Date of Graduation

8-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in English (MA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

English

Advisor/Mentor

Hinrichsen, Lisa A.

Committee Member

Bailey, Constance R.

Second Committee Member

Marren, Susan M.

Keywords

Apocalypse; Ian Bogost; Speculative Fiction; The Night Land; Unit Operations; William Hope Hodgson

Abstract

In The Great Derangement, Amitav Ghosh catalogs contemporary fiction’s failure to adequately engage with catastrophic climate change. In this thesis, I argue the engagement problem has a century-old analogue in fiction’s approach to entropy. Entropy was among the first secular apocalyptic modes in mainstream discourse, and this investigation of authors’ approaches to its portrayal provides a model for understanding fiction’s denial or acceptance of apocalypse. I first examine William Hope Hodgson’s 1912 novel The Night Land, a far-future tale set in a post-solar Earth. I contend that Hodgson’s centering of the human experience prevents him from portraying a true end and instead lends his work anti-apocalyptic energy. This centering seemingly stems from the nineteenth century episteme, as defined by Foucault, which privileged taxonomy as the guiding epistemological model. I then contrast The Night Land with two mid-century stories that more-fully reconcile entropic apocalypse, and which favor a networked “unit operations” approach as described by the contemporary theorist Ian Bogost. First, “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov envisions a cosmic resetting by framing the universe as protagonist. Second, “Entropy” by Thomas Pynchon looses full-scale entropy on humans both witting and unwitting, framing human consciousness and ultimately inconsequential.

Download

Share

COinS