Postmodernism and utopia: Dystopian/utopian themes in the works of Don DeLillo, Harold Jaffe, and Octavia Butler

The purpose of this study is to analyze how the work of Don DeLillo, Harold Jaffe, and Octavia Butler critically addresses the dominance of the mass media and the increasing class, race, and gender divisions in contemporary American culture. I argue that the dystopian visions of these writers are not endorsements of the status quo, as some would have it, but rather what Constance Penley has called "critical dystopias" that rigorously question the present. To explore this idea I use the theoretical framework set up by Fredric Jameson in Postmodernism, supplementing his model with the work of Ernst Bloch, Paul Ricoeur, Soren Baggesen, Linda Hutcheon, Brian McHale, Darko Suvin, Marleen Barr, and Constance Penley, all of whom shed light on the fascinating intersections between postmodern literature, science fiction, utopian feminist narratives, and dystopian cyberpunk visions.