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Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler
Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower, is set in a dystopian Los Angeles, ravaged by poverty, societal collapse, and drug abuse. The protagonist, Lauren Olamina, is a Black teenager who develops a system of philosophy and religion called Earthseed and writes Earthseed: The Book of the Living to guide what she hopes will be a new way forward for humanity. In the sequel, Parable of the Talents, the Earthseed texts and ways of thinking face a threat from government-backed religious fundamentalists who enforce their dictates with shock collars, reeducation camps, and enslavement of opponents.
In George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel 1984, published in 1949, a tyrannical government tightly controls and monitors everything citizens read and write, with the goal of controlling knowledge and thought. Citizens are not allowed to choose what to read or write or even to keep individual records. As their memories of the past, including events they themselves experienced, fades, they begin to accept the totalitarian government’s version of history and of present events. The Party even creates a new form of English, Newspeak, which makes it difficult for citizens to think rationally.
Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, takes its title from the temperature at which paper burns. Its protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman whose job is to start fires that destroy books, which have been deemed harmful by a society that has decided that some passages offend or sadden certain readers and that learning leads to inequality. Reading and learning are replaced by passive and relentless television shows broadcast on wall-sized screens and by radio programs delivered directly into listeners’ ears, inhibiting their ability to think freely and deeply.
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood’s well-known novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, first published in 1985 and since adapted for film and television, is set in Gilead, a theocratic and totalitarian government that utterly oppresses all women. The government intentionally uses language to reshape society, in particular relabeling people, organizations, and places with references drawn from Biblical stories. So, for example, housekeepers are called “Marthas” after a character in a New Testament story who prepares a meal for Jesus, and men in charge are “Commanders of the Faithful.” The state severely restricts free speech and assembly to suppress rebellion and to terrorize most citizens into serving privileged leaders.
Lois Lowry’s 1993 novel, The Giver, presents a pleasant-seeming society that exists only because strong emotions, positive and negative, have been eliminated. People who live in the “Sameness” cannot remember these emotions and no longer have words to name or describe them. Death is called “release,” and the facts of death are hidden carefully so that the living can remain pleasantly untroubled. People cannot perceive color, either, and have no words for colors. When the protagonist, Jonas, who can see flashes of color, becomes aware of what must be hidden for his community to exist, he rejects his role in it.
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
This 2008 novel, the first of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series, depicts a world in which communication is monitored closely by a tyrannical government to prevent rebellion. The state, Panem, curates a form of entertainment, the yearly Hunger Games, that all citizens are forced to view. For citizens in the Capitol, the Games are an opportunity to gamble and enjoy themselves. Citizens in the Districts, however, must watch as their children, selected by lottery, kill each other till only one survives. Entertainment and celebrity commentary are used to terrorize the Districts into obedience and, essentially, enslavement to the Capitol’s vanity and extravagance
