Lisa Fieldhouse Blog Post 3

What idea(s) do you see present in Moylan's "Preface" that you do not see functioning in Divergent? If Moylan were writing about the 21st century dystopia instead of the 20th century, what factors should he take into consideration based on your reading of Divergent?

In reading stories such as Moylan’s Preface and Divergent as a “lens”, as the reader we have to “take a concept from its original context and use its ideas in somewhat different circumstances for a least somewhat different purposes” (WA 63). There are several dystopian themes that correspond in the novel Divergent by Veronica Roth, and Moylan's "Preface". Moylan proposes that, “Dystopia’s foremost truths lie in its ability to reflect upon the causes of social and ecological evil as systematic” (Moylan XII). Moylan significantly forgets to remember that dystopias such as divergent, that are based on an emotional and moral based society on top of a control systemic society that Moylan commonly continuously referenced in the Preface. This idea that Divergent is a town has strong beliefs and values such as the importance of their faction, for example, the known saying in Divergent, “Faction before blood” (Roth, 133).

If Moylan were writing about the 21st century dystopia instead of the 20th century, what factors should he take into consideration based on your reading of Divergent? 

If Moylan were writing about the 21st century dystopia instead of the 20th century, I think he would consider other potential settings that could change the factors of a dystopia. I also think he would understand how many dystopian authors now are going farther in depth with their stories in order to connect the reader closer to the world in the book.