The Evolution of Dystopian Narratives over the years: The Last of Us and Cormac McCarthy's The Road

Abstract

[Abstract] While dystopian literature might be seen as a recently developed genre, it goes back to the 19th century, when authors such as Mary Shelley, Jules Verne or Edward Bulwer-Lytton played a vital role within its blossoming and construction. These writers laid the foundations of this literary reality so it could be followed and nourished by the next generation of men and women of letters from the 1800s until nowadays (George Orwell, Suzanne Collins, Veronica Roth or James Dashner, among others). Thus, the possibility of the existence of two different dystopian styles throughout the years can be considered. Those I have named: old dystopian novels and new(er) dystopian novels. This paper includes the analysis of the similarities and differentiations of these two artistic categories based and focused on Cormac McCarthy's The Road and The Last of Us (TV series) by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann for HBO. The objective, through a broad look at characters, themes, context and ecocriticism, is to bring this type of fiction closer to the scholarly system because of its significance, especially in contemporary literature, and because of its relevance to researchers in this field.