DYSTOPIA & ADOLESCENCE

LCN617—Children’s Literature: Criticism and Practice. 2015.

Erica Hateley – erica.hateley@qut.edu.au

“This city is a paradise, Tally. It feeds you, educates you, keeps you safe. It makes you pretty.” (Westerfeld 106)

Cultural Burps?

Last week, we looked at the perpetually popular genre of series fiction (arguably more a material genre than a formal genre); but, in addition to such long-term trends, folks who work with texts for young people also need to be alert to the current trends/tides/fads etc.

I like to think about such moments as cultural burps—they come from somewhere (not always immediately visible), and carry with them the traces of the already known/consumed

A short while ago, the burp du jour was vampire narratives (in many, often quite odd, formulations); alongside those, the past several years have seen a rise in YA dystopia.

N.B. The infographic to the right can be seen in all its glory at: http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/351-the-dystopian-timeline-to-the-hunger-games-infographic

“Wives are subordinate to their husbands, children to their parents, and younger people generally to their elders.” (More 80)

“Everyone has his eye on you, so you’re practically forced to get on with your job, and make some proper use of your spare time.” (More 84)

Utopian Education?

“Priests are also responsible for the education of children and adolescents, in which quite as much stress is laid on moral as on academic training. They do their utmost to ensure that, while children are still at an impressionable age, they’re given the right ideas about things—the sort of ideas best calculated to preserve the structure of their society. If thoroughly absorbed in childhood, these ideas will persist throughout adult life.” (More 123-124)

“dystopia is the story of the “bad place”, an ominous nightmare scenario warning us of repressive futures that seem all too disturbingly possible and plausible […] because of the romanticised views of Western childhood which persist in writing for young children, utopias tend to predominate in children’s literature, while a more troubling and darker atmosphere is far more common in young adult literature, where dystopian young adult fiction provides a promising vehicle to depict adolescents’ political and social awakening and their mediation with the authority of adults and inherited institutions” (Kennon 40)

A Dystopian Education?

“We also predestine and condition. We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future…’ He was going to say ‘future World Controllers’, but correcting himself, said ‘future Directors of Hatcheries’ instead.” (Huxley 22)

“‘And that’, put in the Director sententiously, ‘that is the secret of happiness and virtue–liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.’” (Huxley 24)

“Between the rose bowls the books were duly set out – a row of nursery quartos opened invitingly each at some gaily coloured image of beast or fish or bird […] There was a violent explosion. Shriller and even shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded […] now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock […] at the approach of the roses, at the mere sight of those gaily-coloured images of pussy and cock-a-doodle-doo and baa-baa black sheep, the infants shrank away in horror; the volume of their howling suddenly increased.”“They’ll be safe from books and botany all their lives” (Huxley 27-29)

“Classic” / Canonical Dystopias

1924 1932 19491953

Cultural Anxiety

Dystopias clearly and explicitly address their moment of production, regardless of how far in time and/or space the imagined world might be from that moment

Particular anxieties—may or may not be shared by the author and the wider socio-cultural group

Cultural anxieties—are (at least somewhat) likely to be shared by the wider socio-cultural group, but may not necessarily be the primary ‘target’ of the text e.g. “IngSoc” versus “Big Brother” (Orwell)

Cultural anxieties shared by the classic dystopias: Surveillance / privacy Disconnection from historical and/or cultural knowledge and

understanding

“Each individual, in his place, is securely confined to a cell from which he is seen from the front by the supervisor; but the side walls keep him from coming into contact with his companions. He is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject in communication. The arrangement of his room, opposite the central tower, imposes on him an axial visibility; but the divisions of the ring, those separated cells, imply a lateral invisibility. And this invisibility is a guarantee of order.” (Foucault 200)

Anxieties of Surveillance and the Self-Policing Subject…

“We get to use the blinds on Sex Day. Otherwise we live in broad daylight inside these walls that seem to have been fashioned out of bright air, always on view. We have nothing to hide from one another. Besides, this makes it easier for the Guardians to carry out their burdensome, noble task. No telling what might go on otherwise.” (Zamyatin 19)

“It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinised.” (Orwell 5)

Worth Thinking About:

How might we understand or balance the differences between: Young Adult literature as a genre

that tends towards normative socialisation and acculturation; that often encourages young people to “fit” with current/dominant social, cultural, and political norms; and,

Dystopian literature as a genre predicated on critique of social, cultural, and political norms?

Each of these is a generalising definition, but there would seem to be a tension!

Or, Conformity versus Rebellion –

how does YA dystopia manage these?

Individual / Society

What is an individual? What are the aims of the individual? What characterises the society? What are the aims of the society? What is the relationship between the individual

and society?

“a common preoccupation with subjectivity, especially the development of notions of selfhood, relationships between self and others and between individuals and society” (McCallum 217)

YA Dystopias…

1960s-1980s: “dystopian fictions for young audiences frequently took the form of post-disaster narratives” (Stephens 139)

1973 1982 1987 1988 Further reading: Braithwaite, Elizabeth. “Post-Disaster Fiction for Young Adults: Some

Trends and Variations.” Papers: Explorations Into Children’s Literature 20.1 (2010): 5-19. Available at: http://www.paperschildlit.com/index.php/papers/article/viewFile/63/52

’80s Renaissance in “Classic” Dystopia

1982-1989 1984 1985

“Diminishing civil liberties in the West, because of increased surveillance and control in response to the instabilities of global politics, also seem to be reflected in utopian/dystopian children’s

fiction.” (Stephens 139)

Uglies = Adolescence?

“Twelve was definitely the turning point, when you changed from a cute littlie into an oversize, under-educated ugly.” (Westerfeld 77)

“Tally, we all make promises when we’re little. That’s part of being an ugly—everything’s exciting and intense and important, but you have to grow out of it.” (116)

“For the first time in her life, Tally found herself listening to a middle pretty without being completely reassured, a realization that made her dizzy.” (117)

“She wondered if there was some operation that could make her back into a littlie again, forever.” (148)

“Now she saw tricks for what they were: a way for uglies to blow off steam until they reached sixteen, nothing but a meaningless distraction until their mutinous natures were erased by adulthood, and the operation.” (360)

Adolescents & ‘procedures’ in the ‘real’ world:

“We are capable of doing awful things to these kids”--Dr. Mark Sultan (1998) “And if the answer is, ‘I’m just ugly,’ that’s not good enough.”--Dr. James L.

Baker (1998) “With adolescents, their ideas about their bodies change as fast as their bodies

do”--Dr. Nicholas Perricone (1998) (Gross)

“The teenagers were notably realistic in their assessments of the body part they wanted to have changed”--Dr. Hans M. Koot (2004)

“By the age of 6, kids can participate in the decision to have surgery and understand why it is being done”--Dr. Steven J. Pearlman (2004) (Duenwald)

Further Reading: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20051216friday.html

“But occasionally bad things come from outside the city.” (Westerfeld 106) “Some cities allowed exotic operations—for new pretties only—but the

authorities here were notoriously conservative.” (39) “She knew from school that in some cities they spoke other languages, or didn’t

turn pretty until they were eighteen, and other weird stuff like that.” (72) “It’s just called the Smoke. It’s not a city, and nobody’s in charge. And nobody’s

pretty.” (91)

“History would indicate that the majority of people have always been sheep. Before the operation, there were wars and mass hatred and clear-cutting. Whatever these lesions make us, it isn’t a far cry from the way humanity was in the Rusty era. These days we’re just a bit . . . easier to manage.” (272)

“Well, the Rusties did live in a house of cards, but someone gave it a pretty big shove. No one ever found out who. Maybe it was a Rusty weapon that got out of control. Maybe it was people in some poor country who didn’t like the way Rusties ran things. Maybe it was just an accident, like the flowers, or some long scientist who wanted to mess things up.” (345)

“As educators, we should help students question and challenge the social forces that are informing

their habits, decisions, and personalities.” (Wilkinson 25)

“We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it. There were stories in the newspapers, of course, corpses in ditches or the woods, bludgeoned to death […] The newspaper stories were like dreams to us, bad dreams dreamt by others. How awful, we would say, and they were, but they were awful without being believable. They were too melodramatic, they had a dimension that was not the dimension of our lives.We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom.We lived in the gaps between the stories.” (Atwood 66-67)

“Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all

resemble prisons?” (Foucault 228)

“With its capacity to frighten and warn, dystopian writing engages with pressing global concerns: liberty and self-determination, environmental destruction and looming catastrophe, questions of identity, and the increasingly fragile boundaries between technology and the self. When directed at young readers, who are trying to understand the world and their place in it, these dystopian warnings are distilled into exciting adventures with gripping plots. Their narrative techniques often place us close to the action, with first-person narration, engaging dialogue, or even diary entries imparting accessible messages that may have the potential to motivate a generation on the cusp of adulthood.” (Basu, Broad and Hintz 1)

Discussion Prompts:

What cultural anxieties are being addressed by your example YA dystopia?

Can you identify any of the following in your example? Individual  / society Privacy / surveillance Historical and/or cultural knowledge being significant

Are there tensions in your focus text between the social “normativity” of adolescent fiction, and the social critique of dystopian writing?

Is there cross-pollination between dystopia and other genres in your example? e.g. romance plots, spy fiction, etc. etc.?

What, in your opinion, might account for the current “boom” (or burp :) ) in young adult dystopias?

Have you noticed a 'dystopian vibe' in any of the libraries you are in contact with (as patron, staffer, etc.)?

Works Cited: Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. 1985. London: Vintage, 1996.

Basu, Balaka, Katherine R. Broad, and Carrie Hintz. “Introduction.” Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults: Brave New Teenagers. Eds. Balaka Basu, Katherine R. Broad, and Carrie Hintz. New York: Routledge, 2013. 1-15.

Brooke, Heather. “Investigation: A Sharp Focus on CCTV.” Wired May 2010. Online. Available at: http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2010/05/start/investigation-a-sharp-focus-on-cctv?page=all

Duenwald, Mary. “THE CONSUMER; How Young is Too Young to Have a Nose-Job and Breast Implants?” New York Times Sept. 28, 2004. Available at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9405E5D91638F93BA1575AC0A9629C8B63

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 1975. Trans. Alan Sheridan. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.

Gross, Jane. “In Quest for the Perfect Look, More Girls Choose the Scalpel.” New York Times Nov. 29, 1998. Available at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06E0DD1139F93AA15752C1A96E958260&pagewanted=all

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. 1932. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.

Kennon, Patricia. ““Belonging” in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction: New Communities Created by Children.” Papers: Explorations Into Children’s Literature 15.2 (2005): 40-49.

McCallum, Robyn. “Young Adult Literature.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature. Vol. 4. Ed. Jack Zipes. Oxford: OUP, 2006. 214-219.

More, Thomas. Utopia. 1516. Trans. Paul Turner. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. 1949. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989.

Stephens, John. “Utopia and Dystopia.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature. Vol. 4. Ed. Jack Zipes. Oxford: OUP, 2006. 139.

Westerfeld, Scott. Uglies. New York: Simon Pulse, 2005.

Wilkinson, Rachel. “Teaching Dystopian Literature to a Consumer Class.” English Journal 99.3 (2010): 22-36.

Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We. 1924. Trans. Clarence Brown. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993.