Browsing by Subject "Dystopia"

Pierce Brown’s Red Rising is a science fiction series set in a distant dystopian future, in which Darrow, a young rebel, fights to overthrow an authoritarian regime. Its overarching themes raise issues in narrative ethics, which make up the main concerns of this thesis. Power, slavery, and modes of governance are ethical issues inherent to the novels. Brown, however, divests Red Rising from the historical and critical character of classic dystopias by introducing a protagonist who realizes, near immediately, the dystopian nature of their setting. This thesis examines the six books published in the series so far through a hermeneutic approach to narrative ethics, as described by Hanna Meretoja. Particular foci in this regard are the self-reflective and naturalizing qualities of narratives, as well as their ethical potential to widen or constrict choice. This approach is complemented with contributions from cognitive literary studies on children’s literature and its intersection with the function of fiction as well as historical and cultural studies into American exceptionalism. This combined outlook is used to examine issues of power dynamics, ideology, gender, and sexuality in the novels, as well as the protagonist’s personal narrative arc and the widening of perspective provided by other character-narrators. In Red Rising homophobia and misogyny appear in the text despite the author’s intention to create a society free of either. Further, despite being a series revolving around the merits of democracy over fascism, Pierce Brown’s protagonists constantly work against democratic structures when the will of the majority is in disagreement with the desires of the powerful. The thesis argues that Darrow’s story sees him liberated from slavery, yet reinscribed into the role of slave through a relinquishment of his own agency and a descent into war-mongering authoritarianism. Finally, the thesis explores how the inclusion of other narrators widens our sense of what is and is not possible within Red Rising. This highlights the ethical issues already mentioned, and provides an interesting case of a perpetrator narrative that mirrors Darrow’s own journey.