Literary visions of post-apocalyptic worlds in the works of Mary Shelley, Margaret Atwood and Maggie Gee

Autores

  • Gönül Bakay Bahçeşehir University - İstanbul- Turkey

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7976.2020.e73578

Resumo

Once hailed as the pinnacle of evolutionary progress, the human subject has more recently been under severe attack due to the destructive potential that has been unleashed by humans, especially in the last two hundred years. As a result, contemporary literature and art is replete with images of a utopia without humans. Many writers see humans, or rather human destructiveness, as the real plague on the planet and offer visions of utopia placed in the post-apocalyptic post-human era. Drawing on Patricia Vieira’s seminal article titled “Utopia and Dystopia in the Age of the Anthropocene”, I will first discuss how Mary Shelley portrayed ecological awareness in her The Last Man. I will then move on to examine how increasing ecological destruction leads to (post)-apocalyptic visions in the works of Margaret Atwood and Maggie Gee. My aim in juxtaposing two contemporary writers with Mary Shelley is to show that despite their different socio-historical contexts, these women writers have produced works that can not only be read as visionary and cautionary tales but that also promote heightened ecological awareness as an antidote to destructive and – ultimately – self-destructive tendencies of humankind.

Biografia do Autor

Gönül Bakay, Bahçeşehir University - İstanbul- Turkey

Gönül Bakay is a full professor in Bahçeşehir University- İstanbul- Turkey, holding a PhD. in 18th century English novel. Her teaching expertise covers Women’s studies and English literature from 18th century to the present..She has published several books in Turkish;Virginia Woolf ve İletişim ( ( Virginia Woolf and Communication), Günümüz Türk Kadını Başarı Öyküleri.(Success Stories by ContemporaryTurkish Women ) , Kadın ve Mekan  ( Women and  Space),and Atatürkü Yaşıyanlar (Memories of  Atatürk) and Simone de Beauvoir,her life , philosophy and her Works. She has one book published abroad: William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft and their offspring Frankenstein by Mellen press and is one of the editors of two books being published ın Vienna by Peter Lang publishers. The Trading women and Traded women:A Historical Scrutiny of Gendered Trading  and Memorable Encounters of Atatürk. She has published many articles both in Turkey and abroad; She has written chapters to three books published abroad: - Mary Wollstonecraft:Reflections and Interpretations,“Mary Wollstonecraft: A female Libertine or a Liberator of Women: A Turkish Approach”Rehilya Geybulleyava, Peter Orte,  Stereotypes in Litratures and Cultures “Turks or JewsMay  2012. Şebnem Toplu, Hubert Zapf.  Redefining Modernism and Postmodernism,” How do we seize the past? In search of lost history in Flaubert’s Parrot and A History of the World in 10/2 Chapters”England: Cambridge Scholars publishers, Septenber 2010. ..

Referências

ATWOOD, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. London: Virago Press, 2003.

CRIST, Eileen. On the Poverty of Our Nomenclature. In: MOORE, Jason (ed.). Anthropocene or Capitolocene: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland: Kairos, 2016. p. 14-34.

DEMOS, T.J. Anthropocene, Capitolocene, Gynocene: The Many Names of Resistance. Frontiers of Solitude, September 11, 2016. Available at: http://frontiersof-solitude.org/blog/442.

GEE, Maggie. The Ice People. London: TelegramBooks, 2008.

GRIMBEEK, Marinette. Margaret Atwood’s Environmentalism: Apocalypse and Satire in the MaddAddam Trilogy. Doctoral Thesis. Karlstad University Studies. 2017.

HARLAND, Paul W. Ecological Grief and Therapeutic Storytelling in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Oxford, v. 23, n. 3, p. 583-602, 2016.

HARRAWAY, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene. In: MOORE, Jason (ed.). Anthropocene or Capitolocene: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland: Kairos, 2016. p. p. 34-78.

HOPE, Jennings. The Comic Apocalypse of The Year of the Flood. Margaret Atwood Studies, Dayton, v. 3, n. 2, p. 11-18, 2010.

JOHNS-PUTRA, Adeline. Care, Gender and the Climate-Changed Future: Maggie Gee’s The Ice People. CANAVAN, Gerry; ROBINSON, Kim Stanley. Green planets: ecology and science fiction. Middletown: Wesleyan, 2014. p. 127-142.

KU, Chung-Hao. Of Monster and Man: Transgenenics and Transgression in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, Taipei, v. 32, n.1, p. 107-133, January 2006.

MCKIBBEN, Bill. The End Of Nature. Broadway: Random House, 1989.

MCWHIR, Anne (ed.). Introduction. SHELLEY, Mary. The Last Man. Ontario: Broadview Literary Texts, 1996.

MOORE, Jason W. Introduction. In: MOORE, Jason W. (ed.) Anthropocene or Capitalocene: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland: Kairos, 2016a. p. 1-11.

MOORE, Jason W. The Rise of Cheap Nature. In: MOORE, Jason W. (ed.) Anthropocene or Capitalocene: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland: Kairos, 2016b. p. 78-115.

NORTHOVER, Alan. Strangers in Strange Worlds: Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy. Journal of Literary Studies, Pretoria, v. 33, n. 1, p. 121-137, 2017.

POSNER, Richard. The End is Near (reviewing Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake: A Novel (2003)). New Republic, p.31, September 2003.

SCHNEIDERMAN, Jill S. The Anthropocene Controversy. In: GRUSIN, Richard (ed.). Anthropocene Feminism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017. p. 169-198.

SCRANTON, Roy. Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2015.

SEPETOĞLU, Selen. Women and Eco-disasters in Maggie Gee’s The Ice People and Sarah Hill’s The Cartullan Army: An Ecofeminist Approach. MA Thesis. Hacettepe, Department of English Language and Literature, Ankara, 2014.

SHELLEY, Mary. The Last Man. London: Wordsworth editions ltd., 2004.

SHELLEY, Percy B. Prometheus Unbound. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1959.

TREXLER, Adam. Anthropocene Fictions: The Novel in a Time of Climate Change. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015.

UYGUR, Mahinur Akşehir. Utopia and Dystopia Intertwined: the Problem of Ecologyin Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam. The Journal of International Social Research, Samsun, v. 7, n. 31, p. 41-48, May 2014.

VIEIRA, Patrícia. Utopia and Dystopia in the Age of the Anthropocene. Esboços, Florianopólis, v. 27, n. 46, p. 350-365, 2020.

VINCE, Gaia. Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made. Minneapolis: Milkweed editions, 2014.

WASHINGTON, Chris. Romantic Revelations: Visions of Post-apocalyptic Life and Hope in the Anthropocene. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019.

Downloads

Publicado

2021-01-15

Como Citar

Bakay, G. (2021). Literary visions of post-apocalyptic worlds in the works of Mary Shelley, Margaret Atwood and Maggie Gee. Esboços: Histórias Em Contextos Globais, 27(46), 405–425. https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7976.2020.e73578

Edição

Seção

Debate "Antropoceno, utopia e distopia"