Abstract
ABSTRACT Climate fiction emerged in the twentieth century as a future-oriented project, but cli-fi’s eco-catastrophe scenarios are susceptible to backward-looking apprehensions about the breakdown of modern ‘civilization’ and an ensuing descent into a state of ‘savagery’ (figured as chaos, violence, and even cannibalism). Such apprehensions have their origin in colonialist teleologies of ‘progress,’ projecting Eurocentric constructions of ‘savagery’ onto climate-affected contemporary societies. The following analysis of Maggie Gee’s The Ice People (1998), Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003), and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) offers illustrative examples of cli-fi’s continuing dependence on (neo)colonial ‘descent into savagery’ scripts that limit the imaginative possibilities of climate futurity.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call