The Death of Dystopia

Rileigh Gouveia, Writer, Editor

Despite it’s astounding popularity, many readers are dissatisfied with the direction the dystopian genre has gone. They believe unoriginal plots and uninteresting main characters may be to blame for the downfall of popularity in the genre. 

Richard Polseno, a published author and an English teacher at NKHS, had a few thoughts on the subject. He’s taught several dystopian novels in his class, including 1984 and Brave New World. “Well, I think the genre works well to communicate some sort of critique of something that is happening in society,” he said.  

He believes that dystopian novels are a powerful way to get young readers interested in a book that “takes a stance on human issues.”

The genre became so popular for a reason. Mr. Polseno concludes that dystopian books can be “immediately interesting to most people because we see a world…that’s just enough like our own that we can sort of believe…that our own world can get that messed up.”

Despite all the praise for the genre, he did say that young adult dystopian books can be “easily imitated” and can have similar plots. “Cliches exist for a reason. I think the goal of the writer is to make it feel like you’re using an archetype…and it’s so effective that it makes sense to keep using it, but to do that in some kind of original way.”

Mr. Polseno himself admitted to using cliches in his own books. “In that book, one of the cliches I’m using is the teenager who’s dealing with the loss of a parent. It doesn’t get any more cliche than that…but it’s what you do with it that matters.”

Many people blame the Divergent series for the downfall of the genre due to the fact that it set a trend for easily marketable, ready-for-Hollywood qualities that weren’t present in The Hunger Games or other dystopian series like The Uglies. Mr. Polseno doesn’t seem to agree. “I think it’s easy to pass blame on all sorts of things,” he said. “I think it’s easy to be a critic, too, of things that you don’t do. I’m guessing they [the critics] haven’t written a dystopian novel.”

He also applauded the authors of famous dystopian series for their success and for getting many young readers into books. “And if nothing else, they got a lot of people interested in reading books who might not otherwise have been.”

While people believe that there are many issues with the dystopian genre, it’s important to not dismiss it completely, as it still has the potential to teach young kids to love reading while also, on a much deeper level, tackling various problems in modern society.