“We’re Using Up the Earth. It’s Almost Gone ”Apocalyptic fiction, environmental awareness,and critique of anthropocentric and capitalist society in Margaret Atwood’ MaddAddam trilogy

Abstract

This thesis explores Margaret Atwood’s novels Oryxand Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013),and their criticism of anthropocentric and capitalist society. The novels depicta world where the planet has reached its limits due to humanity’s overpopulation, greed, and exploitation of nature. This thesis analyzes the books with an ecocritical lens and views Atwood’s representation of the environment in her apocalyptic narrative. Through a close reading of the trilogy, the analysis considers the novels’apocalyptic characteristics in a world where a virus has annihilated the human population,and genetically engineered creatures are left in its wake to live in harmony with nature. Through these creatures’traits and the depictions of humanity before the apocalypse, Atwood shows how human interference with nature has led to the destruction of numerous plant and animal species, as well as ourselves. However, Atwood offers some hope through the creation of ‘the perfect humans’and the portrayal of a flourishing nature in the post-apocalyptic landscape.