Aditi Bhatnagar--Blog Post #3

In Moylan’s “Preface,” he discusses  the dystopian narrative as “the product of terrors of the twentieth century.”(xi) This inspired dystopian writers to provide a lens for readers about these fears through their writings. Moylan goes on to state that “dystopia’s foremost truth lies in its ability to reflect upon the causes of social and ecological evil as systemic.”(xii). Moylan is claiming that writers use events from the past to reflect and form conclusions regarding current issues. While this may have been true for past dystopian novels, it doesn't not stand true for dystopian narratives today. For example, Divergent by Veronica Roth is a futuristic society containing factions in which societal responsibilities are divided. The concept of factions provide a lens to issue in the future, not a current issue. Factions also cannot be attributed to events in the past. Meaning, dystopian narratives today don’t rely on the past to predict or explain future issues. 

If Moylan were writing about the twenty-first century as opposed to the twentieth century, he would likely discuss how dystopian narratives provide a lens to future problems within the world rather than what problems are currently happening in the world. Additionally, if he took works like Divergent into account he would explain how factions could be seen as a future problem in society and this idea provides readers with a scope to seek out new problem with the possibility to occur.