Escaping Into a Disastrous Future

Jay Parini, author of “The Passages of H.M.,” stated that dystopian fiction is a method for young readers to relieve themselves of the pressures set by our society. He wrote that often young adults and teenagers feel as though they are caged by our society and forced to test themselves using methods that often leave them humiliated and often leave them with various levels of anxiety. He goes on to say that the dystopian novels often parallel the way the young readers feel. For example, in “The Hunger Games” novels, children are forced to fight and kill each other just to survive. Teenagers and young adults often feel this way, in a metaphorical sense. Personally, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. When I was younger, I felt the need to demoralize kids I felt were beneath me, more than likely landing on someone’s shit list at some point. I’ve also been on the receiving end of this treatment, although not often as I had learned how to not stand out enough. “The Giver” is another example of a dystopian novel that kids can relate to. In that novel, everyone is forced to be uniform. This is similar to the way that our society has a tendency to try and make us all act the same when it was never meant for us to be the same or have the exact same outlook.

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