The goal of my
research paper is to look at the portrayal of sex across multiple dystopian
novels and then to understand if they are portrayed similarly, and if so why is
sex portrayed in this way. I am interested in comparing some of the books we
have already read in class, as well as reading more and conducting my own
analysis. I then think it would be interesting to combine my analysis with
others to preform both a first hand and a Meta analysis of the literature. I am
interested in the portrayal of sex because I see it as something critical to
the human experience, and I am not sure if I am doing it the “right way”, or if
there is a right way, but I think a lot of people are doing it in a way that
produces negative consequences. Through literature I believe that I can better
understand how sex, and by extension intimacy, fits into the human experience.
Before starting my
preliminary research, I figured that sex in dystopian novels would be portrayed
as either negative or a form of rebellion depending on the context of the
novel. If the character is using sex as tool to fight against whatever force is
responsible for their dystopia then it would be portrayed as positive, such as
in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eight Four.
Likewise, when sex is used as a tool to control, as seen in Margret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, it would be seen as
negative. Doing a preliminary Google Scholar search yielded some interesting
results. Many of the papers published centered around a feminist interpretation
of popular dystopian novels, such as the Handmaid’s
Tale. I should have expected such results and I might have to reorient my
question to look at dystopian novels through a feminist perspective. Another
common result was the portrayal of leisure, or more accurately the lack of leisure,
in dystopian novels. This might also provide an interesting thesis, however I
feel as though this would be getting to far away from my interests. These
results have also led me to consider possibly evaluating how gender as whole is
perceived instead of just sex, but here again I feel as though my interest in
the subject, though great, is not as high as the portrayal of sex.
I think the area
that the college databases could help me with is finding both more papers that
deal with the portrayal of sex in dystopian novels and more dystopian stories
that portray sex in any light. I have read few dystopian novels in my life and
by reading more I think I could gain better insight of the role of sex in them.
More papers on sex in dystopian novels would also be very helpful because they
would help me with preforming my meta-analysis and give me a better
understanding of how other is in the field have understood the role of sex in
such novels.
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