As shows like The Walking Dead and books like Margaret Atwood’s new novel reveal,the line between entertainment and reality blurs to a point of alarm There’s a rich tradition of dystopian tales in this country, narratives of catastrophe that have struck a widespread chord by reflecting sociopolitical realities of their times, and rendering worst-case scenarios as a warning to change our ways.
The textbook example of this is Shirley Jackson’s classic short fable The Lottery,which horrified readers when published in 1948 by imagining that seemingly normal people could commit an act of barbarism against their neighbor. The fable debuted in the context of the release of interred Japanese-American citizens, a few years after occupied and fearful Europeans gave up their neighbors to the Nazis. The Lottery and its successors didn’t distract us from terrors of our world, or they in fact demanded that we reckon with them.
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Source: theguardian.com