Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Dimino, Andrea

Keywords

Post-Apocalypse, Eschatology, Cultural Studies

Area of Concentration

English Literature

Abstract

This thesis explores late-twentieth century and twenty-first century works concerned with representing what comes after "The End of the World as We Know It" (or TEOTWAWKI, as indexed by similarly concerned online communities). Furthermore, it examines three modes of representation—novels, graphic novels, and films—in order to enhance the socio-cultural relevancy of both the post-apocalyptic scenario and these narratives' respective applications of it therein. Margaret Atwood's fiction, for instance, which is the central focus of the first chapter, reveals a vision of a not-too-distant future America that eerily resembles our own time; moreover, Atwood's notoriety for thoroughly researching cultural relics (e.g. documents; news coverage; interviews) reinforces her narrators' renditions of the events leading up to and following "the Waterless Flood" initiated by a technological mastermind. Furthermore, her works, as well as the others examined in this thesis, reveal a composite post-apocalyptic motif: the "ends" these various characters survive through and the "afters" which they persist to inhabit function as relics of socio-historic contexts. By documenting what remains after culture collapses, these narratives play out anxieties surrounding the role of immanence in the individual's experience of culture. And, by naming (or neglecting to name) the cause of apocalypse, these narratives locate culture as an emergent field of signification.

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