Shaping Subjectivity: An Investigation of Societal Structures in Dystopian Literature

Abstract

This thesis explores the ways in which subjectivity is affected, through its many points of contact with the outside world. To achieve this, the thesis uses two dystopian texts, Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993) and Dan Erickson’s Severance (2022). The thesis discusses concepts and ideas surrounding the subjects: utopia, dystopia, ideology (and different types of ideologies) and subjectivity. The thesis operates with two major functions of dystopian literature as its backbone. First, dystopian literature amplifies the societal structures that exist in our own society and imagines them in a society that serves as a warning of what the future could look like if we do not attempt to stop the developments in areas such as technology, in the present. Second, the thesis operates with the understanding that dystopian literature is able to make ideology visible, as a consequence of the first function. In my discussions of ideology, I will employ different theorists, from Terry Eagleton and Louis Althusser to develop the understandings of the word that thesis will operate with. Through a close reading of both works that this thesis puts into question, I will attempt to show the ways in which ideology presents itself in dystopian literature and attempt to draw lines to the real world to show what exactly these works are warning against.