Degree
Master of Arts
Program
Comparative Literature
Supervisor
Professor Calin-Andrei Mihailescu
Abstract
One of the main things we have come to expect from a dystopian novel is the portrayal of an evil social structure. Such a text would aim to put reader in a position of a judge and/or warn him/her about the inevitability of an impending catastrophe (Zamyatin, Orwell, Huxley). This thesis focuses on how Venedikt Erofeev’s Moscow to the End of the Line, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, and Victor Pelevin’s The Clay Machine-Gun respond to Dostoevsky’s prophetic dystopia and go against the grain of the genre, and, by doing so, redefine the genre itself.
Recommended Citation
Domina, Natalya, "Burying Dystopia: the Cases of Venedikt Erofeev, Kurt Vonnegut, and Victor Pelevin" (2012). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 834.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/834