Analyzing the Setting of Cinder

"Fairy Tale Recreation in a Futuristic Society: Analyzing the Setting of Cinder"

Foreword:

Because reading on a screen is difficult enough without adding lengthy paragraphs fit for a newspaper, I have broken up the follow analysis into headings, with each body paragraph stuck between a Heading and an image even though it may appear to be two or four paragraphs total. Formatting aside, each analysis-blog will focus on one main element of fiction (setting, plot, characters, imagery, voice, or point of view) and there will be no order for which element I choose. The decision will be based on the current novel.

"Fairy Tale Recreation in a Futuristic Society: Analyzing the Setting of Cinder"

Recreating fairy tales for modern audiences and transforming the world into a dystopian society is challenging enough before you focus on maintaining the reliability of the narrator and its story. Whisking Cinderella into New Beijing following World War IV rattles the reader’s expectations of a fairy tale by entering the familiar setting of China. Marissa Meyer creates reliable characters and believable history through her use of setting in the young adult novel Cinder. Now a cyborg but still an orphan, Cinder works as a mechanic in New Beijing for her wicked stepmother where she meets and falls in love with Prince Kaito, who hopes to have his android repaired before his royal Coronation. Reimagining China for a dystopian future by blending the old traditions of an Asian market and government with new customs involving androids and cyborgs illustrates the importance and reliability a reader places on the story’s setting because he or she is more likely to believe in the possibility of Cinderella keeping an android for a best friend rather than a mouse.

Image Courtesy BooksHub

Dystopia vs. Utopia

Utopia is defined as “an ideal place or state [or] any visionary system of political or social perfection” (Dictionary.com). It derives from the Greek, literally translating into “no place.” Strange how utopian novels and stories have been around for 500 years, and yet people still think an utopian society is possible to create. Please welcome into the argument, the dystopian novel.

I believe that the word “dystopian” is viewed in a negative light. We read these stories of children murdering each other, burning books, deciding factions, and rewriting the 1980s as strange worlds we would never live within, but that’s a lie. The real reason we cling to dystopian novels is because dystopian is a fancy term for the real world, our world. You know, the one you live in right now? This is a dystopian society. Just because people don’t go out and shoot their neighbors in the night or live in tight cliques doesn’t mean we aren’t a dystopian society.