Environmental ethics, survival and apocalypse: an analysis of Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy

Abstract

This thesis examines the connection of ethics and survival in the pre- and post-apocalyptic worlds in Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy: Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013). It investigates the author’s imaginings of a dystopian society marked by rampant technocratic capitalism and unchecked scientism in Oryx and Crake. Applying Murray Bookchin's social ecology to shed light on the root causes of the apocalypse, it argues that hierarchical ideology and diversiform inequality deeply rooted in society lead to warped ethics, affecting the crisis. This thesis also examines environmental ethics which is embedded in the belief system of God’s Gardeners in The Year of the Flood. Employing Arne Naess’s deep ecology as a theoretical framework, it discusses how the eco-centric teachings and lifestyle of this group may serve as an alternative ethical model to help increase the chance of survival. Furthermore, analyzing the God’s Gardeners’ interactions with other beings in MaddAddam, this thesis explores Atwood’s conception of posthuman ethics and the gradual process of human characters’ shift from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism. It also contends that this ideological transformation is essential for the new posthuman reality, in which humans and nonhumans have to ensure the interspecies survival and peaceful coexistence. Finally, it argues that the art of storytelling is dispensable for such an ethical transition and the impartation of beneficent values to posterity.