The Earth Speaks History: Narrative and the Anthropocene in Contemporary Climate Fiction
Date of Award
6-2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
English
First Advisor
Todd Kuchta, Ph.D.
Second Advisor
Gwen Tarbox, Ph.D.
Third Advisor
Jeffrey Angles, Ph.D.
Fourth Advisor
Jil Larson, Ph.D.
Keywords
Anthropocene, climate change, environmental justice, fiction, global warming, narrative
Abstract
This project explores the distinct relationship between narrative and the Anthropocene in contemporary climate fiction. In particular, it examines the “representational challenges” that fiction writers face when addressing the ecological breakdown caused by global warming. According to critic Antonia Mehnert, these challenges include the complexity of climate events and their interdependence with human actions; the global nature of climate change; its extension over a multitude of timelines; its role in blurring rigid divisions between humans and nonhumans; and finally, the unjust impacts of the climate crisis on vulnerable places and populations.
Drawing on the “material” or “nonhuman turn” in literary studies, which calls for deconstructing human/nonhuman hierarchies, this dissertation analyzes four canonical works of contemporary climate fiction: Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993), Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife (2015), Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island (2019), and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future (2020). It argues that these works utilize narratological techniques to engage with the challenging characteristics of the Anthropocene through two intersecting approaches. The first is representing climate change as an active force, created and perpetuated by anthropogenic practices. The second is describing climatically affected nonhuman matter as a vibrant actor that is intricately intertwined with human lives.
In some cases, these novels address the representational challenges of climate change by using conventional narrative devices, like setting, character, plot, motifs, and metaphors. Other techniques are uniquely “econarratological,” such as “actants,” “effect-event,” or “pseudosingular.” Despite their differences, these strategies allow Butler, Bacigalupi, Ghosh, and Robinson to oppose the dominant view of the natural world and nonhuman entities as inert resources to be exploited for ever-growing human desires. By conveying this nonhuman perspective through innovative eco/narratological devices, these texts not only portray today’s ravaged environments as outcomes of colonial and capitalist exploitation, but also dissolve rigid human/nonhuman divisions, both of which are key representational challenges in the Anthropocene. As such, readers are urged to examine the legacies of harmful human practices, while questioning their understanding of human relations to nature and climate. Demonstrating how narrative features can effectively express the complex socio-ecological realities of the Anthropocene, this study expands the field of eco/narratology to address the historical, social, and ecological challenges that this new epoch poses for fiction.
Access Setting
Dissertation-Abstract Only
Restricted to Campus until
6-1-2034
Recommended Citation
Saeed, Hana Khalid, "The Earth Speaks History: Narrative and the Anthropocene in Contemporary Climate Fiction" (2024). Dissertations. 4100.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/4100