ShmoopTube

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Ender's Game, Harlequin, and The Lorax a la Shmoop.

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Being in space can make anything exciting.

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Chess.

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Water polo.

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Boring high school classes.

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Unfortunately…this is dystopia.

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Although School in Space does sound cool, in Ender’s Game it ends up being pretty

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terrible.

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Ender’s Game has tons of dystopian elements hidden among the stars.

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Adults manipulating others for nefarious purposes…

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…and unflattering space suits, just to name a couple.

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Does anybody know why the official fabric of dystopia has to be Spandex?

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It’s a place where seemingly harmless tests in school might just turn out to be a whole

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lot more.

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And by a whole lot more…we mean the extermination of giant space bugs.

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Picking out the dystopian elements from Ender’s Game…

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…will prepare you to be able to spot them in other works.

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Even if they’re parody, like Harlan Ellison’s “‘Repent, Harlequin,’ said the Ticktockman”…

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…in which a rabble-rousing Harlequin is stuck in a world where every second of every

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day for every person is monitored by the oppressive Ticktockman.

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So… like so many dystopian heroes before him, the Harlequin sets out to defy his control

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freak society with the greatest weapon of all....

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Jellybeans.

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OK, it’s not the most effective means of rebellion, but you have to give him points

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for originality.

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You’ll also spot dystopian elements in Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax…

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…in which we learn about the dangers of over-industrialization through the plight

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of a fuzzy, orange creature of an unidentifiable species… called the Lorax.

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Though it’s technically a kids’ book…

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…The Lorax fits right into the dystopic genre by showing us a bleak future in which

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one entity has gained too much power and things have gone terribly wrong.

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In this case, all the trees have been devoured by the veracious factory of the greedy Once-ler.

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<<ONCE-lurr>>

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Now, the Once-ler lives in a rundown house and laments the day that he drove away the

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Lorax, who tried to make him see the error of his ways.

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Though what he might really be lamenting is that second mortgage he took out right before

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he cut down the last of the trees that fueled his industrial empire.

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So whether you’re reading about the environment, wisecracking dissidents, or the space school…

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…one weapon is more valuable than any other: knowledge.

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Set your phasers to “dystopia” and fire away.

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