The Hunger Games and a brief history of dystopian literature

The Hunger Games emerged during the massive boom in YA literature and film adaptations. Surrounded by other book-to-movie franchises like Harry Potter, Twilight, and Divergent, it was easy to dismiss the trilogy as yet another love triangle trapped within a sci-fi/fantasy setting.

However, The Hunger Games deserves to be acknowledged as a major work in the dystopian fiction genre as well. While marketing teams might have highlighted Katniss's choice between Peeta and Gale, many fans celebrated the detailed examination of propaganda, violence against children, and the moral ambiguity of revolutions.

Now that its prequel film, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, is out in theaters, it's worth exploring the foundation the franchise is built on. Read on for more information about what a dystopia is, the major types and periods of dystopian literature, and what works have stood the test of time.

What is a utopia?

The dystopian genre is a direct offshoot of Sir Thomas More's 1516 book, Utopia. More depicted his idea of the perfect society, where people live in a state of contentment and equality (for the most part), a stark contrast to 16th-century European life.

Without diving too deep into etymology, the name of the book has two critical meanings. The one people are most familiar with relies on the Greek prefix "Eu," which makes the title mean "good place." However, More himself makes it clear that the intended prefix is actually "Ou," making Utopia "no place."

From this emerged the idea of a utopia, which is both a world without problems and one that can never truly exist. The idea if frequently invoked in political settings to explain why certain problems can't be solved. An opponent's ideologies are often characterized as either dangerous or stupid, as their idealism is fundamentally impossible in the real world.

What is a dystopia?

Working from that origin, the dystopian genre often asks, if there cannot be a perfect society, how can the idea of a Utopia (good-place) actually be weaponized against its people? Other dystopias simply present the opposite of the Utopia. In either case, the idea of good and bad are put into question to illustrate the complex shades of gray.

According to Alex Gendler in his TED Talk on the subject, the blueprint for a dystopia is "Imagining a world where certain trends in contemporary society are taken to extremes, exposing their underlying flaws.” While some are simply imagined horror-scapes, they almost always provide some critique on either the world the author lives in or the one that others imagine as a better world.

"Think back to the perfect world you imagined. Did you also imagine what it would take to achieve? How would you make people cooperate? And how would you make sure it lasted? Now take another look. Does that world still seem perfect?"

Alex Gendler

What are the standard characteristics of dystopian literature?

While most dystopias function as political or social satires, they frequently find their places within the horror and sci-fi genres. This is because these fields allow them to exaggerate certain parts of society without breaking the reader's suspension of disbelief, as well as making it socially acceptable to linger on the horrors that such a society would create.

The YouTube channel Overly Sarcastic Productions teamed up with Hello Future Me! to discuss some of the most common tropes in the dystopian genre.

Some of these included:

• A militarized police force

• Restriction of speech/thought

• Public shows of force

• Restriction/control of information

• Claims that a failing society actually is a utopia

While these are common themes in nearly all dystopian literature, there are also several trends that have been added and removed to the genre as it has evolved, with five predominant sub-genres developing over the centuries.

Direct Social Critique

While it can be dangerous to directly criticize your government, the dystopian genre allows authors to create new governments and worlds mirroring the problems of their own. Though these problems will often be exaggerated, they should be relatively easy to identify by the culture they were made for.

In most cases, these were the first dystopian novels to be published, as those written later tend to mix with other sub-genres. Many of these include protagonists or narrators who discover and explore a new country, which they can critique as much as they want.

Direct social critique dystopias tend to focus on contemporary social issues, which can make them difficult for modern audiences to connect with. However, they frequently include elements that seem more relevant to human nature, rather than any particular culture.

Examples:

• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

• Erewhon by Samuel Butler

• It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

Near-Future Dystopias

While it made sense to write books where new civilizations were discovered early on, modern readers struggle to believe in finding societies that they were completely unaware of. Given this, it made more sense to play with time instead of space. The near-future allows authors to visualize political slippery slopes, showing readers where current policies may one day lead.

These types of dystopian literature often feature currently-existing countries, depicting where they may end up if things aren't changed now. Even if the nations we know of are gone, their actions are often integral to the creation of the dystopian world. Therefor, the books provide a clear call to action for readers to change things in their own world.

While there may be futuristic technologies depicted, those are not what makes for such a dangerous society. Instead, near-future dystopias deal with human nature and how people can be twisted by monstrous laws and ideologies.

Examples:

• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

• The Iron Heel by Jack London

• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

• American War: A Novel by Omar El Akkad

Futuristic Horrors

While dystopian novels are inherently about societies, there is a significant sub-genre that focuses on technology. Most often, these either show how a current technology will malfunction or how a potentially innocuous technology could be used by those with bad intentions.

These predominantly emerged in the mid 20th century, as technology began to appear and spread at an exponential rate. This fear of technology and what it will do to us has not lessened in recent years, as the interconnectivity of the world only increases with time.

This is the subgenre to turn to for artificial intelligence enslaving humanity and the government using the Internet to brainwash the population. Human nature is still critical to these novels, but it tends to be most significant in understanding the protagonist, rather than the antagonists. In addition, capitalism itself is frequently an opponent to be torn down.

Examples:

• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

• The Machine Stops by E. M. Forester

• The Water Thief by Nicholas Lamar Soutter

• The Feed by Nick Clark Windo

Post-Apocalyptic Worlds

While futuristic dystopias often looked beautiful from the outside, there is nothing alluring about the world after the apocalypse. Technology is frequently unreliable, at best, and 'civilization' as we know it is gone. These dystopias focus most on survival, asking the reader what they would be willing to do to to stay alive for one more day.

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic novels began to emerge in earnest after World War 2, and the fear of Mutually Assured Destruction during the Cold War only increased their presence. It's little wonder that these stories tend to be most popular as the Doomsday Clock gets closer to midnight.

This era of dystopian literature tended to have a few major points. First, the cause of the apocalypse was frequently based on contemporary problems and policies. From there, the books tend to explore both how cruel people can become when their lives are at stake and how surprisingly kind they can be.

Examples:

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy

• Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

• Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Young-Adult Dystopias

Although the Young-Adult division of dystopian literature can vary widely, it tends to not only feature a young protagonist, but also focuses on elements of society that are most prominent for the young. These books often pose questions of identity and how a person builds their future.

While there were some novels that handled this early on, the big boom in YA dystopian literature came in the wake of The Hunger Games trilogy. Because the franchise found so much success, there were multiple copy-cat novels that did little more than bank on the success, much like the previous boom in paranormal romance.

Despite the oversaturated market, a few examples stand out for their chilling depictions of very possible futures. These novels take the stance that the young are not just able to understand serious topics, but that they are actually more capable of recognizing society's failings. Teenagers are at a time in life where they must examine the world and their place in it, which provides the perfect circumstances to evaluate whether the world is acceptable or not.

Examples:

• The Giver by Lois Lowry

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

• Unwind by Neil Schusterman

There are, of course, dystopian books that blend elements of all of these types. For instance, books like Ender's Game focus on both high-tech futuristic threats and the nature of global politics and military forces, all shown through the eyes of a young protagonist. But the type of dystopian fiction that dominates at a given time can often show how free the author feels to criticize their own government.

Many of these books are viewed as all-time classics, necessary to understanding the world we live in. Others are mocked as little more than genre literature, making up 'ridiculous' rules and structures for their worlds. While people can argue over quality endlessly, dystopian literature is critical to exploring the dangers of the world around us, with personal and global consequences if they go too far.

Must-Read Dystopian Works

• 1984, by George Orwell

• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

• The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

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