63 pages • 2 hours read
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Ashlords is a prime example of young adult (YA) dystopian literature, a genre that has flourished since the early 2000s but has its roots in literature going back over a century. Traditionally, dystopian literature features future fictional societies that are bleak and oppressive as a result of their political and social structures. Dystopian novels function as a form of social critique, highlighting and hyperbolizing negative aspects of modern society as a warning for the future. Consequently, many, if not most, works of dystopian literature take place in the near or distant future, often with overlapping elements of science fiction or speculative fiction. Key examples include 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
Young adult dystopian literature focuses on many of the same themes through the lens of the fears and insecurities that teenagers face in the modern world. The early 21st-century boom in YA dystopian literature coincided with social issues such as increased surveillance, climate change, the rise of authoritarian governments, and the ever-increasing importance of social media. Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993) is arguably the first significant dystopian YA novel, while Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (2011) offers an example of more recent YA dystopian literature that reflects the impact of American society’s obsession with spectacle and reality television. The influence of The Hunger Games on Ashlords is especially apparent: Both works revolve around a highly commercialized spectacle of competition between teenagers where life and death are at stake. Both works explore the power of the media and criticize the public’s fixation on celebrity and sensationalized television.
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