, television strives to achieve the appearance of spontaneity, which secondary orality promotes “because we have decided that spontaneity is a good thing” (Ong 137). Those who work in media production in the Capitol, including Cinna, and later Cressida, the rebel filmmaker, “plan [their] happenings carefully to be sure that they are thoroughly spontaneous,” to borrow from Ong’s discussion of media (Ong 137). Because of her penchant for action and her need to respond to the immediacy of a situation, Katniss is an unsuccessful participant in the Capitol’s secondary orality. Her consistent inability to act convincingly when scripted—repeated in Mockingjay when the rebels have her act in “propos”—emphasizes the contradiction inherent in secondary orality’s “planned spontaneity.” Ultimately, Katniss defeats the artifice by demanding to be placed in real situations in Mockingjay as a condition of her performance. Before she is a rebel, in her role as a Victor and celebrity, Katniss is required to write her own scripts for the Victory Tour, which introduces the problems of writing and not simply of reading. For someone who is not introspective, and for someone whose thought and action occur in response to stimuli, this requirement translates directly into writer’s block. In Catching Fire, she is faced with the need to “say something about Rue, and Thresh, too” for the audience in District 11, but reflects that “every time I tried to write it at home, I ended up with a blank paper staring me in the face” (CF 57). That she is writing “at home” emphasizes the isolation of the writing process, the way in which, according to Ong, “extratextual context is missing not only for readers, but for the writer” (Ong 102). Writing in solitude, removed from the situation, Katniss cannot evoke the

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exigence necessary to write a moving tribute—she experiences the “lack of verifiable context” that “makes writing normally so much more agonizing an activity than oral presentation to a real audience” (Ong 102). In the moment, however, looking into the eyes of District 11’s citizens, she delivers a moving speech: “I want to give my thanks to the tributes of District Eleven,” I say. I look at the pair of women on Thresh’s side. “I only ever spoke to Thresh one time. Just long enough for him to spare my life. I didn’t know him, but I always respected him. For his power. For his refusal to play the Games on anyone’s terms but his own. The Careers wanted him to team up with them from the beginning, but he wouldn’t do it. I respected him for that. *** I turn to Rue’s family. “But I feel as if I did know Rue, and she’ll always be with me. Everything beautiful brings her to mind. I see her in the yellow flowers that grow in the Meadow by my house. I see her in the mockingjays that sing in the trees. But most of all, I see her in my sister, Prim.” My voice is undependable, but I am almost finished. “Thank you for your children.” I raise my chin to address the crowd. “And thank you all for the bread.” (CF 60-61)

Katniss notices every detail of her audience—the way in which “the old hunched woman—is she Thresh’s grandmother?—raises her head and the trace of a smile plays on her lips” (CF 61) and the silence of the crowd—demonstrating the degree to which she relies on their presence to be able to articulate her thoughts. While Peeta does not struggle with composition, and has a speech ready, “he doesn’t pull it out” (CF 59). Having a natural ability to effect the spontaneity of secondary orality, he seems to have his written speech internalized: “he speaks in his simple, winning style about Thresh and Rue making it to the final eight, about how they both kept me alive—thereby keeping him alive—and about how this is a debt we can never repay” (CF 59). Nevertheless, he does not script everything he intends to say. Though he flawlessly delivers his planned address, he “hesitates before adding something that wasn’t written on the card. Maybe because he thought Effie might make him remove it” (CF 59). Not knowing whether it would be permitted, Peeta conceals from their guileless but very proper Capitol guide his intent to donate part of his winnings to the families of Thresh and Rue (CF 59). Having spoken the words, they cannot be taken back from every person who hears, and though video can be edited, broadcast amplifies the effect. Peeta’s choice not to write his generous offer reminds the reader that thoughts previously committed to paper can be censored or punished. He fears a censorship that is different from the censorship of books, though in general,

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censorship of written language relates directly to the property of written language as discoverable—a fixed externalization of thought that exists separate from the individual.9 Literacy does not only fail as a communication medium in the case of a scripted, televised performance, however. In a much more traditional context, Katniss, on the train to the Quarter Quell, confronts the shortcomings of literacy as a means of communicating to the loved ones she fears she will never see again: “We’ll write letters, Katniss,” says Peeta from behind me. “It will be better anyway. Give them a piece of us to hold onto. Haymitch will deliver them for us if. . . they need to be delivered.” I nod and go straight to my room. I sit on the bed, knowing I will never write those letters. They will be like the speech I tried to write to honor Rue and Thresh in District 11. Things seemed clear in my head and even when I talked before the crowd, but the words never came out of the pen right. Besides, they were meant to go with embraces and kisses and a stroke of Prim’s hair, a caress of Gale’s face, a squeeze of Madge’s hand. (CF 188)

Instinctively, Katniss understands—and the narrative represents—one of the key distinctions between oral and written communication, the immediacy of spoken language and the relative detachment of writing: The word in its natural, oral habitat is part of a real, existential present. Spoken utterance is addressed by a real, living person to another real, living person or real, living persons, at a specific time in a real setting which includes always much more than mere words. Spoken words are always modifications of a total situation which is more than verbal. They never occur alone, in a context simply of words. (Ong 101)

It is because of the nature of literacy as much as her own preference for immediacy and context that Katniss finds a letter inadequate for expressions of love.

Literacy and Survival in The Hunger Games Where there is literacy, whether or not it is taken for granted, there exist certain problems; Katniss and Peeta’s encounters with and implicit acknowledgment of the properties of literacy bring attention to literacy as a medium—a technology separate from an individual’s thoughts, separate from human contexts, and essential to the media technology of Panem. However, the novels do not simply draw a post-literate reader’s attention

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to the problems of literacy, some of which—like writer’s block—may already be familiar. While eschewing traditional tropes of dystopian literacy as dangerous to the State, forbidden, and necessary to the individual in predictable ways, presenting literacy as both ever-present and easy to overlook, The Hunger Games provide an alternate narrative of literacy—a narrative of literacy and survival that redeems literacy and draws the reader’s attention to the power that literacy still possesses in a post-literate world. It begins in The Hunger Games with Katniss’s recollection of how she kept her family alive after her father’s death using the family book: My mother had a book she’d brought with her from the apothecary shop. The pages were made of old parchment and covered in ink drawings of plants. Neat handwritten blocks told their names, where to gather them, when they came in bloom, their medical uses. But my father added other entries to the book. Plants for eating, not healing. Dandelions, pokeweed, wild onions, pines. (HG 50)

Notably, the book first belongs to Katniss’s mother—from her family’s store. Her mother’s family lived in town, like Peeta’s family, among the merchant class, but moved to the Seam—the working class area for coal miners—when she married Katniss’s father. The book is handwritten, and handed down in the family. Presumably, since there are empty pages, it is meant to be expanded as new knowledge becomes available, which is precisely what happens. There seems to be no distinction in terms of Katniss’s mother and father’s levels of literacy—both can read and write. However, the book is specific to the apothecary; presumably, a coal miner would not have a need to compile a book of information—but he does. Although perhaps meant more for posterity than for immediate use, his practical additions to the book provide for his own family’s survival after his death. Katniss elaborates the importance of the written records: “Plants are tricky. Many are edible, but one false mouthful and you’re dead. I checked and double-checked the plants I harvested with my father’s pictures. I kept us alive” (HG 51). The climax of the first novel—when Katniss and Peeta win the 74th Hunger Games—reinforces the danger of poisonous plants that mimic edible plants; berries that Peeta thinks are edible kill one of the Tributes and offer Katniss the possibility of escape at the end of the Games. The family book functions as a fairly simple device to provide exposition. It contextualizes the hunger of District 12, the ingenuity of Katniss and her family, and the danger of poisonous plants. In addition to these practical narrative functions, it points to the nature of

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books as, to quote Faber from Fahrenheit 451, a “type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget” (Bradbury 83). After The Hunger Games, the book grows. Katniss begins to work on the book with Peeta to help her, and as they add more pages, it takes on additional narrative significance. Her primary purpose is to record knowledge: “Things I learned from experience or from Gale, and then the information I picked up when I was training for the Games” (CF 161). Peeta helps because he has the artistic skill to render the plants accurately, and work on the book becomes “‘the first time we’ve ever done anything normal together’” (CF 162). As Katniss tries to cope with the nightmares and memories of the Hunger Games, she finds the writing of useful, descriptive prose to be “quiet, absorbing work that helps take my mind off my troubles” (CF 161). Katniss keeps the family book with her in Catching Fire and Mockingjay, recovering it from the wreck of District 12 and singling it out as one of the most precious items she has (MKJ 12, 145). The book preserves Peeta’s artistry, even when Katniss fears that he is irrecoverable (MKJ 12). When Katniss returns again to District 12, she finds that the book has made the return trip as well (MKJ 381). Literacy is important here because books, by preserving knowledge, provide for survival, and because writing, a contemplative activity, provides distraction from traumatic events.10 At the end of Mockingjay, after the overthrow of the Capitol and Katniss’s acquittal for her part in the chaotic aftermath, Katniss continues to try to cope. Once again, she turns to literacy, which becomes a part of her therapy: I tell [the doctor] my idea about the book, and a large box of parchment sheets arrives on the next train from the Capitol. I got the idea from our family’s plant book. The place where we recorded those things you cannot trust to memory. The page begins with the person’s picture. A photo if we can find it. If not, a sketch or painting by Peeta. Then, in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim’s cheek. My father’s laugh. Peeta’s father with the cookies. The color of Finnick’s eyes. What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. On and on. We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their deaths count. Haymitch finally joins us, contributing twenty-three years of tributes he was forced to mentor. Additions become smaller. An old memory that surfaces. A late primrose preserved between the pages. Strange bits of happiness, like the photo of Finnick and Annie’s newborn son. (MKJ 387)

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The book of tributes, like the family book, is key to Katniss’s continued survival. It carries her and Peeta into the future by helping them to cope, teach, and remember. Its significance in their lives, as an aid to personal and cultural memory, is so great that it is one of the final things mentioned on the last page of the novel. Considering their son and daughter, and the questions they begin to have about the Hunger Games, Katniss observes that “they teach about [the Hunger Games] at school, and the girl knows we played a role in them” (MKJ 389). In the Epilogue, on the final page of the novel, “Peeta says it will be okay. We have each other. And the book” (MKJ 398). The book will aid Katniss and Peeta in helping their children to “understand in a way that will make them braver” (MKJ 398). In many ways, Katniss and Peeta’s survival fulfills the prediction and the vision of human nature set forth by the cynical Faber in Fahrenheit 451. Fahrenheit 451 is, ultimately, about the survival of books, but there is the hint that books will provide for the survival of humanity: [W]hen the war’s over, someday, some year, the books can be written again, the people will be called in, one by one, to recite what they know and we’ll set it up in type until another Dark Age, when we might have to do the whole damn thing over again. But that’s the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing. (Bradbury 153)

The Hunger Games is about the survival of individuals, of humanity, and of the human spirit; literacy—and through literacy, memory—is an important part of surviving and continuing. Faber further reveals the significance of books as a relic of human existence—quite a different relic than the Quarter Quell envelopes: “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, as long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away” (Bradbury 156-157).

The Hunger Games novels similarly leave the reader pondering a kind of soulfulness of books. The book of tributes—which is actually a book of memories—is a testimony to the human spirit even more than a warning

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for future generations, which perhaps signals a shift in genre at the end of Mockingjay. The book Katniss, Peeta, and eventually Haymitch create is a memorial of individuals; it functions in the novel to reveal the power of literacy—to preserve that which cannot be trusted to memory, to provide for future knowledge, and ultimately, to benefit those who create the book by offering catharsis. The Hunger Games communicates to the postliterate reader that the power of literacy ultimately resides in its usefulness to individuals rather than in political power or social significance. It is an irony of secondary orality that one must read the Hunger Games novels rather than view the films to receive this particular message; the film versions of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire omit reference to the family book. This is perhaps appropriate; it is the work of literature—and in fact, of dystopia—to draw the attention of a post-literate society to the value of literacy.

Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. 1986. New York: Random House-Anchor, 1998. Blackford, Holly. “Apertures into the House of Fiction: Novel Methods and Child Study, 1870-1910.” Children's Literature Association Quarterly 32(4): 2007. 368-389. Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 1953. New York: Ballantine-Dell Rey, 1991. Collins, Suzanne. 2009. Catching Fire. New York: Scholastic, 2013. —. The Hunger Games. 2008. New York: Scholastic, 2009. —. Mockingjay. 2010. New York: Scholastic, 2014. Curwood, Jen Scott. “The Hunger Games: Literature, Literacy, and Online Affinity Spaces.” Language Arts 90(6): 2013. 417-427. Doughty, Amie A. “Throw the Book Away”: Reading versus Experience in Children’s Fantasy. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013. duPlessis, Nicole. “Transcendence, Transformation, and the Cultural Economy of Literacy in E. M. Forster’s ‘Celestial Omnibus’ and ‘Other Kingdom.’” LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory 21(2): 81100. —. Literacy and Its Discontents: Modernist Anxiety and the Literacy Fiction of Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence, and Aldous Huxley. Diss. Texas A&M University, 2008. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2008. Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.

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Hankins, June Chase. “Making Use of the Literacy Debate: Literacy, Citizenship, and Brave New World.” CEA Critic. 53(1990): 40-51. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. 1932. New York: Harper Collins, 1998. Johnston, Amy E. Boyle. “Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted.” L.A. Weekly 30 May 2007. 4 Oct 2014. Klarer, Mario. “Orality and Literacy as Gender-Supporting Structures in Margaret Atwood's ‘The Handmaid's Tale.’” Mosaic 28(4): 1995. 129142. Lawrence, D. H. Fantasia of the Unconscious and Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious. 1921, 1922. London: Penguin, 1960. Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. New York: Routledge, 1982. Orwell, George. 1984. 1949. New York: Signet, 1981 Wallenstein, P. “Antiliteracy Laws.” Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia. Junius P. Rodriguez, ed. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2007.

Notes 1

While the comparison between The Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies is common in film reviews and online opinion pieces (particularly blog posts), scholarly articles that mention both novels are practically nonexistent. One article about “online affinity spaces” notes how, in the context of online fan sites, Lord of the Flies is evoked to defend the Hunger Games novels against charges that they are too violent for children (Curwood 422-423). Cynthia Weber clarifies that The Hunger Games film (which she uses as an illustration of “[David] Graeber’s myth ‘We are the 99 percent’”) is “not as some people claimed an updated version of Lord of the Flies” (Weber xvii). The absence of scholarly consideration of Golding’s and Collins’s texts represents a significant gap in the literature, but it also suggests that while Lord of the Flies is potentially a model for the behavior of the Tributes in the Hunger Games arena, the differences between the novels’ representation of human nature is more pronounced than the frequency of online references suggests. 2 See, for example, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland or William Morris’s News from Nowhere. 3 Examples of the trope of the unusually literate female include multiple Jane Austen characters, Jane Eyre from the novel by Charlotte Brontë (1847), Jo from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868), Rebecca in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin (1903), Sara in A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905), Anne Shirley from the Avonlea series (1909), Meg Murray in A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962), Mathilda from the

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book by Roald Dahl (1988), Hermione in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling (1997-2007), Meggie in Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (2003), Liesel in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2005), Mosca Mye in Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge (2006), and Tessa in The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare (2010-2013). Even Bella Swan in the Twilight Saga (2005-2008) participates in this convention as a reader of Jane Austen and Emily Brontë. 4 For a discussion of the Modernist writer’s discomfort with literacy, see duPlessis, Literacy and Its Discontents: Modernist Anxiety and the Literacy Fiction of Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence, and Aldous Huxley. Diss. 5 For further discussion of literacy in E. M. Forster’s short fiction, see duPlessis, “Transcendence, Transformation, and the Cultural Economy of Literacy in E. M. Forster’s ‘Celestial Omnibus’ and ‘Other Kingdom.’” 6 Holly Blackford describes the ways in which Anne Shirley’s imagination, which Blackford sees as a depiction of childhood influenced by emerging child psychology: “In Anne of Green Gables, pretend play and stream of consciousness interfere with baking pies and properly conducting tea parties. Anne, during a mad tea party with Diana, launches into a long monologue about how she forgot to cover the pudding and so a mouse drowned in it; in the meantime, she has surreptitiously served her bosom friend Diana currant wine instead of raspberry cordial. Her friend gets drunk while Anne spins her narrative—seemingly a metaphor for unbridled, spontaneous, liquid consciousness” (376). There is certainly an element of the Quixotic in Anne Shirley’s pursuit of her Romantic ideals in the abovementioned scene in particular. 7 The oft-noted observation that Panem and the Districts in particular have no religion is perhaps linked to the limited function of literacy by Ong’s closely related assertion that “[w]riting makes possible the great introspective religious traditions such as Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” He contrasts the ancient Greeks and Romans, who “developed no sacred texts comparable to the Vedas or the Bible or the Koran, and their religion failed to establish itself in the recesses of the psyche which writing had opened for them” (Ong 105). Having lost the sacred texts and relegated writing to the utilitarian, the citizens of Panem operate without formal religion. 8 For a brief history of anti-literacy laws in the United States, see Wallerstein, “Anti-literacy Laws” in Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, as well as various sources on slavery or education in the United States. The earliest anti-literacy law in the United States was passed in 1740 in South Carolina. The laws, which became widespread, persisted until the end of the Civil War. “In pre-Civil War America, literacy was a badge of liberty, a symbol of citizenship, and a tool for achievement. While various states, northern and southern alike, were launching new efforts to establish common schools, some southern states enacted new restrictions on black residents’ access to literacy. The fact that those restrictions targeted free blacks as well as slaves displayed an effort to narrow the meaning of black freedom” (Wallerstein). 9 Also see duPlessis, “Transcendence, Transformation, and the Cultural Economy of Literacy in E. M. Forster’s ‘Celestial Omnibus’ and ‘Other Kingdom,’” in

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which the “discoverability” of written language renders a “private” journal “practically private,” and causes a change in circumstances for the character Ford in “Other Kingdom” (95-96). 10 Compare Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents, who theorizes that intellectual activities can function as a means of “fending off suffering” (29).

CHAPTER NINE WHAT MAKES A YOUNG ADULT DYSTOPIAN HERO? LOUISA MACKAY DEMERJIAN

There are a few different types of hero/protagonist that can occur in dystopian stories. One is the protagonist who intuitively feels something is wrong with society and sets out to change it, believing that it is possible to overthrow the dictatorship, or merely escape from the misery. Often the protagonist’s opinion varies significantly from those around him, leading to clashes… Another common form of protagonist is the high-standing, accepted hero, who is part of the Utopian perception of the dystopia, but eventually discovers or comes to understand how wrong society has become and either attempts to change it or destroy it. —Dystopian Literature for Young Adults—LibGuides

Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games tells the story of Katniss Everdeen, a protagonist who becomes a hero to the people in the Districts of Panem (a futuristic America) when she offers to take her sister’s place as “tribute” 1 in the Hunger Games and her hero status rises when she goes on to win the Hunger Games. M. T. Anderson’s Feed, on the other hand, tells the story of Titus, a protagonist who has no problem with his society. Neither Katniss nor Titus sets out to be a hero but both get pulled into a situation where they either rise to the occasion or don’t.

Reader Positioning Both stories are told from a first person point of view, which aids the author in forging a connection between the reader and the narrator. Collins gives readers multiple reasons to feel sympathy for Katniss. When her father dies in a mine explosion, Katniss is only eleven and her mother is so grief-stricken she cannot function. It falls on Katniss to take her father’s position as protector and provider for the family, which she does though it

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is a struggle. Then when her sister is chosen to go to the Hunger Games, Katniss offers herself as a replacement despite believing it will mean her death. Later, when Katniss against all odds not only survives but wins the Hunger Games and saves Peeta Mellark (the male tribute from her district), the reader feels not only sympathy but respect and awe for Katniss. By contrast, the reader meets Anderson’s Titus when he is on his way to the moon for a vacation with his friends. Titus’s big aspiration is to meet a girl. He does meet a girl, Violet, and though he is trying to charm her, he makes some missteps like when he says he was on Mars once and it was “dumb.” She can’t believe he is judging a whole planet as dumb and because “she was starting to piss [him] off” he tells her “The Red Planet was a piece of shit” (Anderson 37). They are in conflict but shortly after this exchange, they are attacked by a hacker, taken to the hospital and thus Titus has a new opportunity to make an impression on Violet and on the reader, neither of whom are yet impressed by Titus.

Survival of the Fittest Katniss comes from District 12 in Panem, the poorest district, where the people struggle to find food. What makes Katniss a survivor? Abigail Mann considers this question in her essay “Competition and Kindness: The Darwinian World of the Hunger Games.” Mann suggests that the same skills that allow Katniss to survive the harsh life of District 12 also allow her to win the Hunger Games: “her life has been shaped by the search for food, but she has some significant advantages over other inhabitants of that district—specifically, her hunting and woodcraft knowhow, her skills with an arrow, and her courage, exhibited in her willingness to go past the fence into the woods” (Mann 106). The other tributes—especially the “Careers” from the wealthiest Districts (called “Careers” because they have been trained to fight in the Hunger Games as if it were a career)—are unaccustomed to food being scarce or to the need to forage or hunt. They are dependent on the supplies provided by the Capitol and so when Katniss destroys those supplies, she wins an advantage over them. M. T. Anderson invites readers to consider the “fitness” of Titus and his society when Violet’s father tells him to “go hang with the Eloi” (Anderson 291). This reference to H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine suggests that Anderson’s view of future humans is informed by Wells’ view of the Eloi and Morlocks. Wells wrote that the Eloi and Morlocks represented a split evolution: the Morlocks were the underground dwellers

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who were the future humans who were capable workers and kept the world going; the Eloi were peaceful but ignorant upper-world dwellers who did nothing but eat and drink all day only to be preyed upon by the carnivorous Morlocks at night. Violet’s father, by suggesting Titus belongs with the Eloi suggests that he is blissfully ignorant and incapable of accomplishing anything. Titus is angry at Violet’s father for saying this to him but not because he understands it; he is angry that he doesn’t understand it and that Violet’s father refuses to explain it to him. If Titus is like the Eloi, what caused him and his society to devolve? Sherry Turkle has spent her career studying the intersection of technology and psychology. Her 2011 book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, can be applied to M. T. Anderson’s Feed with some very interesting results. Turkle writes about the effect of being “always connected.” On children and adolescents, she argues that constant connection inhibits maturation: “adolescents don’t face the same pressure to develop the independence we have associated with moving forward into young adulthood” (Turkle 173) because they are always “tethered” (Turkle 172). Young people who have their parents always available via cell phones do not develop a sense of self separate from their parents. As is common in the genre of dystopian literature, Anderson has taken this aspect of our contemporary society and extrapolated into the future. Whereas Turkle writes about subjects who are physically able to disconnect from technology—as unlikely as they are to do so—Anderson’s characters have the internet physically implanted in their brains and are therefore less likely and less able to disconnect. This sense of being always tethered has been taken to extremes in Feed, except that Titus is not tightly tethered to his parents because the feed has interceded between Titus and his parents—and indeed, between Titus and everyone and everything else—so that Titus has no sense of himself as separate from the feed. Turkle cites Erik Erikson’s idea that adolescents need time and space to “experiment” apart from their parents in order to develop their identities. Whereas Titus lacks this separate time and space, Katniss has the opportunity to experiment and find her own identity apart from her parents forced on her when her father dies and her mother is temporarily unable to function; she must either “develop the independence” or allow her family to starve. Katniss finds herself2, by necessity, alone in the woods of District 12. Turkle suggests that “[b]y Erikson’s standards, the selves formed in the cacophony of online spaces are not protean but juvenile. Now I suggest that the culture in which they develop tempts them into narcissistic ways of relating to the world” (Turkle 179). Further,

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Turkle finds that the culture of being always connected prompts adolescents to be constantly focused on themselves instead of looking outside themselves at the world around them to identify ways to define themselves and form their sense of their selves. Anderson moves this process a step further by implanting the internet in their brains at the time of infancy. As the feed intercedes between the individual and the world, they are never given a time and space alone. The feed is a sort of surrogate parent always there and, far from encouraging or allowing young people to develop their own ideas about themselves or the world, the feed is constantly on and continually swaying them in the direction of consuming. Traditionally, an adolescent will look to parents, teachers or friends for guidance. Katniss uses what her father taught her about hunting and foraging to keep her family from starving and forms a hunting partnership with her friend Gale so that they can help support each other and their two families. By contrast, Titus doesn’t appear to receive meaningful guidance from his parents. After Titus and his friends are attacked by a hacker during their trip to the moon, they are hospitalized. When his father comes to visit Titus, he says, “Dude, this is some way bad shit” (Anderson 55). Instead of helping Titus understand what happened to him on the moon, his parents lie to him about the hacker saying that they are hoping he won’t have to go to court when in reality the hacker is dead and they know there will be no court date. Then, they buy him a car in order to make up for his ordeal and distract him from the truth. It is only when Violet tells him that the hacker is dead that he knows what happened. She says, “‘He was beaten to death at the club. We saw it. The police, remember? They beat him over the head’” (Anderson 123). Clearly, Titus doesn’t necessarily see what is right in front of him and his parents are more likely to distract him than help him make sense of the world. They are sometimes dishonest and sometimes not entirely present for Titus. One night, when he arrives home after a date with Violet, he can sense the presence of his parents’ feeds but they are “going in mal” (Anderson 147) which means they downloaded a virus onto their feeds and it provides an experience similar to taking drugs. He describes walking in to his family home: I could feel all of my family asleep in their own way, in the empty house, in our bubble, where we could turn on and off the sun and the stars, and the feed spoke to me real quiet about new trends, about pants that should be shorter or longer, and bands that I should know, and games with new levels and stalactites and fields of diamonds, and friends of many colors were all drinking Coke, and beer was washing through mountain passes,

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and the stars of Oh? Wow! Thing! had got lesions, so lesions were hip now, real hip and mine looked like a million dollars. (Anderson 147)

In this way, his parents are home but unavailable to Titus in any meaningful way whereas the feed is ever present and always ready to influence him. As Turkle writes, “Networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we can feel utterly alone” (Turkle 154). Only with the feed does Titus feel less alone. Titus touts the benefits of SchoolTM saying that to have school “run by the corporations, it’s pretty brag, because it teaches us how the world can be used, like mainly how to use our feeds” (Anderson 109-110). He lacks any sort of critical awareness that would allow him to question the motives behind those corporations and what it means to “use” the world. He sounds like a commercial when he continues, “Also, it’s good because that way we know that the big corps are made up of real human beings, and not just jerks out for money, because taking care of children, they care about America’s future. It’s an investment in tomorrow” (Anderson 109-110). He explains that SchoolTM is better than when “schools were run by the government, which sounds completely like, Nazi, to have the government running the schools?” (Anderson 109). In reality, Titus is being conditioned and he lacks the deep thinking skills that make having access to information meaningful; the feed gives him access to information but he doesn’t understand its significance. He says that “everyone is supersmart now. You can look things up automatic like science and history, like if you want to know which battles of the Civil War George Washington fought in and shit” (Anderson 473). Titus is unaware of his own ignorance and is not being encouraged or taught how to analyze information or reflect on his own experiences. Sherry Turkle writes about the need for quiet time to think deeply: We insist that our world is increasingly complex, yet we have created a communications culture that has decreased the time available for us to sit and think uninterrupted. As we communicate in ways that ask for almost instantaneous responses, we don’t allow sufficient space to consider complicated problems. (Turkle 166)

Katniss regularly finds comfort in the silence of the forest whereas Titus and his friends don’t know how to function during the one time in the book when the feed is offline. Titus complains, “Everything in my head was quiet. It was fucked” (Anderson 444). Interestingly, Anderson titles this section “Eden” and though Anderson might consider life without the feed a sort Edenic paradise, Titus says that he is “bored” and

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describing himself and his friends says, “We were frightened and kept touching our heads” (Anderson 46). For lack of experience spending time without the feed’s direction, they “blew hypodermic needles through tubing at a skinless anatomy man on the wall” (Anderson 57) of a hospital exam room. Turkle refers to Erik Erikson’s claim “that in their search for identity, adolescents need a place of stillness, a place to gather themselves” (Turkle 272). Titus and his friends are uncomfortable with stillness and when their feeds come back online, Titus describes the sensation as if they were being reborn: “It came down on us like water. It came down like frickin’ spring rains, and we were dancing in it” (Anderson 70).

Eloi or Morlock: Who Survives? In The Time Machine, the Eloi are cannibalized by the Morlocks. They live easily and peacefully during the daylight hours but at night they are at risk. When one is taken by the Morlocks, the Eloi take it in stride as just a natural part of their lives. By suggesting that the Eloi are the descendants of the upper classes who evolved (or devolved) in such a way that they forgot how to survive without someone (in this case, the Morlocks) taking care of them, Wells places at least some of the blame for their helplessness on the Eloi. Perhaps, though he mourns the loss of his Eloi friend, Weena, the Time Traveller (and Wells) feel that the Eloi get what they deserve. By making this connection between Titus and the Eloi, Anderson (through Violet’s father) is suggesting that Titus is part of the wealthier and more coddled part of society and is therefore less able to do any meaningful work. Considering the way Titus has been raised, without real access to parents, friends or teachers and with the feed conditioning him into being a consumer, it is not surprising to see that Titus has many underdeveloped skills. Should we blame him? At the beginning of The Hunger Games, Katniss has never been out of District 12 and she hates the Capitol. In the first novel, she travels to the Capitol and meets some of its inhabitants. She becomes able to differentiate between them and is able to assign blame to varying degrees. For example, throughout the trilogy, she still detests President Snow, the leader of the political system, but she comes to love Cinna, her stylist, and becomes fond of and protective of her prep team5 At one point, Katniss says of her prep team, “all three are so readily respectful and nice to my mother that I feel bad about how I go around feeling so superior to them. Who knows who I would be or what I would talk about if I’d been raised

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in the Capitol?” (Collins CF 38). If we follow Katniss’ lead, we can see that Titus is not wholly to blame for his inability to rise to the occasion. Anderson makes Violet a much more sympathetic, and ultimately more heroic, character than Titus in a variety of ways. Violet is a kid from the wrong side of the tracks—or in this case, from a neighborhood at the bottom of a drop tube6. Clearly, Anderson wants readers to recognize the symbolism of the drop tube with the wealthier neighborhoods at the top where each house has its own dome complete with controllable sunrise and sunset and CloudsTM. . By contrast, in Violet’s neighborhood at the bottom, there is a shared dome, shared sunlight and peeling paint. She comes from a single parent household and she has been home-schooled— all of which makes her strange to Titus and his friends. Violet’s differences become apparent even before Titus speaks to her; when he first spots her, he is intrigued by the clothes she wears, “a dress of gray wool. It wasn’t plastic, and the light didn’t reflect off it. Wool. Gray wool. Black stockings” (Anderson 17). The repetition of the word “wool” and Titus’s fascination with her clothing points to how unusual wearing natural fibers is in Titus’s world and visually represents Violet’s status as different. Violet feels like an outsider among Titus’ friends. They think she is snobbish because she uses words they don’t understand (Anderson 164) and makes references to things they have to look up on their feeds (and still don’t understand). When “riot” clothing becomes trendy, she asks them what they know about what “incited” the real riots and they get angry because they don’t know what the word incited means; they claim that she uses “stupid, long words that no one can understand” (Anderson 164). After this argument, Titus leaves his friends to go with Violet but he is also angry and asks her not to “show off” and use “weird words” (Anderson 167). She confides that her feed has been malfunctioning since the hacker attacked them on the moon. He tells her that he will be there for her while she waits for it to be fixed. The next time Titus brings her around his friends, Violet again has trouble fitting in. This time, though, she has a seizure because of her malfunctioning feed and it causes her to have an outburst, yelling “Can I tell you what I see? Can I tell you? We are hovering in the air while people are starving. This is obvious. Obvious! We’re playing game and our skin is falling off” (Anderson 201). And, worse, she continues, “‘Look at us! You don’t have the feed! You are the feed! You’re being eaten! You’re raised for food! Look at what you’ve made yourselves!’ She points at Titus’s friend, Quendy, and shouts, ‘She’s a monster! A monster! Covered with cuts! She’s a creature!’ (Anderson 202) Violet sees the truth of what is happening—that they are being manipulated and that they are being distracted with games and frivolity

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while their bodies are decaying. However, she insults Titus’s friend and that is all his group of friends remember. Violet says, “You go and try and have fun like a normal person, a normal person with a real life—just for one night you want to live, and suddenly you’re screwed” (Anderson 53). She went to the moon, by herself and for the first time, to fit in and be like the other kids her age, kids like Titus. She felt the pressure most adolescents feel to be like everyone else and it led to her destruction. Violet’s father told Titus: ‘They say,’ he told me, ‘that it was the late installation that made it dangerous. The brain was already wired to operate on its own. The feed installation was nonstandard. They also have told me that if I had bought a better model, perhaps it would have been more adaptable. I remember them asking me at the time.’ He whispered. ‘I skimped. I read consumer reports and wondered, “What’s the difference?” He looked at me, and asked ‘What could go wrong?’ (Anderson 289)

Violet’s parents didn’t like the idea of the feed and didn’t have a lot of money. They encouraged Violet to think critically, to pay attention to what was going on in the world even when she was being encouraged not to pay attention. Her father ultimately realized that not having a feed would keep Violet on the outside looking in to a world where the majority had feeds and they were more and more an economic necessity.

Sometimes Resistance is Futile Violet’s feed ultimately malfunctioned because, after the hacker attack, the damage was too extensive and the hardware deteriorated. Titus expected that the corporation behind the feeds, FeedTech, would repair Violet’s feed. However, FeedTech refused saying: I’m here to inform you that FeedTech Corp has decided to turn down your petition for complimentary feed repair and/or replacement… Unfortunately, FeedTech and other investors reviewed your purchasing history, and we don’t feel that you would be a reliable investment at this time. No one could get what we call a “handle” on your shopping habits, like for example you asking for information about all those wow and brag products and then never buying anything. We have to inform you that our corporate investors were like, “What’s doing with this?” Sorry—I’m afraid you’ll just have to work with your feed the way it is. (Anderson 247)

Why would FeedTech consider Violet not a “reliable investment”? Because of her “project.” Violet explains to Titus her thinking:

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“Everything we’ve grown up with—the stories on the feed, the games, all of that—it’s all streamlining our personalities so we’re easier to sell to. I mean, they do these demographic studies that divide people into a few personality types, and then you get ads based on what you supposedly like” (97). She explained to Titus her intention to research products she was never going to buy so that she could not be figured out. She told Titus that they should “resist the feed” and not let them make him conform. Finally, when she had no hope of surviving, she told Titus, ‘I caved in. The other day, Nina [the virtual FeedTech representative] said she’d noticed all of the requiem masses I’d been listening to. She suggested some others. Here’s the hideous thing…I liked them. She figured it out. I’ve been sketched demographically. They can still predict things I like…They’re really close to winning. I’m trying to resist, but they’re close to winning.’(Anderson 262)

Anderson succeeded in making Violet a likeable character and a sympathetic one. She fits the definition of dystopian hero “who intuitively feels something is wrong with society and sets out to change it, believing that it is possible to overthrow the dictatorship, or merely escape from the misery.” Violet, in encouraging Titus to “resist the feed” reveals her hopeful belief that that resistance will bring about positive change. The definition continues, “Often the protagonist’s opinion varies significantly from those around him, leading to clashes.” This fits Violet also as when she clashes with Titus and his friends. Unfortunately for Violet, her resistance doesn’t bring the positive change she hoped for and FeedTech abandons her to die. In sharp contrast, Katniss Everdeen resists the hegemony of the Capitol and becomes the symbol of a rebellion that topples the government. If we consider again the question of fitness, we can see that while Katniss’ strengths give her an advantage in the arena, Violet’s strengths are illsuited to the world in which she and Titus live. Whereas the harshness of her life made Katniss strong, Violet’s upbringing—her parents teaching her to practice critical thinking, their insistence that she be home-schooled and their reluctance to get her a feed—diminished her fitness for the world dominated by the feed. When she shared with Titus her belief that “everything was better if you delayed it,” (Anderson 143) it flew so strongly in the face of their society’s modus operandi that it signaled her status as a misfit, or put another way, her status as less fit for survival.

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Sometimes Resistance is Necessary Then, what makes a young adult dystopian hero? In the case of Katniss, she is heroic for sacrificing herself and successfully helping to topple the Capitol. Violet is heroic in that she fights against those parts of her society that she believes are wrong. Titus? Titus has the potential to be heroic, to “resist the feed” as Violet suggested and Anderson’s dedication at the beginning of Feed makes it clear that he is promoting this idea. It reads, “To all those who resist the feed.” Whether or not Titus follows through is uncertain but as Clare Bradford writes of Feed: …this novel is one of many contemporary texts that invite a critical and participatory style of reading. In doing so, it encourages readers to reflect on the consumerism and the neo-liberal politics of their own time and to imagine the “what-if” implications of a world in which these tendencies dominate political and economic life. In doing so, it functions as a critical dystopia, implying through its imagining of a dysfunctional future how human subjects might make ethical choices.

Readers might like to cheer for Katniss and Violet but we might also relate to Titus. It is hard to “resist the feed” or go against societal norms, particularly for young adults who are still in the process of forming their identities apart from their parents. Reading these dystopian works prompts readers to be critically aware, to consider the choices they would make and decide whether or not they themselves have the potential to be young adult heroes.

Work Cited Anderson, M. T. Feed. Cambridge: Candlewick, 2002. Print. Bradford, Clare. “‘Everything must go!’ Consumerism and Reader Positioning in M. T. Anderson’s Feed” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures. 2.2 (2010): 128-137. Web. 28 July 2015. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print. —. Catching Fire. New York: Scholastic, 2009. Print. —. Mockingjay. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Print. “Dystopian Literature for Young Adults.” LibGuides Sandbox for Library Schools. 17 Dec.2013. Web. 24 July 2015. http://libraryschool.libguidescms.com/yadystopianlit Mann, Abigail. “Competition and Kindness: The Darwinian World of the Hunger Games.” The Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of

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Pure Treason. Ed. George A. Dunn and Nicolas Michaud. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2012. 104-120. Print. Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books, 2011. Print. Wells, H. G. The Time Machine. 1895. New York: Bantam, 1991. Print.

Notes 1

Each District is required to send two “tributes”, one male and one female, to fight in the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death. 2 Katniss is named for an edible plant and so she finds herself in the forest in more ways than one. She remembers her father’s words: “‘As long as you can find yourself, you’ll never starve’” (Collins The Hunger Games 52). 3 At this point, page numbers disappear. They reappear after several pages perhaps as a reflection of Titus losing the feed as a frame of reference. It is necessary to count from the last printed page number. 4 See note 3. 5 In The Hunger Games, she says, “It’s hard to hate my prep team. They’re such total idiots. And yet, in an odd way, I know they’re sincerely trying to help me” (HG 63). In Catching Fire, she understands that they are a product of their society (CF 38). And in Mockingjay, when the prep team is imprisoned by the leader of District 13 during the revolution, she insists on their release (M 49). 6 People in Titus’s world drive in “upcars,” which are flying cars. They live in gated communities, individual homes or neighborhoods contained in domes and one dome is connected to another by way of “droptubes” through which upcars travel. Individual domes in gated communities at the upper-most levels of the drop-tubes reflect the owners’ status at the top of the socioeconomic ladder and communal domes at the bottom levels of drop-tubes reflect the owners’ status at the lowest rungs.

CHAPTER TEN “LAST GIRL ALIVE”: KIRSTY MURRAY’S DYSTOPIAN YA NOVEL VULTURE’S GATE CHARLOTTE BEYER

Introduction: Vulture’s Gate This chapter examines the portrayal of dystopia in the Australian author Kirsty Murray’s YA novel Vulture’s Gate (2009), focusing on the novel’s representations of location and gender. 1 Murray’s narrative is set in a future Australia that has been radically altered by environmental disaster, human conflicts, and the use of reproductive technologies (Allen & Unwin – Teachers’ Notes). Adele Walsh summarises the novel’s context thus: “Vulture's Gate is an intriguing exploration of a futuristic Australia where a bird virus has wiped out all those that possess the XX chromosome. What happens to the world when women are wiped out in only two generations?” The novel centres on two main characters, a girl called Bo and a boy named Callum, and portrays their companionship as they negotiate the challenges they face on a perilous journey travelling across the Australian outback to the city. Their contemporary society has broken down, giving rise to warring factions and rampant opportunism and abuses of power. Following the devastation caused by the virus and the subsequent social collapse, Bo was taken to the outback by her grandfather where they lived in a cave. After his death she lived there alone, sustaining herself through hunting. Bo finds Callum who has fled from two brutal Outstationers that abducted him from his fathers in order to use him as a performer in their circus. In a world where females are presumed to have died out, Callum is a “chosen” son of two fathers and has grown up in a loving family and a well-to-do environment. Bo and Callum overcome their differences of background to forge a close friendship. They flee Bo’s cave that has come under attack from the Outstationers, and travel to

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Vulture’s Gate, a future vision of Sydney (Femail), in search of Callum’s fathers. Here, they meet the Festers, abandoned boys living rough who are hunted and killed by the Sons of Gaia, a violent group of soldiers eradicating others who it deems to be unsuitable. Bo and Callum are separated and each undergoes trials and tribulations while apart and overcomes dangerous situations. Bo is taken and ends up in an island community called the Zenana2 where young girls are held imprisoned as part of an inhumane breeding scheme. At the end of the novel Bo and Callum find each other again and set off in search of a new and better world together with the girls from the Zenana, hoping to find a place free of oppression and gender inequality. Through its two engaging and believable main characters, Murray’s dystopian novel offers a nuanced and sensitive portrayal of their struggle to belong in a grim and uncompromising future. My chapter explores the problematisation in Vulture’s Gate of reproductive technologies and resulting social and gender-political disruption, and the novel’s critique of the relationship between humans and the environment, self and other (Allen & Unwin). This preoccupation echoes Susan Bernardo’s observation about science fiction: “This concern about the implications of technology and human behavior for the environment makes science fiction a perfect fit for recent ecocritical ideas about space, place, and environments as they intersect with literary theory” (1). Furthermore, such concerns are especially acute in Australian children’s literature, according to critics Clare Bradford, Kerry Mallan, and John Stephens: “Australian children’s literature since the beginning of the 1990s has responded to social change with utopian/dystopian visions which address national memory and its repertoire of narratives about history, identity and citizenship” (349). The genres of YA dystopia and YA literature have often been disregarded or ignored in relation to literary fiction, but have recently enjoyed more widespread critical recognition. As Bradford, Mallan, Stephens, and McCallum state, this is because: “contemporary children’s texts [are] a field of cultural production highly responsive to social change and to global politics, and crucially implicated in shaping the values of children and young people” (2). Murray has previously explored issues such as migration and Irish-Australian identities in her historical fiction for children (Beyer 174). The dystopian novel Vulture’s Gate presents a new departure in her oeuvre.3 Murray’s suspense-filled and absorbing dystopia demonstrates her imaginative engagement with YA genre fiction rooted in Australian realities. In the protagonists of Vulture’s Gate, she creates two complex and engaging characters that demand the reader’s empathetic identification and support.

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My chapter examines aspects of the novel central to its exploration of dystopia. I analyse how themes of location and gender are closely linked to its social and cultural critique, but also anchor the text in a specifically Australian literary and cultural context. The chapter concludes that Vulture’s Gate’s sensitive portrayal of the main characters and their negotiation with danger and entrapment makes the reader engage with the characters and their predicament and understand the threats that Vulture’s Gate’s dystopian society poses.

YA Dystopia in an Australian Context The primary concerns in Vulture’s Gate are around environmental threats and the marginalisation and erasure of females in patriarchal culture. In an interview, Murray discusses being influenced by ideas explored in current popular science regarding selectivity in reproduction and the potential implications of this (Walsh). However, her cultural critique goes further than that, reflecting the point made by Bradford, Mallan, Stephens, and McCallum that: “In children’s literature since 1990, utopian imaginings of ideal communities have been largely supplanted by dystopian visions of dysfunctional, regressive, and often violent communities” (107). Australian YA literature provides a rich area for the exploration of such questions, as Bradford, Mallan, and Stephens argue: “Directed towards readers who are engaged in processes of identity formation, imaginings of new world orders in Australian texts for children are multifarious and contradictory” (350). My discussion focuses on Murray’s treatment of identity, gender, and location. These are dimensions that are at the heart of the novel and its Australian specificity. Vulture’s Gate raises pertinent questions regarding the current popularity and pervasiveness of YA dystopias and places focus upon their readerships (Marshall 140). Recent years have witnessed lively debates over the content and appropriateness of YA dystopian fiction.4 Some media commentary has examined the idea that these fictions are mere escapist entertainment and that engaging with this material could have detrimental effects on child and young adult readers. In her 2012 feature on YA dystopia Amanda Craig states that: Many parents might feel worried on finding their teenage children addicted to grim visions of a future in which global warming has made the seas rise, the earth dry up, genetically engineered plants run riot and humans fight over the last available scraps of food.

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A degree of ambivalence about YA dystopias is suggested by the use of terms such as “addicted” and “grim”, while simultaneously dystopia is also declared to be “the hottest genre in publishing and film” (Craig). Such discourses construct YA dystopian fiction as a fad, playing down its complexities and reinforcing problematic notions of literary taste and hierarchy. However, as Bradford, Mallan, Stephens, and McCallum argue: “utopian and dystopian tropes carry out important social, cultural and political work by challenging and reformulating ideas about power and identity, community, the body, spatio-temporal change, and ecology” (2). Far from “riding the dystopian wave” (Craig) because it is fashionable, Murray and others use YA dystopia to engage with their readership’s pressing questions. This self-reflexive attention to genre literature and its merits is reflected in Vulture’s Gate’s references to fairy-tales5, foregrounding the importance of storytelling and the sense of shared experience it engenders but also highlighting the problematic stereotypes it perpetuates. Murray has said, commenting on the depth and complexity of YA and children’s literature, and the callous and cruel adult characters she portrays: Young people don’t live in a parallel universe populated by socially acceptable characters. They live in our world and they bear witness to it no less than we do. I think we often underestimate young readers’ ability to contextualise evil.’ (Walsh)

YA readers are politically aware, angered by injustice, sympathetic towards intersectionality, and determined to advocate and realise their own potential and agency in the world Set in a future Australian landscape, Vulture’s Gate problematises gender-political issues surrounding reproductive technologies and environmental destruction. The book is based on the nightmare scenario of a mutated bird flu virus that has catastrophic gender-political implications and threatens the survival of humankind, as Murray explains: “All female fetuses die in the early weeks of pregnancy so a generation of males only is born” (Walsh). The dystopian society described in Vulture’s Gate is one in which extreme contrasts exist between the affluent and the poor, between men and women, between different factions of society, between different geographical regions of the country. These extreme polarities contribute to the social and cultural fragmentation and perpetration of violence that characterise the dystopia of Vulture’s Gate. The novel employs the dystopian mode to question and interrogate these binary oppositions and social and cultural polarities and to scrutinise the assumptions that underpin them. The portrayal of these issues in relation

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to specifically Australian settings makes Murray’s novel distinct among other YA texts that share similar thematic and generic concerns. Vulture’s Gate forms part of a rich long-standing Australian dystopian literary tradition in children’s literature and YA writing. Weaver comments on this, stating that: “a glance at Australian adolescent literature and television reveals a considerable proportion of dystopian and apocalyptic works” (108). Sophie Masson concurs, placing the emergence of Australian YA dystopia in a historical perspective. She notes: Australian authors weren't prominent in the genre until the 80s but soon made up for it with post-nuclear apocalypse novels such as Victor Kelleher's Taronga and the first volume in Isobelle Carmody's continually bestselling series The Obernewtyn Chronicles, immensely popular among readers. (Masson)

Recent critics have described and examined this tradition and its specificities, focusing particularly on its postcolonial significance and treatment of issues of power and authority. The long-standing tradition of Australian YA fiction is closely connected with its specific national history and complex landscape, according to Ronni Phillips who suggests that: “All this combined to make Australia a fruitful breeding ground for dystopian literature [...] the Australian experience provided a physical and mythological backdrop for the stories that arose.” Murray’s work echoes these concerns, both in Vulture’s Gate and in her other fictions through the references she makes to myth and other intertexts (Beyer 175; Goodman 5). Weaver pinpoints a particular narrative formation that we also see in Vulture’s Gate, especially in its use of location and its close association with the protagonists’ symbolic and geographical journey. Commenting on this dimension in Australian YA dystopias, Weaver notes: Adolescent apocalyptic novels position the child in danger where young heroes are away from their families, often forming “lost tribes” with other children who are hiding in bushland and fighting for survival after a disaster, much like the children’s tribe in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. (108)

Murray’s novel echoes this iconography in its allusion to the 1979 science-fiction film Mad Max, set in Australian desert6 outback, featuring motorbikes as signifiers of individualism, mobility and agency7. Her intertextual references underline the importance of those familiar images and the Australian landscape they evoke. Murray’s creation of fictional characters is equally central to this dystopian novel. Commenting on the subject of power and employing child characters in her novels, she says in

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an interview that: “I’ve always been drawn to stories about gutsy kids who stand up to authority or take charge of their own destiny. I think many people under-estimate the strength and resourcefulness of children and teenagers” (“Bookbabblers”). Evidently, characters that possess qualities of self-reliance and strong anti-authoritarian streaks lend themselves eminently well to dystopian YA fiction. Through its child characters, Vulture’s Gate empathetically portrays the pains of growing up, the questioning of gender conventions and stereotypes, the need for both selfsufficiency and friendship and the drive and desire to create a better world.

Dystopian Landscapes Place and location are central to Vulture’s Gate’s dystopia, as in YA dystopian texts more generally. 8 The novel uses location as a vehicle to portray a future Australia in disarray— a country still marked by its colonial legacy and the need to negotiate a complex natural landscape. The novel conveys its dystopian environment through its use of stark contrasts and polarised locations that the protagonists Bo and Callum confront. Because of the extreme situations they contend with without any adult assistance or care, the reader is able to perceive their strength and courage and to form a strong bond with the characters. Bradford, Mallan, Stephens, and McCallum discuss the significance of place, suggesting that: “one of the more extreme polarities of utopian and dystopian representation appears in the relationship between nature and culture in depictions and interpretations of ‘natural’ environments” (79). Murray’s novel echoes this, alongside a number of concerns and preoccupations identified by Bradford, Mallan, and Stephens as central to Australian writers of YA dystopias. They note that these texts scrutinise concerns specific to Australia’s postcolonial situation, such as: ‘place and landscape; origins and belonging; inclusion and exclusion; memory and language; repression and resistance’ (Bradford, Mallan, and Stephens 350). Weaver also discusses contemporary Australian children’s literature and the natural environment, arguing that the questions raised in these literary texts are founded on a sense of colonial discomfort with Australian landscapes (110), issues evident in Murray’s novel. Location serves as a means for Vulture’s Gate to “thematize contemporary ecological issues” (Mallan and Bradford, 109), and highlight issues of ethnic and regional diversity. Vulture’s Gate’s use of setting foregrounds the specificity and uniqueness of Australian landscape and culture, making use of distinct symbolic locations that illustrate both the complex postcolonial identity of Australia and its class and gender hierarchies and stressing the capacity for

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YA dystopias to address present cultural-specific ideas and issues. Its dystopia is characterised by the division of society into separate isolated lawless sections such as the Colony and Sons of Gaia that represent male exclusivity, privilege and abuses of power. This portrayal reflects a wider tendency within YA dystopian writing, as Bradford, Mallan, and Stephens have argued: “many texts are characterised by anxiety and scepticism about the nation and the directions it has taken, manifested in dystopian visions of environmental decay, social disorder and the imposition of anarchic and totalitarian regimes” (349). Indicative of its status within the dystopian society in Vulture’s Gate, the term “The Colony”’ alludes to Australia’s colonial history; a contextual background that is reflected in its literature’s perpetual need to reassess itself and its traditions (Bradford, Mallan, Stephens 357).9 The fragmentation of society is reinforced by the image of Nekhbet Tower, the exclusive and heavily guarded apartment block where Callum used to live with his fathers, described as; “dark and solid above the ruined city. Its black glass walls rose up like the muzzle of a gun, pointing straight into a hazy blue sky” (107). The colour of the mirrored facade and phallic shape of Nekhbet Tower emphasise the exclusivity and gender segregation characteristic of the dystopian society the novel examines. The name of the apartment block further underlines the problematic issue of reproduction and fertility myths. As critics explain, Nekhbet is an ancient Egyptian goddess, also known as the vulture goddess by her headdress, believed to be “a mythical mother to every Egyptian king” (Pinch 121). On his return, observing the warstricken, devastated cityscapes, Callum suddenly doubts his memory of an idyllic childhood there. Callum’s emotional investment in the Colony, and his hope that going back will set things right, is thwarted when he discovers that the regime is brutal and corrupt (Kaye). Murray’s portrayal of the oppressive cityscape reflects her social and cultural critique of a society based on rising inequality and exclusion.10 The image of the heavily guarded, exclusive tower block of Nekhbet Tower is reminiscent of other dystopian literary environments such as that of J.G. Ballard’s 1975 novel High-Rise.11 However, as recent critical discussions have shown, these exclusive high-rise communities are no longer merely a vision of the future but are fast becoming the present-day investors’ capitalist paradise.12 Murray’s portrayal of Nekhbet Tower emphasises the capacity of YA dystopian fiction to offer critical commentary on our times. A stark contrast to the location of the oppressive cityscapes of Vulture’s Gate and Nekhbet Tower is presented by the evocative and complex landscape of the Australian outback. This is where Bo has

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managed to build a self-sufficient life after her grandfather’s death, grounded in a reality away from gender stereotypes and social pressures in close proximity to the land: “The desert was her own” (25). The novel’s use of the outback setting of the Pilbara (Murray) evokes Aboriginal history and culture, and links this portrayal to a respectful relation to nature through Bo’s hunter lifestyle that emulates that of outback communities long before her time. The opal cave (32) Bo lives in is named Tjukurpa Piti, a name closely associated with Aboriginal culture (Tjukurpa). “Tjukurpa” means Dreamtime, as Elizabeth J. Leppman explains: “tjukurpa [...] is a belief in a process of creation, of Earth and of humankind, and of their relationship. Dreamtime also establishes rules for behavior between humans and the environment” (28). Australian Aboriginal cultural tradition is one of the mythical and literary intertexts alluded to in the novel, alongside the female warrior figure of Celtic myth suggested by Bo’s name, which is an abbreviation of Boadicea (30).13 However, rather than act like a stereotypical warrior preoccupied with conquest and dominance, Bo shows self-sufficiency and reverence towards the natural environment—aspects that reflect an ecological awareness, a dimension more frequently associated with utopian texts, as Ostry explains: “Ecological utopias require protagonists to use ‘naturalist intelligence,’ learning based on the natural world, to develop critical thinking and physical strength, creating a world where one has a purpose beyond buying things” (103). The opposite of this respectful reverence can be observed in the Outstationers’ ruthless and cavalier attitude described by Callum: “‘They destroy everything. Make it so there’s no point in coming back. Smash everything, poison the water, throw flame around so that everything’s black and then they piss on it so it stinks”’ (44). When the Outstationers obliterate Tjukurpa Piti with mines, Bo and Callum are forced to flee for their lives and head for Vulture’s Gate in search of Callum’s fathers. The havoc the Outstationers wreak is a bleak warning of the environmental damage that humans cause, a pertinent theme frequently encountered in YA dystopias (Bradford, Mallan, and Stephens 349). Bo survived on her own in the desert by developing strength and selfreliance, and by becoming a “technohunter” (27), using her roboraptors to help her hunt. A “roboraptor” is a robotic toy dinosaur that is capable of a range of different modes and behaviours (Chan 115)—in Vulture’s Gate, it can stalk, prey, and hunt, and is maintained by batteries that charge by sunlight (4). The roboraptors’ pack behaviour emulates “real” animals, both in their hunting behaviour and in rest mode (4): “The other roboraptors whined faintly in response, acknowledging Mr Pinkwhistle as the favoured hunter” (4). In the depiction of the bond between Bo and her

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favoured roboraptor called Mr Pinkwhistle, Vulture’s Gate explores ideas of the posthuman14 by challenging the boundaries between sentient being and machine, an important dimension of Murray’s dystopia.15 Bradford, Mallan, Stephens and McCallum explain how: “Ideas of the posthuman question what we consider to be “natural,” and create possibilities for the emergence of new relationships between human and machine, biology and technology” (181). The bond of mutual trust between Bo and Mr Pinkwhistle challenges the frequent representation of robots in dystopian fiction as malevolent and exploited by humans to perpetrate violent control. Bo’s relationship with her roboraptors is defined in very different terms. This is evident in her reflection on their bond: “she couldn’t bring herself to shut him down. She thought of all the times he had hunted for her, of his preternatural ability to understand what she needed” (46). Their bond is one of the most significant and touching relationships described in Vulture’s Gate. The bond of trust between Bo and Mr Pinkwhistle presents a relationship between human and animal (and in extension of that, robotic animal) that is not antagonistic or violent, and that redefines human control in benevolent terms. Vulture’s Gate employs this relationship to illustrate an emotionally engaged, non-exploitative and respectful manner of relating to the other. When Bo and Callum are forced to flee Tjukurpa Piti to escape the Outriders, Mr Pinkwhistle is the only roboraptor they are able to bring. As they set out across the desert on a motorcycle (called a Daisy-May), Bo’s loss of her home mirrors Callum’s. This portrayal of loss and the journey towards recuperation is an important element of YA dystopia, according to Bernardo. This process reflects how dystopian fictions portray individual growth and loss, and as Bernardo notes: depict people, animals and constructed beings and how these beings cope with the realization of their intimate links to space/place, the losses and ruptures that occur with dislocation and the subsequent opening up of possibilities for reconstructing and innovating new structures of self, environments and societies. (4)

As we have seen, portrayals of location and nature serve a number of functions within Vulture’s Gate dystopian setting. Through the depiction of contrasting physical and symbolic settings, the novel illustrates different value sets and ethical approaches. It is through the process of confronting and negotiating these starkly contrasting locations that the protagonists Bo and Callum are able to establish a sense of self that constitutes a credible alternative to the dystopian erasure of subjectivity.

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Challenging Gender Codes Criticism of gender and its construction has been a consistent feature of much contemporary literature, including YA dystopias (Marshall 140). Gender also forms a major theme in Vulture’s Gate, echoing other YA dystopias’ scrutiny of the role gender plays in the creation and perpetuation of repressive regimes. Murray has stated that she wanted to “explore the type of dystopia that results when the genders are completely out of balance” (Allen & Unwin – Teachers’ Notes), specifically gender inequality and segregation triggered by environmental disaster. Murray portrays a dystopia where males and females are defined purely through their biology. The ideological motivated policy of gender segregation reinforces the patriarchal rule of the dystopia in the novel. This portrayal furthermore confirms the point made by Dean-Ruzicka that: Since young adult dystopian literature takes place in a world where norms have been significantly altered by a variety of societal collapses, these texts conceivably have the ability to either challenge or reinforce existing stereotypes regarding gender, race, class, and other marginalized identity categories. (52)

Murray’s gender-political critique and analysis enables young readerships to engage imaginatively with the problematic of gender inequality and abuses of power through the experiences and responses of Bo and Callum. In Vulture’s Gate negative aspects of masculinity and femininity are represented by gender segregated communities that perpetrate overt as well as indirect violence and coercion.16 Callum’s confrontations with extreme forms of masculinity represented by the anarchic male-only groups of Outstationers and the fanatic militia group Sons of Gaia serve to define him in opposition to them. The novel opens with Callum being kidnapped by two Outstationers called Floss and Dental. They forcibly train him to perform in their circus where he is locked in a cage and beaten brutally. 17 Callum is to all effects their slave, as suggested by the metal collar they force him to wear (Berlin 41). Their name for him is “dog,” reflecting how they regard him: “‘We’re a two-man show. Two men and a dog, that is. Youse our dog from now on”’ (10). Floss and Dental menacingly tell him how they callously killed the previous boy, “‘The last bonehead wouldn’t bend, wouldn’t train up proper. We snapped him in two. If you bend, you won’t break”’ (11). Taking heed from these terrifying references to his predecessor’s death and the threat to his own life, Callum determines to survive the situation through acquiescence: “As Floss came towards him with the chain, he also knew that he would learn

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to bend, he would learn to survive. He would never let them break him” (11). 18 Murray uses the Outstationers’ performance and circus to remind our contemporary society of the responsibility of artists to use their power for good.19 Another negative example of brutalised masculinity is represented by the Sons of Gaia soldiers based at Vulture’s Gate. In their struggle for supremacy (191), although purporting to respect the Earth and nature20, the Sons of Gaia define themselves as an exclusive religion ruthless to all it defines as “other” (205). They think they have found “the true path” (207), and their vision is to rid the Earth of all females (207), and, ultimately all humans (203). At Vulture’s Gate, Callum is reunited with one of his fathers, Rusty. However, to his horror, Callum finds that Rusty has joined the Sons of Gaia, taken the name Koala and denounced him as his son, wanting them instead to “work together, like brothers” (207). Callum watches the previously gentle and nurturing Rusty turn into a killer automaton under Sons of Gaia (216), and realising that this model of masculinity is abhorrent to him, Callum accepts that his future lies elsewhere and flees the compound. Callum’s imprisonment and frightening experience with the Sons of Gaia teach him to retain his own inner integrity in the face of the violent oppression and bullying mistreatment he endures and to resist oppression by siding with those who are vulnerable. This important quality enables him to stand alongside Bo, Li-Li and the freed girls from the Zenana and to join them in their quest for a new world in which to settle and live freely. Bo’s experiences within the female-only community Mater Misericordiae21, the name of which bears religious connotations to Virgin Mary22 reveal the (s)exploitation and denigrating treatment endured by the girls held captive there and expose oppressive power politics within the dystopia. Mater Misericordiae is based on an island off the coast of Vulture’s Gate, and Bo is taken there and held captive after becoming separated from Callum. Bo’s confinement teaches her that she needs to define her own identity rather than accept the subservient enslavement of females. Although the girls seemingly live in the lap of luxury and want for nothing in the Zenana, the place harbours a deeply disturbing reality. The rulers of Mater Misericordiae confine the girls who survived the virus in the complex, ‘for cruel breeding purposes’ (Serra), their eggs are harvested, and other girls are made to incubate the babies. Bo befriends a girl called Li-Li while at the Zenana who explains: “they keep you on the island forever. Incubating and incubating forever and ever until you die” (198). Inside the Zenana, “boygies” (182) control the imprisoned girls who are manicured and dressed up like princesses (183). So-called “Husbands” are brought in to inspect and select girls to entertain them in a frightening

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scenario reminiscent of the sex trade. Murray’s chilling portrayal of this degrading practice foregrounds the (s)exploitation of rare females within the dystopian society she depicts, and demonstrates to the reader that this is wrong and should be opposed.23 One of these males, the sinister and predatory Hackett, has sexually assaulted Li-Li on a previous occasion. This underlines the purpose of Mater Misericordiae—namely sexual coercion and exploitation of females by males. At the end of the novel LiLi fires a gun at Hackett to prevent him hurting her and Bo. This act of violence is portrayed not in gratuitous terms, but as a necessary act of selfdefence. Hackett and the pursuers are finally killed by the roboraptor Mr Pinkwhistle who fires a missile at their boat and sinks it. This suggests that in order to effect change and prevent dystopia, unacceptable modes of gender identification and behaviour, such as extreme masculinity and sexual exploitation, must be resisted and eliminated. In contrast to the negativity of the separate gender spheres, Bo and Callum’s relationship portrays an alternative model based on mutuality and empathy between the genders. This sense of balance and recognition of the humanity of the other is reinforced through the novel’s narrative perspective, as Gersha Shteyman also states: “The novel is engagingly told from the dual perspectives of both Bo and Callum and their experiences both together and separately” (Allen & Unwin – Teachers’ Review). The presentation and realisation of alternative, non-exploitative relations between the genders serves an important function within Vulture’s Gate, by allowing the reader to experience the possibility of resistance and change. Sensitively and movingly described, Bo and Callum’s bond is at the novel’s core. A central passage in Chapter 10, ”Last Girl Alive,” specifically foregrounds the issue of the gendered body and difference, an issue the contextual background for Vulture’s Gate’s dystopia accentuates. In this non-sexualised scene Bo and Callum swim in a pond and see each other naked for the first time. Never having seen girls before Callum is shocked to notice the physical differences. Through the characters and their reactions, the reader is invited to question their own assumptions regarding gender and its construction (53-55). Callum asks Bo if someone has “cut it off” (53) and Bo angrily protests. This passage reflects the assertion by Sara K. Day that: “Occupying the space between childhood and womanhood, between innocence and experience, between purity and fertility, such a body unsettles the ostensibly clear boundaries that dictate, among other things, gender roles and romantic relationships” (75). It is only when Bo compares their hands and the beating of their hearts, establishing their common humanity and overriding socially constructed gender difference, that Callum’s fear dissipates (57). In this beautifully

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written and poignant scene, Bo teaches Callum how to swim, but also teaches him not to fear and distrust the other. Bo and Callum are very different from one another in terms of their class and family background. Bo is a resilient, sensitive and courageous character whose fight to protect her loved ones is inspired by a sense of justice and fairness. She is an orphan who has had to fight for her survival from a young age drawing on Australian bush survival skills, whereas Callum is a privileged “chosen” boy who has grown up in a wealthy family home with his two fathers. Their differing experiences and expectations give rise to many of their conflicts or confusions, but also teach them tolerance, trust and ability to empathise as illustrated by their “butterfly kiss” (74-5). The non-verbal communication of their “butterfly kiss” enables them to bridge their differences and to consolidate the bond that defies the gender segregation of their dystopian regime. The ending of Vulture’s Gate emphasises story-telling as an integral part of human existence, as Bo reflects how “Every moment of those other lives that she had lived was now only a story” (243). This is an important dimension of the novel’s exploration of the role fantasy and literary genre play in our imaginative engagement with the world. Its concerns echo similar traits within other contemporary YA dystopian texts according to Bradford, Mallan, Stephens, and McCallum: “child protagonists are central both to representations of resistance and opposition, and also to narrative processes which position readers to critique contemporary societies” (122). Murray explores the gender-coding of genre writing and the function of fairy-tales and their reimagining as part of her experimentation with the dystopian mode.24

Conclusion: Imagining Alternatives Through its engagement with Kirsty Murray’s Vulture’s Gate and its Australian context, my chapter has offered a discussion of YA dystopia and the meanings and politics of location and gender. Importantly, these concepts are also ultimately the vehicles for transformation and hope within the book. While Bo is held at the Zenana complex, she and the other Zenana girls are taken on an outing to the Lady Bay Beach as a treat but are made to wear head-to-toe outfits to cover up their bodies. However, Bo rebels and removes her costume to swim in the sea naked. The other girls join in as Bo’s defiance spreads. Articulating her utopian vision of change, Bo exclaims: “‘Things can change for the better [...] One day, we might all be free to do as we please’” (214). This assertion demonstrates, as Bradford, Mallan, Stephens, and McCallum also suggest:

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“as a whole both utopian and dystopian narratives propose that even the most destructive totalitarian systems can be transformed” (129). Notions of hope and change are central to YA dystopian novels and also serve an important function within Vulture’s Gate. At the end of the novel Bo and Callum lead the freed girls from the Zenana towards a new life, and they sail away in search of a better world that upholds principles of equality and self-determination for all. This utopian note emerges strongly in the dreams and narratives of hope that the children share at this point. Together Bo and Li-Li imagine a utopian existence on the northern islands where Li-Li lived before she and her mother sailed to Vulture’s Gate. The utopia is described “like a dream from an imaginary life” (200) where women can exist in peace without fear and sexual exploitation and where they are plentiful in numbers. The important articulation of this alternative vision echoes Young’s point about YA dystopias: “These are dark, sometimes bleak stories, but that doesn't mean they are hopeless” (Young). This argument is supported by Bradford, Mallan, and Stephens, who, in their discussion of the appeal of YA dystopias, suggest that: “ the attraction of novels such as these is that they figure subjective agency in terms of a young protagonist resisting the prevailing social order and engaging proactively with it” (355). As we have seen, dystopian YA fiction demands fresh examinations of central questions for its readerships. In engaging with these compelling works of fiction we perceive the significance of re-evaluating self and other through imaginative involvement with literary language and genre. Young says that in YA dystopias: “an apparently bleak world is reimagined and lit up by children who understand clearly what is worth saving as they step from childhood to adulthood [...] Navigating that space is what all adolescents need to do.” This emphasis on personal development—in characters and readers— is an intrinsic dimension of YA dystopias as Bradford, Mallan, Stephens and McCallum also highlight: “Children’s texts remain constrained by the intrinsic commitment to maturation narratives—narrative structures posited on stories of individual development of subjective agency, or of bildungsroman” (91).25 Vulture’s Gate ends on the theme of hope that Bo’s reflections foreground: “The future was an open book” (242). Larissa Chapman suggests that the sense of hope the book engenders is rooted in the fairy tales Bo reads to the other children and in their subsequent recasting of those narratives (Allen & Unwin - Teachers’ Reviews). The insistence on survival and reimagining their lives in different contexts is a powerful note to end on. This inspiring message presents a counter-discourse to the destructive dystopian world, Bradford, Mallan, and Stephens argue: “Their informing

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structure— a narrative trajectory based on a journey, literal and metaphoric, from dystopian toward more hopeful states – affirms the possibility of agency” (355). One reviewer deplored what they saw as the lack of context or explanation in Vulture’s Gate (Robinson-Hatch). However, in my view what is realistic and believable about Vulture’s Gate is precisely the absence of a coherent, seamless explanatory narrative of what has led to the dystopian society it portrays. Seen from a child’s or young adult’s perspective, there would be fragmentation, loss of coherence and uncertainty. Experiencing the consequences of disaster and dystopia and negotiating them in the way a child or young adult perceives them creates a more believable story. Masters claims that: “young adult fiction is the most culturally relevant genre in literature today, and will continue to foster new waves of readers and keep books from becoming a stone-age technology.” Murray’s powerful and unsettling dystopian novel illustrates why it is so important to pay attention to gender-political and cultural questions at the present time. In its perceptive portrayal of child characters, their vulnerability and resilience, Vulture’s Gate demonstrates the effects of abuses of power and reminds us of the importance of imagining alternatives to the future dystopia it depicts.

Works Cited Ballard, J.G. High-Rise. London: Harper Perennial, 2005 [1975]. Print. Baretti, Jacques. “The Super-Rich and Us”. Episode One. BBC2. TV documentary. Shown on 8 January 2015. Basu, Balaka; Broad, Katherine R.; Hintz, Carrie (Eds.) Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults: Brave New Teenagers. Routledge, 2013. Print. Berlin, Ira. The Slaves' Economy: Independent Production by Slaves in the Americas. Psychology Press, 1995. Print. Beyer, Charlotte. “‘Hungry Ghosts’: Kirsty Murray’s Irish-Australian ‘Children of the Wind.” In K. Sands-O’Connor and M. Frank (Eds.) Internationalism in Children’s Series London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 174-193. Print. Bradford, Clare; Mallan, Kerry; Stephens, John; and McCallum, Robyn. New World Orders in Contemporary Children’s Literature: Utopian Transformations. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 [2007] Print. Bradford, Clare; Mallan, Kerry; Stephens, John. “New world orders and the dystopian turn: transforming visions of territoriality and belonging in recent Australian children’s fiction.” Journal of Australian Studies, Vol. 32, No.3, September 2008, 349-359. Print.

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Bernardo, Susan. “Introduction.” In Bernardo, Susan (Ed.) Environments in Science Fiction: Essays on Alternative Spaces. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2014. 1-8. Print. Chan, Wayne. The Problem with Being Perfect. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2010. Print. Craig, Amanda. “The Hunger Games and the teenage craze for dystopian fiction.” The Telegraph, 14 March 2012. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9143409/The-HungerGames-and-the-teenage-craze-for-dystopian-fiction.html. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. Curry, Alice. Environmental Crisis in Young Adult Fiction: A Poetics of Earth. London: Palgrave, 2013. Print. Day, Sara K. “Docile Bodies, Dangerous Bodies: Sexual Awakening and Social Resistance in Young Adult Dystopian Novels.” In Day, Sara K; Green-Barteet, Miranda A; Montz, Amy L (Eds.) Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction. Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing, 2014. 75-94. Print. Day, Sara K; Green-Barteet, Miranda A; Montz, Amy L (Eds.) Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction. Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing, 2014. Print. Dean-Ruzicka, Rachel. “Of Scrivens and Sparks: Girl Geniuses in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction.” In Day, Sara K; Green-Barteet, Miranda A; Montz, Amy L (Eds.) Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction. Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing, 2014. 51-74. Print. Ellington, Donna Spivey. From Sacred Body to Angelic Soul: Understanding Mary in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. The Catholic University of America Press, 2001. Print. Goodman, Jo. “Know the Author: Kirsty Murray.” Magpies: Talking About Books for Children. Vol. 25 no. 1. March 2010. 4-6. Print. “Interview with Kirsty Murray – Author of India Dark”’ 15 January 2012.Bookbabblers.http://bookbabblers.co.uk/2012/01/interview-withkirsty-murray-author-of-india-dark/ Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. “In the Classroom: VG by Kirsty Murray.” Teachers’ Notes. Allen &Unwin.http://www.allenandunwin.com/_uploads/BookPdf/Teachers Notes/9781741757101.pdf Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. Kaye, Lorien. “Journey through a dystopian world is darkly enjoyable and preys on the mind.” The Age. 22 August, 2009. Print. Kirsty Murray. Author website. https://www.pinterest.com/kirstymurray/vulture-s-gate/. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web.

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LaGrandeur, Kevin. “What is the Difference between Posthumanism and Transhumanism?” Institute for Ethcs and Emerging Technologies. 28 July 2014. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/lagrandeur20140729. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. Leppman, Elizabeth J. Australia and the Pacific. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2006. Print. Lewis, Jone Johnson. “Boudicca (Boadicea): Celtic Warrior Queen.” Women’s History. http://womenshistory.about.com/od/boudicca/p/boudicca.htm. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. Mallan, Kerry; Bradford, Clare (Eds.) Contemporary Children's Literature and Film: Engaging with Theory. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print. Marshall, Megan. “What Mainstream Centers Cannot Hold: Growing Critical Literacy with Dystopian Fiction.” In Paugh, Patricia; Kress, Tricia; Lake, Robert (Eds.) Teaching towards Democracy with Postmodern and Popular Culture Texts. Sense Publishers, Amsterdam, 2014. 135-150. Print. Massey, Geraldine and Bradford, Clare. “Children as Ecocitizens: Ecocriticism and Environmental Texts.” In Mallan, Kerry; Bradford, Clare (Eds.) Contemporary Children's Literature and Film: Engaging with Theory. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 109-126. Print. Masson, Sophie. “End of the world as we know it.” The Australian. 7 May, 2011. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/end-of-the-world-aswe-know-it/story-e6frg8n6-1226049043302?nk=0b4f4a22fdecc925a8 09eb99676047f8. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. Masters, Shelby. “Young adult fiction shapes pop culture like no other genre.” The Red & Black, February 10, 2014. http://www.redandblack.com/views/young-adult-fiction-shapes-popculture-like-no-other-genre/article_77b93f5e-927d-11e3-af13001a4bcf6878.html. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. McMurry, Kate. ‘Vulture’s Wake by Kirsty Murray.’ Kate McMurry. 18 April 2010. http://katemcmurry.com/node/184. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. Murray, Kirsty. Vulture’s Gate. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2009. Print. Murray, Kirsty, Dhar, Payal and Roy, Anita. Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2015. Print. Ostry, Elaine. “On the Brink: The Role of Young Adult Culture in Environmental Degradation.” In Basu, Balaka; Broad, Katherine R.; Hintz, Carrie (Eds.) Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young

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Adults: Brave New Teenagers. London: Routledge, 2013. 101-116. Print. Paugh, Patricia; Kress, Tricia; Lake, Robert (Eds.) Teaching towards Democracy with Postmodern and Popular Culture Texts. Amsterdam: Sense Publishers, 2014. Print. Phillips, Ronni. “A hunger for dystopia.” The Canberra Times, April 7. 2012. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/entertainment/a-hunger-for-dy stopia-20120406-1wfyz.html. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. Pinch, Geraldine. Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print. Robinson-Hatch, Sarah. “Vulture’s Gate – book review.” Written Word Worlds. 9 February 2014. https://writtenwordworlds.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/vultures-gatebook-review/. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. Sandercombe, Jenny. “Slipping Back Through Time: Discovering TimeSlip Fiction.” Magpies: Talking About Books for Children. Vol. 27, no.2. May 2012. 8-11. Print. Self, Will. “Will Self on the meaning of skyscrapers – from the Tower of Babel to The Shard.” The Guardian, Friday 27 March 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/27/will-self-on-themeaning-of-skyscrapers . Accessed 1 May 2015. Serra, Danielle. “Kirsty Murray: Vulture’s Wake.” School Library Journal. June 2010. 114. Print. Stravinskas, Peter M. J. What Mary Means to Christians: An Ancient Tradition Explained. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2012. Print. “Teachers’ Notes” Allen & Unwin. No date. http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741 757101. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. “Teachers’ Review.” Allen & Unwin. No date. http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741 757101. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. “Tjukurpa.” 2012. Uluru-Kata-Tjuta: Knowledge for Tour Guides. http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/tourism/uluru/downloads/readings/reading1 5_tjukurpa_piti.pdf. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. “Vulture’s Gate”. Femail. http://www.femail.com.au/vultures-gate.htm. Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. Wainwright, Oliver. “'American Psycho' property promo pulled after Twitterstorm.” The Guardian. 5 January 2015.

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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/ 2015/jan/05/american-psycho-redrow-property-promo-pulled-aftertwitterstorm. Accessed 22 January 2015. Web. Walsh, Adele. “Interview—Kirsty Murray.” Persnickety Snark. Friday, 14 August 2009. http://www.persnicketysnark.com/2009/08/interview-kirstymurray.html Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. Weaver, Roslyn. Apocalypse in Australian Fiction and Film: A Critical Study. Jefferson: McFarland, 2011. Print. Young, Moira. “Why is dystopia so appealing to young adults?” The Guardian. 22 October 2011. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/23/dystopian-fiction Accessed 9 January 2015. Web. “Zenana.” Collins English Dictionary. http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/zenana. Accessed 1 May 2015. Web.

Notes 1

The title quotation is from Vulture’s Gate p. 55. A zenana means a separate female-only part of a household; see Collins English Dictionary 3 Murray has previously written what Sandercombe terms “time-slip” fiction, and is reported to have enjoyed books featuring time travel as a child, though historical works rather than science fiction (Sandercombe 9). She has also recently co-edited and contributed to a collection of speculative fiction, entitled Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean (2015), by Australian and Indian authors. The present essay does not permit for a discussion of this work; however, I hope to examine it in a future publication. 4 In her 2011 article, Moira Young specifically mentions Collins’ The Hunger Games and its ‘jaw-dropping success.’ 5 This point is also made by Melissa Adams (Allen & Unwin – Teachers’ Reviews), and by Goodman p.5. 6 The allusions in Vulture’s Gate to the film Mad Max have also been noted by McMurry. 7 This iconography is now regularly used in dystopian films, including the 2013 film Oblivion starring Tom Cruise. 8 As explored by critics such as Susan Bernardo et al. 9 Chapter 17 is called “The Underworld” and describes Bo and Callum’s arrival at Vulture’s Gate. This title has dark, menacing connotations and the name of the tower block where Callum used to live underlines those further. 10 Topics also discussed in the BBC2 programme "The Super-Rich and Us" presented by Jacques Peretti. 2

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11 This point is also made by Will Self, who mentions Ballard’s High-Rise as an illustration of what he terms “the meaning of skyscrapers.” 12 See also Wainwright’s insightful article and the BBC2 programme "The SuperRich and Us" presented by Jacques Peretti. 13 Boadicea is the name of an ancient British Celtic warrior queen who lad a rebellion against the Roman colonisers (Lewis). 14 Kevin LaGrandeur defines the posthuman in the following terms: “the posthuman can be defined as that condition in which humans and intelligent technology are becoming increasingly intertwined.” 15 As Goodman points out, this name is derived from Enid Blyton (6). 16 The anarchic dystopian society also enables outmoded patriarchal relations to survive, as illustrated by an ageing male hermit Bo and Callum meet while travelling across the desert, called Mollie whose lifestyle is reminiscent of settler times in Australian colonial history. To begin with, Bo and Callum are content to stay at Mollie’s outback homestead for a while. However, Mollie reveals his plans to marry Bo, using an outmoded patriarchal discourse to justify this: “‘Nature’s way, kiddies. This is Nature’s way. The ancients, they gave the young girls to the old men, ‘cause they were the ones that knew how to care for them [...] It’s only natural that you should be my wife, Bo.”’ (94). Mollie may be compared to the fairy-tale predatory old male villains of Bluebeard and Fitcher’s bird (96) and Callum and Bo use the escape stratagem from the Grimm tale ‘Fitcher’s Bird’ to flee Mollie. 17 Performance and circus have been transformed into a negative and dark form by the Outstationers, rather than a joyful and creative expression of creativity. For example, a singer is called a “howler,” using a derogatory term to describe the art form. By forcing Callum to perform, the spectacle is presented as a ritual humiliation and an enactment of power hierarchy and inequality. 18 Murray has reflected on the centrality of the theme of performance to her work, in her conversation with Jo Goodman. 19 I also discuss Murray’s portrayal of performance and art in Beyer pp.180-1. 20 The Sons of Gaia have renamed themselves to indicate their group alliance, using organic and animal names for themselves which are specific to Australia, such as Quokka (204). However, although they define themselves as Mother Earth’s defenders, their destructive and callous behaviour suggest that, rather than being eco-warriors, they are brainwashed by their belief in themselves as ‘the chosen few,’ and motivated by hatred and fear of the other. 21 The term is Latin and means “mother of mercy” (Stravinskas, “Mary and the Young Jesus”). 22 According to Ellington, Virgin Mary was “‘Mater Misericordiae’ chiefly because of her ability to stay the punishing hand of God and obtain his mercy by imploring his son for forgiveness for sinners” (43). Ellington further explains how the figure of ‘Mater Misericordiae’ became linked with plague art (43), a fact which links her to the viral devastation depicted in Vulture’s Gate. 23 This portrayal serves as a critique of oppressive practices of gender segregation.

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24 For both Bo and Callum, changing their hair and appearance becomes a way for them of changing their gender identities and to disguise or conceal themselves. 25 Also cited in Curry p.195.

CONTRIBUTORS

Riven Barton, PhD, holds a private counseling practice in Santa Barbara CA and frequently lectures about collective psychology and popular culture. She teaches writing at Santa Barbara City College and is currently working on a series of publications regarding the resurgence of the mythic in the contemporary world Dr. Charlotte Beyer is Senior Lecturer in English Studies at the University of Gloucestershire, UK. She has published widely on contemporary literature and genre, including a number of articles and book chapters on crime and spy fiction. She has also published on children’s literature, including a chapter on Kirsty Murray's historical children's series Children of the Wind, in Karen Sands-O’Connor and Marietta Frank (Eds.) Internationalism in Children’s Series (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Dr. Charlotte Beyer has written on mother-daughter relations and maternal perspectives, and is currently co-editing a book for Demeter Press on the topic of mothers without their children, due to be published in 2016. She is also editing a 2017 Special Issue on contemporary crime fiction for the journal American, British and Canadian Studies. She is on the Steering Committee for the Crime Studies Network, and on the editorial board for American, British and Canadian Studies. Molly Brost is a Contract Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern Indiana, where she teaches composition and literature classes. She holds a PhD in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University, as well as an MA in English from Colorado State University and a BS in Journalism and English from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Her scholarly work has been featured in Americana: the Journal of American Popular Culture (1900-Present); Scope: An Online Journal of Film and TV Studies; and in various anthologies. Her reviews frequently appear in Popular Music and Society and on UCLA's Mediascape Blog. Nicole duPlessis has her PhD from Texas A&M University, where she teaches in the Department of English. Nicole has published on E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, “The Celestial Omnibus” and “Other Kingdom,” and C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. Her interests include

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children’s and young adult literature, fantasy, and literary representations of literacy. Terra Walston Joseph is an Assistant Professor at Rider University, specializing in Victorian literature. Her recent publications include articles in Victorian Literature and Culture and Nineteenth-Century Contexts, as well as an essay in Victorian Settler Narratives (2011). Her current ongoing research project links nineteenth-century speculative fictions (many of which are dystopian) to notions of Anglo-Saxon global polity, settler colonialism, and the politics of race. Louisa MacKay-Demerjian lives and teaches in Massachusetts. She received her MA in English from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. This project brings together her interests in politics, culture and literature. As a teacher of first year college students, she has seen the need for those students to develop their critical thinking and reading skills. She believes studying dystopian literature and film would help those young adults to be more critically aware. She has brought together an excellent group of writers to examine dystopian literature and film from a variety of angles. Laura Alexandra Poladian teaches composition and literature at local colleges in Orange County, CA and at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. Her research interests include Children’s literature generally and specifically the impact on young readers of reading about traumatic events and violence. Patricia A. Stapleton is a comparative political science and public policy scholar. She currently teaches at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, where she is the Director of the Society, Technology, and Policy Program. Her research interests cover the regulation of biotechnology, both in food and reproductive medicine. In addition to a PhD in Political Science, Patricia also has an MA in French Literature. When possible, she writes on the intersection of literature and politics, especially in the context of utopian/dystopian fiction. Karen F. Stein received her BA from Brooklyn College, her MA from the Pennsylvania State University, and her PhD from the University of Connecticut. She is Professor of English and of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Rhode Island. She publishes on North American women writers and has published Margaret Atwood Revisited;

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Reading, Learning, Teaching Toni Morrison; and Rachel Carson. She is currently at work on a study of Adrienne Rich, an important feminist poet and theorist. Stein's essay about press coverage of Hillary Clinton's previous presidential campaign revealed a widespread disrespect. (She hopes that Clinton's campaign will be treated more respectfully this time!) The essay is “The Cleavage Commotion: How the Press Covered Senator Hillary Clinton’s Campaign,” in Cracked but Not Shattered: Hillary Rodham Clinton's Unsuccessful Campaign for the Presidency, ed. Ted Sheckels, Rowman and Littlefield, 2009. Jeanne Tiehen is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Theatre at the University of Kansas. In addition to having two book reviews appear in The Journal of American Culture, she had her article “Frankenstein Performed: The Monster Who Will Not Die” published in The Popular Culture Studies Journal in 2014. She currently serves as the Managing Editor for the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism and is working on her dissertation that explores science plays in relation to concepts of time and cultural perceptions of temporality.

INDEX

Anderson, M. T. Feed 131-14 Anthem (Rand) 8-10, 18 Artemis 14-16 Atwood, Margaret 1-3, Crake 21, 23, 24-27, 29-30, 3546, 47-49, 55-56, 57 Crakers 28, 30, 45-46, 55-57 “Dire Cartographies” 36, 38, 41, 45, 46 dystopian vision, 19-34 global capitalism, 35-46 The Handmaid’s Tale 38, 41, 109-110 literacy, 109-110,126, 127 Maddaddam 19-34, 35-45, 47, 54-57 Oryx 35, 40-43, 45 Oryx and Crake 19-34, 35-36, 38, 45-46, 48-49, 54-56, 57 Post-apocalypse/post-human 47-59 Snowman/Jimmy 21, 24-26, 29, 32, 35-36, 38-45, 54-56 “Writing Utopia” 3 The Year of the Flood 19-34, 56, 58 Bacigalupi, Paolo The Windup Girl 51, 58 Ballard, J. G. High-Rise 149, 157, 162 Barker, Clive Frankenstein in Love 61, 63, 67-69, 71-72, 73 Baudrillard, Jean 11, 17 Bauman, Zygmunt 37, 39, 46 Berg, Chris 21, 30, 32 “Blade Runner” 11, 12, 17 Blasingame, James 85, 90, 93, 101 Booker, M. Keith 63, 72, 73

Bradbury, Ray Fahrenheit 451 105, 106, 108-109, 110, 115, 124, 125, 126, 127 Brave New World (Huxley) 1, 8, 9, 17, 47, 49, 51, 58, 103, 104, 106-107, 108, 109, 114, 115, 118, 127 Brumfiel, Geoff 62, 73 Butler, Octavia E. 2, 47-48, 51-52, 56-58 Adulthood Rites 53-54 Dawn 48, 52-53 Imago 53-54, 56-57 Lilith Iyapo 52 Lilith’s Brood 2, 47, 48, 52-54, 58 the Oankali 48, 52-54, 57 the Ooloi 52-53 Caspi, Zahava 62, 63, 74 Catching Fire (Collins) 75, 80, 90, 98, 101, 103, 104, 114-116, 119, 120, 124, 126, 140, 141 “Children of Men” 14, 15-16, 17, 35, 46 Churchill, Caryl A Number 61, 6367, 71, 74 Climate Change 1, 13, 19, 23, 37, 40, 46, 47, 50, 57, 62 Cloud Atlas (Mitchell) 35 Collins, Suzanne 17, 75, 76-78, 7981, 85-91, 93-94, 96-99, 100101, 103, 104, 126-127, 131, 137, 140, 141 Catching Fire 75, 80, 90, 98, 101, 103, 104, 114-122, 124, 126, 140, 141 The Hunger Games 14-17, 7582, 85-91, 93-102, 103-129, 131-132, 136, 140, 141

168 Gale Hawthorne 93, 113, 122, 124, 134 Katniss Everdeen 15, 75, 78-82, 85-89, 93, 96-100, 103-104, 110-126, 131-141 Peeta Mellark 79-81, 86-87, 89, 93, 96-98, 100, 103-104, 114-115, 117, 121-126, 132 Prim Everdeen 80, 86, 113, 115-116, 121, 122, 124 Mockingjay 80, 89, 90, 93, 97, 100, 101, 114-115, 116-117, 120, 124-126, 140, 141 Craig, Amanda 145-146, 158 Dick, Philip K. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” 50, 51 “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” 46 Divergent (Roth) 14-15, 18 “Doctor Moreau” 55 Edinger, Edward 6, 17 “Elysium” 35 Erikson, Erik 133, 136 Erlich, Paul The Population Bomb 21 Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury) 105, 106, 108-109, 110, 115, 124 Feed (Anderson) 131-141 Titus 131-141 Violet 132-134, 136-140 Feenberg, Andrew 20-21, 23, 31, 32 Frankenstein (Shelley) 5, 49-50, 55, 58 Frankenstein in Love (Barker) 61, 67-69, 72, 73, 74 Freud, Sigmund 126, 129 “Gattaca” 50-51, 58 Gender and stereotypes 14 and the Ooloi 52 and literacy 109, 127 Challenging stereotypes 143146, 148-150, 152-157, 162163

Index The Giver (Lowry) 75-79, 81-89, 91 Jonas 75, 76, 78, 79, 82-85, 87, 88, 89 Grasses of a Thousand Colors (Shawn) 61, 69-71, 74 Human hybrids 28, 30, 45-46, 4758 The Hunger Games (Collins) 1417, 75-82, 85-91, 93-102, 103129, 131, 132, 136, 140, 141 Huxley, Aldous Brave New World 49-50, 58, 103, 104, 106-107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 114, 115, 118, 126-128 Jung, Carl 6, 17 Kidd, Kenneth 89, 90 Klaic, Dragan “The Menace of Science” 61, 71-72, 74 Kumar, Krishan 37, 46 Lord of the Flies (Golding) 127 Lowry, Lois The Giver 75-79, 8185, 86, 87-89, 91 Lyotard, Jean-Francois The Postmodern Condition 8, 10, 17 Maddaddam (Atwood) 19-34, 3546, 54-57 “Mad Max” 147, 161 “The Matrix” 11-13, 17 Mockingjay (Collins) 80, 89, 90, 93, 97, 100, 101, 114, 117, 120, 124, 126, 140, 141 More, Thomas Utopia 37 Murray, Kirsty Vulture’s Gate 143163 Never Let Me Go (Ishiguro) 35 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell) 1, 3, 5, 8-10, 17, 21, 47, 58, 94-95, 103, 104, 107-110, 127 A Number (Churchill) 61, 63-67, 7172, 73, 74 Ong, Walter 106, 114, 119, 120122, 127, 128 Orwell, George (1984) 1, 3, 5, 17, 21, 58, 64, 94, 95, 97, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, 127

The Age of Dystopia: One Genre, Our Fears and Our Future Oryx and Crake (Atwood) 19-34, 35-36, 38, 45-46, 48-49, 54-56, 57 Rand, Ayn Anthem 8, 10, 18 Rees, Martin Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning 61-63, 73, 74 “Revolution” 14-15, 18 Science Fiction (sf) 20-21, 22-23, 31, 32, 50, 52, 68, 144, 158, 161 Shawn, Wallace Grasses of a Thousand Colors 61, 63, 69-71, 74 The Time Machine (Wells) 132-133, 136, 141 “Total Recall” 35, 46

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Turkle, Sherry Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other 133-136, 141 Vint, Sherryl 22, 27, 31, 32 Vulture’s Gate (Murray) 143-163 Bo 143-144, 148, 149-156, 161-163 Callum 143-144, 148-156, 161163 Wells, H. G. “Doctor Moreau” 55 The Time Machine 132-133, 136, 141 The Year of the Flood (Atwood) 19-34, 56, 58 Zehelein, Eva-Sabine 62, 75