Читать книгу Absent Rebels: Criticism and Network Power in 21st Century Dystopian Fiction - Annika Gonnermann - Страница 9

[T]here must be a link between the forms of literature and the ways in which, to quote Erich Auerbach, ‘we try to give some kind of order and design to the past, the present and the future.’ (Kermode 93)

Ever since Aristotle dichotomised literature into tragedy and comedy, literary studies have faced the challenge of generic analysis (cf. K. Williams 137). Even though genres are merely an artificial, constructed set of conventions and based on random categorisation, they and their boundaries are “obviously important,” as Zymner puts it crudely (7, own translation). In a similar manner, Darko Suvin argues

(1) that no field of studies and rational inquiry can be investigated unless and until it is at least roughly delimited; (2) that there exist literary genres, as socioaesthetic and not metaphysical entities; (3) that these entities have an inner life and logic of their own, which do not exclude but on the contrary presuppose a dialectical permeability to themes, attitudes, and paradigms from other literary genres, science, philosophy, and everyday socioeconomic life; (Metamorphoses 16)

In an equal manner, Fredric Jameson goes on to define genres as “essentially literary institutions, or social contracts between a writer and a specific public, whose function is to specify the proper use of a particular cultural artifact” (quoted in Moylan, Impossible 30). This social contract Jameson introduces has more than only one side to it: “like all genre fiction” (Russ, “Wearing” 46), dystopia is subject to certain rules and regulations, meaning that it “is a compromise” (ibid.) between generic conventions, reader expectations, and the writers’ urge to create something new. Properties of genres are, according to Ansgar Nünning and Astrid Erll, “elements of cultural memory and as such belong to the common knowledge of societies, which individuals acquire through socialization and culturalization” (17), meaning that readers have a fine sense for genre literature and concomitant elements. These conventions may not be underestimated since they “steer the reading process” (Wesseling quoted in ibid.) and therefore the expectations of readers.

Of course, one must always keep in mind that genres are contingent constructs, that is, cognitive maps based on artificial categories created by literary scholars. However, as Richard Taylor states, “[w]ith a clear understanding of existing categories a student of literature is better able to recognise essential characteristics and place individual works in relation to others of the same kind” (40).1 Emphasising the “essential characteristics” of genres, this quote presupposes a normative understanding of genres. Yet, scholars should be aware that there can never be a ‘right’ or ‘truthful’ definition of any genre, since genres are always the product of cultural discussion (cf. Zymner 10). Every new addition to an existing genre stimulates a dialectical process of renegotiating genre boundaries. As Suvin maintains, “[l]iterary genres exist in historically precise and curious ecological units, interacting and intermixing, imitating and cannibalizing each other” (Metamorphoses 21). Genres are therefore to be understood as abstract organisms that adapt to their environments and are subject to change, re-evaluation, and modification with every new work of fiction that is added to an existing canon (cf. Abraham 43). The canon must therefore offer “durable frames of reference [to] accommodate change: the variations in plot, characterisation or setting in each imitation inflect the audiences’ generic expectations by introducing new elements or transgressing old ones” (Maltby quoted in K. Williams 137f.), yet stay true to a more abstract generic core.

Utopian writing is born at the crossroads of various genres: it is related, first and foremost, to both Science Fiction and post-apocalyptic writing, exchanging stock features, character constellations, as well as themes and symbols and thereby increasing the difficulty to differentiate between the genres.2 To achieve maximum precision in the analysis of current dystopian fiction, it is vital to initiate this project with an exploration of the factors that distinguish the three genres, before clarifying the generic convention surrounding the concepts ‘utopia,’ ‘eutopia,’ and ‘dystopia.’ This necessary but difficult categorisation provides the basis for a nuanced investigation into the agenda of contemporary dystopian fiction.

Utopia, Science Fiction, and Post-Apocalypse

With his observations that dystopias appear “often in connection with science fictional and/or apocalyptic scenarios” (79), Rüdiger Heinze hints at the great generic confusion surrounding utopia’s relationship to science fiction – a nexus Darko Suvin captured under the term ‘literature of cognitive estrangement.’ Often dismissed as trivial and unserious literature, Suvin explores in Metamorphoses of Science Fiction the ways in which science fiction is “capable of achieving profound and probing insights into the principal dilemmas of political life” (Paik 1). He differentiates between naturalistic and estranged fiction, extending from the “ideal extreme of exact recreation of the author’s empirical environment to exclusive interest in a strange newness” (Suvin, Metamorphoses 4). Consequently, he groups together those genres working within the mode of estrangement (a device similar to the Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt) calling it “an organon […] for exploring the novum” (cf. ibid. ix). This is where utopia, “both an independent aunt and a dependent daughter of sf” (Suvin, “Theses” 188; cf. also Paik 3), comes together with science fiction. Both provide “a shocking and distancing mirror above the all too familiar reality” (Suvin, Metamorphoses 54). At the same time, science fiction and utopia are as fully “opposed to supernatural or metaphysical estrangement as [they are] to naturalism or empiricism” (ibid. 7), thereby erecting a barrier to other genres such as the Fantastic and the Gothic. Furthermore, both, utopia and science fiction, are interested in the present although they are set in the future (cf. Gold quoted in Amis 64).

As close as utopian writing is to its “niece and mother” science fiction, so undoubted is its kinship to another future-oriented genre, namely post-apocalyptic fiction (cf. Schoßböck 61; also Berger 9). Dystopia has much in common with post-apocalyptic fiction since both adapt, shape, and express fears and anxieties and “put forward a total critique of any existing social order” (Berger 7). Yet, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives mainly focus on the “imagination of disaster” (Sontag quoted in Booker and Thomas 53); or to be more precise, natural and man-made phenomena that bring mankind to the brink of extinction. Eckart Voigts talks about the disclosing quality of (post-)apocalyptic fiction, hinting at the original meaning of the Greek word ‘ἀποκαλύπτω’ (‘apokalypto,’ meaning ‘to uncover,’ cf. “Introduction” 5; cf. also Ketterer 5). Just like the biblical Book of Revelation, commonly referred to as ‘The Apocalypse,’ post-apocalyptic fiction often indulges in portrayals of Ulrich Beck’s ‘icons of destruction,’ “[n]uclear disaster, genetic engineering and ecological catastrophe” (Beck quoted in Lindner 374). Widely thought to have originated with Mary Shelley’s bleak last man standing narrative The Last Man (1826), post-apocalyptic fiction has particularly flourished in the nuclear age and after (atomic) pollution threatened the environment.3 Despite having been already declared dead, post-apocalyptic fiction still appeals to audiences around the world (cf. Mousoutzanis 461; cf. also Horn 12ff.) – especially on screen: while post-apocalyptic novels are again found on international best-seller lists (e.g. Emily St. Mandel’s Station Eleven, 2015; Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, 2000; or Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, 2007), it is first and foremost TV-series like The Walking Dead, (2010–), blockbuster movies like The Day After Tomorrow (2004, directed by Roland Emmerich) or I am Legend (2008, directed by Francis Lawrence) and computer games such as The Last of Us (Naughty Dog, 2013) or – most recently – Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt RED, 2020) that fascinate millions of fans.

Striking, however, is that most post-apocalyptic fiction – other than dystopian fiction, for instance – does not work directly within the mode of extrapolating from the present. As Susanna Layh observes, most end time narratives from the late 20^th century do not establish clearly identifiable causal-logical links between the pre- and post-apocalyptic society, but rather rely on general themes such as diseases and pandemic viruses as well as natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding, or meteoric impacts (cf. 181). Thereby they ignore the search for explanations how the present could possibly turn into this future and thereby force the reader to direct her attention away from the search for causality towards the diagnosis of human relationships after the catastrophe (ibid.; see also Schoßböck 65, 85–96).4

Despite their difference in interest and objective, post-apocalyptic fiction and dystopias are often mixed up and mistaken for each other, especially in the context of mainstream media. Even Margaret Atwood, acclaimed author of dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, conflates the two genres: in an interview, she once said “[a]ll dystopias are telling you is to make sure you’ve got a lot of canned goods and a gun” (Interview with Higgins), thereby falsely attributing some sort of eschatological quality to dystopian fiction. Kunkel tries to formulate the differences between the two genres by hinting at the nature of the future described: on the one hand, “[t]he end of the world or apocalypse typically brings about the collapse of order; dystopia, on the other hand, envisions a sinister perfection of order. […] dystopia is a nightmare of authoritarian or totalitarian rule, while the end of the world is a nightmare of anarchy” (“Dystopia” 90, emphasis in the original). He thus correctly identifies the nature of “order” in the two respective societies as the defining element.

Defining Utopia, Eutopia, and Dystopia

Although most people seem to have an intuitive understanding about the relational characteristics of eutopian and dystopian writing, these concepts are notoriously difficult to pin down in practice. This is due to two reasons in particular: their linguistic status as neologisms, and their generic co-dependency. In order to approach a reliable definition of dystopia, it is advisable to begin by analysing the etymological connection between eutopia and dystopia, starting with the former: ‘utopia’ has entered the English language as a book title, namely Thomas More’s Utopia, published in 1516. Originally used as a word play with the Greek language and its English pronunciation, i.e. between ‘ou-topos’ (no place) and ‘eu-topos’ (good place; cf. Seeber, Selbstkritik 55),5 the word has migrated from one individual work to denominate the entire genre (cf. Assheuer 45; also Weber 5).6 Since its beginnings, utopia has commonly been used within literary studies to denote the description of an ideal society fashioned according to the views and opinions of its author.7 By contrast, dystopia is a much younger term. It was first documented in 1868, when John Stuart Mill used the term in a speech to the House of Commons (cf. Shiau). Its morphological structure, “dys” meaning “bad, abnormal, and diseased” (Vieira 16), and “topos” meaning place, yet is like Thomas More’s original neologism.

While the term utopia/eutopia has generally been accepted as proper terminology, scholars still debate about the appropriate denomination of its darker twin: numerous terms compete its supreme use within literary studies. Interestingly, these terms still use the neologism ‘utopia’ as their root (cf. Vieira 3). Konrad Tuzinski offers his readers a collection of the following terms, ‘pessimistic utopia,’ ‘apocalyptic utopia,’ ‘inverted utopia,’ or ‘Groteskutopie,’ before eventually settling for the term ‘devolutionary utopia’ himself (cf. 6f.); Peter Fitting records the use of ‘negative utopia’ as well as ‘anti-utopia’ (cf. “Short History” 126), while Elena Zeißler summarises the last 50 years of dystopian research and confusion of terminology by gathering even more possible terms – among them ‘Gegenutopie,’ ‘Mätopie,’ or ‘Cacotopia’ (cf. 15).8 Yet, Zeißler, eventually, settles for the term ‘dystopia,’ thereby following an emerging consensus within utopian scholarship. ‘Dystopia’ is not only recognised by a majority of readers and researchers alike but also “denotes a broader concept, allowing criticism of utopia, but also [deals] directly […] with contemporary social evils and posits thus an independent term far less linked with utopia/eutopia” (Mohr, Worlds 28f.) – an advantage that other concepts lack for they are morphologically too close to the original neologism.

Increasingly, ‘dystopia’ has become the standard term. This consensus is reflected in the research by the most influential dystopian scholars, who all settle on the term, when attempting to define the genre boundaries. In Scraps of the Untainted Sky (2000), Tom Moylan defines dystopia according to its alignment to “militant pessimism [and] resigned pessimism,” whereas anti-utopia is defined by “despair” (157). However, he is careful not to give the impression of constructing a binary opposition between utopia and anti-utopia. Moylan argues for a continuum which stretches between the two poles – with dystopia being the “literary form that works between these historical antinomies and draws on the textual qualities of both subgenres” (ibid. 147, emphasis in the original). Whereas Moylan defines ‘dystopia’ as a hybrid structure, Lyman Tower Sargent reserves the term for a clear category of works. In “The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited” (1994), he writes that ‘positive utopia’ is defined as “a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as considerably better than the society in which that reader lived” (9), whereas ‘dystopia’ is defined as “a non-existent society […] intended [to be viewed] as considerably worse” (ibid.). Rejecting the idea of perfection as a definitional category because “there are in fact very few eutopians that present societies that the author believes to be perfect” (ibid.), he claims that the defining characteristic for his categories ‘eutopia,’ ‘dystopia,’ ‘utopian satire,’ ‘anti-utopia,’ and ‘critical utopia’ is authorial intention – while being aware that one can never be absolutely sure about it – and diminishes the readers’ role in assessing the text.9

Although both Moylan and Sargent offer convincing definitions for both ‘eutopia’ and ‘dystopia,’ this analysis follows the hands-on definitions offered by Darko Suvin, who constructs a taxonomy based on his ‘radically different’ principle. He defines utopia as “the construction of a particular community where socio-political institutions, norms, and individual relationships between people are organized according to a radically different principle than in the author’s community” (Suvin, “Theses” 188, my emphasis), thereby reserving ‘utopia’ as a categorial denominator that includes both eutopian and dystopian writing. He then goes on to differentiate between ‘eutopia,’ “organized according to a radically more perfect principle than in the author’s community” and ‘dystopia,’ “organized according to a radically less perfect principle” (ibid. 189). Yet again, the category of dystopia can be subdivided into ‘anti-utopia,’ a form that is “explicitly designed to refute a currently proposed eutopia” (ibid.), formulating a counter statement concerning utopias, and ‘simple dystopia,’ a more “straightforward dystopia, that is, one which is not also an anti-utopia” (ibid.). Suvin thus bases his taxonomy of dystopias on the question whether they explicitly attack eutopian fiction or not, thereby providing the most suitable theoretical framework for this project.