Presenter(s)

    Taylor Kingston

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    Description

    Dystopian literature characteristically addresses the plight of the “everyman” as he copes with the oppression imposed by a totalitarian regime. Touchstone writers of the genre known for novels including Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World and Anthem have, however, been scrutinized for creating uncannily similar plots. While scholars have linked the writers’ ideas back to a Russian predecessor, the novel We, this research explores how a charge of quasi-plagiarism is a shallow explanation. The great question being explored in any dystopian novel is whether government can save mankind from itself by eradicating individual will. The commonalities among that individual will dictate the appearance of a world without it. It is because of human universals such as love, family and a desire for knowledge that these dystopian novels focus on the prevention of love through the regulation of sex, communal rearing of children, and thought-level censorship of ideas.

    Publication Date

    4-9-2014

    Project Designation

    Honors Thesis

    Primary Advisor

    John P. McCombe

    Primary Advisor's Department

    English, Psychology

    Keywords

    Stander Symposium project

    Disciplines

    Arts and Humanities | Business | Education | Engineering | Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences | Physical Sciences and Mathematics | Social and Behavioral Sciences

    Quasi-Plagiarism vs. Human Universality in the Dystopian Genre

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