The dystopian genre has had a surge of popularity in television and movies the past few years with movies such as the Hunger Games and series such as Netflix’s Black Mirror. However, the genre’s...Show moreThe dystopian genre has had a surge of popularity in television and movies the past few years with movies such as the Hunger Games and series such as Netflix’s Black Mirror. However, the genre’s popularity had its beginning in the early years of the twentieth century, in particular, thanks to the contributions of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. Their books, Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), are to this day lauded for their prophetic elements. On the one hand, Brave New World explores scientific progress and the negative consequences it could entail. Some of the inventions present in the novel were not yet invented at the time that Huxley wrote them, such as for example birth control for women. On the other hand, Orwell’s exploration of cruelty by totalitarian regimes and the high-tech espionage of their citizens through cameras in Nineteen Eighty Four, well before the Soviet Union’s KGB and the East-German Stasi applied them during the Cold War, prophesied the rise of surveillance technologies in modern technocracies. These two foundational dystopian novels have their origins in the two authors’ critique of optimistic utopian narratives. The works of H.G. Wells, in particular, were viewed adversely by Huxley and Orwell. Despite the negative incentive, there are clear similarities between the novels of these three public intellectuals. H.G. Wells had a ground-breaking approach to communicating his ideas about science and society to a wider audience. In his scientific romances he combined aspects of the social novel with scientific theories about the progress of human civilization in order to express his vision of how to rid the world of its ills, which ultimately inspired, on the one hand, the scientific explorations of utopia in Brave New World and, on the other hand, the social protest against dystopian developments in Western society that Nineteen Eighty-four was to become. These would ultimately become two distinct kinds of dystopian literature: Huxley’s science-fiction dystopias and Orwell’s social dystopias. There are of course also combinations of both. The close readings of H.G. Wells’ Perez 4 Men Like Gods (1923), Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four will highlight the similarities between the three novels in terms of their treatment of the utopia/dystopia dichotomy and will show that the authors’ personal backgrounds played an important role in determining each different approach to the building of a utopia/dystopia in the respective novels.Show less
This thesis provides a close reading of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone (1979) and 11/22/63 (2011) and suggests that both novels can be regarded as historical novels. This thesis presents an overview...Show moreThis thesis provides a close reading of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone (1979) and 11/22/63 (2011) and suggests that both novels can be regarded as historical novels. This thesis presents an overview of the key historical events and figures of the respective time periods in which the novels are set. The Dead Zone is set during the 1970s and 11/22/63 is set during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Both time periode are represented negatively. The Dead Zone explores the feeling of distrust that the American citizens experienced after Richard Nixon’s Watergate Scandal and the Vietnam War. 11/22/63 shows the flipside to JFK’s hopeful image and the optimistic 1960s. Ultimately, I will show that despite the negative representation of America in the 1960s and 1970s, there is hope for the characters in these novels which enables them to survive and to find peace. The Dead Zone and 11/22/63 contain a hopeful message which is represented through education and love. This hopeful message does not only represent hope for the characters of the novel, but also for the readers of these historical novels, who can find guidance in working through historical events such as the Vietnam War, 11/22/63 and the Watergate Scandal.Show less
Since its first airing in 1966, the television series Star Trek has become a worldwide phenomenon. Over the last five decades, Star Trek has mirrored and reflected on many socio-political...Show moreSince its first airing in 1966, the television series Star Trek has become a worldwide phenomenon. Over the last five decades, Star Trek has mirrored and reflected on many socio-political developments in American culture. Two critical socio-political aspects of post-war American culture that are explicitly explored within the various incarnations of Star Trek are the changing roles and identities available to women as well as concerns about the increasing complexity of racial identities in an increasingly multi-cultural and multi-ethnic America. This thesis explores the themes of gender and racial identity in three generations of the Star Trek series: The Original Series (1966-69), The Next Generation, (1987-94) and Discovery (2017-18).Show less
Focusing on second-wave feminism, this thesis explores the representation of gender and the expression of the predominant feminist ideas in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969),...Show moreFocusing on second-wave feminism, this thesis explores the representation of gender and the expression of the predominant feminist ideas in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Joanna Russ’s The Female Man (1975) and Pamela Sargent’s The Shore of Women (1986).Show less
In 2017 Noordhoff Uitgeverij BV published a set of “Blackbird Classics” for the following academic year which included Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), William Shakespeare’s Macbeth...Show moreIn 2017 Noordhoff Uitgeverij BV published a set of “Blackbird Classics” for the following academic year which included Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606), and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850). What is so telling about this set is that all three of these works are associated with the Gothic genre through similar tropes and themes. While finding Shakespeare in this set might raise a few questions, Desmet and Williams explain that to fully understand the Gothic it is important to recognise the genre’s “Shakespearean Origins” (2). Intrigued, I looked further into the publishing history of the Blackbirds and found many instances of Gothic and supernatural novels being published for high-school students. The list included many editions of The Picture of Dorian Gray, several books by Susan Hill, who wrote The Woman in Black (1983), and many other modern Gothics, and a simplified version of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde adapted to be understandable for a younger reading audience. This discovery led me to ask the question what the appeal is of such works for the high-school classroom. Why does the main publisher of educational material for Dutch high schools persistently turn to Gothic classics and other dark supernatural fictions as teaching texts? What follows is a critical examination of what the genre of the Gothic, and specifically the three texts published for 2017 by Noordhoff, have to offer literary education in Dutch high-schools.Show less
This thesis is a genre criticism. In it I will argue that Stephen King's epic, The Stand, can be seen as a contemporary (written) version of the medieval morality play. In the thesis I will compare...Show moreThis thesis is a genre criticism. In it I will argue that Stephen King's epic, The Stand, can be seen as a contemporary (written) version of the medieval morality play. In the thesis I will compare The Stand with other works of the morality play genre, such as Everyman and Mundus et Infans. Both The Stand share generic cues (discussed by John Frow) such as structure, theme and the allegorical aspects.Show less
This thesis will reveal that The Road contains many literary techniques, motifs and themes that can be traced back specifically to Romantic texts in the apocalyptic tradition, as well as...Show moreThis thesis will reveal that The Road contains many literary techniques, motifs and themes that can be traced back specifically to Romantic texts in the apocalyptic tradition, as well as philosophical ideas concerning human ethics that were developed within Romantic and later science fiction literature, initially in response to Kantian ethics. These specific themes and ideas will serve as the framework of reference for this research, to be introduced and placed in context in the following subsections.Show less
