Climate Change in Fiction

Abstract

It has been said that throughout history, fiction has always responded to wars, crises and calamities. This is only natural bearing in mind that narratives have been said to help deal with threats by making them understandable and therefore bearable, and even being an essential part of healing, not just metaphorically but physically as well. Naturally, this highlights the importance of fiction as the field which invents, reflects upon, and changes narratives that influence our daily lives. It also explains why we expect fiction to respond to the most urgent and pressing issues of our times, of which today climate change is undoubtedly the most serious. This thesis aims to take a broader look at a diverse sample from the existing body of climate change fiction and examine what it reveals about the approach to climate change in Anglophone literature, how it addresses the issue, and whether it presents an artistically compelling work. The thesis examines the following works: MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood; Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver; The State of Fear by Michael Crichton; Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi; Solar by Ian McEwan; The Carbon Diaries: 2015 by Saci Lloyd, as well as the collection of short stories Loosed Upon the World. It also examines a number of children’s books.