Science Fiction as a Representation of Society: Parallels and Intent in Pierce Brown’s Red Rising

Abstract

Science Fiction is a genre often considered not “true” literature or “true” art by not only the general public, but also many educators. This is largely due to the fact that their target audience is mostly teenagers and young adults, which means a bias is built around the genre with the idea of it not being mature or deep enough for more experienced consumers. This article aims to dispel that idea by approaching it from two theoretical fronts, based on literature review: the first serves to prove that all texts produced by a society are placed within its ideology, either in line with it or against it. The second follows from the first to say that, if a text has an ideology informed by the society that spawned it, it must then, in some way or form, represent it. If a science fiction text, like most great literary works, has an ideology and is a representation of the real world, then its status as “true” literature would depend not on its genre, but on its quality as an art piece. This is the basis for the last argument to dispel the idea of science fiction being lesser literature: a study of the case of Red Rising, a currently popular and very successful series, which is taken as a stand-in for the whole of the genre. With the intent to prove the theoretical arguments, the relationship between the world of Red Rising and its ideology is explored and compared to our real world, successfully drawing a vast number of similarities. Nonetheless, this text has limitations in length that preclude it from a wider examination of the book series, which would indubitably be beneficial for the overall academic discussion of science fiction as represented by Red Rising and as a genre.