OVER THE BRINK OF ENVIRONMENTAL COLLAPSE. POWER, RELIGION, AND NATURE IN MARGARET ATWOOD¿S MADDADDAM TRILOGY

Margaret Atwood’s writings have been the subject of many critical studies from different theoretical angles, which outline the diverse and composite quality of the Canadian author’s literary explorations. The publication of the MaddAddam trilogy – Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013) – have opened yet another critical perspective, which is that of science fiction or, as Atwood herself defines it, speculative fiction. Moving from the Canadian roots of Atwood’s speculative texts and from the debate with Ursula K. Le Guin on science fiction, this study employs the interpretative tools provided by ecocriticism and posthumanism to investigate Atwood’s trilogy as a single and accomplished body of work. In the second chapter, devoted to Oryx and Crake, I explore the developments of Atwood’s lifelong interest in the nature and politics of power, and I argue that she employs parody as a subverting strategy that questions roles and discourses involved in power relations. In the third chapter, I analyze The Year of the Flood as an investigation in the religious roots of culture, which represents a bulwark against the ruthless dreams – or nightmares – of scientific and technological progress. Lastly, I engage with the critical discourses on nature and on the environmental crisis, to attain the conclusion that, in MaddAddam, hybridity and a revived awareness of the power of narration represent a strategy of survival. Ultimately, my goal lies in analyzing Atwood’s aesthetic responses to the urgency of the environmental crisis, which rely on the tools of storytelling and on the playful use of language. At bottom, I argue that these tools serve as aesthetic responses to the threat of a dystopian future.