Emerging Themes in Young Adult Dystopian Literature and Their Relation to the Themes of Fahrenheit 451 (Essay Sample)

Young adult dystopian literature is a rising genre of books. Books in this genre include The Giver, The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Fahrenheit 451. All young adult dystopian books have a similar theme. Fahrenheit 451 is the perfect encapsulation of the themes in major works of the genre of young adult dystopian literature. While this is true it also goes against many of the standard themes. 

Fahrenheit 451 is set in a futuristic world where books are illegal and are meant to be burned by society’s firefighters. One of which being Guy Montag, the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451. During the beginning of the story, Guy enjoys his job, going so far as to say it's "a pleasure to burn." (Somer) after every shift. That is until his life changes when he meets a little girl after his shift one day named Clarisse. Clarrise was an unusual child according to the community in which she lived. Instead of mindlessly sitting behind a television screen she would go outside and enjoy conversations with others, effectively going against society. Every night on his way back from work Guy would talk to Clarisse. These talks with Clarisse caused Guy to start to think about his own life 

Young adult dystopian literature novels have many themes that are standard in all of them. Some of these include the resilience of the protagonist, survival, government control, social conformity, and love between the protagonist and another teenager (Newgard). Young Adult dystopian literature causes the reader to question their own life and all of the redundancy in it as Newgard says in her paper, “Although the portrayal of the society may not be fully developed or completely realistic, it causes the reader to question different nuances of their society.” There are 12 major themes to this genre of the book such as having a strong female protagonist, governmental or political conflict, focus on survival, strong family or community structures, the resilience of the protagonist, cooperation between teenagers, conflicts in the teenager's life relates to the literary conflicts, governmental control, strong teen presence where the reader can empathize with characters, city against the wilderness, caste system, and the need for survival (Newgard).