ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 focuses on two questions—How has the word “dystopia” been used to describe particular forms within the novel tradition and What is the relationship between dystopia and novelistic time? The chapter sketches in the critical heritage, focusing on topics like anti-utopianism, and analyzes the “future perfect” tense, in which time is treated as complete. Building on Frank Kermode’s insights on the use of apocalyptic time in literature, the chapter analyzes three signatures of future-time—the past tense of the reader, the crisis time of the character’s present, and the future perfect that looks back on the dystopian world from a more distant future point—to show how the dystopia subverts traditional novelistic expressions of time.
