Humanity Cast as the Other in the Tragedy of Life: An Ecocritical Reading of Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, The Handmaid’s Tale and MaddAddam Trilogy

Abstract

This article aims to analyze Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, The Handmaid’s Tale, and MaddAddam Trilogy from an ecocritical perspective. Establishing the recognizable pattern of error and guilt as the point of departure, we contend that the root of the tragic understanding of human existence is environmental. Drawing on an unorthodox take on the concept of Othering in ecocritical discourse, we posit that humans perceived themselves as the marginalized Other in the tragedy of life. In this way, nature became the ultimate opponent to be feared, fought, and conquered. The exiled humanity’s perception on planet earth as adversarial catapulted them to an ultimately self-destructive path most notable in Atwood’s apocalyptic literature. Finally, we argue against an absolute sense of tragedy. Atwood’s stance is ultimately one of paradox: she is as much as a pessimist that she is an optimist as hope inevitably is the everlasting concomitant of tragedy.

Keywords

• ecophobia
• Othering
• ontological fall
• tragedy
• evolution
• phusis
• apocalypse