Agathokakological Agony: Power, Surveillance and Trauma in Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, Pretties and Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games
Author : S. Dharani
Abstract :
Young Adult (YA) dystopian fiction has become an influential literary form for examining the relationship between political authority, technological advancement, and the psychological consequences of institutional domination. Rather than presenting futuristic societies as idealized spaces, contemporary dystopian narratives expose the human cost of authoritarian governance through systems of surveillance, bodily regulation, media manipulation, and coercive discipline. Scott Westerfeld's Uglies (2005) and Pretties (2005), together with Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games (2008), portray fictional societies in which citizens are systematically conditioned to accept state authority at the expense of individual autonomy and emotional well-being. This article examines how these novels represent power as a pervasive force that extends beyond physical punishment into the regulation of identity, behaviour, and memory. Employing Michel Foucault's theory of disciplinary power and Cathy Caruth's trauma theory, the study argues that trauma in these narratives is not merely the consequence of violence but an integral outcome of political systems that normalize fear, conformity, and social inequality. Through a comparative textual analysis, the paper demonstrates that institutional authority is sustained through the production of obedient subjects, while the protagonists' experiences reveal that traumatic memory can become a source of resistance. The study contributes to scholarship on Young Adult dystopian fiction by bringing Foucauldian power theory and trauma studies into a single comparative framework.
Keywords :
Dystopia, Young Adult Fiction, Power, Surveillance, Trauma, Michel Foucault, Cathy Caruth, Scott Westerfeld, Suzanne Collins.
