Jordyn Kopelson- Blog Post 3

Moylan’s main claim that he makes within his “Preface” is that dystopian works are ultimately a result of the “terrors” that prevailed within “the twentieth century” (Moylan xi), such as the issue of capitalism. However, in Divergent, Veronica Roth takes a different approach when writing her novel. Instead of reflecting on events similar to those that occurred in the past, she bases her dystopian novel on what a futuristic time period would look like. For example, her dystopian world is one filled with “glass buildings” (Roth 481) and “computer screens” (Roth 479), which illustrate the major use of technology as well within the dystopian world. Roth’s main conflict within the novel stems from the protagonist’s discontent of who she is as an individual within society, not on an issue as major as the depression. Another idea that Moylan doesn’t highlight on and that Roth utilizes various times within her novel is the use of imagery, especially in this case, color. Roth repetitively uses dark colors in order to emphasize the blackness and or negativity that prevailed within her dystopia. However, she also adds an element of a “fading light” (Roth 487) to her novel, which shows a side of hope to her dystopian world. Overall, the main difference between Moylan’s view of dystopian works and an example of an actual dystopian narrative such as Divergent is that Roth’s world deals with issues that are more realistic to occur within ones life today. For example, some of the issues that the protagonist deals with include, struggling with her identity, family, friends, and boyfriend.

In addition to the differences between the writers’ ideas, if Moylan was to write about the 21^st century as opposed to the 20^th century, he should definitely take into account the views and priorities that teens have today because of how popular dystopian works are becoming within their lives. For example, in Divergent, the protagonist within her novel, Beatrice, struggles with the most common issues that many teens experience such as, love, keeping up with family expectations, and finding ones overall identity within society. It is way more interesting for teens and or young adults to read a novel in which they can easily relate to, then to write a novel based on issues such as genocide and disease that don’t necessarily concern them at this point within their lives. Also, another factor that Moylan should take into consideration about current dystopian novels are both the futuristic effects and use of technology that play a major role within these worlds. For example, within Divergent, Beatrice’s faction tests their initiates by using program stimulations that are tracked on computer screens and that track what is inside of their members’ heads, such as their fears. Overall, this example shows how inventive dystopia novels are becoming and how creative an author has to be in order to make their work stand out from the others.