Point Illustration Explanation Mini-conclusion Introduction Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a tour de force based on speculative dystopian fiction. In the novel, Atwood creates a society run by a theocratic government, and Handmaids are recruited to repopulate the sterility struck society. It was written in 1985 and is written in a first person limited narrative stance. The protagonist of the novel is a Handmaid named Offred.

A handmaid's tale.

The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism

The article discusses two symptomatic texts that are imbricated within the utopian/dystopian ambience: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and Utopia by Ahmed Khaled Towfik. The style and structure of the selected novels are revealed at the level of the chronotope and aimed at clarifying the correlation of genre-forming components within the triad of a ‘person – civilisation – society’. This paper tests a hypothesis that the discursive representation of these components in a narrative structure is realised through colliding utopian and dystopian worlds. Problematising this idea in fiction reveals how the tension between the diametrically opposed worlds promotes critical scrutiny of both to draw attention to the most pressing social problems facing humanity: the role of ordinary people in society, impact of mass media on public opinion, dissolution of morals, social disparity, drug addiction, etc. The study primarily follows a phenomenological-hermeneutic approach to exploring the theoretical and practical aspects of utopian/dystopian worldviews in the literary dimension. The dichotomy of utopia/dystopia manifests in the novels through the overt conflict of different patterns of life, mentalities, and cultures. Analysing the ways of a literary embodiment of this conflict in Bradbury’s and Towfik’s books explicates how creating a new reality from utopian/dystopian perspectives alters consciousness and promotes a completely different paradigm of existence.

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Colliding Utopian and Dystopian Worlds: Revising Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Ahmed K. Towfik’s Utopia

This article tries to explore the theory of nationalism and its significance in dystopian fiction through the study of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy. It investigates how dystopian elements are linked to nationalism, as well as how frequently dystopian narratives blow warnings against nationalistic sentiment. In Collins' speculative narrative, the article examines the ambiguity of the belief that a liberalized economy, globalized media, and communication will lead to a perfect society in the future. Panem is a fine example of a dystopian nationalist country that deprives people of their rights and resources while being dominated by rulers that are only interested in money and power. The examination of The Hunger Games trilogy aims to highlight that national identity, as it is imposed on people, pushes the entire society into a dystopian reality.

https://ijels.com/upload_document/issue_files/32IJELS-106202234-AStudy.pdf

A Study on National Identity in Dystopian Society of Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games Trilogy

This study aims to dismantle how national identity becomes the arena of a constellation of Nationalism and de-nationalism in some dystopian fiction. The national identity described as a factor forming Nationalism is one of the fields of Nationalism and de-nationalism that always appears in American dystopian novels. A mutually beneficial two-way relationship between the state and the people is essential to build state nationalism. The fading of Nationalism as a result from government’s oppression was revealed by Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Westerfeld’s Uglies, Collins’s The Hunger Games, and Roth’s Divergent. The main problem of this article is to find out how the national identity becomes the arena of constellations between Nationalism and de-nationalism. The significance of this study is to reveal the Nationalism and de-nationalism through the constellations of national identity through American dystopian novels. Using Derrida’s deconstruction theory, the constellations appear in binary opposition as follows: country versus people; ruler versus society; regulation or oppression versus freedom; power versus weakness; independence versus dependence; intelligence versus stupidity; manipulative party versus receptive party; and global versus local. The main finding of this analysis in that the oppression and totalitarianism of the Government have eroded people’s identity, which turns the sense of Nationalism to de-Nationalism.

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National Identity as the Arena of Constellations of Nationalism and De-Nationalism in American Dystopian Novels

The feminist movement in America is experiencing rapid development. The early feminist idea about woman's right to vote has developed on other issues, including sexuality and reproductive rights, ideas about universal femininity, the body, gender, and heteronormativity. In its development, feminism is sometimes associated with lesbianism. This linkage occurs because lesbian and feminist criticism grow in response to patriarchal oppression. Raised as an orphan, the two main female characters in Riding Freedom struggle to survive and achieve their freedom and happiness. Charlotte in Riding Freedom obscures her feminist identity to get equal opportunities with men. Susan in Fingersmith fights for her rights, even though she engages in lesbianism. By using these two novels as primary data, and data on the development of feminism in America as secondary data, this study aims to show the evolution of feminism in America, starting from the issue of voting described in The Riding Freedom, to the issue of lesbianism in Fingersmith's novel as the effect of disappointment from man's oppression. Feminist criticism and lesbian criticism are the two theories used in this research. This study finds that American women's struggle to gain equality with men requires a long process. The trauma of men's oppression supports the practice of lesbianism in America.

A Quest on the Development of Feminism in America in Riding Freedom and Fingersmith

Dutchman belongs to Afro-American Drama. In its portraying of racial problem, Dutchman is different from other black American plays as it has largely moved to the abstract and symbolic form. While Dutchman strongly indicates segregation and a kind of open conflict with the white society, many others black literature largely focus on Black Society or family’s internal conflicts. Goes along with its abstract presentation, Dutchman tends to represent the general and ‘eternal’ blacks rather than the blacks framed in social institution such as family, job, and others. Despite common accepted classification that separates ethnic literary work as strongly political and absurd theatre as metaphysical, Dutchman’s technique is strikingly similar to the absurd where content and form/technique blends. This study is to explore the tension in The Dutchman by showing its similarities and differences from both the conventional absurd play and Black literary work and to propose possible literary and social background that explain such phenomenon, which is, a racial play that takes absurdist style or as a literary act of continuing absurdist style on the racial ground.  In doing so, this study uses a comparative literature approach by comparing The Dutchman with Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson and Edward Albe's The Zoo Story. In afro-american drama, there was a time when racial conflict was a condition that created a movement to a more abstract/ symbolic form similar to the Absurd play. It’s a kind of reminder for the metaphysical dramatist, a reminder of what really matter in the real world.

/pdf/remembering-barakas-dutchman-a-comparative-study-of-absurd-1663it8x.pdf

Anna Sriastuti

Papers

National Identity as the Arena of Constellations of Nationalism and De-Nationalism in American Dystopian Novels

A Quest on the Development of Feminism in America in Riding Freedom and Fingersmith

Remembering Baraka’s Dutchman: A Comparative Study of Absurd Dramaturgy on the Racial Absurdity