The rhetoric of hope: Kenneth Burke and dystopian fiction
Abstract
This dissertation analyzes the rhetorical moves that inform twentieth-century dystopian texts. As a genre linked to science fiction, dystopian fiction is often dismissed either as pulp fiction or artless in its construction. While many critics have examined the more “literary” works of the genre, such as George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, such studies typically view the novels as transparent reflections of the author's social agendas. This project focuses instead on these texts as imaginative narratives, identifying the rhetorical mechanisms that make these texts work as both social critique and entertainment. As literature of warning and pre-diction, dystopian narratives must be somehow rhetorically effective while also satisfying readers' appetites, and it is this confluence of art and persuasion that makes dystopian fiction unique. Ultimately, these novels, which critics categorize as “postmodern” in their pessimistic portrayal of human cultures, are hopeful: They envision an active reader fully able to prevent the dystopian vision represented in the novel. Specifically, I argue that dystopian novels are dependent upon a plot structure that invites audiences to experience moments of recognition, revelation, and rebellion alongside the hero and to actively participate in that rebellion through the act of reading.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Blakesley, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Modern literature|Rhetoric|Mass communications|Film studies
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