Most people know typical book genre conventions, like fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, but one that really sticks out with higher-level literature is dystopian novels. Dystopian novels are defined as those that depict a deeply flawed and oppressive society, which serves an antagonistic role in one way or another.
These novels are super popular; most people at some point in their lives willingly or not have read a dystopian novel because they’re popular choices of literature for middle and high schools.
Out of any type of book, most people think of popular dystopian novels like The Hunger Games and 1984 as choices for popular literature. These are deep novels that feature harrowing tales of protagonists struggling against their environments and facing impossibly large antagonistic forces.
I thought to myself, “Why are they so popular?” I can think of a few reasons. As each year passes, people increasingly feel that our current society has dystopian aspects or is dystopian in nature. We have a president who’s had multiple scandals the likes of which we’ve never seen before, but because the 1% are so powerful, no real consequences came up. We give billions of taxpayers’ money to a country that is actively committing genocide, despite our opposition. People have to fight for their rights; otherwise, state governments will take them away for some asinine reason. The present to at least 49% of the population feels like a worse version of the past, and this trend shows no sign of stopping. An oppressive dystopian society underlies all of these issues.
People enjoy heavy stories where there’s a lot at stake and the antagonistic force feels threatening, and a great way to show that off is through an oppressive government and laws like in The Hunger Games, where they had to kill each other to survive. They also enjoy books that portray deep commentary like 1984 with its messages on totalitarianism and how it weaponizes surveillance and language to crush people’s freedom.
I think these dystopian novels are popular because there’s so much to explore in these novels that relates to commentary on aspects of real life, warning signs of where not to bring our future. Sci-fi and fantasy have their fans, but their worlds are mostly fairy tales, not real life. Dystopian novels can easily connect to the real world or a dark future of it; that’s what pulls people in.
