| Dystopian literature, as a genre, has uniquely captivated both general reading audiences and critics alike, providing a critical exploration of contemporary society through increasingly nightmarish landscapes and warning audiences to change their behaviors before this imagined future becomes current reality. However, postmodern dystopian works, represented in adolescent literature and graphic novels such as Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games (2008), Chuck Palahniuk's Pygmy (2009), and Alan Moore's Watchmen (1986, 1987), deviate from reader expectations and shift away from the originally constructed "norm," displacing typically dominant topoi---principal plots, overall world construction, physical settings, relatable themes, and extrapolation---and primarily focusing upon characterization to challenge the standardized genre instead. Despite this shift, critics still tend to ignore that this change has occurred, analyzing the success of postmodern dystopias based upon how closely they match the old formula. Rather than adhering to previous narrative limitations, both readers and critics alike need to embrace the tension, recognize the shift dystopian literature has undergone in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, and expand the genre's current common formula to include, rather than exclude, postmodern works that do not neatly fit these "classic" ideologies or conventions. With a new target audience of young readers, these postmodern dystopias accordingly feature antiheroic characters who become the focus of the text and who can overcome the bleak literary societies without having to ultimately fail. Thus, it is important to recognize that these changes do not dilute the genre; instead, the texts have changed in relation to their times, fitting their primary audience and its needs. |
