Imagining the Post-Apocalypse

Imagining the Post-Apocalypse Ball State University | Digital Literature Review | Issue 5, 2018 The Digital Literature Review The Digital Literature Review is a journal showcasing undergraduate student work in literature and cultural studies. The journal is produced by undergraduate students at Ball State University who are involved in the Digital Literature Review immersive learning project. Our goal is to provide a forum where undergraduate students can showcase their research projects and disseminate their valuable contributions to ongoing academic conversations. The Digital Literature Review is published annually in the spring. The deadline for submissions is in early January. We welcome original articles relating to each year’s theme. Articles should range from 3000-5000 words: every article is reviewed by undergraduate students on the journal’s editorial team. Notification of initial decision is in February. All authors receive constructive feedback concerning submissions. Further information regarding the Digital Literature Review is available at bsuenglish.com/dlr. The Digital Literature Review requires first publication rights. All other exclusive rights as defined in the Copyright Law, Section 106, will reside with the author. Digital Literature Review, vol. 5 (2018). © Ball State University. All Rights Reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce articles to [email protected]. The Digital Literature Review gratefully acknowledges Ball State University’s support for the publication of this journal. Cover photo by Megan Schillereff of Ball State University. 1 The DLR Staff EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Team Leader: Leah Heim Team Leader: Olivia Hershman Taylor Baugh Nick Smith Bailey Shrewsbury Megan Schillereff Bethany Benkert Kaytlyn Bell Abbie Gelopulos PUBLICITY DEPARTMENT Team Leader: Tynan Drake Emily Barsic Katie Garrett Savana Newton DESIGN DEPARTMENT Team Leader: Hannah Partridge Audrey Bowers CONTRIBUTORS Brandon Best Peter Anto Johnson Gabriella Marcarelli FACULTY ADVISOR Dr. Adam R. Beach 2 Life Upon A Swiftly Tilting Planet: An Introduction to the Literature of the Post-Apocalypse by Leah Heim, Co-Lead Editor So, the world’s over. Now what? That, of course, is the million-dollar question, and it is one that humanity has striven to answer since times immemorial, as demonstrated by the apocalyptic floods in both Genesis and The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Christianized West’s fascination with the end of the world began as St. John penned his prophetic Book of Revelation and continued through medieval representations of the Black Death until our modern day, where much of our entertainment continues to capitalize on end-time mania. In much of modern literature and film, however, the end of the world has been removed from the Christian context of St. John and now leans toward more secular terrors: nuclear holocaust, climate change, robots, and, of course, zombies. However, the Christian term remains: apocalypse—the moment of uncovering, of revealing. The term remains appropriate, for while many modern apocalypse stories have little to do with divine Christian revelation, each has a bounty to reveal about the nature of our culture, of our world, and of our humanity as a whole. But wait. Isn’t this edition of the Digital Literature Review about the post-apocalypse? Why harp upon the end itself, then, if it’s the tale of the after that this journal analyzes? As it turns out, the study of the post-apocalypse is a study in temporality—or rather, the disruption thereof. James Berger, in his book After the End (1999), suggests that the ends that we imagine are not in fact ends at all: our apocalypses are our histories, terrors that humanity has already witnessed and lines that humanity has already crossed. If one holds to Berger’s definition of apocalypse as an event that absolutely “breaks with the past, as catastrophes bearing some enormous or ultimate meaning,” then one comes to understand that humanity has already endured an indefinite amount of apocalypses within the past thousand years—truly, even within the past hundred (xii). Indeed, as Berger says, “the most dystopic vision of science fiction can do no more than replicate the actual historical catastrophes of the twentieth century”—Auschwitz, Rwanda, Hiroshima, and Chernobyl, to name only a tragic few (xiii). Reading post-apocalyptic literature then, as Berger claims, becomes a type of traumatized pattern of remembrance; our culture is obsessed with apocalypse because it, and each of us in it, is working through the trauma of these historical 3 INTRODUCTION apocalyptic events. Scholars such as Lee Quinby question whether this obsession is in fact healthy for a democratic society, but the horse here is already out of the barn: if the box office is any judge, representations of apocalypse are here to stay. We will find a way to cope with our historical terrors. And if, as Berger argues, these historical terrors are apocalypses, then we, at this very moment, live post-apocalyptically. Admittedly, the stories that make headlines in our world today do not look so much like the five stages of post-apocalyptic plot defined by Gary K. Wolfe in his chapter “The Remaking of Zero:” “(1) the experience or discovery of cataclysm; (2) the journey through the wasteland created by the cataclysm; (3) settlement and establishment of a new community; (4) the re-emergence of the wilderness as antagonist; and (5) a final, decisive battle or struggle to determine which values shall prevail in the new world” (8). However, the images that often arise in our world are decidedly post-apocalyptic. Crowds of refugees walk through chaos and rubble that could be a set for any Hollywood blockbuster. We see images from mega-storms and hurricanes that come right out of The Day After Tomorrow (2004), or perhaps out of Genesis. Entire neighborhoods in Detroit could be on-location sites for The Walking Dead (2010-present); in fact, one deindustrialized town in Georgia—Grantville— actually was a filming site for the series. Truly, it is a timely moment to read the literature of the post-apocalypse: our class this year watched with horror as Hurricanes Harvey and Maria ripped through Houston and Puerto Rico, as North Korea threatened atomic war, as the refugee crisis continued unabated in Syria and Bangladesh, and as an outbreak of senseless mass shootings swept through the country. As a literature major, I have been told over and over again that my field of study is “not important” or “not real.” To people who have this attitude, I say that literature begins to feel very important and very real when the plot of the novel you’re reading appears in an NPR article. In today’s climate, it may be difficult to study imagined apocalypses. We at the Digital Literature Review understand. However, I believe that our journal has a particular obligation to continue our work in the face of these terrors. To illustrate this fact, I refer to a book by one of my heroes—Madeleine L’Engle’s A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978). Named after a line of a poem by Conrad Aiken, L’Engle’s book is the third in her Time Quintet series, the first installation of which is her famous children’s classic, A Wrinkle in Time. While written for a juvenile audience, L’Engle’s A Swiftly Tilting Planet discusses a topic that could make parents uneasy—nuclear war. The story follows fifteen- year-old Charles Wallace Murry as he journeys through time and space to stop an imminent 4 INTRODUCTION atomic threat by Mad Dog Branzillo, a dictator of a small country who has obtained missiles from a few “powerful friends” (L’Engle 9). Such a circumstance harkens back to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which would have been within recent memory for many of the text’s first readers in 1978. And, admittedly, such a situation feels unnervingly reflective of today’s political environment as well. While the entire book deserves examination, it is the first chapter that displays particular relevance to the mission of this year’s installment of the Digital Literature Review. The story begins on Thanksgiving Day in the Murry household, where the entire family has gathered together to celebrate. Meg Murry O’Keefe and the rest of the Murry family work to get their Thanksgiving meal on the table; as such, L’Engle creates a strong atmosphere of nostalgia and harmony for any reader with similar holiday memories. Suddenly, however, Dr. Murry—the family’s kind patriarch and a renowned scientist—receives a call from the President of the United States, who explains that Mad Dog Branzillo intends to start nuclear war and that the world has only twenty-four hours “in which to avert tragedy” (L’Engle 9). What began as a pleasant day for the Murry family is shattered by the imminent death of humanity. However, the Murrys sit down at their Thanksgiving meal anyway, adhering to their usual holiday routine. When Meg, panicked, questions their devotion to such mundane habits in the face of an apocalypse, her father offers these wise words: “You know, my dears, the world has been abnormal for so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a peaceful or reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes” (L’Engle 26). Examining post-apocalyptic literature in today’s global situation might seem depressing at best and insensitive at worst, for we, like the Murrys, live in a world a button away from disaster. We understand that disregarding these issues will do nothing for the betterment of the situation, but there’s the rub. For when we devote ourselves to the study of our fatal reality, how can we move forward? How can we overcome incapacitating hopelessness when we grasp the immensity of our world’s problems? Like Meg Murry O’Keefe, we want to do something, but, also like Meg, we don’t know what to do.

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