Open AccessDystopian Visions of Global Capitalism: Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines and M.T Anderson’s Feed
Author(s) -
Elizabeth Bullen,
Elizabeth Parsons
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
children s literature in education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.232
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1573-1693
pISSN - 0045-6713
DOI - 10.1007/s10583-007-9041-9
Subject(s) - dystopia , vision , capitalism , narrative , civilization , politics , sociology , aesthetics , environmental ethics , literature , political science , philosophy , art , law , anthropology
This article examines Philip Reeve’s novel for children, Mortal Engines, and M.T. Anderson’s young adult novel, Feed, by assessing these dystopias as prototypical texts of what Ulrich Beck calls risk society. Through their visions of a fictional future, the two narratives explore the hazards created by contemporary techno-economic progress, predatory global politics and capitalist excesses of consumption. They implicitly pose the question: “In the absence of a happy ending for western civilisation, what kind of children can survive in dystopia?”
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