Book excerpt: This book provides the reader with an extensive social, historical, and theoretical background to dystopian fiction so that the underlying reasons for the emergence of the genre in the early 20th century are clarified. It offers a multifaceted approach to the representation of the individual in dystopian fiction by referring to the historical events that have affected the process. The book bases its argument on the theories of such groundbreaking theoreticians as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, and Michel Foucault, and sheds light on how the oppressive governments have employed psychological, linguistic, ideological, and discursive devices to manipulate people and create subjected beings. By including work from a woman author, the book also serves to highlight how the ongoing process is perceived from a feminist stance.