Uppsatsens syfte är att analysera samt jämföra två svenska dystopiska romaner, De kommer att drunkna i sina mödrars tårar av Johannes Anyuru (2017) och Händelsehorisonten av Balsam Karam (2018). Analysen består av två delar: den första delen undersöker i vilken mån romanerna kan beskrivas med hjälp av teorin om ”critical dystopia” och den andra delen undersöker aspekter av intersektionalitet i romanernas gestaltning av etnicitet och kön. I varje del görs först en analys av varje roman, följt av en jämförande analys. I analysen framkommer att hoppet är ett återkommande tema i de båda romanerna och någonting som kan säga driver intrigen framåt. Den intersektionella analysen framhåller hur romanerna på olika sätt lyfter frågor om etnicitet i förhållande till kön, men även klass. Könsaspekten är särskilt framträdande i Händelsehorisonten, men mer nedtonad i De kommer att drunkna i sina mödrars tårar. Analysen visar på två tillvägagångssätt för diskussion av rasism, klass och kön och antas vara två exempel på vad samtida dystopilitteratur anser relevant att lyfta i vårt samhälle.

We live in an age of rapid change. The advance of science and technology, throughout history, has culminated in periods of transition when social values have had to adapt to a changed environment. Such times have proved fertile ground for the expansion of the imagination. Utopian literature offers a vast archive of information concerning the relationship between scientific and technological progress and social change. Alterations in the most basic machinery of society inspired utopian authors to write of distant and future worlds which had achieved a state of harmony and plenty. The dilemmas which writers faced were particular to their era, but there also emerged certain universal themes and questions: What is the best organisation of society? What tools would be adequate to the task? What does it mean to be human? The dividing line on these issues revolves around two opposed beliefs. Some perceived the power inherent in technology to effect the greatest improvement in the human condition. Others were convinced that the organisation of the social order must come first so as to create an environment sympathetic to perceived human needs. There are, necessarily, contradictions in such a division. They can be seen plainly in More's Utopia itself. More wanted to see new science and technique developed. But he also condemned the social consequences which inevitably flowed from the process of discovery. These consequences led More to create a utopia based on social reorganisation. In the main, the utopias of Francis Bacon, Edward Bellamy and the later H. G. Wells accepted science, while the work of William Morris, Aldous Huxley and Kurt Vonnegut rejected science in preference for a different social order. More's Utopia and Bacon's New Atlantis were written at a time when feudal, agricultural society was being transformed by new discoveries and techniques. In a later age, Bellamy's Looking Backward and Morris's News From Nowhere offer contrary responses to society at the height of the Industrial evolution. These four authors serve as a prelude to the main area of the thesis which centres on the twentieth century. Wells, though his first novel appeared in 1895, produced the vast bulk of his work in the current century. Huxley acts as an appropriate balance to Wells and also exemplifies the shift from utopia to dystopia. The last section of the thesis deals with the work of Kurt Vonnegut and includes an interview with that author. The twentieth century has seen the proliferation of dystopias, portraits of the disastrous consequences of the headlong pursuit of science and technology, unallied to human values. Huxley and Vonnegut crystallised the fears of a modern generation: that we create a soulless, mechanised, urban nightmare. The contemporary fascination with science in literature is merely an extension of a process with a long tradition and underlying theme. The advance of science and technology created the physical and intellectual environment for utopian authors which determined the form and content of their visions.

By examining critical studies of the dystopian genre from Gregory Claeys, Fátima Vieira, and Keith Booker as well as the studies of young adult dystopian novels from Roberta Trites, Kenneth Donnelson, and Sean Connors, I argue that young adult literature (YAL) has literary merit and is worth studying. This literariness stems from a novel's ability to explore complex themes like religion, sacrifice, and societal contracts. I introduce and analyze a subgenre of YA dystopian literature, which I classify as the medical dystopia, a genre that is uniquely positioned to explore the complex moral questions that surround advancing medical technologies and their impact on society. To demonstrate how YAL can deal with the complex ideas inherent to themedical dystopian genre, I analyze Neal Shusterman's Unwind and Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion. The analysis concludes that novels like these do not lack substance and have literary value due to their ability to invite young adults to view the darkness that exists within society from a position of safety and light.

This thesis examines how patriarchal dystopian societies attempt to control their citizenry through the homogenization of discourse and the employment of Foucauldian panopticons. In the context of these power structures, I argue that nonviolent storytelling and restorative memory are more effective in resisting oppression than violent, openly subversive forms of rebellion. In my discussion of The Handmaid’s Tale, I examine how Gilead’s manipulation of public discourse through religious hegemony and restrictions on literacy suppresses the efficacy of individually heroic acts by characters such as Ofglen and Moira. I assert that Offred’s playful deconstruction of language, defiant remembering of her past experiences, and insistence on bearing witness to Gilead’s atrocities without the promise of a listener allows her to successfully resist power and maintain a distinct self. In the analysis of Salt Fish Girl that follows, I study how the Big Six employ a series of cooperative hegemonies to promote neoliberal policies, dehumanize Othered bodies, and rob people in diaspora of cultural memory. Though protagonist Miranda fails in a conventional sense, I conclude that she succeeds due to her remixing of Western texts, hybridization of histories and values, and role in birthing a new, more hopeful future. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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[pt] Este trabalho investiga a história que Leibniz acrescenta à narrativa do humanista italiano Laurent Valla, transformando-a de uma anedota a respeito da liberdade humana diante presciência e vontade divinas em um estudo sobre a natureza da criação. Na história, os infinitos mundos possíveis são apresentados a Teodoro, em sonho, por Palas Atena, filha de Júpiter. O que ele vê pelos cômodos do palácio são infinitas histórias alternativas ao destino infeliz de Sexto Tarquínio, filho do último dos reis da monarquia romana. Esses mundos possíveis estão organizados em ordem decrescente de perfeição, sendo que o mais rico em variedade se encontra no alto da pirâmide, que é a forma geométrica a que Leibniz identifica o lugar em que Deus delibera sobre o melhor. Este trabalho percorre a estrutura da pirâmide para compreender o que Teodoro vê em cada cômodo e o que garante a própria divisória entre os cômodos. Nesse trajeto, verifica-se que um dos cálculos envolvidos na arquitetura da pirâmide é a dissemelhança entre a parte e o todo no melhor dos mundos. Sexto participa da variedade do mundo existente com seu infortúnio. No interior de um dos cômodos, Teodoro é introduzido aos problemas da análise infinita ao folhear o livro dos destinos. Por fim, este trabalho mostra que a natureza distópica da pirâmide não se restringe às histórias alternativas que Teodoro encontra em cada cômodo, mas há também outros mundos no interior do próprio mundo existente. O mundo mais perfeito se distingue por conter mais variedade que os demais, o que faz dele um mundo denso. É possível transitar pela densidade desse mundo através das distopias, ora entendidas como uma imitação da estrutura da lei do contínuo, ora consideradas como um suporte corporal que permite percorrer, alternadamente, os mundos fenomênicos. / [en] This thesis investigates the story that Leibniz adds to the narrative of the Italian humanist Laurent Valla, transforming it from an anecdote about human freedom in face of divine foreknowledge and will in a study about the nature of creation. In the story, the infinite possible worlds are presented to Theodorus in a dream by Pallas Athena, daughter of Jupiter. What he sees through the rooms of the palace are infinite alternative stories to the unfortunate fate of Sextus Tarquinius, son of the last king of the Roman monarchy. These possible worlds are organized in descending order of perfection, so that the richest in variety is at the top of the pyramid, which is the geometric form to which Leibniz identifies the place where God deliberates on the best. This work traverses the structure of the pyramid to understand what Theodore sees in each room and what ensures the very partition between the rooms. On this route, it is verified that one of the calculations involved in the architecture of the pyramid is the dissimilarity between the part and the whole in the best of the worlds. Sextus participates in the variety of the existing world with its misfortune. Inside one of the rooms, Theodorus is introduced to the problems of infinite analysis by leafing through the book of fates. Finally, this work shows that the dystopic nature of the pyramid is not restricted to the alternative stories that Theodorus finds in each room, but there are also other worlds within the existing world itself. The most perfect world stands out for containing more variety than the others, which makes it a dense world. It is possible to transit through the density of this world through dystopias, understood firstly as an imitation of the structure of the law of the continuum and, secondly, as a bodily support that allows one to traverse, alternately, the phenomenal worlds.

The aim of this dissertation is to study the evolution of the Russian anti-utopian literary genre in the new post-Soviet environment in the wake of the defunct Soviet socialist utopia. The genre has gained a renewed importance during the 2000s, and has been used variously as a means of dealing satirically with the Soviet past, of understanding the present, and of pondering possible courses into the future for the Russian Federation. A guiding question in this study is: What makes us recognize a novel as anti-utopian at a time when the idea of utopia may appear obsolete, when the hegemony of nation states has been challenged for several decades, and when art has been drawn towards the aesthetics of hybridity? The main part of the dissertation is comprised of detailed analyses of three novels: The Slynx (Kys', 2001) by Tatyana Tolstaya; Homo Zapiens/Babylon (Generation ‘P’, 1999) by Viktor Pelevin; and Ice Trilogy (Ledianaia Trilogiia, 2002−2005) by Vladimir Sorokin. The further development of the genre is subsequently discussed on the basis of seven novels published in the past decade. A main argument in the dissertation is that the genre has been modified in ways which can be seen as a response to social and political changes on a global scale. The waning power of the nation state, in particular, and its broken monopoly as the bearer of social projects marks a new context, which is not shared by the classic works of the genre. Analysis of this evolution in post-Soviet anti-utopian novels draws on sociological as well as literary studies. The dissertation shows how the analysed novels use the possibilities of the genre to problematize various forms of societal discourse, and how these discourses work as mutations of utopia. Prominent among these are historical discourses, which reflect the increasing importance of historical narratives in public political debates in the Russian Federation.

Cette thèse analyse le corps dystopique dans La Servante Ecarlate. Elle vise à examiner les façons dont le pouvoir masculiniste subjugue les servantes à travers l'objectivation et l'effacement de leur corps, puis à analyser le corps féminin comme un élément perturbateur, un site où se produit une constante subversion du pouvoir tout au long du roman. L'introduction offre une brève discussion sur la raison derrière le choix de La Servante Ecarlate comme une étude de cas, qui est dans le but de développer le concept du corps dystopique à partir d'un point de vue féministe. Elle délimite aussi mon argument sur le corps dystopique et le pouvoir. Le premier chapitre intitulé ‟Perspectives Critiques” présente une revue critique de la littérature, introduit ma contribution à l'étude du roman, et expose mes arguments sur l'utopie féministe, la dystopie, le corps dystopique et la circulation du pouvoir. Dans le deuxième chapitre intitulé ‟Le Corps Dystopique” je démontre que la dystopie dans une certaine mesure est déjà profondément enracinée dans le présent. Cette section se concentre sur les différents aspects de la dystopie principalement la reproduction, la sexualité, la surveillance et le code vestimentaire tout en étudiant leur impact sur le corps de la servante. Ces aspects sont abordés en détail dans des sous-chapitres séparés. Le dernier chapitre intitulé ‟La Subversion du Pouvoir” examine dans un premier lieu le mode d'échange de pouvoir entre le commandant et son épouse Serena Joy. Il étudie les façons dont chacun des personnages se positionne par rapport au pouvoir afin d’exploiter le corps d’Offred. Puis, il examine l'ironie qui se cache derrière le jeu de pouvoir constant dans le roman, dévoilant ainsi la perpétuation de la dystopie corporelle étant donné que le corps de la femme ne cesse d'être l'objet de la lutte. Ce travail étudie l'expérience corporelle de la femme dans un régime totalitaire et les façons dont le corps féminin devient dystopique. Il présente le corps féminin comme la proie des hommes et des femmes, et la dystopie comme étroitement dépendante et générée par la conception de ce corps dans la société de Gilead. Mots clés: Dystopie, Corps, Pouvoir, Féminisme, Ironie, Margaret Atwood / The present thesis analyzes the dystopic body in The Handmaid’s Tale. It aims at examining the ways with which the masculinist power subjugates Handmaids through the objectification and erasure of their bodies, then analyzing the female body as a disruptive force, a site where constant powerplay occurs throughout the novel. The introduction provides a brief discussion of my reasons for choosing The Handmaid’s Tale as a case study, which includes a desire to develop the concept of the dystopic body from a feminist standpoint. It also delineates my argument on the dystopic body and power. In the first chapter entitled “Critical Perspectives”, I present a critical review of literature, introduce my contribution to the study of the novel, and expose my arguments on feminist utopia, dystopia, the dystopic body and power play. The second chapter entitled “The Dystopic Body” demonstrates that dystopia is already deep-rooted in the present. It focuses on the different aspects of dystopia mainly reproduction, sexuality, surveillance and the dress code, and studies their impact on the Handmaid’s body. These aspects are discussed in detail in separate subchapters. The final chapter entitled “Power Subversion” examines at one level the mode of power exchange between the Commander and his wife Serena Joy. It investigates the ways with which each of the characters positions themselves to power in order to take ownership of Offred’s body. At another level, it studies the irony that lies behind the constant power play in the novel, uncovering the perpetuation of bodily dystopia since the female body never ceases to be the object of struggle. This thesis examines the bodily experience of women under such totalitarian regimes and the ways in which the female body becomes dystopic. It presents the female body as the prey of both men and women, and dystopia as closely dependent on and generated by the conception of that body in the society of Gilead. Keywords: Dystopia, Body, Power, Feminism, Irony, Margaret Atwood

The aim of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive and focused reflection with regard to role of mass media in selected dystopian films, respectively in movies where some significant dystopian elements do appear. This thesis is based on themes that have been the content of bachelor thesis written by the same author and expands on it - however, the bachelor thesis analysed exclusively three novels (Brave New World, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451). Nevertheless this thesis does not include any film adaptation of these novels. Within this work a wider range of resources was employed as it allows highlighting multiple topics associated with the mass media. The main theme is therefore related to the use of mass media and their impact on society. The thesis contains interpretation (from media studies perspective) of a total of 12 films, which are then divided into three categories based on the prevailing perception of the role of mass media. The first part is focused on the mass media as a constitutive element of dystopian regimes. In this case the mass media affect the society as a whole. The second part deals with the films, in which, in which the media significantly influence the lives of specific individuals (although the whole society may not be affected). Finally, the third part includes movies, in...

In this thesis I mainly analyzed the canonical dystopian works, like J. Zamjatin We and G. Orwell 1984, based on this observation I circumscribe the five criteria by which the dystopian fictional world works. In the following sections, I observed the role and place of these criteria in the 20th century Czech literature works.