Scarlet
In the dystopian text Scarlet, written by Marissa Meyer, Scarlet’s grandma has gone missing. Scarlet finds Wolf, a street fighter, who is a former member of a gang who took her grandma. While trying to find her grandma, Scarlet finds Cinder, a wanted cyborg fugitive. Together they must find Scarlet’s grandma and defeat the evil Lunar Queen Levana.
Scarlet is a dystopian novel, because it is a futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureatic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control. This characteristic provided by the text is a perfect description of a dystopian society. For example, almost every job in the society’s “kingdom” is replaced with androids that are fitted for that job. These androids also help to keep the people under constant surveillance. And to prove the point that this novels setting is an imagined universe, in this text there is another planet named Luna. This in reality does not exist. This planet also has creatures called Lunars who have “magical powers”.
Some might argue that Scarlet’s easy, work free life is lived in a utopian world. This simply cannot be true considering a utopian society would be safe, yet Scarlet’s society consists of street fights, a plague, robbers, kidnappers, gangs, and more! Also a utopian world would consist of a nice environment, yet in Scarlet’s world they live in a dehumanized state. This consists of dirty homes, and dark nasty alleyways. “That’s not bad!” Some may say, well life is perfect for the rich/commonwealth but for the rest, not so much. If this text were to be utopian wouldn’t everyone have a home, and food?
The novel Scarlet has proved time and time again it is an example of a dystopian world. The many characteristics explained above, proved it again.