VOL 2 No 1, 2025 Research Article
Assistant Professor of English, Padmakanya Multiple Campus, Tribhuvan University, Nepal
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21659/jsae/v2n1/v2n108
[Article History: Received: 26 Mar 2025. Revised: 25 April 2025. Accepted: 30 May 2025. Published: 15 June 2025]
Abstract
Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy (Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam) presents a chilling vision of ecological collapse, genetic engineering, and the unraveling of human civilization. Against the backdrop of late-stage capitalism and environmental devastation, Atwood interrogates the enduring myth of agrarian harmony, exposing its contradictions in a world where soil is poisoned, species are extinct, and biotechnology has rewritten the boundaries of life. This study examines how the trilogy deconstructs and reimagines the sacred relationship between humans and the land, revealing dystopia not as a distant future but as an acceleration of present-day ecological and capitalist crises. The aim of this research is to analyze how Atwood’s trilogy critiques the agrarian myth—the romanticized belief in a return to pastoral purity—while simultaneously exploring alternative, post-human ecologies. Using an ecofeminist and material ecocritical framework, the study draws on Val Plumwood’s critique of dualistic thinking and Donna Haraway’s concept of the Chthulucen to investigate how Atwood’s work challenges anthropocentrism and redefines the sacred in an era of biotechnological domination. Methodologically, the research employs close textual analysis, tracing motifs of soil, decay, and regeneration across the trilogy, while engaging with theories of dystopian fiction and ecological mourning. Findings reveal that the MaddAddam Trilogy subverts traditional agrarian nostalgia, instead presenting soil as both a site of contamination and potential renewal. The sacred is reimagined not in human-centric terms but through hybridity, symbiosis, and the resilience of nonhuman life. Atwood’s work suggests that ecological collapse cannot be remedied by a return to mythic purity but requires a radical rethinking of human-nature relations. The study concludes that the trilogy offers a critical lens through which to examine contemporary environmental crises, urging a move beyond apocalyptic fatalism toward speculative, ethical regeneration.
Keywords: Dystopia, agrarian myth, ecofeminism, material ecocriticism, post-humanism
