Feral, emancipated: J.G. Ballard’s time-suffused nature. A comparative study of ‘The Volcano Dances’ and ‘Myths of the Near Future’

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this article, I compare two short stories by J.G. Ballard: ‘The Volcano Dances’ and ‘Myths of the Near Future’. As they share many similarities, the former is used as an interpretive tool to analyse the latter. I focus on the way nature is depicted and the feral temptation it incites. The main theme of both stories is time and nature as cultural constructs. In order to discuss in detail the connection between the protagonists and their environment, I provide a semiotic theoretical framework. As mind mingles with matter, nature is transformed into an artefactual sphere, thus creating a hybrid environment. As a result, not only do the events portrayed in Ballard’s fictions have an uncertain ontological status, but nature itself becomes ontologically unstable. From this premise, I assess possible connections between nature’s representations in Ballard’s writing and the Anthropocene as an extreme metaphor for a new epochal consciousness.