Ideological State Apparatuses in Dystopian Novels

Abstract

Dystopian novels have been topping best-seller lists for nearly a hundred years, but not many
people have examined why this is the case or what makes them so efective at warning readers
about what we could become in a not too distant future. Perhaps it is these texts’ connection to the
real world that plays into our fascination with the genre. This paper establishes this connection
by examining the worlds of three popular dystopian novels and the ways in which they support
Louis Althusser’s theory of Ideological State Apparatuses. This study will ideally enable readers to
recognize the tools and real-life strategies that structure dystopian fctional worlds.