{"title":"‘The Options were Shrinking. Choices were Being Removed’: Selected Literary Representations of the Consequence of Climate Change","authors":"J. Murray","doi":"10.1080/1013929X.2023.2167403","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article considers the ways in which selected contemporary novels represent the limitation of options as a primary consequence of climate change. I will offer an ecocritical literary analysis of the following four novels by female authors: The New Wilderness (2020) by Diane Cook, A Children’s Bible (2020) by Lydia Millet, Weather (2020) by Jenny Offill and The Last Migration (2021) by Charlotte McConaghy. The novels present worlds where very definite choices, in already severely constrained contexts, need to be made. These choices are matters of survival and they have nothing to do with fulfilling constructed consumer dreams. The texts offer worlds in which characters navigate radically new terrains where survival is an urgent imperative. I will consider how the notions of limitation and shrinking (of their worlds and their options) recur as leitmotifs throughout the novels and I will explore how this shrinkage forces them to reconsider not only their own actions but also the consequences of the actions of people in general, with a specific focus on the causal relationship between those actions and climate change.","PeriodicalId":52015,"journal":{"name":"Current Writing-Text and Reception in Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Current Writing-Text and Reception in Southern Africa","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2023.2167403","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article considers the ways in which selected contemporary novels represent the limitation of options as a primary consequence of climate change. I will offer an ecocritical literary analysis of the following four novels by female authors: The New Wilderness (2020) by Diane Cook, A Children’s Bible (2020) by Lydia Millet, Weather (2020) by Jenny Offill and The Last Migration (2021) by Charlotte McConaghy. The novels present worlds where very definite choices, in already severely constrained contexts, need to be made. These choices are matters of survival and they have nothing to do with fulfilling constructed consumer dreams. The texts offer worlds in which characters navigate radically new terrains where survival is an urgent imperative. I will consider how the notions of limitation and shrinking (of their worlds and their options) recur as leitmotifs throughout the novels and I will explore how this shrinkage forces them to reconsider not only their own actions but also the consequences of the actions of people in general, with a specific focus on the causal relationship between those actions and climate change.
期刊介绍:
Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa is published bi-annually by Routledge. Current Writing focuses on recent writing and re-publication of texts on southern African and (from a ''southern'' perspective) commonwealth and/or postcolonial literature and literary-culture. Works of the past and near-past must be assessed and evaluated through the lens of current reception. Submissions are double-blind peer-reviewed by at least two referees of international stature in the field. The journal is accredited with the South African Department of Higher Education and Training.