NBSC: Manly Campus

Year 11

Reading Task Booklet

“DYSTOPIA”
PAPER 1
Text 1: Satirical Advertisement
Text 2: Poem

The City Planners By Margret Atwood.

Cruising these residential Sunday
streets in dry August sunlight:
what offends us is
the sanities:
the houses in pedantic rows, the planted
sanitary trees, assert
levelness of surface like a rebuke
to the dent in our car door.
No shouting here, or
shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt
than the rational whine of a power mower
cutting a straight swath in the discouraged grass.

But though the driveways neatly

sidestep hysteria
by being even, the roofs all display
the same slant of avoidance to the hot sky,
certain things:
the smell of spilled oil a faint
sickness lingering in the garages,
a splash of paint on brick surprising as a bruise,
a plastic hose poised in a vicious
coil; even the too-fixed stare of the wide windows

give momentary access to

the landscape behind or under
the future cracks in the plaster

when the houses, capsized, will slide

obliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciers
that right now nobody notices.

That is where the City Planners

with the insane faces of political conspirators
are scattered over unsurveyed
territories, concealed from each other,
each in his own private blizzard;

guessing directions, they sketch

transitory lines rigid as wooden borders
on a wall in the white vanishing air

tracing the panic of suburb

order in a bland madness of snows
Text 3: Narrative Excerpt from “The Giver” by Lois Lowry

It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas
thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen.
Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown
the community twice. He had seen it both times. Squinting toward the sky, he had seen the
sleek jet, almost a blur at its high speed, go past, and a second later heard the blast of sound
that followed. Then one more time, a moment later, from the opposite direction, the same
plane. At first, he had been only fascinated. He had never seen aircraft so close, for it was
against the rules for Pilots to fly over the community. Occasionally, when supplies were
delivered by cargo planes to the landing field across the river, the children rode their bicycles
to the riverbank and watched, intrigued, the unloading and then the take-off directed to the
west, always away from the community. But the aircraft a year ago had been different. It was
not a squat, fat-bellied cargo plane but a needle-nosed single-pilot jet. Jonas, looking around
anxiously, had seen others- adults as well as children- stop what they were doing and wait,
confused, for an explanation of the frightening event. Then all of the citizens had been
ordered to go into the nearest building and stay there. IMMEDIATELY, the rasping voice
through the speakers had said. LEAVE YOUR BICYCLES WHERE THEY ARE. Instantly,
obediently, Jonas had dropped his bike on its side on the path behind his family's dwelling.
He had run indoors and stayed there, alone. His parents were both at work, and his little
sister, Lily, was at the Childcare Center where she spent her after-school hours. Looking
through the front window, he had seen no people: none of the busy afternoon crew of Street
Cleaners, Landscape Workers, and Food Delivery people who usually populated the
community at that time of day. He saw only the abandoned bikes here and there on their
sides; an upturned wheel on one was still revolving slowly. He had been frightened then. The
sense of his own community silent, waiting, had made his stomach churn. He had trembled.
But it had been nothing. Within minutes the speakers had crackled again, and the voice,
reassuring now and less urgent, had explained that a Pilot-in-Training had misread his
navigational instructions and made a wrong turn. Desperately the Pilot had been trying to
make his way back before his error was noticed. NEEDLESS TO SAY, HE WILL BE
RELEASED, the voice had said, followed by silence. was an ironic tone to that final
message, as if the Speaker found it amusing; and Jonas had smiled a little, though he knew
what a grim statement it had been. For a contributing citizen to be released from the
community was a final decision, a terrible punishment, an overwhelming statement of failure.
Even the children were scolded if they used the term lightly at play, jeering at a teammate
who missed a catch or stumbled in a race. Jonas had done it once, had shouted at his best
friend, "That's it, Asher! You're released!" when Asher's clumsy error had lost a match for his
team. He had been taken aside for a brief and serious talk by the coach, had hung his head
with guilt and embarrassment, and apologized to Asher after the game. Now, thinking about
the feeling of fear as he pedalled home along the river path, he remembered that moment of
stomach-sinking terror when the aircraft had streaked above. It was not what he was feeling
now with December approaching. He searched for the right word to describe his own feeling.
Jonas was careful about language. Not like his friend, Asher, who talked too fast and mixed
things up, scrambling words and phrases until they were barely recognizable and often very
funny. Jonas grinned, remembering the morning that Asher had dashed into the classroom,
late as usual, arriving breathlessly in the middle of the chanting of the morning anthem.
When the class took their seats at the conclusion of the patriotic hymn, Asher remained
standing to make his public apology as was required. "I apologize for inconveniencing my
learning community." Asher ran through the standard apology phrase rapidly, still catching
his breath. The Instructor and class waited patiently for his explanation. The students had all
been grinning, because they had listened to Asher's explanations so many times before. "I left
home at the correct time but when I was riding along near the hatchery, the crew was
separating some salmon. I guess I just got distraught, watching them. "I apologize to my
classmates," Asher concluded. He smoothed his rumpled tunic and sat down. "We accept
your apology, Asher." The class recited the standard response in unison. Many of the students
were biting their lips to keep from laughing. "I accept your apology, Asher," the Instructor
said. He was smiling. "And I thank you, because once again you have provided an
opportunity for a lesson in language. "Distraught' is too strong an adjective to describe
salmon-viewing." He turned and wrote "distraught" on the instructional board. Beside it he
wrote "distracted." Jonas, nearing his home now, smiled at the recollection. Thinking, still, as
he wheeled his bike into its narrow port beside the door, he realized that frightened was the
wrong word to describe his feelings, now that December was almost here. It was too strong
an adjective. He had waited a long time for this special December. Now that it was almost
upon him, he wasn't frightened, but he was ... eager, he decided. He was eager for it to come.
And he was excited, certainly. All of the Elevens were excited about the event that would be
coming so soon. But there was a little shudder of nervousness when he thought about it, about
what might happen. Apprehensive, Jonas decided. That's what I am.
Questions

Text 1

A) How have aspects of a dystopian been depicted in this text? Support your answer with
reference to either visual or language techniques. 2 Marks.
Text 2

B) Discuss how the text describes the impact of dystopian environments on an individual.
3 Marks
Text 2 and 3
C) Compare the ways in which Text 2 and 3 demonstrate notions of control in their texts.
4 marks
Text 3 and other

D) Explore the ways in which the Text 3 and one other text expresses how fear is used to
control individuals in a dystopian environment. 6 marks
PAPER 2
Text 1: Poem


Dystopia by Josh Gibbens
Long since past,
are the golden days.
Where vibrant greens and ocean blue,
lay across the earth
No longer do the birds sing,
or the oceans swim.

Caustic acid flowed,

from the veins of man.
Through the rivers,
and beyond the plains.
Blood red water all around,
it quickly filled the mighty seas.

Upon the land fine poison fell,

it fingers wrapped around the world.
To the harbingers they did not listen,
until the soil was black and all was dead.
The graceful bees were no more,
washed away in the indomitable flood.

Air thick with contagion,

further corrupted the heart of man.
Into bunkers they did march,
to escape their plague.
Till they shrivelled,
their skin of ghostly pallor.

A thousand years did pass,

and the time of man had passed.
The seeds of hope and resurrection,
are upon the earth.
Within the ashes a tree does grow,
the first in one millennia.
Text 2: Book review

Z for Zachariah: a complex exploration of power and gender

Jenny Downham explains how Robert C O’Brien’s novel of post-nuclear apocalypse gave her
far more than relief from the fear of nuclear war in the 1970s – a life-long belief in the
strength of girls and women, and the prototype for her own fictional heroines

The 1977 cover of Z for Zachariah by Robert C O’Brien depicted a serious-eyed young
woman with long hair, wearing a rather formal blouse. When I spied it on a shelf in my
school library, I thought she looked a lot like me. However, standing in front of her was
someone wearing a full body radiation suit and reflected in their helmet was the terrifying
mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. The blurb stated: nuclear doomsday had come and
she was the only one alive… or so she thought.

Growing up in the 70s, the prospect of nuclear war was ever present. At school we were
shown chilling public information films that encouraged us to go home and persuade our
parents to set up a fallout space. Doors taken from their hinges and propped against an
interior wall offered good protection apparently. Heavy furniture and sandbags would keep
them in place and you could block up the ends with dustbin bags full of soil from the garden.
When my parents refused to do this, saying the safest place to be if a nuclear bomb fell was
right underneath it, I knew I was doomed. I had regular nightmares about the end of the
world.

So why did I borrow a book from the library that showed someone like me facing the worst
thing I could imagine?

Because I wanted to explore safely. I hoped a dose of manageable terror would (rather like a
vaccine) produce antibodies to help me fight my fear.

Ann Burden is fifteen and the sole survivor of global nuclear war. She lives with her dog,
Faro, in a remote valley and, despite her desperate circumstances, is resourceful, calm and
determined. She plants crops, drives the tractor, ploughs the fields, tends the animals and
fully accepts that she is the caretaker of the only untainted land left in the world and that she
will live and die alone. But one day, a man in a radiation suit turns up. Ann hides at first,
wanting to know more about him before revealing herself. But when he washes in the river
and contracts radiation poisoning she makes the choice to care for him.

What follows is a complex exploration of power and gender. What does it mean to be a
young woman in a world with only one man? John Loomis, as the man in the suit is revealed
to be, is a scientist, older than Ann and with a capacity for intimidation and subterfuge. Once
recovered from sickness, he starts to give orders, has all sorts of plans to “improve” the farm
and is critical of how Ann has been managing up to now. He suggests they “start a colony”
together and becomes increasingly controlling as each day passes. Eventually, he attempts to
rape her.

Ann elbows him in the throat and flees.

This was the first novel I read as a teenager that utterly transported me. I’d never realised
books could do that. It literally took me away from home and put me somewhere else. I
clearly remember having to put the book down at meal times and force myself to journey
home. I’d look at my family over the dinner table and think, “You’ve no idea where I’ve
been…”

Eventually, Anne offers a compromise to share the valley. Loomis suggests she should act
“more like an adult and less like a school girl”, implying she should submit to sleeping with
him and stop being ridiculous. He steals the keys to the tractor, withholds supplies and finally
shoots her, forcing her to run for her life.

I was disturbed and outraged by Ann’s story. I was desperate for her to defeat Loomis. This
was her land and she was there first and what right did he have to come along and take over?
How dare he threaten to take charge of her body! Never mind nuclear Armageddon – there
were greater things at stake!

By the end of the book, Ann has made impossibly difficult decisions, shown courage and
integrity, overpowered her aggressor and survived. The ending is full of hope as she walks
into a potentially new world with her independence intact.

This book gave me far more than relief from fear of nuclear war. It gave me a life-long belief
in the strength of girls and women. The nightmares still came, but when I woke shivering in
the dark, I reminded myself of Ann’s bravery and competency and told myself that I was also
capable of being such a person.

Ann Burden is the prototype for the young women in my books. By allowing difficult things
into their stories, I’ve discovered that the precious things have space to buzz and hum and
sing. And the protagonists have room to grow and learn.

As an author, it is vital to me that my books have strong female protagonists. I don’t mean
they’re all gutsy and immediately capable. I mean that when they’re faced with challenging
events such as illness or assault or being targeted by bullies, they’re able to tap into their own
intelligence and resourcefulness. They might muck up, as we all do. They might go down the
wrong path, or make terrible decisions, or feel afraid. They might have to ask advice or seek
practical help, but what they don’t do is ever accept a world where it’s okay to lose
sovereignty over their bodies or their lives.

Ann Burden – thank you for that.

Text 3: feature article

Gaza: The Makings of a Modern Day Dystopia

By Queen Rania al Abdullah

dys·to·pia [ \dis-ˈtō-pē-ə\] noun: an imaginary place where people are unhappy and usually afraid
because they are not treated fairly; an unpleasant future where people are often dehumanized; a
nightmare world characterized by human misery, squalor, oppression, disease and overcrowding.

Typically, dystopian societies are depicted through the pages of novels, like The Hunger Games and
Divergent. They give us glimpses into distorted societies where justice and freedom are suppressed;
where deprivation is a way of life; and lives are dispensable. They ask us to imagine a society where
people are pushed to the limits of what they can endure — and, often, killed if they can’t.
But it’s just fiction, right? After the last page, it ends.
Wrong.

The most disturbing dystopian narrative of our time is no work of fiction. It’s a real place with real
people.
It’s Gaza. The most tragic place to live on earth. Where some people in the world battle poverty or
violence or prejudice or intimidation or hunger or lack of healthcare or freedom of movement or
imprisonment or mass unemployment or constant surveillance or insecurity or deprivation of basic
essentials or hopelessness or poor education or enforced isolation or disregard for their human rights
or the pain of losing loved ones, Gaza’s more than 1.8 million inhabitants battle them all, every day.
In full view of a, largely, indifferent global community. Women. Children. Infants. The elderly. Those
living with disabilities. The innocent. They battle all these injustices every day because, for the last
eight years, they have existed — not ‘lived’ — under an Israeli-imposed siege. A 17-year-old
Palestinian boy, detained in an Israeli prison, described the everyday misery that Gazans endure. “It’s
like being a shadow of your own body, caught on the ground, not being able to break out. You see
yourself lying there but you cannot fill the shadow with life.”

Simply put: a slow death. Unless you’ve lived day in, day out amidst the suffocating siege and the
onslaughts, it’s impossible to understand the despair that Gazans endure. Don’t forget: 70% of Gaza’s
population are refugees. I cannot hope, in words alone, to do their suffering justice. All I can offer are
snapshots of their existence.

Imagine being imprisoned on a barren sliver of land, barely 25 miles long and between three and
seven miles wide. Imagine your child needs urgent medical care that Gaza’s clinics can’t handle. Day
after day, you wait at the border crossing not knowing if this is the day you and your child will be
allowed through to seek the care you need. Imagine bringing up children with no access to water, a
leaking sewage system, and electricity for barely half the day. Or relying on UNRWA for food parcels
to keep your family alive.
And now, imagine, the people of Gaza live with daily bombardments as well.

More than a quarter of those killed in the last two weeks were children: one hundred and sixty one.
Hundreds more maimed and orphaned. Tens of thousands of families shattered and displaced.
Imagine sitting around the dinner table with your family and being given minutes to evacuate before
your home is bombed. Missiles level your home. Irreplaceable photos of your grandparents, gone.
Pictures your children drew when they were young, destroyed. Identity papers, lost. Your personal
history, erased.

Or imagine trying to save lives in a hospital with barely any medical supplies and only rusting
instruments. Your shoes stick to the floor with blood. And then the hospital is bombed.

Gaza is in a state of trauma.

All the people of Gaza want is what each one of us wants. The opportunity to live a normal life with
dignity and security, and build a future in which their children can thrive, dream and fulfill their
potential. They must be allowed to do this. First, there must be a ceasefire. But, that is not the only
solution. We cannot allow a return to the hellish status quo: a daily battle for survival. There must
quickly follow a dedicated global effort to return life to the shadows of Gaza. Crossings, open. Rights,
recognized. Freedom, granted. Infrastructure, repaired. Trade links, restored. Schools, equipped.
Hospitals, renovated. Scars must heal. Hope must blossom. But it won’t happen without the collective
efforts of the global community. They must insist on a life of dignity for the people of Gaza. Each one
of us can do something. Advocate. Raise awareness. Reject violence. Donate to UNRWA.

Remaining silent in the face of this endless injustice makes our global community no better than the
peanut-crunching crowd in the arena at the Hunger Games, oo-ing and aah-ing and shaking their
heads at each new trial and each new death. Are we going to stand back and spectate while the ugly
foundations of a modern day dystopia are laid in front of our eyes? Or will our common humanity
unite us and compel us to act to help save the people of Gaza?

In saving them, we save ourselves.

Questions

Text 1
A) How does the text explore the notions of destruction and despair in a dystopian world?

3 Marks.
Text 2
B) Discuss the ways in which text 2 describes the relationship between power and gender in
dystopian texts. 3 Marks.

Text 3
C) Explore the connections between the nature of dystopian fictional texts and the nature
of the dystopian world discussed in the article.

4 Marks.
All Texts

D) Using TWO texts, compare and contrast how composers reveal both positive and negative
influences of the dystopian genre on readers. 5 Marks
PAPER 3
Text 1: Book cover

Text 2: Poem

The Unknown Citizen

By W. H. Auden, 1907 - 1973
(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard
 Text 3: Feature Article
The Rise of Dystopian Fiction: From Soviet Dissidents to 70's Paranoia to Murakami
Charting the wild progress of literature’s genre-of-the-moment By Yvonne Shiau

George Orwell is back in vogue these days — a far cry from 2014, when The Guardian was debating whether or
not 1984 was good bad or bad good fiction. In January this year, 1984 shot up the bestseller charts, and the trail
doesn’t just go cold there. Soon joining it at the top were 1984’s old dystopian buddies, Brave New World and It
Can’t Happen Here; in the meantime, sales of The Handmaid’s Tale were up 30 percent in 2016.

We are re-reading these past giants of the genre, even though we’re used to the idea of dystopia in our pop culture
by now. (Credit where credit’s due: The Hunger Games was something of a big factor.) Yet the dystopian novel —
 as we know it, in its full totalitarian glory — is itself a relatively new phenomenon. Before 1900, only the British
satirist Jonathan Swift wrote books that could, with one eye squinted, be called dystopian. So when did dystopias
and dystopian themes start taking off in modern fiction? And is there a pattern to their rise and fall throughout
the past?

Origins

First, there was the concept of utopia, the yin to dystopia’s yang. The former sprung from the mind of Sir Thomas
More, who wrote Utopia in 1516. Ironically, More possessed serious reservations about the existence of utopias.
(The word itself could be a pun, derived from the Greek word u-topos (“no place”) and also eu-topos (“good
place”). Such a good place, More seemed to reason, was not anything we knew, and so it must not exist.)

If a utopia is a place that’s too good to exist, a dystopia is a place that we certainly don’t want to exist.
Today, we can define dystopia as “an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a
totalitarian or environmentally degraded one” (OED, 2017). The first public usage goes all the way back to John
Stuart Mill in 1868. In a speech to the House of Commons, Mill said, “It is, perhaps, too complimentary to call
them Utopians, they ought rather to be called dys-topians, or caco-topians” (‘cacotopia’ was relegated to the
Wastepaper Basket of History). But it wasn’t until about 50 years afterward, when authors made the word their
own, that the idea of dystopia began to actually take root in the public consciousness.

1920s & 30s: Defining The Genre

Perhaps it makes sense that the modern dystopian novel emerged at the turn of the 20th century. It was a time of
political unrest and global anxiety, with two world wars awaiting in the near future. Jack London’s 1908
novel Iron Heel was said to be a remarkable prophecy of the impending international tensions that would give
way to World War I. Yet we don’t see dystopian fiction becoming a more defined genre until the publication of
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s slender We in 1921.

Before We, fiction about an “ideal” society (with the exception of H.G. Wells and London) tended to end utopian.
After We, the genre took a grim downturn (or upturn, depending on which way you’re squinting). We set up many
of the tropes that would come to dominate dystopian fiction. These included troubled, unresolved endings (very
fun!) and a totalitarian government gone mad.

Also importantly, Zamyatin’s book greatly influenced two fictional works that tower over the rest of the genre to
this day: Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s 1939 Brave New World. Both were written in the shadow of a world
war. Both predicted an even darker future. Admittedly, the worlds within these two dystopian novels differ vastly,
and the influences that Orwell and Huxley feared were not the same. According to critic Neil Postman:

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no
reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who
would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be
reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley
feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive
culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the
feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy.
In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.”

But the stage for the genre was set, in spite of any differences. In this early crop of dystopian fiction, we can see
the themes over which future novels would continue to obsess: political capital, the meaning of free will, and,
perhaps most significantly, fear of the state and the unchecked power of government.

1950s and 60s: War And Tech

OK, we’re out of the woods of World War II, you say. Time to breathe a sigh of relief! Surely, post-war optimism
means that authors are going to start cheering up, right?
Sorry. This chart from Goodreads says, nope!

Political commentary shouldered many of the dystopian themes that emerged from the end of the war. And World
War II fueled the prospect of World War III and apocalypses. (See: Kurt Vonnegut’s classic Player Piano in 1952
and Philip K. Dick’s 1964 The Penultimate Truth.) We do differentiate between apocalyptic fiction and dystopian
fiction — but there’s always a fair bit of crossover when crumbling societies and their governments are involved.
Incidentally, it was during this time that authors’ growing suspicion of technology bubbled to the surface.

Some major technological advances during this time included:

• the inception of the Turing test (a test for intelligence in computers)
• the creation of Sputnik I
• the invention of the first personal computer

As a result, dystopian novels began to cross paths more regularly with science fiction worldbuilding, such as in
Dick’s 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

After witnessing war, authors grew particularly concerned with totalitarian governments’ ability to regulate the
arts. One of the most popular examples continues to be Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, which breathes into
awfully vivid life the possibility of a future in which books are burned. (Today, Fahrenheit 451 is banned in many
schools in the United States, and so one cannot say that real life does not possess a solid sense of irony.)

1970s-1990s: Corporations and Poisoned Bodies

While the volume of dystopian fiction declined for a period entering the 1970s, the variance within the genre
broadened. If the genre reflects our fears back to us, then in the 1970s we see the public moving past a perpetual
fear of war to explore new meadows. Environmental crises dominated the conversation (the Clean Air Act was
only passed in 1980) while the onslaught of advertising, misgivings over the body, and economic stagnation
ushered in a new era of cynicism. It was a catalyst for quite a few dystopian classics that took the genre in brilliant
new directions.

The Handmaid’s Tale, a book in which women’s bodies are nothing more than reproductive machines, shook the
world when it was published in 1985. Cyperpunk was born out of William Gibson’s 1984 Neuromancer. Private
corporations became a wellspring of repression and public enemy #1 alongside totalitarian governments in many
dystopian novels, such as Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. And meanwhile, black satire became all the more
pronounced in the genre, as José Saramago showed in the Blindness and its sequel Seeing, which both use
an omniscient narrator to great effect. Perhaps most notably, in 1994, Lois Lowry quietly published The Giver. A
slender book about a community in the future that doesn’t feel pain anymore, The Giver was a dystopian novel for
young adults before the breed was cool. It built upon past traditions of adult dystopian fiction while managing to
popularize the genre among young adult readers. This would be significant because of what would occur in the
next decade or so…

The Turn Of The Millennium: Youth Betrayed

Today, dystopian fiction is predominantly associated with the young adult genre. Young adult dystopian series —
 Maze Runner, Divergent, Ready Player One, among countless more — dominate the shelves, bleeding into
Hollywood. The Divergent films alone grossed over $700 million in box office receipts worldwide.
How did we reach this point? In big part, it’s due to The Hunger Games, as the trend that The Giver began
exploded in popularity among young adults with the publication of Suzanne Collins’ series. In dystopian fiction,
young adult readers can find a tangle of themes to identify with: themes of self-discovery, of one young person
pitted against the whole terrible world. Overall, the rise in dystopian novels since 2000 is said to be a symptom of
the pooling anxieties that followed 9/11 and other troubling geopolitical events. And so in today’s crop of
dystopian fiction, the stakes are bigger than ever. Continuing in a proud tradition, they carry on vindicating the
definition of a dystopia: a worst possible world. But what each of them (sometimes) offers is a brief, shining belief
that such a world can be fixed. And now, the resurgence of sales for books such as 1984 and Brave New
World shows that a vast contingent of us continue to turn towards the genre for comfort, or answers.
Questions

Text 1
E) How are aspects of Dystopias depicted in text one? 2 Marks.
Text 2
F) Discuss the ways in which text 2 explores governmental control and its effects on the
individual. 3 Marks.

Text 3
G) Explore how dystopian texts are viewed as having relatable concerns across contexts
4 Marks.
Text 3 and other
H) Using Text 3 and one other text, evaluate how dystopian texts reflect the wider concerns of
the context they are composed in. 6 Marks..