IMPORTANT AND INFLUENTIAL DYSTOPIAN NOVELS OF THE 20^TH CENTURY

 

The Iron Heel by Jack London (written 1908) A soft Science-fiction novel that portrays a futuristic, oligarchical, and tyrannical America. The oligarchy bankrupts small businesses, reduces small farmers to serfs, and maintains power through labor caste system and mercenaries. It is cited by George Orwell's biographer Michael Shelden as having influenced Nineteen Eighty-Four.  It accurately predicted the time when international tensions would reach their peak (1913 in "The Iron Heel", 1914 in actual history).  The whole book is based on Marx's view that capitalism was inherently unsustainable. CONTEXT: The increasing prominence of Marxist socialism and its conflict with capitalism. THEMES: oppressive Government, Oligarchy, Destruction of the Middle Class, Artificially Widened Wealth Gap, Instability of Capitalism, Conflict between Capitalism and Socialism.

 

**We by Yevgeny Zamyatin(written 1921) This novel shows a futuristic police state structured like a prison panopticon. There is no privacy, and even dreams and private thoughts are monitored. Dehumanization of the citizens is accomplished via identical clothing, numbers assigned instead of names for people, everyone marching in step with one another, etc. The leader of the One State is propagandized as being good, and called ‘the Benefactor’. The protagonist experiences exposure to someone who shows freedom in sexuality, drug and alcohol consumption which represents a return to “primitive” individualism. The story parallels the biblical story of Paradise (One State), Adam and Eve, and their ‘exile’ which here is rather an escape. Mathematical concepts are used symbolically. CONTEXT: Despite having been a prominent Old Bolshevik, Zamyatin was deeply disturbed by the policies pursued by the CPSU following the October Revolution. He became a controversial Russian author of science fiction and political satire, and was banned and exiled for his polemic against the oppressive communist regime.  The first work banned by the Soviet censorship board, it was a response to the author's personal experiences during the Russian revolution of 1905, the Russian revolution of 1917, his life in the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond, and his work in the Tyne shipyards during the First World War. It was on Tyneside that he observed the collectivization of labour on a large scale.

THEMES: Omnipresent Government Surveillance, Totalitarian Oppressive Government, Propaganda, Controlled/Monitored Sexuality, Paranoia, Individual Versus Collective, Social Prioritization of Control and Efficiency Over Human Nature, A Rebellious Group Existing Outside and In Opposition to the Dominant Civilization

 

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (written 1932)  This novel is set in London of AD 2540. The themes it presents are: developments in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and operant conditioning that combine to profoundly change society. CONTEXT: Inspired by H.G. Well’s dystopian novels. George Orwell believed that Brave New World must be partly derived from the novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Deals with a pessimistic view of the future of the world in the direction indicated by the Industrial Revolution, mass production of consumer products, and the political, cultural, economic and sociological upheavals of war. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the First World War were resonating throughout the world as a whole and the individual lives of most people. Accordingly, many of the novel's characters are named after widely recognized, influential and in many cases contemporary people. This dystopian novel expresses widely held opinions, particularly the fear of losing individual identity in the fast-paced world of the future. 

THEMES: Reproductive and Genetic Technology, Psychological Manipulation, Brainwashing and Conditioning, Sleep-Learning, Industrial Revolution, Subjugation of the Individual, Oppressive Government

 

1984 by George orwell (written 1949) Superstates in a world of perpetual war. Themes:  omnipresent government surveillance, and public mind control, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (or, in the government's invented language, Newspeak, called Ingsoc) under the control of a privileged Inner Party elite that persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as "thoughtcrimes".  A quasi-divine Party leader who enjoys an intense cult of personality. propaganda and historical revisionism. Government sanctioned torture, poverty, and starvation, and censorship. The destruction caused by atomic wars. Nationalism as a way of brainwashing the people. Subjugation of the individual. Surveillance and lack of privacy.  the person's subordination to the collective; rigorously enforced class distinctions (Inner Party, Outer Party, Proles); the cult of personality; concentration camps; Thought Police; compulsory regimented daily exercise and youth leagues. CONTEXT: During World War II (1939–1945) Orwell believed that British democracy as it existed before 1939 would not survive the war, the question being "Would it end via Fascist coup d'état (from above) or via Socialist revolution (from below).  Much of Oceanic society is based upon the USSR under Joseph Stalin—Big Brother.

THEMES: Totalitarian Oppressive Government, Citizens as slaves of the Government, Constant Surveillance, Brainwashing, Propaganda/Censorship, Superpowers at Perpetual War, Subjugation of Individuality, Nuclear Warfare, Individual Versus Collective, Justified Violence and Murder, Paranoia

 

Farenheight 451 by Ray Bradbury (written 1953) a future American society where books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found in order to suppress dissenting ideas. CONTEXT:  In a 1956 radio interview,^[7] Bradbury stated that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about censorship and the threat of book burning in the United States. the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, Nazi book burnings,  Joseph Stalin's campaign of political repression, the "Great Purge", in which writers and poets, among many others, were arrested and often executed ALL convinced Bradbury of the vulnerability of books, and the correlation of censorship with destructive and oppressive governments.  The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)—formed in 1938 to investigate American citizens and organizations suspected of having communist ties—held hearings in 1947 to investigate alleged communist influence in Hollywood movie-making. These hearings resulted in the blacklisting of the so-called "Hollywood Ten",^[20] a group of influential screenwriters and directors. This governmental interference in the affairs of artists and creative types greatly angered Bradbury.

THEMES: Individual Versus Collective, Totalitarian Government, Control Over Dissemination of Ideas, Oppressed Citizens, Social Control and Efficiency Versus Morality, Propaganda/Censorship, Paranoia, A Rebellious Group Existing Outside and In Opposition to the Dominant Civilization

 

**I am Legend by Richard Matheson (1954) zomies, worldwide apocalypse due to disease. People at fault for their own destruction. Robert Neville is the apparent sole survivor of a pandemic whose symptoms resemble vampirism. It is implied that the pandemic was caused by a war, and that it was spread by dust storms in the cities and an explosion in the mosquito population. Depression and alcoholism as coping mechanism. The infected have slowly overcome their disease until they can spend short periods of time in sunlight, and are attempting to build a new society. The tables have turned, and now the protagonist is the bad guy. Society and evolution and human “progress” have twice now outsped him and rendered him a relic from the past. At the end when he is captured and put in a cell he sees that the infected view him with the same hatred and fear that he once felt for the vampires; he realizes that he, a remnant of old humanity, is now a legend to the new race born of the infection. He recognizes that their desire to kill him is not something he can condemn. As the pills take effect, he thinks: "[I am] a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend." CONTEXT: I Am Legend is the product of an anxious artistic mind working in an anxious cultural climate. Matheson channels universal human fears about the speeding-up of the pace at which humanity is ‘progressing’ and the unknown repercussion of such change. In the anxious Cold War climate, he articulates the ‘what if’ scenario of a man left alone in a post-apocalyptic world and the psychological and physical struggles he faces. In essence, such speculative fiction represents a thought experiment that prepares one for what they might face should the Cold War turn hot. In a flashback, Neville and his wife speculate about a connection between nuclear bombings and the virus. THEMES: Survivalism, Last Person On Earth, Zombies, Vampires, Deadly Disease Evolution, Ruined Cityscape, A New Society Post Apocalypse, Paranoia Against Everyone, Decay Versus Regeneration

 

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (written 1955) Depicts a post-technological rural civilization that resembles the American frontier. The people of Labrador have a loose collective memory of their technologically advanced forefathers and believe that God sent “Tribulation” to punish their sins. The inhabitants practice a form of fundamentalist Christianity with post-apocalyptic prohibitions. They believe that to follow God's word and prevent another Tribulation, they need to preserve absolute normality among the surviving humans, plants and animals. Genetic invariance has been elevated to the highest religious principle, and humans with even minor mutations are considered "Blasphemies" and the handiwork of the Devil. Out of fear, individuality and variance is punished by death, exile, or sterilization to eliminate change or evolution.  The Fringes is a lawless and untamed area still rife with animal and plant mutations. The protagonist meets a girl with six toes on each foot and begins to wonder at the morality of the government-sanctioned punishment of mutants. David, the main character, is one of many telepaths who conceal their skill. CONTEXT: Though the nature of "Tribulation" is not explicitly stated, it is implied that it was a nuclear holocaust, both by the mutations, and by the stories of sailors who report blackened, glassy wastes to the south-west where the remains of faintly glowing cities can be seen (presumably the east coast of the US). Sailors venturing too close to these ruins experience symptoms consistent withradiation sickness. THEMES: Post-Technological World, Religious (Christian) Violent Zeal, Hostility Against Technology or Evolution due to the Destruction Caused by Them, Oppressive Government, Deliberate Homogenization and Attack on Iconoclasts, Genetic Mutation, Results of Nuclear War, A Rebellious Group Existing Outside and In Opposition to the Dominant Civilization.

 

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (pub 1957) The book explores a dystopian United States where many of society's wealthiest citizens refuse to pay increasingly high taxes, reject government regulations and disappear, shutting down their vital industries. The disappearances evoke the imagery of what would happen if the mythological Atlas refused to continue to hold up the sky. These characters hope to demonstrate that the destruction of the profit motive leads to the collapse of society. This book expresses philosophical themes of objectivism, the advocacy of reason, individualism, capitalism, and the failures of governmental coercion. Her stated goal for writing the text was "to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them" and to portray "what happens to a world without them". Ayn Rand did extensive research on industries like the railroad, steel, and even the creation of atomic bombs, and her work is at once optimistic and bitterly scathing of people in general. She offers advice on how to advance through economic depression and the merits of unfettered capitalism. Her novel is an aggressive and powerful tirade against a future with a too-controlling government, and espouses opposites of lot of the elements seen in other dystopian novels: sex is free and a celebration of humanity, scientific progress is positive, and the potential of human evolution is idolized. CONTEXT: Rand’s disdain for the rise of communism and collectivism in Russia, and Atlas Shruggedwas published at the height of the Cold War. At the end of World War II, even when the totalitarian threat of the Nazis had been eliminated, much of Europe, followed by China, Korea, and Cuba, fell under Communism. Communism, a collectivist system that forces individuals to sacrifice their own interests for the good of the state, threatened the personal and intellectual freedoms Rand considered essential. As a student of American capitalism, Rand believed that unfettered economic freedom was the factor most responsible for the major achievements of American inventors and businessmen during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. THEMES: Libertarianism, Individualism, Government Coercion, Collapse of Society, Industrial Revolution, The Contemporary World as a Dystopia for Advanced People, Citizens as Slaves to the Government, Intelligence Versus Mental Deficiency, Individual Versus Collective

 

A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller (1959) Set in a Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the story spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself.  The monks of the fictional Albertian Order of Leibowitz take up the mission of preserving the surviving remnants of man's scientific knowledge until the day the outside world is again ready for it. This novel dramatizes the idea that all societies go through three phases: First there is the struggle to integrate in a hostile environment. Then, after integration, comes an explosive expansion of the culture-conquest, then a withering of the mother culture, and the rebellious rise of young culture. CONTEXT: It’s inspired by the author's participation in the Allied bombing of the monastery at Monte Cassino during World War II. THEMES: Religion Post Apocalypse, Regression due to Loss of Scientific Knowledge, Post Nuclear War, Rebuilding Civilization, Opposing Superpowers, Space Travel, Recurrence and Cyclical History, Church Versus State, Futility of Life

 

Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (pub 1962)  Set in a not-so-distant future society that has a culture of extreme youth violence, the novel's teenage anti-hero gives a first-person narration about his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him. The term "ultraviolence," referring to excessive and/or unjustified violence, was coined by Burgess in the book, which includes the phrase "do the ultra-violent." The term's association with aesthetic violence has led to its use in the media. This novel examines a pre-dystopian world in the beginning of the totalitarian government’s reign. Behavioral modification and brainwashing is taken to extremes by the government in order to lull the citizens into a state of dull roboticism and complacency. The main character struggles to feel alive in a world that he does not understand and has not taught him any moral compass. Burgess shows his audience that the main characteristic of a dystopia is its’ citizens’ lack of moral choice- and the prioritization of social control and efficiency over human nature. CONTEXT:  Burgess had arrived back in Britain after his stint abroad to see that much had changed. A youth culture had grown, including coffee bars, pop music and teenage gangs.^[10] England was gripped by fears over juvenile delinquency.^[9] Burgess claimed that the novel's inspiration was his wife Lynne's beating by a gang of drunk American servicemen stationed in England during World War II, and presumably the violent culture created by a wartime psychology. THEMES: Totalitarian Government, Brainwashing, Extreme Violence Married to Innocence, Lack of Morality, Behavioral Modification, Social Prioritization of Control and Efficiency Over Human Nature, Youth Culture Out of Control, Individual Versus Collective.

 

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (1963)  It humorously explores issues of science, technology, and religion, satirizing the arms race, amoral scientific research, nuclear warfare, and religion. At the opening of the book, the narrator, an everyman named John (but calling himself Jonah), describes a time when he was planning to write a book about what important Americans did on the day Hiroshima was bombed. While researching this topic, John becomes involved with the children of Felix Hoenikker, a Nobel laureate physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb. He discovers the religion of Bokononism and brings about the end of the world via scientifically-developed instant global ice age. Through parody and irony, Vonnegut explores the dangers inherent in the combination of human stupidity and indifference with mankind's technological capacity for mass destruction. CONTEXT: After World War II, Kurt Vonnegut worked in the public relations department for the General Electric research company. GE hired scientists and let them do pure research, and his job was to interview these scientists and find good stories about their research. Vonnegut felt that the older scientists were indifferent about the ways their discoveries might be used and any ethical dilemmas. THEMES: Futility of Life, Scientific Advances Leading to Destruction, Amoral Science, Suicide and Despair, Industrialization Causing Human Suffering, Scientific Advances Coming with an Unforeseen Cost, Extreme Violence Married to Innocence.

 

Logan’s Run trilogy by William F Nolan (1967)  it depicts a dystopic ageist future society in which both population and the consumption of resources are maintained in equilibrium by requiring the death of everyone reaching a particular age- 21 years. The story follows the actions of Logan, a Sandman charged with enforcing the rule, as he tracks down and kills citizens who "run" from society's lethal demand—only to end up "running" himself. For most of the book, Logan is an antihero chasing down those who attempt to flee death to a “Sanctuary” outside the reach of the youth-civilization. Gradually Logan develops sympathy for the Runners and has a change of allegiance when he too passes the age of 21. CONTEXT: The premise was inspired directly by the social upheavals, particularly the youth demonstrations, going on at its time of publication as well as panic about an overpopulated earth, war and unrest, and a general revolt against the old (establishment). Once again, this dystopia shows one possible future where government attempts a more efficient solution to the problems humanity has cause itself, but at the expense of morality and humanity. THEMES: Totalitarian Government, Citizens as Slaves of the Government, Youth Out of Control, Overpopulation, Social Prioritization of Control and Efficiency Over Human Nature, A Rebellious Group Existing Outside and In Opposition to the Dominant Civilization, Justified Murder.

 

***Do androids dream of electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick (1968) The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic near future, where Earth and its populations have been damaged greatly by nuclear war during World War Terminus. Most types of animals are endangered or extinct due to extreme radiation poisoning from the war. To own an animal is a sign of status, but what is emphasized more is the empathic emotions humans experience towards an animal. The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who is faced with "retiring" six escaped Nexus-6 brain model androids, the latest and most advanced model, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-normal intelligence who aids the fugitive androids. In connection with Deckard's mission, the novel explores the issue of what it is to be human. Unlike humans, the androids possess no empathic sense. In essence, Deckard probes the existence of defining qualities that separate humans from androids. Rick soon learns that androids may be capable of empathy and humans may be able to be devoid of empathy; this in turn causes an extreme shift in Rick's understanding of himself. Suddenly, Rick finds that the lines between what one can call living or what one can call not-living are blurred. Androids find their empathetic abilities with each other just as humans find the ability to be empathetic in a collective group. CONTEXT: Like many of these novels, it portrays a world post nuclear holocaust. Since the end of World War II, when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, the Soviet Union had been developing their own nuclear arsenal. Many Americans saw the spread of Soviet Communism as the country's greatest threat, and they engaged the Soviets in a "Cold War" throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The two sides never directly engaged each other in combat, although they came close in 1962, when the U.S. challenged the Soviets over their placement of missiles in Cuba, causing the Cuban Missile Crisis. The world was intensely concerned with the repercussions of such destruction. THEMES: Post-Nuclear War, Androids/Robots, What Defines Humanity, Environmental Destruction and Mutation, Human Science Responsible For Destruction, Religion and Morality Versus State, Empathy and Love, Real Versus Unreal, Mind Control, Intelligence Versus Mental Deficiency, Decay Versus Regeneration, Individual Versus Collective

 

***The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975) This is a feminist science-fiction novel thatfollows the lives of four women living in parallel worlds that differ in time and place. When they cross over to each other's worlds, their different views on gender roles startle each other's preexisting notions of womanhood. In the end, their encounters influence them to evaluate their lives and shape their ideas of what it means to be a woman. The character Joanna calls herself the “female man” because she believes that she must forget her identity as a woman in order to be respected. She metaphorically rejects dependence on men and seeks equality. The four worlds explored are: 1. A world that's similar to Earth in the 1970s. 2. A world where the Great Depression never ended. The Second World War never happened because Adolf Hitler was assassinated in 1936, and Chiang Kai-Shek controls Hong Kong, as Japanese imperialism still dominates the Chinese mainland. 3.  A utopian society in the far future where all the men died from a gender-specific plague over 800 years ago. After mastering parthenogenesis, women form lesbian relationships and parent children within them. Although the world is technologically advanced, their societies are mostly agrarian. 4. A dystopia where men and women are literally engaged in a "battle of the sexes". Although they have been in conflict for over 40 years, the two societies still participate in trade with each other. Women trade children in exchange for resources. In order for men to cope with their sexual desires, young boys undergo cosmetic surgery that physically changes their appearance so that they look like women. CONTEXT: The Feminist Movement was at its height in the 1970s, and Joanna Russ used this novel as a playground in which to explore different potential outcome of the contemporary battle of the sexes. It simultaneously tackles the curiosity and anxiety common to those speculating about the future advances in science as well as social structure. THEMES: Feminist Utopia, Battle of the Sexes, Genetic Engineering, Nature Versus Nurture, Reproductive Technology, Non-Destructive Future Relationship With Technology, Societal Reconstruction, Opposing Superpowers in a State of Constant War, Adaptive Sexuality, Advanced Plastic Surgery

 

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin (1974)  In order to forestall an anarcho-syndicalist rebellion, the major Urrasti states gave the revolutionaries the right to live on Anarres, along with a guarantee of non-interference, approximately two hundred years before the events of The Dispossessed. The protagonist Shevek is a physicist attempting to develop a General Temporal Theory. The physics of the book describes time as having a much deeper, more complex structure than we understand it. It incorporates not only mathematics and physics, but also philosophy and ethics. The meaning of the theories in the book weaves into the plot, not only describing abstract physical concepts, but the ups and downs of the characters' lives, and the transformation of the Anarresti society. An oft-quoted saying in the book is "true journey is return." CONTEXT: The story of The Dispossessed is set on Anarres and Urras, the twin inhabited worlds of Tau Ceti. Urras is divided into several states which are dominated by the two largest ones, which are rivals. In a clear allusion to the United States (represented by A-Io) and the Soviet Union (represented by Thu), one has a capitalist economy and patriarchal system and the other is an authoritarian system that claims to rule in the name of the proletariat. Further developing the analogy, there is in A-Io an oppositional left-wing party which is closely linked to and supporting the rival Thu, as were Communist parties in the US and other Western countries at the time of writing. Beyond that, there is a third major, though underdeveloped, area called Benbili — when a revolution supported by Thu breaks out there, A-Io invades, generating a proxy war. Thus, Benbili comes to represent south-east Asia, an allusion to the Vietnam War.

THEMES: Anarchism and Revolutionary Societies, Capitalism/Individualism/Collectivism, Technological Advance, The Nature of Time and Simultaneity , Advanced Physics and Philosophy, Superpowers at War, Proxy Wars, Recurrence and Cyclical History, Decay Versus Regeneration, Individual Versus the Collective

 

Book of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe (pub 1980) The tetralogy chronicles the journey and ascent to power of Severian, a disgraced journeyman torturer who becomes Autarch, the one ruler of the free world. It is a first-person narrative, ostensibly translated by Wolfe into contemporary English, set in the distant future when the Sun has dimmed and Earth is cooler (a "Dying Earth" story). CONTEXT: This series is a masterwork of speculative fiction, and represents an era when authors began to push the limits of science fiction and imaginary worlds past any precedent. His protagonist is inherently unreliable, and the noel plays an elaborate game with its readers that forces them to question the validity of everything they assume to be true. His work represents a new turn in the genre, when authors like Gene Wolfe and Neil Gaiman began to direct their talents away from allegories of Nuclear war and US VS. USSR and focus on more philosophical and existential experiments. This coincides with the gradual ending of the Cold War. Anxiety had faded enough to allow such authors to focus on different psychological queries. THEMES: Justified Torture and Violence, Revolution, Individual Versus Collective, A Future Dying Earth, Cosmic Mysticism About Humanity’s Place in the Universe, Unreliable Narrator

 

***The Running Man by Richard Bachman and Stephen King (written 1982)  The novel is set in a dystopian United States during the year 2025, in which the nation's economy is in ruins and world violence is rising. The story follows protagonist Ben Richards as he participates in the game show The Running Man in which contestants, allowed to go anywhere in the world, are chased by "Hunters," employed to kill them.  America has become a totalitarian dystopia. Richards is unable to find work, having been blacklisted from his trade, and he needs money to get medicine for his gravely ill daughter Cathy. His wife Sheila has resorted to prostitution to bring in money for the family. In desperation, Richards turns to the Games Network, a government-operated television station that runs violent game shows. The contestant is declared an enemy of state and earns money for every hour he manages to stay alive. Viewers are complicit by earning money by reporting the Runner’s whereabouts.The Network exists only as a propaganda machine to pacify and distract the public. CONTEXT: This is another dystopian novel that focuses on a future outside the “superpowers at war” allegory that dominated much of 20^thcentury dystopian science-fiction. Its focus is on economic depressions, cultural desensitization to violence, and the television as a tool of pacification and a way to make violence palatable. Stephen King is predicting another economic depression like the Great Depression of 1929-1933 and attempting to make his readers think twice about where American is culturally heading.

THEMES: Propaganda, Totalitarian Government, Poverty and Economic Collapse, Justified Violence for Entertainment, Suicide in the Face of Futility, Individual Versus the Collective, Survivalism, Paranoia and Desperation, A Bleak and Hopeless Future, Television Sensationalism, Desensitization to Violence

 

Neuromancer (spawl trilogy) by William Gibson (first novel written 1984) Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the dystopia underworld of Chiba City, Japan. Once a talented computer hacker, Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment for his theft, Case's central nervous system was damaged with a mycotoxin, leaving him unable to access the global computer network in cyberspace, a virtual reality dataspace called the "Matrix". Unemployable, addicted to drugs, and suicidal, Case desperately searches the Chiba "black clinics" for a miracle cure. The book delves deeply into a corrupt and gritty world where technology and human life have merged so closely as to become inseparable. CONTEXT: Gibson was inspired by the fast evolution of technology, and this book essentially predicts the way the internet and the World Wide Web would develop in the following decades. As with other dystopias, Gibson takes it upon himself to examine a potential dark future which could unpredictably occur as a result of our technological progress. This novel also predicts with eerie accuracy the way computer terminology would enter language as every-day slang. This book gained enormous attention and galvanizes the modern reader to wonder at the extent to which our imaginary “fictional” universes become real precisely because we imagined them. THEMES: Advanced Technology, Blurring the line Between Humanity and Technology, Drug Addiction, Advanced Plastic Surgery and Organ Transplant, Questioning Identity, Freedom Versus Confinement

 

The Children of Men by P.D. James (written 1992) Set in England in 2021, it centres on the results of mass infertility. James describes a United Kingdom that is steadily depopulating and focuses on a small group of resisters who do not share the disillusionment of the masses.  In 1994, the sperm counts of human males plummeted to zero and mankind now faces imminent extinction. The last people to be born are now called "Omegas". "A race apart," they enjoy various prerogatives. People become disillusioned and lose all interest in politics, paving the way for a tyrannical despot to take control and abolish democracy. The novel’s beacon of hope is when a member of the dissident group, the Five Fishes, becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby boy at the end of the novel. Context: This is the most contemporary of the novels in this selection. It takes the opposite view of the future from overpopulation earth actually is headed toward. James’ premise is based on sound ecological theory however. When a species overpopulates its environment, something happens to drastically reduce the population size, be it disease, starvation, or environmental change. In a sense, James is indeed examining the overpopulation problem we are currently facing, and he is choosing to do so from an unlikely viewpoint. THEMES: Tyrannical Government, Mass Infertility, Disillusionment and Apathy, A Rebellious Group Existing Outside and In Opposition to the Dominant Civilization, Youth Culture Out of Control, Government Enforced Suicide (of those over age 60), Survivalism, Last People on Earth, End of the Species, Exploitation of Foreign Workers

 

 

THEMES LIST- model the CYOA on these:

Mass Infertility

Disillusionment and Apathy, Paranoia and Desperation

 A Rebellious Group Existing Outside and In Opposition to the Dominant Civilization

Youth Culture Out of Contro

l Government Enforced Suicide (of those over age 60)

Survivalism/ Last People or person on Earth- end of the species

Exploitation of Foreign Workers

Advanced Technology Blurring the line Between Humanity and Technology- Questioning Identity/humanity

Drug Addiction- new type of drug

Advanced Plastic Surgery and Organ Transplant

Freedom Versus Confinement

Propaganda- Control Over Dissemination of Ideas- Censorship- Constant Surveillance

Totalitarian/Absolute/Oppressive/Tyrannical Government

Poverty and Economic Collapse

“Justified” Violence in Mass Entertainment- Desensitization to Violence

Suicide in the Face of Futility

Individual Versus the Collective

A Bleak and Hopeless Future

Television Sensationalism (for propaganda or for placation of the masses)

Justified Torture and Violence

Revolution

A Future Dying Earth

Cosmic Mysticism About Humanity’s Place in the Universe

Unreliable Narrator

Anarchism and Revolutionary Societies

Capitalism/Individualism/Collectivism

Technological Advance

The Nature of Time and Simultaneity

Advanced Physics and Philosophy

Superpowers at War/ Proxy Wars

Recurrence and Cyclical History

Decay Versus Regeneration

Feminist Utopia-Battle of the Sexes- Adaptive Sexuality- Reproductive Technology

Genetic Engineering

Nature Versus Nurture

Non-Destructive Future Relationship With Technology

Societal Reconstruction

a State of Constant War OR post-war

Post nuclear war and the Fallout Environmental

Destruction and Mutation

Human Science Responsible For Destruction

Religion and Morality Versus State

Empathy and Love

Real Versus Unreal

Intelligence Versus Mental Deficiency

Decay Versus Regeneration

Citizens as Slaves of the Government

Overpopulation

Social Prioritization of Control and Efficiency Over HumanNature

Futility of Life

Amoral Science

Scientific Advances Coming with an Unforeseen Cost

Extreme Violence Married to Innocence- ties in to Desensitization to Violence

Brainwashing/Behavioral Modification/mind control

Religion Post Apocalypse

Regression due to Loss of Scientific Knowledge

Space Travel

Post-Technological World

Religious (Christian) Violent Zeal Hostility Against Technology or Evolution due to the Destruction Caused by Them

Deliberate Homogenization and Attack on Iconoclasts/ subjugation of the individual

Zombies and Vampires

Deadly Disease Evolution

Ruined Cityscape

 Psychological Manipulation

 Sleep-Learning

Controlled/Monitored Sexuality

Destruction of the Middle Class- Artificially Widened Wealth Gap

Conflict between Capitalism and Socialism- Instability of Capitalism