Receiving emails all stating the same thing, hearing the news all reciting the same scripts, it brings to mind a few familiarities. Naturally, the first thing that came to my mind was the movie Contagion released in 2011. The idea of a pandemic sweeping the planet and taking out certain people. But it also reminds me of a bunch of other books too: The Maze Runner series, The Darkest Minds series, and many other young adult fiction novels. Something happens in the world, certain people are infected, and the world changes because of it. In short, all of this fits under the category of dystopia.
The definition of dystopia is, “a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.” This is practically what we are dealing with right now. A “disease” has taken over European countries and has now spread to the United States. We are all trapped in a dystopian world overrun by disease leaving certain people worse off than others. While some may consider it post-apocalyptic, we have not hit the “post” part yet. For this to be considered post-apocalyptic, this pandemic has to be long gone and over with. Once that happens, we can see how people cope and live with their new lives after the pandemic.
Since we are still in the peak of this disease, it can not be considered post-apocalyptic because we cant see how people live after the pandemic. This can still be considered dystopian because it can be perceived as driven by human misery and that human misery is driven by this disease.
I also wrote about how the virus and its effects on our society feel very dystopian. I’m interested in your point about the YA dystopian novels. They were definitely the trend a few years ago, but seem to have fallen out of popularity recently. I wonder how this virus will affect the genre. Will people turn to these types of books again, or will they move away from them completely? I remember either reading or hearing about how certain types of horror are more prevalent during times with certain social issues. I’ll see if I can find something about it and post it to the blog. I think it could be interesting in relation to the virus and our class.
What do you think our society’s relationship was to the term “dystopia” before the quarantines hit? It seems the only bit of the definition that’s new is “disease,” but I’d even argue that nothing has changed on that front, given America’s healthcare system. Still, I wonder how much I would define this time with “human misery.” I’m not taking so well to quarantine, but I don’t know if I would call myself miserable yet. Of course, that may be a privileged viewpoint.
By definition, this time in our lives is a dystopian time. However, does it necessarily feel as extreme as a novel? Yes, humans are miserable. Yes, many people have died because of this. I just don’t see Covid-19 as something that could be classified as a dystopian for everyone. There are no cases in my town as of right now, so I am not forced to be in the world where the dystopian aspect seems more real (i.e. New York, Italy, China). I think the aspect of a dystopian time relates directly to where you are in relation to the disease.
I actually remember when the movie Contagion came out; I was in middle school, and I kept thinking about how crazy it would be if something like that were to ever happen in my lifetime. Now that it’s actually happening, I don’t feel as panicked as I originally thought that I would be; if I were to go back in time and explain all of this to my 12-year-old self, though, I/she probably would be scared to death. I too am interested in how we will live our lives once the coronavirus is over–certainly, we will all be a lot more resilient than we were before.