“Being Treated Like a Fetal Container is Enraging”: Examining Anger and Anxiety in Contemporary American Reproductive Dystopias

Abstract

The paper examines the manner in which female anger and anxiety are channelled through two recent American reproductive dystopias, Leni Zumas’s Red Clocks (2018) and Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017). Starting from these two novels, I argue that anger and anxiety in feminist dystopias represent both the vehicle for political and social critique and the response to (potential) oppressive reproductive practices.

Keywords

• dystopia
• women’s reproductive rights
• anger
• anxiety
• climate catastrophe