In much dystopian SF, the city models a society which represses the protagonist's sense of historical time, replacing it with a sense of "private" time affecting isolated individuals. This phenomenon appears in dystopian SF novels of 1960-75--including Thomas M. Disch's 334, John Brunner's The Jagged Orbit, Philip K. Dick's Martian Time-Slip, J. G. Ballard's High-Rise, and Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren--as well as some precursors--including Wells, Zamyatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. In these novels the cities also reveal in their chronotopic arrangement the degree to which revolutionary forces can oppose the dystopian order. While the earlier dystopias see revolution crushed by despotic state power, those of 1960-75 see it thwarted by the dehumanizing effects of capitalism. The period from 1960-75 ends in resignation to an existence in which individual action can no longer effect political change, at best tempered by irony (Disch, Delany).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.61046 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Zajac, Ronald J. (Ronald John) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001288952, proquestno: AAIMM74612, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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