Dystopian Fiction Quiz

1. George Orwell's 1984 introduced which omnipresent authoritarian figure?

1. Big Brother
2. O'Brien
3. The Party
4. The Thought Police

2. In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, what drug is used to keep the population compliant and happy?

1. Bliss
2. Prozac
3. Soma
4. Zoltan

3. In George Orwell's 1984, what is 'doublethink'?

1. A government department that falsifies records
2. Simultaneously holding two contradictory beliefs and accepting both as true
3. The ability to speak two languages fluently
4. Thinking two thoughts at once

4. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is set in a fictional theocratic state. What is it called?

1. New Eden
2. Oceania
3. Panem
4. The Republic of Gilead

5. Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games is set in the post-apocalyptic nation of Panem, divided into how many districts?

1. 10
2. 12
3. 13
4. 16

6. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 depicts a society where what is banned and burned?

1. Books
2. Films
3. Music
4. Newspapers

7. In Lois Lowry's The Giver, citizens of the Community live without what?

1. Crime or conflict only
2. Emotions, colour, or memories of the past
3. Money or possessions
4. Technology of any kind

8. William Golding's Lord of the Flies can be read as a dystopia about what?

1. A future world without women
2. A post-nuclear war world
3. A totalitarian government controlling children
4. The collapse of civilization when adults are absent and boys create their own brutal society

9. In 1984, what is 'Room 101'?

1. A room containing each person's worst fear
2. The government's torture chamber
3. The Ministry of Truth's main office
4. Where dissidents are publicly executed

10. Yevgeny Zamyatin's We (1924) is considered the original blueprint for which two famous dystopian novels?

1. 1984 and Brave New World
2. Lord of the Flies and The Giver
3. The Handmaid's Tale and Fahrenheit 451
4. The Road and Parable of the Sower

11. Cormac McCarthy's The Road depicts a post-apocalyptic world. What is the relationship between the two main characters?

1. Brothers
2. Father and son
3. Mother and daughter
4. Strangers who become allies

12. Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange features a protagonist named:

1. Alex
2. Guy
3. Jonas
4. Winston

13. In The Hunger Games, what is the name of the female protagonist?

1. Clove
2. Johanna
3. Katniss Everdeen
4. Primrose

14. In Brave New World, society is divided into castes. What are the highest and lowest castes called?

1. Alphas and Epsilons
2. Elites and Deltas
3. Masters and Servants
4. Ones and Fives

15. P.D. James's The Children of Men (1992) imagines a world where what has occurred?

1. A plague has killed all adults
2. All children must be allocated by the government
3. All men have become infertile, with no births since 1995
4. All women have become infertile

16. What is 'Newspeak' in George Orwell's 1984?

1. A code used by dissidents to communicate secretly
2. A simplified language designed to make thoughtcrime impossible by removing words
3. The government's television broadcasting service
4. The Party's propaganda newspaper

17. Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed (1974) contrasts two societies: an anarchist society and a capitalist one. On what do they live?

1. A moon and its parent planet
2. Two cities separated by a wall
3. Two continents of the same planet
4. Two parallel universes

18. In The Handmaid's Tale, what does a Handmaid's red clothing symbolise?

1. Fertility — their function as reproductive vessels
2. Their danger to society
3. Their loyalty to the Republic of Gilead
4. Their punishment for past crimes

19. Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go features children who discover they are being raised for what purpose?

1. As experimental subjects for medical research
2. As organ donors for the general population
3. As servants for the wealthy
4. Military service

20. What real historical events influenced the writing of George Orwell's 1984?

1. British imperialism in India and Africa
2. Stalinism, totalitarianism in Nazi Germany, and his own experiences in the Spanish Civil War
3. The American Civil War and WWI
4. The French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars