The Endless Revolution: New Patterns in Dystopian Science Fiction

After providing a brief history of the utopian and dystopian genres, this thesis explores the two-world systems of Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Dispossessed," Octavia Butler's "Adulthood Rites" and Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake." Morals and values within these worlds, along with the positive and negative elements of each society and protagonist, are closely examined, and this analysis reveals the importance of and need for change within these worlds. "Change" does not necessarily mean "improvement," however, and the analysis of the three novels shows that revolutionizing a dystopia is not as clear-cut as one might imagine.