Jay Parini wrote a post on his blog discussing the relationship teens have with dystopian fiction novels. Jay argued that the reason why so many kids connect to dystopian fiction is because they can relate to the feelings many of the characters are going through. The average middle/high schooler is going through the troubles of feeling controlled by both their parents in their home life and authority figures at their schools. The feeling of being held down by a powerful figure is what many dystopian fiction works focus on that readers see resemblances within their own lives. Parini reflects on how books like “A Clockwork Orange” spoke to him when he was in high school, as he saw connections with his own life and the characters of Alex, the Droogs, and Dim.

I didn’t read many dystopian books during my teen years but I have been for the past few years, as well as watching YA based films such as The Hunger Games and Battle Royale, and I quickly made connections to my experiences to those of the characters. I appreciate Parini for also realizing that teens of our generation might have it even rougher with technology expanding and becoming such a staple in our lives. This only strengthens the similarities between how our world works now and the one in George Orwell’s “1984”. Some could think these parallels are extreme but when you evaluate the stress kids go through have to juggle passing several different tests from a handful of classes, wanting to be accepted by their peers, searching for independence and the pressures to get into college, you can see how it’s natural for kids to fit themselves in a dystopian world.