Logan Foster Blog Post 3

In Moylan’s preface Moylan emphasizes the importance of the influence of current events in the writing of dystopias. This is evident when he states “…Dystopian interrogation begins to sharpen as the modern state apparatus (in the Stalinist Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, etc.)” For example, many 20^th century dystopian writers got their inspiration from the “evil” governments of the mid-century and the World wars in the early and mid-century. However, today in the 21^st century I feel that the events happening on the world stage are on a less important level. In addition the influence of technology and the ever changing world media, events are important for less time than they used to be. There have been fewer major wars in the 21^st century, and no major change in society, as a whole, other than that of technology. Therefore when Moylan states that dystopias are based on the “terrors of the twentieth century” this is not the case for the 21^st century. The novel Divergent by Veronica Roth was not written with a specific world event in mind however it is based on the evident decay of society as a whole. This shifts the focus to general societal fears of an ambivalent future with no foundation on actual events.