CREATE, DESTROY, REFIGURE: CAPITALOCENE IDENTITY INMARGARET ATWOOD’S 25 ...

[Pages:157]CREATE, DESTROY, REFIGURE: CAPITALOCENE IDENTITY IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S ORYX AND CRAKE AND THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD

A Thesis by

HOLLI FLANAGAN

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies at Appalachian State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS

May 2021 Department of English

CREATE, DESTROY, REFIGURE: CAPITALOCENE IDENTITY IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S ORYX AND CRAKE AND THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD

A Thesis by

HOLLI FLANAGAN May 2021

APPROVED BY: ________________________________________ Kathryn Kirkpatrick Chairperson, Thesis Committee

_________________________________________ William Atkinson Member, Thesis Committee

__________________________________________ Leslie Cook Member, Thesis Committee

___________________________________________ Full Name Chairperson, Department of English ___________________________________________ Mike McKenzie, Ph.D. Dean, Cratis D. Williams School of Graduate Studies

Copyright by Holli Flanagan 2021 All Rights Reserved

Abstract CREATE, DESTROY, REFIGURE: CAPITALOCENE IDENTITY IN MARGARET

ATWOOD'S ORYX AND CRAKE AND THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD Holli Flanagan

B.A., Appalachian State University M.A., Appalachian State University Chairperson: Dr. Kathryn Kirkpatrick

This thesis examines and interrogates the presence of the new term "Capitalocene identity" in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. In defining Capitalocene identity as "the compilation of climate crisis and late capitalism-altered experiences, available social roles, and economical and physical spaces that influence the formation of human identity," this study brings together developing climate crisis studies research such as climate psychology and trauma response theory, etymologies of "identity" and its related terms, and the understanding of Atwood's narrative as a work of speculative fiction rather than science fiction proper. As such, traditional components of identity--memory, relationships, class and social status, and gender identity--are examined as being inherently warped through Capitalocene structures and experiences, thereby creating a Capitalocene identity in Atwood's characters.

iv

Acknowledgments

I would like to offer my sincere admiration and gratitude to my thesis chairperson, Dr. Kathryn Kirkpatrick, as this work had its genesis in her classroom and has been fostered by her continued belief in its importance. Thank you, Dr. Kirkpatrick, for the many readings, the editorial suggestions, and for every other element of your support throughout the writing of this work. Additionally, I extend my appreciation to my thesis committee members, Dr. William Atkinson and Dr. Leslie Cook, for supplying me with a theoretical foundation for this work, as well as insightful and poignant questions to challenge my thinking consistently through this process. Thank you for your time and your commitment to this thesis, especially in light of the past year's uncertainty.

I would also like to thank those who may not have been part of the thesis committee itself but have remained engaged with my overall education, thus allowing this work to take place at all. I am entirely indebted to Dr. Bruce Dick, for his continued interest in and support of my education since my undergraduate degree. It is fair to say that he has taught me most of what I know, and I carry it with me into my continued academic study. I must also thank Matthew Stocker, for his unwavering support of my ideas and goals for this work and my academic career as a whole, and Mallory Flanagan, for listening to every detail of this piece over the last several months. Finally, I thank Layne Sessoms, Leslie Knight, Grace Rhyne, and all other colleagues who have heard my goals, critiqued the work, or otherwise remained steadfast in their support of the development of this thesis. Thank you all so very, very much.

v

Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my academic confidante and dearest friend, Mallory Flanagan, for her determination to disrupt Capitalocene structures through animal studies, but, most of all, because she reads. "I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most." ? Margaret Atwood

vi

Table of Contents Abstract......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................... v Dedication..................................................................................................................... vi Introduction.................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1....................................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 2....................................................................................................................... 45 Chapter 3........................................................................................................................ 73 Chapter 4......................................................................................................................... 99 Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 124 References.......................................................................................................................139 Bibliography................................................................................................................... 144 Vita..................................................................................................................................150

vii

1

Introduction This thesis study approaches Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake (2003) and The Year of the Flood (2009) as leaders in the evolution of climate crisis narratives from "science fiction" to "speculative fiction." While the Oxford English Dictionary has traditionally defined science fiction as "an imagined alternative universe," our current circumstances (climate, societal, etc.) preclude the ability to view many of these works as existing in full imagination and therefore outside of probability. As a result of this potentiality, speculative fiction, a term created in 1941 by science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein and currently defined by Atwood as something that "could really happen" (Potts), has claimed its place as the cousin of science fiction; thus, speculative fiction explores truths in our contemporary period and magnifies them into a possible, or even probable, future. Here, I must acknowledge that Atwood's use of "speculative fiction" is not without criticism. Ursula Le Guin wrote in a review of The Year of the Flood that Atwood's "arbitrarily restrictive definition seems designed to protect her novels from being relegated to a genre still shunned by hidebound readers, reviewers and prize-awarders" (Le Guin). However, Atwood herself refutes the classification of her work as science fiction, insisting in her essay collection, Moving Targets, that "The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake [and The Year of the Flood] is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper....[I]t invents nothing we haven't already invented or started to invent. Every novel begins with a what if, and then sets forth its axioms" (Atwood 330). In summary, though critics such Le Guin bristle at Atwood's use of "speculative fiction," the author herself does not shy away from explaining her reasoning for rejecting the label of "science fiction."

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download