The Water is Rising, Families are Drowning: An Ecocritical Reading of The Wall by John Lanchaster

Abstract

Written in a plain and unsophisticated style like numerous other popular novels, the Wall by John Lanchester deals with a series of contemporary global issues including climate change, rising totalitarianism and protracted refugee crisis. Set in a dystopian future, but conscious of the contemporary problems afflicting humanity and environment, the Wall also presents in an interrogant tone scenes of empathy toward refugees or “the Others”. In this essay, referring to the postulations raised in the field of ecocriticism, but particularly to understanding of environmentalism in apocalyptic, postapocalyptic, and dystopian senses, I will attempt to analyze how rising environmental crises and concerns shape the family structure of modern people, and the relationships between children and parents. Based on problematic family images drawn in the Wall, I propose that the rise of environmental disasters has disruptive and destructive effects on traditional family (nuclear family) structure regardless of geographical location, family bonds and intrafamilial relationships, which makes people more vulnerable to external threats in so far as they are left emotionally and mentally, if not physically, debilitated in a devastated environment.