Lost and Found: Young Female Protagonists’ Search for Self Discovery in Dystopian Literature

Abstract

This paper focuses on female protagonists in young adult dystopian literature, specifically Suzanne Weyn's The Bar Code Tattoo, Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games and Veronica Roth's Divergent. The author questions what about these female protagonists sets them apart from their respective dystopian societies and captivates young adult readers. The author dissects these novels in the context of adolescence, a time of new beginnings and daunting changes, all of which take place in a seemingly confusing and chaotic world, and argues that dystopian young adult literature plays on the confusion, turmoil and panic that exist in adolescence and creates a new reality out of it.