Guess what? I'm Back!

I'm back from my little hiatus. I felt that much of what I was writing was being forced and was not being very inspired. So I took some time off to focus on work and to be able to read, but now I am ready to go back to the swing of things.

This Random Saturday is going to be about a genre in literature that has been becoming even more popular. For whatever reason dystopian literature has captivated many people including myself.

So what is it that is so captivating about this type of literature? What is it about these heroes that make us want to mimic who they live? Why are we able to relate to these worlds so much?

Before I attempt to dive into this topic, I want to state that I am by no means an expert on this topic. I have only had a few courses on literature. What I can say is that I have been reading up on this subject and these are my conclusions.

From what I have read and some consistent themes in each dystopian literature, there are three key things in my mind on why people are drawn to this genre.

They are as followed:

•  Categories
• High Stake Situation
• Hope

Categories

We love categorizing everything! You can disagree with me as much as you want, but society as a whole loves categories. Take it back to when you were in school (elementary to High school), there was always the kids that were smart (nerds), the kids that were good at sports (jocks), the people who were too cool for school (I would say popular, but I don’t think that aptly describes them), and so many more. Categorizing makes things easier to process and easier for people to understand.

I think the best example of this is in this scene from the movie Mean Girls:

This is a movie, the map of the lunchroom though is from a book entitled "Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World" by Rosalind Wiseman. This book is not a Young Adult fiction book, but a book that my aunt who is a school counselor reads so she can help students!

Now how does this relate to dystopian fiction?

Easily. The vast majority of dystopian fiction I have either read or have heard of has some type of categorization. You are in a faction, a district, a sect, whatever the term is; you are placed in a category and are not allowed to break from it. The fact that you cannot break from it is not the part that we like, but the protagonist breaks the social norms and stands for something different. 

We are placed in categories all the time and the simple fact that these characters are in a world where categories define them and are breaking those molds help empower us to carry that over to our lives.

High Stake Situations

 Breaking societal norms typically leads to some type of negative effect. Not all the time, but the majority of the time people do not respond positively to change. By forcing change, these protagonists in these dystopian worlds are forced into high stake situations. They are leading revolutions and changing the overall views of society.

Why do we like this?

Because these protagonists are fighting for what is right. I have met so many people who want to bring change to the world, who join different organizations to help bring change so we can make the world a better place and who are ready to fight. These high stakes are the reason to fight and we are seeing them in the world around us. Hence the reason why so many people are becoming more vocal about different subjects and are letting their opinions out.

Hope

Breaking categories then being forced into high stake situations then leads to hope. The reason protagonists are fighting against society's categories is not to simply fight, but to bring a better world. It always amazes me how in dystopian worlds, the protagonist is not trying not to create an utopian world, but somewhere in between. They know that there is a better way to live, but that it does not have to be perfect, like how the governments that they are living under are trying to portray. They know that they are not fighting in vain and typically have some moment in the books when they realize this.

BUT...
            with all of this, it does not completely describe why people are drawn to this type of literature.


To give some deeper perspective, when I worked with teens in the youth group, none of them remembered a time that we were not in war. They do not remember a time when we have been at peace or when there has not been talks of horrible riots or school shootings. All of these items are norms. Near the end of the time I was working with youth, there was a boy in a neighboring school district who some kids knew of and they weren't phased that he committed suicide, it was something normal.

These dystopian worlds show order at first at face level, which to be honest, people are trying to do that same thing in our society. That's why I get sick when parents would complain that we couldn't discuss certain subjects, because that's not what you were supposed to do in church. Just angers me when I think about it, cause if you can't talk about issues there in a safe settings where teens came be themselves then I don't know where (that is the atmosphere we tried to present with the kids in the youth group).

So, these dystopian worlds are actually more closely related to the world we are living in just in a more drastic point of view. We relate to these characters because we see that society is categorizing us and people are beginning to take those high risks to help build a better world by keeping hope alive and not being completely cynical.

That's why I believe dystopian fiction is as popular as it is. It keeps hope alive in a bleak world.