Walking After the End : From Alienation to More-than-human Reconnection in McCarthy's The Road, Mandel's Station Eleven, and Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves

Details

Supervisors

Bragard, Véronique

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation générale, à finalité approfondie

Abstract

Walking is at the core of the human experience, participating in the identity and anchoring a relationship to the world a little more at each step. In an increasingly fast-paced, digital and sedentary world, the very essence of walking gets lost. Faced with mental and physical human desynchronization caused by postmodern society and to warn from its environmental impacts, contemporary literature responds with speculative fiction. Walking has been the first form of transportation but often becomes the last in post-apocalyptic worlds. This thesis explores, through the scope of walking, how post-apocalyptic narratives align with ecocriticism to denounce unsustainable capitalist and anthropocentric mindsets in an era of environmental crisis. To do so, the central and meaningful role of walking is examined in three contemporary speculative fictions: The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006), Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014) and The Marrow Thieves by Chérie Dimaline (2017). The thesis argues that these works portray post-apocalyptic settings as remnants of capitalist society where walkers remain alienated. However, walking as a new epistemology also portrays a reconsideration of paths, the novels’ characters leaving alienation to reconnect slowly with others, whether human or nonhuman. Through ambivalence, walking in speculative fiction embodies both a warning against possible futures and a hopeful gesture towards paths that should be followed.