Savannah Lucas - Blog Post 3

Moylan’s “Preface” as a whole is largely focused on the 20th century and its role in dystopian fiction. He states things such as “...repression, state violence, war, genocide, disease, famine, ecocide…” as being the main influences of dystopian writings (Moylan, xi). These things seem very tangible. They are defined, structured, and their meanings and connotations can mostly be agreed upon. In Divergent, the story opens with no evidence of something along those lines as the cause of this dystopian society. Veronica Roth’s novel has something a little more complex in it as its dystopian feature and that is the system of factions. Although brought on by a suggested “warring world”, the social system is looked at as the problem rather than the actual war that brought it upon this imaginary society (Roth, 42). If demonstrated by Moylan, the war would be the concept the dystopia exists upon. Another idea from Moylan is this concept of rich versus poor, or privileged and nonprivileged that came about from issues and gaps in social and economic standings of the latter half of the 1900s. No factions in Divergent are deemed more important than one another; they “have lived together in peace for many years, each contributing to a different sector of society” (Roth, 43).

If writing about 21st century dystopia, Moylan should take into consideration the concepts of social experiences, hierarchies, obligations, and expectations. Divergent to a great extent is about roles in society and testing social limits. People these days, in America especially, don’t experience things like war and mass disease firsthand. Problems in their lives stem almost entirely from social aspects. One other factor Moylan could take into consideration regarding modern dystopias are the coming of age plot points. Many dystopias, Divergent included, have a hero that is constantly learning about themselves and find themselves growing as people. There are even love stories mixed in to these books as we see with Tris and Four. Readers today make more connections when these things are present in what they’re reading. It opens dystopian narratives up to audiences younger and younger.