Prayer Had Broken Out: Pandemics, Capitalism, and Religious Extremism in Recent Apocalyptic Fiction

Abstract

Recent apocalyptic fiction suggests that epidemics can catalyze religious fanaticism, highlighting disturbing parallels between capitalism and fundamentalism. In Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003), a disaffected corporate scientist develops a pandemic that seeds a religious revival and causes blame to fall on a misrepresented sect of religious environmentalists. In Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2014), a flu that decimates the global population is interpreted as a purifying act of God. In Ling Ma’s Severance (2018), following a deadly disease that originates in China, a former corporate product coordinator based in New York City who mass-markets Bibles falls into the clutches of a religious cult led by an ex-IT specialist and investor. Our analysis examines how religion has been subsumed within corporate capitalism as well as the broad appeal unscientific reactions to the coronavirus could ultimately have, particularly as there are more virus-related economic problems.