The idea of apocalypse has a long tradition in the history of civilization. Secularized speculations about the end of the world have been a part of public discourse in Britain ever since the 19th century. This study investigates fiction about the potential end of humankind, written and produced by British writers and filmmakers from the 1890s to the beginning of the 21st century. Martin Hermann argues that British apocalyptic fiction is deeply embedded in the cultural context of its respective era. Applying ideas from Michel HERMANN Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge and analyzing works by H. G. Wells, John Wyndham, John Brunner, Stephen Baxter and other, less remembered authors of speculative fiction, Hermann traces a history of fear in British culture, identifying the discursive formations that have shaped the apocalyptic discourse in Britain over the last 120 years. · A History of A History Fear · · ‘Working through an impressively wide range of examples, Hermann draws out the larger trends and currents of this enduring mode of writing.’
ADAM ROBERTS Royal Holloway, University of London Author of several acclaimed SF novel British Apocalyptic Fiction, 1895 Fiction, Apocalyptic British
A History of Fear British Apocalyptic Fiction, 1895 –2011
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MARTIN HERMANN Foreword by Adam Roberts A History of Fear
British Apocalyptic Fiction, 1895−2011
The idea of apocalypse has a long tradition in the history of civilization. Secularized speculations about the end of the world have been a part of public discourse in Britain ever since the 19th century. This study investigates fiction about the potential end of humankind, written and produced by British writers and filmmakers from the 1890s to the beginning of the 21st century. Martin Hermann argues that British apocalyptic fiction is deeply embedded in the cultural context of its respective era. Applying ideas from Michel Foucault’s The Archaeolog y of Knowledge and analyzing works by H. G. Wells, John Wyndham, John Brunner, Stephen Baxter and other, less remembered authors of speculative fiction, Hermann traces a history of fear in British culture, identifying the discursive formations that have shaped the apocalyptic discourse in Britain over the last 120 years. He contends that these formations run alongside the great historical divides of the 20th and 21st century.
MARTIN HERMANN is an academic librarian at the Bavarian State Library in Munich. He has published articles on American and Irish film. In the area of library and information science, he is the co-founder and co-editor of the German-language open access journal Perspektive Bibliothek and co-editor of Bibliotheken: Innovation aus Tradition (2014).
A History of Fear
British Apocalyptic Fiction, 1895−2011
MARTIN HERMANN © 2015 Martin Hermann
Except for all images, this book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the book; to adapt the book and to make commercial use of the book providing attribution is made to the author (but not in any way that suggests that he endorses you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Hermann, Martin (2015). A History of Fear: British Apocalyptic Fiction, 1895–2011. Berlin: epubli. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/ First published 2015.
ISBN: 978-3-7375-5774-0 (Printed Version) DOI: 10.6094/UNIFR/10080 (Free Electronic Version)
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Typesetting: Martin Hermann Technical advice: Thomas Dienst Cover design: Martin Hermann Cover illustrations: Steve McGhee. The two cover images and three additional images were commissioned by TV channel Yesterday to mark the launch of the new series Perfect Storms. epubli GmbH www.epubli.co.uk Dedicated to my parents, Angelika and Richard Hermann.
And to my wife, Anna.
Contents
List of illustrations viii Foreword by Adam Roberts xi Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1 1 A definition of apocalyptic fiction 14 2 First age of extinction 26 3 Apocalyptic wars 50 4 Nuclear threats, Cold War 70 5 Eco-doom 105 6 Fears in transition 123 7 Apocalypse after 9/11 136 Conclusion 163
Notes 168 Works Cited 198 viii List of illustrations
1 C harles Darwin as an ape. Caricature by an unknown artist. ‘A Venerable Orang-outang. A contribution to unnatural history’. The Hornet, 22 March 1871. Public Domain. 2 L ester and Landry Baker laugh at Professor Mirzarbeau’s appearance. Fred T. Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 70. Public Domain. 3 P rofessor Mirzarbeau gesticulates to Landry Baker. Fred T. Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 180. Public Domain. 4 T he British population is prepared for the next gas attack. Cartoon by Ernest Howard Shepard. Punch, 24 November 1937: ‘The Blessings of Peace or Mr. Everyman’s Ideal Home.’ Used with kind permission. 5 H umanity collapses under aerial poison gas attacks. Cartoon by Bernard Partridge. Punch, 8 April 1936: ‘The Dawn of Progress. But how am I to see it? They’ve blinded me.’ Used with kind permission. 6 P assworthy’s son and the soldiers are going to war. Things to Come (0:13:15). Copyright 1936, London Film Productions. 7 The crowd welcomes the victorious dictator. Things to Come (0:42:26). Copyright 1936, London Film Productions. 8 T he Soviet communists rule on alien planets. Cartoon by Anton. Punch, 21 July 1954. Used with kind permission. 9 N uclear bombs will cause humankind to go extinct as a species. Cartoon by Norman Mansbridge Punch, 5 March 1958: “To-day it is everything which is at stake – the kindliness of our natural environment, the human experience, the genetic composition of the race, the possibilities of health and life for future generations. Not only is this danger terrible, but it is immediate.” (George F. Kennan, Russia, The Atom and the West) Used with kind permission. 10 L ondoners doubt the deployment of the atomic bomb just when it strikes. Cartoon by Norman Mansbridge. Punch, 24 February 1960: “It’ll be just the same as it was with the gas in the last war – they’ll never use it.” Used with kind permission. ix
11 K hrushchev sprays the Chinese weeds with a lethal pesticide. Cartoon by Norman Mansbridge. Punch, 23 September 1964. Used with kind permission. 12 A liens land on a poisoned and polluted planet Earth. Cartoon by Michael Cummings/Express Newspapers. Daily Express, 10 November 1969: ‘So it wasn’t the H-bomb that finished off the Earth people, after all!’ Used with kind permission. 13 AIDS sits on Civilization’s shoulder. Cartoon by Nicholas Garland. The Independent, 28 January 1988: “…For within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king keeps death his court, and there antick sits, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp…” (King Richard III) Used with kind permission. 14 J im is walking away from the missing persons poster. 28 Days Later … (0:12:28). Copyright 2002, DNA Films/UK Film Council. 15 A missing persons poster in New York after September 11, 2001. Photograph by Mike Caine. Used with kind permission. 16 T he British people become targets for the US soldiers. 28 Weeks Later (0:53:07). Copyright 2007, Fox Atomic, DNA Films, UK Film Council, Figment Films, Sociedad General de Cine, Koan Films. 17 U S soldiers have massacred the Green Zone’s residents. 28 Weeks Later (0:54:54). Copyright 2007, Fox Atomic, DNA Films, UK Film Council, Figment Films, Sociedad General de Cine, Koan Films. 18 U S military personnel torture Alice. 28 Weeks Later (0:36:21). Copyright 2007, Fox Atomic, DNA Films, UK Film Council, Figment Films, Sociedad General de Cine, Koan Films. 19 U S military personnel torture Alice. 28 Weeks Later (0:36:31). Copyright 2007, Fox Atomic, DNA Films, UK Film Council, Figment Films, Sociedad General de Cine, Koan Films. 20 T he Earth is almost fully submerged under water in the year 2035. Image by Malcolm and Jonathan Burke (www.calculatedearth.com). Stephen Baxter, Flood (p. 349). Used with kind permission.
Foreword by Adam Roberts
We tend to think of ‘apocalypse’ as a time of chaos, the order of the cosmos breaking apart, worlds ending, anarchy and disaster. It might seem paradoxical, then, that Martin Hermann’s absorbing study of British Apocalyptic Fiction is so scrupulous and methodical in its approach. But the paradox is only apparent. There is more than scholarly reticence behind the cool thoroughness of this monograph. It is, in its way, a tacit vision of apocalypse itself. Working through an impressively wide range of examples, Hermann draws out the larger trends and currents of this enduring mode of writing. He convincingly demonstrates that British Apocalyptic Fiction underwent a ‘process of internationalisation and globalisation’ across the century, from stories adopting a merely British point of view to stories in which the whole world is the stage of end-times and societal breakdown. The period studied reaches from the British Imperial power to the drawn-out process of decolonisation, through two World Wars and one Cold one to the present post 9-11 tessellation of ethnicities, ideologies and cultures that makes up the British Isles. In a way, the question of critical heat, or coolness, goes to the heart of the matter. Hermann painstakingly and carefully maps out this hysterical (or, since that word is tainted with its sexist implication that the womb is the site of human panic and irrational, perhaps we could say gonadical) territory. His broadly Foucauldian, discourse-analysis approach is cogent and yields insightful results, bringing a large number of apocalyptic disorders under a larger order. As he notes in his opening chapter, culture texts function in part as symptoms of broader social anxieties, such that compiling a history of ‘apocalyptic fiction’ is in effect ‘to write a history of cultural fear communicated through discourses of apocalypse’. As an Englishman I can confirm from my own personal experience that fear is a much larger determinant of my national psyche than is sometimes admitted; and that the ‘British reserve’, ‘politeness’ or ‘stiff upper lip’ of which people sometimes speak exists in a repressive dynamic with large undercurrents of violence and irrationality. The more polite an Englishman appears to be to you, the ruder he is actually being. A people truly polite and deferential would not, after all, have assembled an empire covering one third of the planet. Such things don’t happen by accident. It makes a strange sort of sense that a people so wedded to the drinking of tea at a certain, specified time of day should also be drawn to the often Grand Guignol, large-scale disaster narratives that Hermann discusses. The heat, or coolness, with which we approach this topic is itself eloquent. Consider two of Hermann’s contemporaries in the study of apocalyptic fiction. Slavoj Žižek and Quentin Meillassoux. In his recent polemical account of the xii Foreword by Adam Roberts apocalyptic logic of contemporary life, Living in the End Times (2010), Žižek argues that
the global capitalist system is approaching an apocalyptic zero-point. Its ‘four riders of the apocalypse’ are comprised by the ecological crisis, the consequences of the biogenetic revolution, imbalances within the system itself (problems with intellectual property; forthcoming struggles over raw materials, food and water), and the explosive growth of social divisions and exclusions.
Žižek is a frantic sort of fellow, intellectually speaking, and his work buzzes with an energy that is frantic and messy as often as it is focussed and perceptive. Against this ‘explosive’ reading of apocalypse, we might set Meillassoux’s After Finitude (2009), which describes the post-apocalyptic a ‘glacial world’: ‘a world in which there is no longer any up or down, centre or periphery, nor anything else that might make it a world designed for humans. For the first time, the world manifests itself as capable of subsisting without any of those aspects that constitute its concreteness for us.’ Speaking for myself, when I have written apocalyptic fiction—and Hermann’s study mentions one of my novels, in amongst the great many books by better writers—I have veered to the latter perspective. It seems to me that Martin Hermann’s detailed, wide-ranging and admirably cool analysis of the British Apocalyptic Novel gets to the heart of something very important about this enduring cultural phenomenon. Acknowledgements
This book was a part of my life for just over eight years, from its inception in the spring of 2007 as a PhD thesis to its publication in summer 2015. At times, reading and writing about the end with no end in sight was a trying challenge. More than anything else, it taught me perseverance and faith, in myself and the human race. And while the subject matter made many people believe that it was a bleak experience, I actually enjoyed it for most of the way. This book project would not have been possible without Professor Barbara Korte. She encouraged me to pursue my doctoral ambitions and supported me in obtaining funding for the first three-and-a-half years of the project’s duration. Professor Korte also pointed me towards British apocalyptic fiction as a topic. While I was working on my thesis, Barbara Korte was always available for discussion and assistance, during and after my time at Freiburg University. Her comments and suggestion were of indispensable value for arriving at the final structure and substance of this study on apocalyptic fiction. I am grateful for her supervision and the time I was able to spend at her chair. I also would like to thank a number of staff and students at Freiburg University: Dr. Jan Alber, for planting the idea of writing a PhD in my head; Professor Michael Butter, for his willingness to serve as second assessor and for his helpful advice on revisions for this publication. I want to thank Dr. Stefanie Lethbridge and Dr. Marie-Luise Egbert for their contributions during Professor Korte’s doctorial colloquium sessions and the opportunity to work with them. Furthermore, I want to thank my fellow doctoral candidates during my time at Chair Korte: Dr. Katja Bay, Natalie Churn, Dr. Susanne Düsterberg, Kathrin Göb, Sarah Hollborn, Doris Lechner, Thorsten Leiendecker, Dr. Ulrike Pirker, Sarah Schauer, and Georg Zipp. I am grateful for them sharing their ideas and thoughts during the colloquium sessions and for their friendship which is more valuable than any dissertation. I should like to thank the Landesgraduiertenförderung Baden-Württemberg for providing me with a scholarship that allowed me to focus more strongly on my dissertation for a period of two and a half years. Moreover, the Landesgraduiertenförderung helped me to finance a five-week research visit to the British Library in London and made additional funds available for purchasing copies of apocalyptic novels and films. Moreover, I would like to thank my wife, Anna Hermann (also known as Anna Stockitt), for proofreading each single draft version of this book and advising me on vocabulary and style. Apart from her linguistic expertise, I am grateful for her emotional support which lifted me up when I needed it most over the past seven years. I know she has been looking forward to a xiv Acknowledgements life without the apocalypse. I am happy to share this post-apocalyptic world with her. Furthermore, I would like to specially thank everybody who granted me permission to use their work for free or merely a symbolic fee: Malcolm and Jonathan Burke, Mike Caine, Nicholas Garland, Express Newspapers, and UKTV. I greatly appreciated that. By contrast, PARS International asked me to pay 880 Euros for permission and digital copies of two TIME magazine cover titles to be included in my book. Bugger off, no thank you very much! Finally, I also want to thank friends, relatives, and colleagues for the support I received over the years. Their interest in my work was always a great motivation. Besides, I am grateful to Joan and Robin Stockitt for additional proofreading, Thomas Dienst for advising and assisting me with typesetting. A great thanks goes to Adam Roberts for contributing the foreword. Special thanks go to the customer in the Theresienstraße post office who gave me some of her wrapping tape on the day when I, last minute, mailed in my dissertation. Last but not least, I am thankful to my parents and my brother, Angelika, Richard and Frank Hermann, who helped me to become the person I am. I hope I have made them proud. Introduction
This study deals with stories about the potential end of humankind, here referred to as apocalyptic fiction. It will focus on narratives by British writers and filmmakers from the 1890s to the present day. The study will show that, within this time frame, British apocalyptic fiction is deeply embedded in the cultural context of its respective era. The study is motivated by the persistence and popularity of speculation surrounding the end of the world over the past 120 years in British public discourse. The spectre of apocalypse permeates present-day British culture. In recent years, newspaper reports have repeatedly confronted Britain’s public with the idea of the end of the world as we know it. The word ‘apocalypse’ appeared more than 300 times in British national newspapers between July and November 2011.1 British newspapers interpreted mysterious mass bird deaths in the US state of Arkansas in 2011 and 2012 as the potential harbingers of ‘the end of the world’2 and the ‘[f]irst sign of an apocalyptic year to come’.3 The prophecies of US evangelical preacher Harold Camping who mistakenly announced the end of the world twice for the year 2011 were widely reported with headlines ranging from ‘Will the World End today?’4 before the supposed rapture to ‘Apocalypse Not Now’5 after Camping’s prediction failed to come true. Moreover, tabloids and broadsheets featured a number of articles discussing the potentially imminent end of the world on 21 December 2012 in correspondence with the end of the Mayan Calendar. The Sun, for instance, openly asked the question whether the world will ‘REALLY end on Dec 21 2012?’6 Likewise, The Telegraph investigated the validity of ‘[e]nd of the world speculation after new Mayan discovery’.7 The prediction of 2012 as the year of the apocalypse reached the British public not only in the form of newspaper reports but also through popular music, film, and even an art exhibition. It inspired the song ‘2012 (It Ain’t the End)’ by British rapper Jay Sean in which he calls upon his listeners to ‘party like, like it’s the end of the world’.8 ‘2012 (It Ain’t the End)’ reached number nine in the UK single charts in October 2010.9 The apocalyptic US blockbuster 2012 (2009) also draws on the idea that the world will end in 2012. The film made it to the top of the UK box office in November 2009 and was among the 15 highest grossing films in Britain that year.10 Finally, Tate Britain art gallery exhibited the work of John Martin under the title John Martin: Apocalypse in 2011–2012. Significantly, Tate Britain’s display of his apocalyptic paintings was ‘the first major exhibition dedicated to Martin’s work in over 30 years.’11 It once again reinforces the notion that descriptions and depictions of the end of the world are popular in Britain today. 2 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Of course, the idea of apocalypse and tales about the end of the world are not a recent phenomenon but have a long tradition across different cultures. The oldest known texts that describe an apocalyptic event are flood myths.12 The Sumerian Flood Story and the Babylonian epics of Athrahasis and Gilgamesh are the first known of these myths. Historians estimate that the original composition of the two Babylonian epics can be traced back at least to the year 1700 BC13 and believe that the Sumerian poem is even older.14 The best known flood tale in Western civilization, the flood of Noah described in the Book of Genesis, dates back at least to the 6th or 7th century BC.15 In addition, Egyptian and Hittite culture of this period relate the event of a cataclysmic flood.16 Floods, however, are not the only source behind the destruction of the world. The Hindu epic Mahabharata prominently features the cataclysmic end of the world in the shape of a variety of natural disasters at the climax of a final battle between Good and Evil.17 By describing cataclysmic catastrophes which endanger the existence of humankind, these earliest end-of-the-world texts share a characteristic that is archetypical for apocalyptic literature. The actual term ‘apocalypse’, however, derives from a specific set of texts written some time later. A number of passages in the Old and New Testament of the Bible written between the years 250 BC to 250 AD make up the corpus of what is known as Judeo-Christian canonical apocalyptic literature. While there are a number of apocalyptic texts outside of the biblical canon, namely in the Gnostic, Greco- Roman, and Persian literature of the time, these are the most prominent and influential works in the Western tradition. The genealogy of apocalyptic writing can be traced back to passages from the Books of Daniel (chapters 7–12), Ezekiel (chapters 38–39) and Zechariah (chapters 12–14). They established the form and themes of biblical apocalypse and served as role models for the apocalypses of the New Testament.18 The most pivotal components are generally considered to be the thirteenth chapter of Mark, the Second Epistle of Saint Peter and John of Patmos’ Book of Revelation.19 Considered as a whole, these passages provide the fundamental narrative for religious and secular visions of the end of the world coming thereafter. Generally speaking, they foresee and describe in various ways the end of the world through violent destruction, the Last Judgment and finally God’s renewal of the world. They are marked by a narrative situation in which a narrator figure discloses his visionary prophecy to his listeners.20 The texts’ prophetic and revelatory nature about God’s plan is why they have come to be referred to as apocalyptic literature. In contrast to today’s common associations of apocalypse with catastrophe and destruction, the Greek word apokalypsis in fact means ‘an unveiling’ or ‘a revealing of truths’.21 From the advent of biblical apocalyptic literature until the end of the 18th century, Western visions of the apocalypse were defined by religious thought, as illustrated in the following examples: The medieval epic poem Introduction 3
Muspilli (c. 870) describes the battle between the prophet Elijah and the Antichrist and the subsequent Day of Judgment. Johannes of Seville and Joachim di Fiore prophesied the end of the world at the hands of God in the 12th and 13th centuries as did the theologian Melchior von Hoffmann and the monk Michael Stifel in the 16th century. Notably, the German painter Albrecht Dürer created The Apocalypse with Pictures (1498), a series of woodcuts which show different scenes from the Book of Revelation, most famously The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In texts of non-Christian cultures, the end of the world is also embedded in a religious context and is brought about by divine forces, as for instance in the Scandinavian 13th century epic Völuspá.22 Only when the philosophers and intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment started questioning traditional concepts rooted in spiritual faith did the spectrum of apocalyptic literature widen beyond religiously motivated ends of the world. The first modern, in the sense of secularized, versions of the apocalypse started to appear in Western culture at the beginning of the 19th century. The earliest known example of partially secularized apocalypse is Le Dernier Homme (1805), a novel by French priest Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville. Le Dernier Homme tells the story of Omegarus, the last fertile man in an aging and infertile Europe. Le Dernier Homme mirrors the pessimistic mood towards the end of the 18th century and the fear of overpopulation initiated by the publication and popularity of Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). A revolutionary, Malthus proposed that catastrophic events needed to happen to keep the constantly growing population in check for the Earth to be able to sustain humanity in the long term. Le Dernier Homme takes up the secular idea of the Malthusian catastrophe to reduce the number of people to secure survival: ‘It was essential to slow down this growth of population, to destroy men in order to preserve the human race.’23 Grainville’s novel, therefore, combines elements of biblical apocalypse, such as God’s angels or pronouncing the Last Judgment, with non-metaphysical elements, as for instance humanity’s infertility. In his analysis of Le Dernier Homme as the first case of apocalyptic fiction, Paul Alkon concludes that Grainville ‘secularizes the Apocalypse without discarding its theological framework.’24 After its publication in England, Grainville’s vision of The Last Man (1806) inspired British writers to portray end-of-the-world scenarios without explicitly referring to the ideas of the Bible. The extinction of humankind and especially the idea of the ‘Last Man’ became particularly prominent in English poetry. Several poems described ‘[g]loomy visions of specifically secular future’.25 Lord Byron published the poem ‘Darkness’ (1816), both Thomas Campbell and Thomas Hood wrote poems entitled ‘The Last Man’ (1823; 1826). The fact that Hood’s poem is more parody than sincere involvement in the topic indicates that the ‘Last Man’ motif enjoyed significant popularity at the time to warrant 4 British Apocalyptic Fiction parody and that it grew increasingly distant from its religious predecessors. Contemporary drama and magazine writing features more examples of the ‘Last Man’. George Dibdin Pitt published his play The Last Man; or, The Miser of Eltham Green in 1833 and Thomas Love Beddoes worked on his unfinished drama The Last Man from 1823 to 1825. Moreover, two magazine pieces written in 1826 dealt with the extinction of mankind: ‘The Death of the World’ was published in European Magazine and ‘The Last Man’ appeared in Blackwood’s.26 This first period of modern secularized apocalyptic literature most significantly brought forth Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826). Shelley’s novel is ‘the first English example of what we might call apocalyptic or “end-of-the-world” fiction’.27 The Last Man describes a world-wide plague which eventually kills all of humankind except the novel’s protagonist Lionel Vernier. Conspicuously, Shelley’s novel shares the fear of plague and pestilence with the poems by Hood and Campbell.28 One can read the plague as the agent of human extinction in Shelley’s novel and the two poems in the context of circulating fears of epidemic in Britain in the 1820s, in particular in relation to the anxiety of cholera. The cholera epidemic that started in India in 1817 and eventually ‘jumped into England’29 in 1831 seems to have served as an inspiration for Shelley’s plague.30 By the time The Last Man was written and published, ‘the disease had reached China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Egypt.’31 Contemporary British society knew about this epidemic from reports in daily newspapers. Pechmann notes that, between the years 1818 and 1823, there were several reports of a cholera epidemic which had broken out in Calcutta and spread uninhibitedly in the course of the next years.32 Therefore, ‘the news of its inexorable advance caused widespread alarm’33 long before cholera actually appeared in Britain. However, reading Shelley’s The Last Man simply as a representation of a fear of plague would ignore the novel’s complexity. Critics have shown that the apocalyptic scenario of The Last Man can also be related to colonial guilt,34 contemporary political upheaval35 or the Romanticist ideal of the isolated artist,36 among others. Nevertheless, what we can glean from the early examples of Le Dernier Homme and The Last Man is that tales of apocalyptic fiction cannot be fully understood without considering their contemporary cultural context. Despite the small wave of ‘Last Man’ literature in the first decades of the 19th century, apocalyptic fiction disappeared again from literary production written in the English language37 and only re-emerged in Britain at the end of the 19th century when it started to flourish in the wake and as part of the success of the scientific romance. The generic relationship between apocalyptic fiction and the scientific romance (later more commonly labelled as science fiction), of course, endured beyond this initial stage so that throughout the 20th century, more general developments in science fiction can often be felt in apocalyptic fiction as well. Parodies aside,38 apocalyptic fiction is consequently Introduction 5 best understood and described as a subgenre of science fiction, defining SF in a broader sense as speculative fiction, ‘fiction set in an imagined world that is different from our own in ways that are rationally explicable […] and that tend to produce cognitive estrangement in the reader.’39 Accordingly, both The Routledge Companion and The Science Fiction Handbook, for example, list apocalyptic fiction as a subgenre of science fiction.40 Since the days of the scientific romance, the output of apocalyptic fiction has steadily grown over the past 120 years. Initially, the publication of apocalyptic novels and short stories, as far as can be seen, was limited to little more than a handful of novels and short stories per decade. But fear-inducing historical events such as the First World War, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the terrorist attacks on September 11 promoted ideas of apocalypse. Furthermore, the TV and film and industries started to adopt and adapt apocalyptic stories for the small and big screen, increasing its presence and popularity in fiction beyond the written page and the reading audience. Today, there is an average of more than twenty examples of apocalyptic novels, films, TV films or TV series per decade in Britain alone. In turn, this number is easily dwarfed by the American book market and film industry which, on its own, produces a seemingly inexhaustible amount of apocalyptic fiction.41
A history of fear through apocalyptic discourse
Theory
The study of apocalyptic fiction is especially insightful due to a set of specific functions ascribed to the genre. First of all, apocalyptic fiction serves as a ‘cheap thrill, a form of escapism’42 and thus, at its most basic level, entertains with its unlikely scenarios of doom, death, and devastation. Apocalyptic fiction, however, can also be perceived as a product of its social and cultural context and as such takes up and responds to societal developments and changes. This is an important function of fictional texts in general as cultures observe themselves in the texts they produce.43 Already biblical apocalyptic texts were a ‘product of their age and its political and economic climate.’44 They were written as a direct reaction to what happened to the Judean or Christian people and thereby fulfilled a social function for these communities. Primarily, they ‘served as encouragement and consolation in an age of crisis.’45 Likewise, secular fictions of the apocalypse are immediate responses to cultural crisis.46 In these stories, writers and readers try to come to terms with the predominant cultural anxieties of their time, be it global pandemic, environmental devastation or nuclear catastrophe. 6 British Apocalyptic Fiction
However, despite its depiction of catastrophe and disaster, apocalyptic fiction is often reassuring in quality. The number of narratives in which mankind is completely and ultimately wiped out is comparatively small. In these exceptional cases, humankind—and with it the reader/viewer—is helpless and powerless against the global threat. In all other examples of apocalyptic fiction, the protagonist and often a small number of survivors are empowered to survive. Warren Wagar describes in which way these apocalyptic narratives are reassuring:
The end of the world enables us, for example, to project in our imaginations a time when all our enemies, all the sources of our current distress and feelings of powerlessness, are removed, and we have survived.47
Thus, the ability to overcome obstacles, to outrival the rest of humanity, and to defy the powers of nature is a functional characteristic of apocalyptic fiction. The feeling of empowerment also accounts to some extent for the appeal of apocalyptic fiction: ‘[T]o survive gives [the reader/viewer] an intense feeling of happiness.’48 This would be an additional explanation as to why apocalyptic fiction, in spite of its bleak subject matter, has been popular for such a long time. Apocalyptic tales give ‘assurance of racial survival despite the most overwhelming odds’.49 In the vast majority of British apocalyptic fiction, the end of the old world is in fact the starting point for a new world.50 Furthermore, apocalyptic fiction can be attributed with a didactic function as it serves as a warning to its readers and viewers.51 This didactic function is established in the attitude towards the cataclysmic disaster. Here, apocalyptic fiction differs distinctly from its biblical ancestors. In biblical apocalyptic literature, God is always responsible for the end of the world and thus the millennial writings of the Bible promote the apocalyptic event as it will lead mankind out of its misery and to the kingdom and glory of God. In contrast, modern secularized apocalypse first and foremost regards the approaching catastrophe as destructive52 and is concerned to avoid the cataclysm as it would otherwise bring about the end of mankind. Hence, apocalyptic fiction ‘functions largely as a cautionary tale, positing potential means of extinction and predicting the gloomy probabilities of such ends.’53 This is especially true for those apocalyptic narratives which focus more strongly on the breakdown of civilization than on the aftermath of the disaster. Their purpose is to bring the dangers that might threaten this suddenly so fragile civilization of ours to people’s attention, ‘to expose and warn of the dangers of contemporary political and ethical scenarios.’54 They often do so despite the fact that people are actually already aware of these dangers on some level. The function of secularized apocalypses, then, is not only to make people care and think about potential dangers but also to bring about a change in behaviour or attitude. Introduction 7
In warning about a potential catastrophe and the possibility of an apocalypse, stories about the end of the world not only react but also reinforce the prevailing ideas on apocalypse. Of course, fiction in general is part of the reciprocal interplay between literature and the extraliterary reality. It forms a cognitive force which substantially participates in generating attitudes, discourses, ideologies, values, patterns of thinking and perception. By applying Foucauldian discourse analysis to the subject of apocalyptic fiction, a history of public fear is revealed in these stories of apocalypse. In The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969), Foucault emphasizes that texts do not exist in a vacuum, they are not isolated occurrences but rather constructs of discursive circumstances:
The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internal configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network. […] The book is not simply the object that one holds in one’s hands; and it cannot remain within the little parallelepiped that contains it: its unity is variable and relative. As soon as one questions that unity, it lows its self-evidence; it indicates itself, constructs itself, only on the basis of a complex field of discourse.55
Equally, each example of apocalyptic fiction is constructed on the basis of a complex field of discourse. As Foucault conceives discourse as regularities which govern a particular era’s understanding and dispersion of reality, that era’s cultural climate conditions and precipitates statements about apocalyptic fears in fiction and in other forms:
Whenever one can describe, between a number of statements, such a system of dispersion, whenever, between objects, types of statement, concepts, or thematic choices, one can define a regularity (an order, correlations, positions and functionings, transformations), we will say, for the sake of convenience, that we are dealing with a discursive formation […]. The conditions to which the elements of this division (objects, mode of statement, concepts, thematic choices) are subjected we shall call the rules of formation. The rules of formation are conditions of existence (but also of coexistence, maintenance, modification, and disappearance) in a given discursive division.56
Accordingly, stories of the apocalypse not only indicate but also actively construct apocalyptic fears. This study explores the attitudes towards the idea of apocalypse from the 1890s onwards. It does so through the analysis of a culture’s body of apocalyptic fiction and the identification of discursive formations on fears of apocalypse. To identify discursive formations of apocalypse is to make more general propositions about a culture’s (apocalyptic) fears at a given period. Therefore, the goal of this study is to identify the discursive formations that have shaped the apocalyptic discourse over the past 120 years and to unsheathe 8 British Apocalyptic Fiction the productive relationship between apocalyptic fiction by British writers and filmmakers and British culture. The study takes the end of the 19th century as its chronological starting point, when both apocalyptic ideas and apocalyptic fiction surfaced more frequently and regularly in British culture, and follows the discourse of apocalyptic anxiety in British culture up to the present day, i.e. the year 2011. The chronological setup of the study offers the best way to describe the shifts in British culture and its discursive formations most adequately and insightfully. Given the proposition that different fears dominate at different times within a culture, an analysis of apocalyptic fiction is helpful in writing a history of cultural fear communicated through discourses of apocalypse.
Literature review
Apocalyptic fiction has a long and fruitful tradition in Britain. It starts with Shelley’s The Last Man and is, unlike American apocalyptic fiction, already very productive in the 1890s and continues to be so for most of the 20th century. This allows for an examination of cultural fears that covers more than a century of British history. Moreover, it is a period of British history that sees Britain’s decline from imperial global power at the end of the Victorian period to a nation that becomes dependent on the USA by the mid-20th century. Furthermore, it includes the First and Second World War, the Cold War, and terrorist operations on a major scale. Nevertheless, there has not been a comprehensive study on British apocalyptic fiction despite the great scholarly interest in the genre. Academic interest is evident in several monographs that take a culture- unspecific look at apocalyptic fiction. Among all of these examinations, Warren Wagar’s Terminal Visions (1982) provides the most extensive overview, looking at over 175 years of speculative fiction about the end of the world and taking into account fiction from different languages and cultures. In total, Wagar’s survey includes over 300 examples from all over world. Similarly, Dieter Wessels monograph Welt im Chaos (1974) looks at world catastrophe science fiction in general. Wessels’ book develops a typology for apocalyptic fiction, describes its structure and ascribes certain functions to the genre. Hans Krah’s Weltuntergangsszenarien und Zukunftsentwürfe (2004) is interested in the ways in which the phenomenon of the literal end of the world is portrayed and negotiated in literature and film from 1945 to 1990. Krah’s analysis focuses mainly on German literature but also considers US film.Apocalyptic Patterns in Twentieth-Century Fiction by David Leigh (2008) explores different apocalyptic patterns in a selection of 20 novels and two autobiographies from a range of authors and across genres. Leigh’s broad approach to apocalypticism becomes apparent by looking at his selection of British authors which include C. S. Lewis, Doris Lessing, Arthur Introduction 9
C. Clarke, and Salman Rushdie. In Visionary Fictions: Apocalyptic Writing from Blake to the Modern Age (1996), Edward Ahearn studies nine writers from five different countries which, according to Ahearn, constitute a tradition of the visionary and apocalyptic. While Ahearn discusses the work of five French authors, William Blake features as the only British writer in his study. Moreover, there is an abundance of article collections which share a basic interest in apocalyptic literature and thus take a broad approach on the subject.57 Some of these have a confined focus on the 20th century58 or restrict themselves to US literature.59 Furthermore, there are some analyses with an equally general outlook but more specific generic focus on the apocalyptic in film and/or TV.60 Scholars of English-language literature have predominantly focused their analyses of apocalyptic fiction on American literature. This is not surprising considering the plausible view that ‘the very idea of America in history is apocalyptic, arising as it did out of the historicizing of apocalyptic hopes in the Protestant Reformation.’61 Despite the rich tradition of American science fiction in both prose and film, however, most explorations of American apocalyptic fiction focus on canonical highbrow literature and, essentially, ignore the large body of popular SF apocalyptic fiction in the 20th century.62 Additionally, most of these studies do not think of apocalyptic fiction as stories depicting the literal (near) end of humanity but understand the concept of apocalyptic literature more metaphorically. The most notable exception from this tendency is David Ketterer’s New Worlds for Old (1974), the first investigation into US apocalyptic fiction which considers both ‘science-fictional and non-science-fictional or “classic” manifestations of the apocalyptic imagination.’63 Only in recent years have scholars showed an increasing interest in the popular SF variety of apocalyptic literature. For example, Katerberg’s Future West: Utopia and Apocalypse in Frontier Science Fiction (2008) examines utopian and apocalyptic qualities in what he calls frontier science fiction. In Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the Millennium (2007), Thompson focuses on 1990s and early 2000s crime- horror films which may not typically be considered apocalyptic fiction but are, according to Thompson, consumed with social fears about global catastrophe. And in Millennial Literatures of the Americas, 1492–2002 (2009), Thomas Beebee compares literary treatments of the apocalyptic battle between good and evil across the American continent since Columbus’ discovery. He covers a wide range of genres and also includes contemporary genre fiction. There are also two surveys on Canadian and Australian fiction dealing with the end of the world. Like most studies on American apocalypse, Goldman’s Rewriting Apocalypse in Canadian Fiction (2005) examines high culture novels. Roslyn Weaver’s book Apocalypse in Australian Fiction and Film (2011), on the other hand, takes on an approach more similar to the present study exploring ‘the enduring theme of apocalypse in Australian speculative fiction and film.’64 10 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Weaver, hence, shares a comparable interest in popular stories that describe the literal end of the world, taking into account works like Nevil Shute’s apocalyptic classic On the Beach (1957) or the Mad Max film series (1979–1985). By contrast, there are hardly any comprehensive studies on apocalyptic fiction with an exclusive focus on British cultural production, let alone investigations into British speculative fiction about the end of the world. The few book-length studies on Brit ish apocaly pt ic fict ion do not even address 20 th century fiction. The articles in the collection by Patrides and Wittreich (1984) look at the apocalypse in English Renaissance thought and literature. The study The Apocalypse in England: Revelation Unravelling, 1700–1834 by Christopher Burdon (1997) on various forms of responses to the Book of Revelation in England starts in 1700 and concludes with the end of the Romantic period. Paley’s Apocalypse and Millennium in English Romantic Poetry (1999) examines the apocalypse as a theme in English Romantic poetry. In Approaching Apocalypse: Unveiling Revelation in Victorian Writing, Mills (2007) traces and scrutinizes the apocalyptic discourse during the Victorian age, brushing only briefly upon fin-de-siècle end-of-the-world fiction. Therefore, none of these examinations deal extensively with the kind of apocalyptic fiction that we find abundantly in British literature from the end of the 19th century onwards. This is even more surprising considering the fact that H. G. Wells is one of the earliest and most influential figures for end-of-the-world fiction. This study aims to fill this gap by taking into account a comprehensive and cross period corpus of British apocalypse in fiction, film, and TV.
Method
For the purpose of this study, approximately 150 texts—100 novels, 20 short stories, 20 films and 10 TV films or series—were considered. To be considered as British fiction, novels and short stories needed to be written by a British author, who is either born British or became British before the publication of the text in question. A film, TV film or TV series was regarded as British if it fell into categories A or B of British films as defined by the final edition of the British Film Institute Handbook. Category A British films are distinctly British in setting, feature mostly British actors and are solely financed within the UK. Category B British films feature significant British cultural content and, despite some foreign partners, have a substantial amount of British finance and personnel.65 In order to determine the different stages of British apocalyptic fiction over the course of the last 120 years, the essential idea of cluster theory was taken up and adjusted for the purpose of this study. Aldenderfer and Blashfield describe cluster analysis in the following way: ‘[It] is the generic name for a wide variety Introduction 11 of procedures that can be used to create a classification. These procedures empirically form “clusters” or groups of highly similar entities.’66 In adapting cluster theory, this study mainly focusses on the aspect of forming groups of highly similar entities—i.e., groups of end-of-the-world texts that explicitly or implicitly feature the same or a similar apocalyptic discourse within the same time frame. As different periods feature different numbers of apocalyptic texts, due to more and less intense apocalyptic fear in British culture and changes in the British literary market and film industry, it is necessary in this context to think of cluster sizes in terms of proportions with regard to the relevant period. This study’s chapters on the history of British apocalyptic fiction are arranged around the bigger clusters and their time frames. The smaller clusters were disregarded as they seemed to represent minor, non-dominant apocalyptic discourses.67 In order to illustrate the discursive formation of certain apocalyptic discourses not only within fiction but also in British society at large, this study mainly relies on cover pages, article headlines and cartoons from high circulating newspapers and magazines such as Punch Magazine, Time Magazine, Newsweek, National Geographic, Daily Express or The Independent. References to bestselling books and blockbuster films as well as the inclusion of opinion polls complement these sources.
Outline
In chapter 1, a more comprehensive definition of apocalyptic fiction as understood by this study will be given. This definition relies on prototype theory to map out the differences between disaster fiction, apocalyptic fiction and post-apocalyptic fiction. In much academic research on the topic, these terms have often been used more or less interchangeably despite some significant differences. It is one goal of this chapter to identify apocalyptic fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction and disaster fiction as distinct literary subgenres. Chapters 2 to 7 represent the heart of this study by describing a history of apocalyptic cultural fears in Britain. Each of these chapters consists of three different sections. The first section is a survey of major cultural-historical themes of the period in question. The second section reviews and analyses British apocalyptic fiction created during that period. First, it gives a description of the circumstances under which the apocalyptic texts were produced. Second, it portrays the dominant clusters of apocalyptic discourse. The third section either presents one or two case studies which are representative for each period of apocalyptic fiction and which elaborate on contemporary themes in context of apocalyptic threats and fears in more detail. 12 British Apocalyptic Fiction
The partition of chapters 2 to 7 runs along the great historical divides of the 20th and 21st century: the First World War and the Second World War, the Cold War, the attacks of September 11. Apparently, only historical events of the highest magnitude have the potential to evoke new or different ideas about the end of humankind. These historical events provide the cultural conditions fundamental to the production and reception of apocalyptic fiction. Chapter 2 explains the emergence of apocalyptic fiction in Britain towards the end of the 19th century and ascribes the genre’s growing popularity to the popularization of the second law of thermodynamics and the theory of evolution as well as Britain’s challenged role as the world’s most powerful nation at the end of the Victorian era. H. G. Wells’ short story ‘The Star’ (1897) emphasizes the fact that evolutionary theory and astronomical discoveries shaped end-of-the-world fears around the turn of the century. The case study of The Violet Flame: A Story of Armageddon and After (1899) by novelist Fred T. Jane reveals contemporary fears of foreign invasion, emphasizing the threat of the anarchist movement in Britain and the dangers of modern science to British hegemony. Chapter 3 shows that British stories of apocalyptic fiction since the First World War and up to the end of the Second World War address deep-rooted fears of war in British society. The analysis of Things to Come (1936), the film adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The Shape of Things to Come (1933), demonstrates the Great War’s traumatic effect on British culture and furthermore points towards British culture’s ambiguous stance towards science and progress at the time. Chapter 4 deals with the dangers that nuclear weapons and the East-West conflict posed for British society in the Cold War era. The investigation of The Kraken Wakes (1953) by John Wyndham brings to light the dangers of Cold War mentality and paranoia. The study of Charles Eric Maine’s The Tide Went Out (1959) addresses the dangers of nuclear weapons and explores a changed perception of the nature of man in British apocalyptic fiction since the Second World War. Chapter 5 identifies fears of ecological catastrophe in 1960s and 1970s British apocalyptic fiction as a result of the environmental movement. The case study of John Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up (1972) alludes to several of the contemporary ecological threats and moreover establishes a causality between capitalist ideology and environmental doom. Chapter 6 describes a transitional phase in British apocalyptic fiction in the years after the end of the Cold War when it is not possible to identify a dominant discourse in British apocalyptic fiction. Rather than a discursive formation and master narrative, this time period is highly diverse and presents a number of distinct micro-narratives. The humorous novel Earthdoom! (1987) by David Langford and John Grant features most of these disparate non-dominant fears Introduction 13 circulating in British culture at the time and thereby ridicules the genre, its tradition and the idea of apocalypse itself. Chapter 7 argues that, since the beginning of the new millennium, there has been a return of dominant apocalyptic fears which are marked by globalization and the insecurity of the post-9/11 era. On the one hand, early 21st century apocalyptic discourse is dominated by the debate surrounding global climate change. On the other hand, fear of global pandemic, often embedded in zombie narratives, characterizes this new era of apocalyptic fiction in Britain. The analysis of 28 Weeks Later (2007), directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, reveals cultural anxieties over a viral epidemic in a distinct post 9/11 environment. The case study of Stephen Baxter’s Flood (2008) shows that global climate change is accepted and dreaded as a potential threat in British culture yet human impact remains controversial. The conclusion reviews the development and changes in apocalyptic fiction’s most consistent themes: the role of Britain in the world, the role of war and science and the (bad) nature of humankind. Furthermore, it contends that apocalyptic fiction started out as a vehicle to communicate fears from a national angle but, while retaining some of its Britishness, became increasingly international in perspective over time. The conclusion ends with an outlook on potential future studies related to British apocalyptic fiction as investigated here. Ch ap t er 1
A definition of apocalyptic fiction
Biblical predecessors
Biblical apocalyptic literature lends apocalyptic fiction not only its name but also its defining features. Therefore, in order to arrive at an adequate definition of apocalyptic fiction, it is essential to identify the key characteristics of biblical apocalyptic literature: the end of the world through violent destruction, the renewal of the world with the restoration of paradise and the Last Judgment.1 These three plot strands of biblical apocalypse have been taken up by secularized apocalyptic fiction and therefore continue to be fundamental for a definition of apocalyptic fiction.2 In the tradition of Judeo-Christian apocalypse, one of the key plot elements is the end of the world through violent destruction. It is especially this idea of catastrophe on a world-wide scale which is first and foremost attributed to apocalyptic texts. Both the apocalypses of the Old and the New Testament describe a series of cataclysmic events which eventually bring about the end of the world. The ‘perspective of catastrophe’3 is particularly strong in the Jewish tradition:
Sometimes this is described in terms of political action and military struggle; at other times the conflict assumes cosmic proportions and involving mysterious happenings on earth and in the heavens—earthquakes, famine, fearful celestial portents, and destruction by fire.4
Examples from Daniel’s apocalyptic prophecy and the Books of Ezekiel and Zechariah illustrate this.5 In the apocalyptic texts of the New Testament, disastrous occurrences take place in a similar fashion. There, the catastrophic events not only describe the ultimate end of the world through destruction but also function, in an initial stage of the apocalyptic narrative, as harbingers of the coming end. The Book of Revelation, for example, heralds the destruction of the world by opening with a series of catastrophes. After the slain lamb breaks the sixth seal, the sun appears as ‘black as a sackcloth of hair’, ‘the stars of heaven fell unto the earth’, and ‘every mountain and island were moved out of their places’.6 Accordingly, both Gysin and Lewis, in their summaries of apocalyptic events or moments, state that disasters7 or ‘periodic natural disturbances, earthquakes and the like’8 start off the apocalyptic narrative. A definition of apocalyptic fiction 15
The actual end of the world is again accompanied by sensational, cataclysmic events. In the Book of Revelation, the world is haunted by a series of plagues when the seven angels of God pour out their vials filled with God’s wrath. The succession of devastating events reaches its climax after the last angel pours out the final vial and thereby sets off the concluding catastrophe:
And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. […] And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent.9
As with the corresponding passage in the Gospel of Mark,10 natural disasters of epic proportions predominate in this description of the end of the world. Next to the violent destruction of the Earth, the other crucial element of biblical apocalypse is the renewal of the world in combination with the restoration of paradise. Although it may not be as salient as the element of catastrophe, it plays a significant role in the major apocalypses of Daniel and the Book of Revelation. In Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, a row of four earthly kingdoms come and go until God sets up ‘a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed’.11 As a heavenly eternal order, God’s coming kingdom stands for a new world, even though the world has merely changed and not been physically replaced. In John’s Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, the renewal of the world takes place literally. After the destruction of the old world, John sees in his vision ‘a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away’.12 The new world, then, is the place where God and his people ‘shall reign for ever and ever’.13 For this purpose, God founds New Jerusalem where man’s days of pain and sorrow are over and where a new glorious age has just started. The New Jerusalem is a place where man has nothing to fear, resembling the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis: ‘In this new divine order, the end will be as the beginning and paradise will be restored.’14 Therefore, the narrative of apocalypse represents both the end of one world and the beginning of a new one. Apart from these most crucial apocalyptic elements, the third important plot element of Judeo-Christian apocalypse is God’s Last Judgment. The proceedings of the Last Judgment are explicitly mentioned as ‘judgment’ in chapters 17 to 20 of John’s Apocalypse. In between the end of the world and the restoration of paradise, ‘men were judged every man according to their works’.15 A selection takes place among the people of the Earth which separates the people into the elect—those who are to enter the new paradise—and the non-elect. This separation of the people also features prominently in other apocalyptic texts of the Old and New Testament.16 16 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Defining secularized apocalyptic fiction The end of the world features prominently in Judeo-Christian apocalypse and continues to be the most easily distinguishable and essential aspect of any piece of apocalyptic fiction.17 However, in contrast to the biblical precursors, the world in apocalyptic fiction is not factually destroyed and later physically replaced by a paradisiacal new one. As a result, it is not apparent when the state of the end of the world is reached as the literal destruction almost never takes place in apocalyptic fiction. This dilemma has not been tackled sufficiently so far—many scholars do not bother to elaborate on the concept of end of the world, destruction, etc.—which has even led some to evade a precise definition completely.18 Here, the terms world and violent destruction are explained first to define the end of the world in context of apocalyptic fiction. Generally, when the end of the world is discussed, we talk about the planet Earth: ‘When we speak about the End of the World, we usually only mean our world.’19 And even though many novels and films have taken human beings to other planets or sometimes even universes, the concept of world is still restricted to the Earth and its inhabitants, even in science fiction and apocalyptic fiction. As Earth does not suffer so much damage in apocalyptic fiction so as to cease to exist, world comes to signify ‘essentially a totality of human beings […]. Other living beings and the entire non-living environment are secondary’20 to the lives of the human race. In apocalyptic fiction, consequently, the end of humanity on Earth is equivalent to the end of the world. As with apocalyptic literature of the biblical tradition, the end of the world in secularized apocalyptic fiction occurs through acts of—rather unexpected— violent destruction. Often, it is an extraordinary and thrilling (series of) event(s), ‘a violent eruption of natural and supernatural powers’.21 In many other instances, the threat to humankind develops slowly and gradually.22 Both types of apocalyptic fiction have in common that, in most cases, a considerable proportion of mankind is spared. This, however, creates a conflict for the purpose of definition. On the one hand, it is proposed that a defining feature of apocalyptic fiction is the end of humankind. On the other hand, this end is (almost) never arrived at in this type of fiction. Hence, a definition of apocalyptic fiction cannot rely on the condition of unforeseen extinction of the human race because extinction hardly ever takes place. The question, then, is what is it exactly that makes stories apocalyptic if the end of all human life cannot be the defining feature. It is not expedient to count the number of victims in order to determine if something is held to be merely a disaster or in fact an apocalypse: ‘The shapes adopted by [apocalyptic] disasters which afflict humanity are legion. Sometimes they are presented as threats and other times as genocidal realities.’23 Consequently, there are apocalyptic A definition of apocalyptic fiction 17 narratives in which factually hardly anybody, respectively nobody dies. This is the case when a global cataclysm is expected but fails to come true, as for example in some tales of cosmic disasters.24 An effective approach is to characterize the end of the world through violent destruction in abstract terms as the breakdown of (an) order resulting from a threat to the whole of mankind. Actually, both Grimm and Seed regard social breakdown as central to apocalyptic fiction in their respective introductions to collections of essays on apocalyptic writings. For Grimm, it is the defining characteristic: ‘Those works are called “apocalyptic” that […] imagine an order which is in the process of continuous dissolution and is unstoppably heading towards downfall and catastrophe.’25 Seed’s analysis of aftermath novels— apocalyptic novels which deal not only with the destruction of the world but also depict extensively the events after the cataclysm—comes to a similar conclusion when he describes the initial phase of these novels as the ‘secularized destruction of old order’.26 Facing the end, the human race starts to disregard the rules and values on which civilization is built. This definition of a collapsing order holds up when one looks at the general characteristics of representative examples of apocalyptic fiction. In anticipation of the coming cataclysm, societal law and order stop working and give way to a state of chaos and anarchy. Wagar notes:
What most [apocalyptic novels] do have in common is a thorough awareness of the vulnerability of civilization, and the ease with which its structures disintegrate in the face of disaster. In nearly every scenario of the end of the world […] attention centers less on the catastrophe itself […] than on the way it succeeds in unravelling the threads of the social order.27
In apocalyptic fiction, this breakdown of civilization and its order is marked by several plot elements which illustrate the general atmosphere of anarchy and chaos. These formulaic plot elements can be found in the narrative up to the point when order is finally restored, thus either during thebreakdown of order and/ or during the depiction of a world in disorder. These two stages are preoccupied with the state of disorder and contain generic tropes of lawlessness. One major sign of lawlessness is the devaluation of personal property which is in many cases represented by the looting of homes and businesses. When falling back into a state of nature, former entitlements to goods have lost their meaning and are distributed anew. When order is still in the process of breaking down at the beginning of the cataclysmic process or before the apocalyptic event, valuables tend to be taken into possession by violent means. In John Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up (1972), a riotous populace fights off the army and breaks into buildings, ‘carrying what they can, leaving what they can’t’.28 When the number of people has already been severely reduced by the catastrophe, practically anything is free to be taken hold of as only few remain to watch over it. In 18 British Apocalyptic Fiction
28 Days Later (2002), for example, the main characters Jim, Selena, Frank, and Hannah visit an abandoned supermarket to shop for food and supplies.29 Yet crossing the boundaries of law is not confined to material possessions, the individual body has also lost its legally protected sanctity and is under threat of harm. People are either wantonly killed in the personal struggle for survival or their bodies are exploited for personal pleasure or societal benefits. With regard to physical abuse, it is a generic convention that women are victimized. During the initial breakdown, it is men who often take advantage of the lawless situation and rape women to act out their sexual instincts and demonstrate their (physical) power. This is especially typical of post-Second World War apocalyptic fiction likeThe Death of Grass (1956) by John Christopher in which looters abduct and rape the protagonist’s wife and daughter. In a more advanced phase of the apocalyptic narrative, often when the human race has come down to its last members or when (provisional) order is restored, women are held captive for mating purposes in order to repopulate the planet. In, 28 Days Later, Major West and his soldiers take Selena and Hannah as prisoners and mating partners to increase the chance of long-term survival. Another symptom of anarchic chaos is the occurrence of riots and panic- stricken escapes. Riots are often the result of the beginning of disintegration of order and society. Sometimes, they are an expression of hedonistic excesses when people try to enjoy their last days on Earth. In The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), for instance, teenage kids celebrate a violent and chaotic street party on the day before the world is supposed to end. In case the catastrophe is perceived to be limited to a certain area, attempts are made to get away from the danger zone which leads to frenzied scenes of escape. Essentially the entire plot of Stephen Baxter’s The Flood (2008) is a tale of flight, first escaping from Britain, then the Peruvian Andes, and finally off the face of the Earth. A further frequent plot element symptomatic of a world breaking down is an increase in suicides among the population. In anticipation of the coming end, characters are no longer able to bear the terrible suspense and consequences of being the last people on Earth and are anxious to get their lives over with, overdosing on medication or turning a weapon on themselves. In Nevil Shute’s apocalyptic classic On the Beach (1957), some of the main characters take suicide pills before they come into contact with nuclear fallout. In addition to signs of a disintegrating order, the stages of breakdown of order and world in disorder are also marked by efforts to regain order and control. On the one hand, there are those attempts which are directed at actively fighting or preventing the disaster. In case the catastrophe is anticipated by humankind, the people in power, politicians and scientists in most cases, will try to think of ways to stop the apocalypse from happening. This takes place, for instance, in the rescue mission novel The Hammer of God (1993) or Danny Boyle’s film A definition of apocalyptic fiction 19
Sunshine (2007). If the apocalypse is already on its way, the leaders of society attempt to stop the apocalyptic process by taking counter-measures. For example, in The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), the world’s governments decide to detonate four atomic bombs in Siberia in an attempt to re-shift the Earth’s axis and stop its movement towards the sun. On the other hand, when there is no possibility for the human race to prevent the cataclysm, the characters try to fight the consequences of social disintegration. As the power of political structures and institutions collapses and with it societal order, civilization drifts into a state of civil war. In an attempt to preserve society, it is one generic convention that political leaders will have the military, as the state’s peacekeeping power, step in and try to regain control over the riotous population by force. One typical way of doing so is for the military to shut off restricted areas of small size to regain some level of control as, for instance, in 28 Weeks Later. In cases where political power has already disintegrated and the established government has failed to get the situation under control, the power vacuum is filled by a new form of government. In general, there is a tendency in apocalyptic fiction for democratic institutions to be replaced by less complex, more hierarchical and typically authoritarian regimes: dictatorships, military regimes, or tribes. These new regimes often also employ military organizations to regain control and emphasize their new status as political leaders. Torrence in The Day of the Triffids (1951) and Major West in 28 Days Later are typical representations of this military-style non-democratic leader in apocalyptic fiction. Nonetheless, it is not sufficient to characterize the end of the world as a depiction of the collapse of order alone. To distinguish apocalyptic fiction from similar genres like disaster fiction, it is crucial to emphasize that in apocalyptic fiction, the breakdown of order or the replacement of one order by another is caused by a threat to the survival of the human race in its entirety. Such a threat exists if the narrative suggests that the upcoming or already progressing disaster has the capability of obliterating humankind if it realizes its full potential and/ or is left unchecked. For this study, this would include those tales in which just the British population is endangered in instances in which the story never looks outside Britain as if the rest of the world simply did not exist. This is true, for instance, in H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898) in which the whole narrative takes place in London and the surrounding countryside. The general feeling of the novel, though, is that if the Martians’ invasion brings about the end to Britain and its people, then the rest of humankind is equally doomed. However, this exception would not include stories in which the British people are about to be extinct while the plot relates that the rest of the world, in contrast, is not affected and thus does not face extinction. 28 Days Later certainly presents a borderline case in this respect: While the film’s plot and atmosphere 20 British Apocalyptic Fiction are essentially apocalyptic, there are hints midway through that the zombie pandemic never spread beyond Britain. It is essential to make the threat to humankind part of the definition of apocalyptic fiction considering that there are other genres which share the characteristic of an order lost (and regained). However, despite the fact that these genres are often regarded or interpreted as apocalyptic, it is not to be mistaken with narratives that depict the destruction of the Earth by violent means. War fiction30 or the Elizabethan tragedy are two examples.31 Next to the description of warfare, the former often describes the breakdown of civilization similar in fashion to what is labelled ‘apocalyptic fiction’ here. The latter, the Elizabethan tragedy, describes events in which an order—in more abstract terms—breaks down and, by the end, is replaced by a new one. The difference between these two definitions of apocalyptic is, above all, that one is about the imagined end of the world and the other one is about a catastrophe which, while not threatening all of mankind, is so significant that one might be willing to compare it to the end of the world. The term ‘apocalypse’, then, mainly denotes a historical divide between one period and another.32 In these cases, the apocalyptic event is not equivalent to a global cataclysm but is used metaphorically and thus can refer to any kind of traumatic experience or holocaust,33 even a personal one. This is certainly one way of setting about the subject matter of apocalyptic fiction and there are several studies which have adapted precisely this wider, more figurative approach.34 This study opts for a more literal and thus restricted application of the term ‘apocalyptic fiction’. It is fiction that speculates about the end of humanity. It roughly refers to what others have called ‘stories about the end of the world’,35 ‘tales of the end of the world’36 or ‘end-of-the-world fiction’.37 To use the term ‘apocalyptic fiction’ is to indicate two things. First, it shows that modern secularized end-of-the-world stories of the last 200 years stand in the tradition of an old literary genre. Secondly, the label apocalyptic fiction implies, in contrast to its rival label ‘end-of-the-world fiction’, that the vast majority of these stories do not end with the catastrophe but are also concerned with its aftermath. A world in disorder, the fictional guise of God’s Last Judgment, follows the breakdown of order in apocalyptic fiction. Similar to the Last Judgment as depicted in the apocalypses of the Bible, it is during this stage of complete disorder that it is ultimately determined who will survive and who is to die, or, to rephrase that in biblical terminology, who is among the elect and who is not. Rather than a divine authority, it is at times human authorities which control the fate of humankind. In these cases, social rank and profession are decisive in whether somebody is part of the elect or in fact expendable. For instance, in The Tide Went Out (1958) by Charles Eric Maine, only politicians, scientists, high-ranked military officials, and doctors are selected by the government to A definition of apocalyptic fiction 21 take refuge in the Arctic survival camp. In most cases, however, the division into elect and non-elect is the result of a struggle that follows the logic of the survival of the fittest. Thus, the Last Judgment is an essential element of modern apocalyptic fiction, even if it might not be as foregrounded and pronounced as in its traditional predecessors. May and Ahearn in fact claim that the Last Judgment is an integral part of the apocalyptic narrative. May declares that a ‘novel is normally considered apocalyptic if […] it possesses at least two of the specific symbolisms of apocalypse: catastrophe and judgement.’38 Ahearn points out: ‘Apocalypse of course means the violent end of the world and coming of the Last Judgement’.39 In apocalyptic fiction, it is sometimes difficult to separate the end of the world from the Last Judgment as they are both marked by a (growing) absence of order. Consequently, it is not surprising that many narrative elements of the breakdown of order also emerge during the phase of a world in disorder. To find a clear-cut dividing line between the end of the world and the Last Judgment in apocalyptic fiction is generally a problem when the catastrophe appears to be a process rather than an event, for example when there is a plague, human infertility, or creeping ecological doom. Only if the apocalypse is brought about by a comparatively short-lived and sudden event, such as a cosmological catastrophe, nuclear war, or natural disaster, is it possible to keep these two phases more clearly apart. The apocalyptic event then serves as a borderline. The stage of a world in disorder is reached by the time a state of total anarchy is at hand. This stage compares to the ‘state of nature’ in social contract theories of political philosophy such as Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651). In Leviathan, Hobbes deals with how men and women behave before the state, ‘a common power to keep them all in awe’,40 is established. Hobbes comes to characterize this ‘state of nature’ as ‘a war of every man against every man’.41 In apocalyptic fiction, humankind falls back into this state after the breakdown of order. This struggle most often leads to Hobbes’ ‘war of every man against every man’ in which every other human being is a potential lethal enemy. In other cases, humanity stays mostly united but is involved in a final battle against natural forces or other non-human life forms, e.g. aliens, monstrous animals etc. Accordingly, the phase of a world in disorder ends as soon as the threat to humankind—and with it the struggle for survival—comes to a close. At this point, the human race is finally able to reorganize itself permanently and to re-establish civilization and thus some kind of order. From this point onwards, the narrative of apocalyptic fiction finds itself in its last stage,order restored. The formation of a new order, the third and final phase of the apocalyptic narrative, corresponds with the renewal of the world in biblical apocalypse. The survivors’ safety is secured and the remaining humans are ready to repopulate 22 British Apocalyptic Fiction the Earth. In stories in which the apocalyptic disaster has ongoing negative long-term effects, it might be slightly euphemistic to call this a restoration of paradise. Then again, mankind is given another opportunity to start anew and has got the Earth at its free disposal once again, a scenario that bears similarity to Adam and Eve’s situation in biblical Eden on some level. As a matter of fact, there are a number of apocalyptic stories in which humanity is reduced to one male and one female, mirroring the set-up in biblical paradise. One such novel is The Purple Cloud (1901) by M. P. Shiel in which the aptly named main character Adam and the woman Leda are the only remaining human inhabitants of the world, ready to start a new civilization. All in all, the stage ‘order restored’ is most often present in British apocalyptic fiction in some way and thus is integral to the genre. The phase ‘order restored’, then, depicts a new society after the end. During this stage, apocalyptic fiction adopts characteristics of utopian literature which also depicts ‘alternative societies’.42 The difference is that, instead of merely travelling in time or space, apocalyptic fiction reaches the utopian setting primarily by destroying the old world and building a new one instead.43 In contrast to apocalyptic literature of the Bible, which only offers the utopia of paradise, ‘a rebirth into a new and infinitely better world’,44 secularized apocalyptic fiction also offers a dystopian version of the apocalyptic aftermath. Yet Edward James states that ‘most [apocalyptic narratives] are bucolic or Edenic arcadias’.45 While there is certainly a tendency in late 19th century British apocalyptic fiction to celebrate the pastoral, 20th century fiction does less so and if it features a return to nature, it does not necessarily do so in an idyllic fashion. While the renewal of the world is an integral part of apocalyptic literature, stories which relate the events after the end have often been labelled as ‘post- apocalyptic’ rather than ‘apocalyptic’. Actually, several terms have been coined for this type of fiction: ‘post-holocaust sf’,46 ‘postcatastrophe stories’,47 or ‘post- apocalypse/post-apocalyptic fiction’.48 By and large, all of these terms refer to ‘works that follow humankind after a nuclear, ecological, or cataclysmic disaster’.49 The definitions behind the terms differ, though, with respect to how long after the apocalyptic disaster the narrative of these works starts. Post- apocalyptic fiction can range from tales ‘set in the time period directly following some sort of world cataclysm‘50 to narratives ‘set at least a generation after whatever disaster brought about the fall of civilization’.51 By and large, the majority of these definitions of post-apocalyptic suggest that post-apocalyptic fiction is about a world in disorder and eventually portrays a restoration of order, so that their definition of post-apocalyptic fiction overlaps with this study’s definition of apocalyptic fiction. If one were to accept these characterizations of post-apocalyptic fiction, it would in fact make the term ‘apocalyptic fiction’ essentially redundant. Looking at the corpus of British apocalyptic fiction, there A definition of apocalyptic fiction 23 are hardly any texts that restrict themselves to the stage breakdown of order because apocalyptic fiction is more than just about the end of the world, more than merely the depiction of global catastrophe. This overlap in definition has led to some confusion. One consequence of this confusion is that apocalyptic fiction and post-apocalyptic fiction haven been used interchangeably. In his article ‘Post-apocalypse now’, Marc Donner first says that he ‘will look at an example of the post-apocalyptic genre, David Brin’s 1985 novel The Postman […]’,52 only to point out later that the same novel stands out ‘[a]mong apocalyptic fiction’.53 Another example is Newman’s introduction to his book Apocalypse Movies (2000) in which apocalypse and post-apocalypse are constantly used as if referring to the same thing without giving a definition for either.54 The other consequence is that the same piece of fiction is called ‘apocalyptic’ by some, ‘post-apocalyptic’ by others. When Donner defines post- apocalypse, he writes:
For our purposes, post-apocalyptic means that some cataclysmic transforming event upsets the order of things. These stories are typically structured with preambles that establish some linkage to the normal present as we know it, follow with the cataclysm, and finish with a post-apocalyptic world in which characters deal in one way or another with the change.55
Donner’s definition of post-apocalyptic not only overlaps but corresponds to this study’s definition of apocalyptic fiction. Yet Donner gives no indication as to why he favours the term ‘post-apocalyptic’ over ‘apocalyptic’ when in fact he describes the narrative pattern of biblical apocalypse. The most extraordinary example for the confusion over the apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic distinction is John Joseph Adam’s describing Mary Shelley’s The Last Man as the ‘first significant post-apocalyptic work’.56 However, The Last Man actually never describes the renewal of society and the world after the apocalypse and thus hardly qualifies as post-apocalyptic fiction. Adam appears to confuse the stages ‘world in disorder’ and ‘order restored’, a confusion that is probably due to the fact that the apocalyptic plague in Shelley’s novel is a slow-moving process. This potentially allows for different starting points of the post-apocalyptic, similar to the problem of separating the end of the world from the Last Judgment. To define apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, the end of apocalyptic and the beginning of post-apocalyptic need to be clearly established. If one were to take the starting point of an apocalyptic process, the beginning of the post- apocalyptic narrative would then coincide with the starting point of the end of the world, i.e., the breakdown of order, and thus make apocalyptic fiction as a category obsolete. Any point in time between the start of the process and the end of it can only be arbitrary as it is problematical to precisely pinpoint this moment in the narrative. Thus, the best reference point is the end of the 24 British Apocalyptic Fiction apocalyptic process, either when the threat to humanity has come to a halt or when it has succeeded in eliminating the human race. This is the approach taken by this study. The major advantage of this approach is that it works for both types of catastrophes, cataclysmic events and cataclysmic processes. Accordingly, post-apocalyptic fiction focuses on the time when or after order has been restored after an apocalyptic threat to mankind. In these stories, the catastrophe is often long forgotten or mythologized if it occurred in the distant past. It is different from apocalyptic fiction in that it deals (almost) exclusively with the aftermath, the final stage of apocalyptic fiction. A description of either the breakdown of order or the world in disorder, or both, can be part of a post-apocalyptic narrative. However, this part never exceeds a marginal status in post-apocalyptic fiction. For example, in Richard Jefferies’ classic post-apocalyptic novel After London (1885), only the first five of altogether 28 chapters relate the collapse of society and the subsequent ‘Relapse into Barbarism’.57 The remaining 23 chapters describe the new society that has arisen in the aftermath of the breakdown. Therefore, post- apocalyptic fiction is indeed a subgenre of utopian literature. This view is confirmed when searching through bibliographies of utopian literature: Major examples of British post-apocalyptic fiction—Richard Jefferies’After London, Aldous Huxley’s Ape and Essence (1948) or John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids (1955)—are all listed.58 Hence, prototypical apocalyptic fiction starts with the breakdown of order and ends with its restoration, thus covering all three stages of the apocalyptic narrative. Using terms from prototypicality theory, these apocalyptic stories are the ‘clearest cases’, the ‘best examples’ or ‘prototype’ of apocalyptic fiction.59 Non-prototype members might do without an explicit and detailed description of either the end of the world or the restored order. John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951) starts in medias res with the phase ‘world in disorder’, The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) ends just before order is (potentially) restored. Nevertheless, these are tales of apocalyptic fiction even though they only focus on one or two of the three generic stages of the apocalyptic narrative.
*
This study’s definition of apocalyptic fiction primarily relies on the presence of a threat to mankind initiating a breakdown of order. The anticipation and advancing realization of the end of the world, a phrase which must be understood as a synonym for the end of the human race, is the starting point of the apocalyptic narrative which consists of three stages: breakdown of order— world in disorder—order restored. These three stages of apocalyptic fiction A definition of apocalyptic fiction 25 correspond to the three stages of biblical apocalypse: the end of the world through violent destruction, the Last Judgment, and the renewal of the world with a restoration of paradise. A prototypical example of apocalyptic fiction covers all three stages of the apocalyptic narrative. To be identified as apocalyptic fiction at all, a narrative should at least relate the events of the first (breakdown of order) or the second (world in disorder) of the three phases in greater detail. The other stages can be merely sketched out or implied; in rare cases, the stage ‘order restored’ does not take place at all. Stories which only deal with the final phase (order restored) are not so much concerned with the disaster and its immediate consequences but portray societies after the end. These stories are better described as post-apocalyptic fiction: To set them apart from representative instances of apocalyptic fiction and to emphasize the fact that they most strongly share the characteristics of utopian literature. Ch ap t er 2
First age of extinction
Britain during the late Victorian and Edwardian period
In the course of the 19th century, apocalyptic discourse in Britain became increasingly emancipated from religious ideas. Concepts of apocalypse drastically changed after several scientific discoveries pointed towards the possibility of an absence of divine intervention behind the existence and development of the human race. The second law of thermodynamics and the theory of evolution were essential in transforming ideas about the existence of humankind. Moreover, they were the driving forces behind a secularized guise of apocalyptic imagination as both theories disconnected the fate of humankind from heavenly powers and a divine plan: ‘Evolutionism, and the allied powers of science, technology, and human invention, did succeed in replacing—in important respects—God and eternity with natural forces’.1 Earth was regarded as just another planet, susceptible to the general principles of the universe, humankind just another species, prone to extinction. The second law of thermodynamics, also known by the term entropy, indicated that irreversible physical processes would ultimately lead to the end of organic life on Earth. It presented ‘a scientific image of the promised end, the horror of an earth unfit for human life.’2 In 1852, it reached a wide British audience when William Thomson’s essay ‘On a Universal Tendency in Nature to the Dissipation of Mechanical Energy’ popularized the idea that the quality and usability of energy continuously decreases over time so that eventually, after millions of years, Earth, and actually the entire universe, would become uninhabitable.3 Thomson and other physicists envisaged the end of the universe to come in the shape of a heat death.4 Therefore, the British public no longer necessarily thought of the world’s end as a result of divine intervention. Instead, the end of the world had been broken down to a mathematical equation: ‘Prophets through the ages have predicted the end of the earth; Thomson gives a formula for its final temperature’.5 In ‘On a Universal Tendency in Nature’, Thomson used ‘non- technical language [which] suggests that he wanted to reach the widest possible audience’6. He gave lectures on entropy and thermodynamics, talking about First age of extinction 27 when life on Earth had begun and when it would end. A newspaper article in The Pall Mall Gazette documents the public interest in Thomson’s work and his ideas about the end of the world. The article entitled ‘Date of the End of the World’ explains that the sun has existed for 20 million years and will continue to exist for another 10 million years until its eventual heat death.7 This may not have conjured up dramatic images of apocalyptic catastrophes in the public mind but certainly familiarized the British population with a secularized scenario of humankind’s extinction. The theory of evolution and its popularity further increased public awareness of the possibility of an apocalyptic end to the human race. Initially, it was Robert Chambers’ Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) which first introduced evolutionary thought to a wider English speaking public.8 Chambers believed that ‘everything in nature is progressing toward a higher state’9 by way of transmutation. This seriously questioned the dominant position of Creationism on the origin of life:
Creationism maintained that the adaptive features of each characteristic structure of animals and plants had been purposely created by a divine intelligence. It was argued that the order and complexity of the natural world could not be the product of natural forces alone. Only God, it was asserted, could impose such a system of design on nature.10
Creationism represented the scenario as described in the Book of Genesis. If, however, nature had changed and, in fact, improved over time, then God’s creation, according to Chamber’s conclusion, must have been somewhat flawed in its original design. Vestiges became a bestseller in Victorian Britain and sold over 100,000 copies in 13 editions.11 Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and his contemporaries established evolutionary theory in Victorian culture for good and initiated a debate about the origins of humankind. Darwin inferred from fossil findings that terrestrial species are not fixed but undergo changes by a mechanism he called natural selection. Natural selection suggested that those creatures that are best adapted to their environment have the best chances of survival and procreation. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection ‘brought Darwin’s […] theory to the attention of the wider scientific community and, equally significantly, to the general public.’12 It triggered further significant works on evolution: Thomas Henry Huxley’s Man’s Place in Nature (1863), Charles Lyell’s Antiquity of Man (1863) and finally Darwin’s own Descent of Man (1871). These publications focused more strongly on human evolution than Origin of Species. They implied that ‘man had probably evolved from lower animals over long periods of time.’13 28 British Apocalyptic Fiction
As a result of his findings, Darwin declared that man and ape shared the same ancestry:
The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, proceeded.14
This revolutionary idea quickly spread within British culture. 14,000 copies of The Descent of Man were sold within a decade, 35,000 copies by the end of the century.15 The ensuing popularity of Darwin’s theory is also evident in the iconic caricature which appeared in The Hornet in 1871, the same year The Descent of Man was published (Figure 1). It shows Darwin’s head mounted on the body of an orang-outang. Thus, evolutionary theory brought to public attention the notion that humankind was just one species among others. Hence, like all other species, it was subject to natural vagaries and possible extinction: ‘Fossil evidence revealed that there had not just been one creation: species had been made extinct, and new ones created, over vast ages.’16 Accordingly, contemporaries were inclined to deduce that the whole of humanity was susceptible to the processes and chances of nature in the near or distant future. Moreover, evolutionary thought infused Victorian culture in the shape of Social Darwinism. In reaction to Darwin’s Origin of Species, Herbert Spencer coined the term ‘Survival of the Fittest’ in his book Principles of Biolog y (1864). Whereas he intended this term to be used synonymously with Darwin’s ‘Natural Selection’, ‘Survival of the Fittest’ was subsequently often taken to mean the active struggle for existence which implied that only the fittest organisms would prevail. Advocates of Social Darwinism took up this misconception of Spencer’s expression. Here, Spencer was ‘interpreted as providing a biological rationale for society as a ruthless struggle for existence’.17 Social Darwinism, then, was applicable to the struggle of nation states for political power and colonial territory. Walter Bagehot, for example, promoted this perspective:
In Physics and Politics [1872], he sought to demonstrate that throughout history the strongest nations had always dominated or conquered weaker ones. He emphasized that the progress of civilization depended upon the operation of natural selection applied to national groups.18
Accordingly, the most advanced societies would survive whereas weak cultures would become extinct. The apocalyptic implications of the second law of thermodynamics and the theory of evolution offered a more ambivalent perspective on science. In consequence, the hitherto mostly positive public image of science underwent a negative turn at the end of the 19th century: First age of extinction 29
Figure 1: Charles Darwin as an ape. Caricature by an unknown artist. ‘A Venerable Orang- outang. A contribution to unnatural history’. The Hornet, 22 March 1871. 30 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Science had long marched under the banner of progress, but now evolutionary biology and thermodynamics taught that decay was as much a part of the order of things as progress. These images were as central to the late nineteenth-century scene as test tubes, microscopes, and Petri dishes.19
This more nuanced attitude extended to other fields of science beyond evolutionary theory and thermodynamics. The public reaction to the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in 1895 serves as a good example of divided public opinion on science. The reprint of an X-ray photograph in several scientific journals as well as in newspapers caused immediate and enthusiastic responses by scientists and a public audience20 so that ‘[t]he phenomenon was rapidly assimilated into the popular culture of the day.’21 However, there were also sceptical reactions. A poem in the popular magazine Punch, for example, appealed to ‘beware’ of Roentgen and his ‘grim and graveyard humour’.22 The poem evokes associations of death by referring to the morbid quality of X-ray photography that merely shows skeletal bones. Other British periodicals also cautioned against the use of X-rays by pointing out their harmful potential.23 As a result of the scientific discoveries in the 19th century24 and in accordance with people’s increasing apprehension of science and its findings, non- metaphysical forms of disaster started to permeate the apocalyptic discourse. The example of Herbert C. Fyfe’s article ‘How Will the World End?’, published in 1900 in Pearson’s Magazine, shows the increasing popularity of apocalyptic scenarios beyond the biblical. The introductory paragraphs of Fyfe’s article signal that the implications of the theory of evolution were vital for this change of perspective:
It is our purpose in this article […] to emphasise the lesson taught by Nature that the individual counts for nothing in the history of the race, the race for nothing in the life of the planet, and the planet for nothing in the duration of the Universe.25
In what follows, Fyfe refers to contemporary scientific theories to list a number of scenarios that could cause the extinction of humankind: lack of air and oxygen, significant decrease of solar energy and temperature, collision with a comet, eradication by another (monstrous) species, epidemic disease, radical change of Earth’s condition, starvation and thirst due to a shortage of food and water for the ever increasing human population.26 This extensive list shows that speculations about the end of the world thrived in the scientific community and the British public at the turn of the century. Possibly more than anything else, predictions of a comet catastrophe were at the forefront of the apocalyptic discourse in Britain in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. The Austrian astronomer Rudolf Falb was one of First age of extinction 31 the most outspoken promoters of this idea. His prediction that the end of the world would come in the year 1899 in the shape of Biela’s Comet was taken seriously to some degree since Falb had ‘a reputation all over Europe for his meteorological knowledge and particularly for his extraordinary familiarity with the habits and customs of earthquakes.’27 He predicted that Biela’s comet would ‘collide with our globe; then “the fireworks” and—darkness.’28 In the build-up to the catastrophic disaster, New York was supposed to be submerged by a tidal wave while the geology of Florida and California would drastically change due to suboceanic earthquakes. Several British newspapers in the 1890s featured articles under the headline ‘The End of the World’, reporting on Falb’s scientific prophecy.29 Fyfe’s article on the end of the world also makes reference to Falb, stating that ‘Prof. Falb’s prophecy actually caused no little dismay among the poorer classes of the Continental peasantry’.30 In addition to a direct comet impact, Earth’s passage through a comet’s tail was perceived as a great threat to humankind in 1881 and 1910. In 1881, three astronomers ‘photographed the spectrum of the comet of the year’, thereby discovering ‘the poisonous gas cyanogen’31 in the comet’s tail. James M. Swanustedt claimed that ‘the end of the world will be on 12th November […] and will be accomplished through the agency of a comet’.32 In 1908, astronomers once again found evidence of cyanogen gas in Comet Morehouse. When Earth was scheduled to pass through Halley’s Comet two years later in 1910, ‘public concern mounted regarding the possibility of world-wide poisoning’.33 Within a short period of time, cataclysmic ideas spread among the populace as ‘newspapers fuelled fears of doom and gloom’.34 In Britain, ‘oxygen cylinders were on hand in some London homes’35 to enable survival in the poisoned atmosphere. Apart from these speculative predictions in contemporary British newspaper articles on the end of the world, apocalyptic rhetoric can also be found with regard to British foreign affairs. An article in The Illustrated London News from 1875 states that the arms race among the Continental European nations at the time gives the impression that ‘the world is on the eve of the Battle of Armageddon’.36 The writer of the article voices his concerns that the seemingly stable Continental peace might come to an end sooner than one would have hoped for. An article in The Reynold’s Newspaper reports on a clergyman, Reverend Baxter, who describes the downfall of Britain at the hands of France in an apocalyptic scenario as found in the Book of Revelation. According to Baxter, the ‘Antichrist would be a Napoleon’.37 Baxter further foresees that France will conquer Germany, annex Luxemburg, Belgium and the Prussian Rhine provinces. In addition, ‘England would be more or less subjugated by [France]’.38 For the outcome, Baxter predicts that Christ will come down to Earth to destroy the French Antichrist so that the Millennium can begin. 32 British Apocalyptic Fiction
The apocalyptic rhetoric with regard to foreign affairs can be read in context of British fears of national decline. In the closing decades of the 19th century, Britain’s status as the world’s sole power was increasingly challenged by other nations. The declining economic situation was especially worrying:
During the 1880s and 1890s, English society came under pressure from a number of urgent problems. A faltering economy, rising unemployment, revelations of shocking poverty and widespread labour unrest caused intellectuals grave concern.39
This prompted an expansionist policy to guarantee the seemingly threatened existence of the Empire40 and to preserve Britain’s status as the most powerful nation on Earth. However, this foreign policy proved to be problematic too because Britain’s competitors in the quest for political power—the United States, Germany, and France—pursued the same strategy. The ensuing New Imperialism, a competition for colonies all over the world, was an expression of the social Darwinist struggle for world hegemony and ‘seemed to presage Britain’s imminent eclipse’.41 The anxiety about Britain’s decline was additionally fuelled by the fact that Britain’s ascendancy in science and technology was a thing of the past. Instead, ‘[s]everal European nations (notably, Germany, France, and Belgium), the United States, and, to a more modest degree, Japan were rivalling Great Britain in scientific accomplishments and equalling or surpassing her technologically.’42 Thus, towards the end of the 19th century, Britain was on the verge of falling behind Germany and the United States in the realms of science and technology.43 French and German scientists made the milestone discoveries of the time: Pasteur, Becquerel, and the Curies were French; Koch and Roentgen were German. This was the result of a shortage of professionalism and a lack of institutionalisation and public funding in Britain. Especially in comparison to Germany and the United States, there were few universities of technology, practically no laboratories and only few research institutions outside universities.44 British scientists without ample means of their own could neither afford proper research facilities, expeditions, or scientific equipment nor were they able to make enough money in a career in the natural sciences.45 This new state of affairs left its mark on Britain’s collective self-consciousness: ‘The impression that late Victorian Britain had fallen behind comparable countries […] in scientific and technical achievements as well as in economic efficiency also contributed to a general loss in confidence’.46 Britain’s failure to expand and modernize its scientific capacities seemingly posed a threat to the nation. First age of extinction 33
Apocalyptic fiction 1895–1913
The rise of apocalyptic fiction in Britain
Up to the mid-1890s, none of the few British stories with generic traces of apocalyptic fiction are prototypical examples. The environmental catastrophe in Richard Jefferies’ After London (1885) serves rather as exposition for the main story, a typical adventure tale set in post-catastrophe England, which makes After London post-apocalyptic fiction. Jefferies’ short story ‘The Great Snow’ (c. 1875), not published at the time, William Deslisle Hay’s novella The Doom of the Great City (1880), and Robert Barr’s short story ‘The Doom of London’ (1894) all feature natural disasters which bring disorder and death. However, the impact of the cataclysm is restricted to London,47 which makes them representatives of the London disaster story that is especially popular around the turn of the century.48 The Crack of Doom (1886) by William Minto more closely resembles prototypical apocalyptic fiction. Parts of the British population come to believe that ‘the world was to be destroyed by a comet’.49 Minto’s novel features a fictional comet threat that causes social unrest, a new scenario for British fiction. Even though the comet never realizes its destructive potential, several passages, in accordance with genre expectations, describe the unsettling effect the approaching comet has on the public: ‘There was in fact at that moment a spectacle in the heavens startling enough to strike any crowd of men with awe’.50 However, the global threat merely sets the scene for several melodramatic plot lines and serves more as a backdrop to the, mostly romantic, entanglements. Yet with the advent of science fiction in the 1890s, examples of prototypical apocalyptic fiction surface in substantial numbers in Britain. More than half a dozen apocalyptic short stories and novels are published over the period of just a few years. According to Roger Luckhurst, four conditions favoured the increasing production and popularity of science fiction in the last decade of the nineteenth century:
(1) the extension of literacy and primary education to the majority of the population of England and America, including the working classes (2) the displacement of the older forms of mass literature […] with new cheap magazine formats that force formal innovation, and drive the invention of modern genre categories like detective or spy fiction as well as SF; (3) the arrival of scientific and technical institutions that provide a training for a lower-middle-class generation as scientific workers, teachers and engineers, (4) the context of a culture visibly transformed by technological and scientific innovations.51 34 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Science fiction, in speculating about the future on the grounds of current or future scientific facts and ideas, provided a perfect literary arena for end-of-the- world fiction. This is evident when looking at a selection of main characters in apocalyptic fiction at the turn of the 19th century. Scientists and their discoveries or inventions play a significant role in detecting or causing the catastrophe in contemporary British apocalyptic fiction. Most often, the scientist figure is the protagonist or one of the main characters in the story. Their field of expertise varies greatly and includes astronomers, mathematicians, biologists, chemists and physicists. The astronomer character foresees the catastrophe in William Minto’s The Crack of Doom (1885), George Griffith’s ‘The Great Crellin Comet’ (1899) and The World Peril of 1910 (1907), George C. Wallis’ ‘The Great Sacrifice. A Scientific Romance’ (1903), Owen Oliver’s ‘The Long Night: A Story of the Next Decade’ (1906), and J. S. Fletcher’s ‘The New Sun’ (1913). In H. G. Wells’ ‘The Star’ (1897), the only individualized character is a mathematician. The protagonist of Cromie’s The Crack of Doom (1895) is a physicist; one of the main characters in Fred T. Jane’s The Violet Flame (1898) is a physical chemist. Finally, the scientist in W. L. Alden’s ‘The Purple Death’, A. Lincoln Green’s The End of an Epoch (1901) and Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt (1913) is a biologist. The other outstanding apocalyptic narratives around the turn of the century, H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898) and M. P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud (1901), even though they do not feature scientists prominently, can be related to scientific ideas and findings of the time. Astronomer Percival Lowell’s Mars (1895) popularized the idea that the planet Mars was inhabited by intelligent forms of life: ‘He claimed “positive proof” of a Martian atmosphere, evidence of an “astonishingly mild” climate, the likelihood of little in the way of winds, storms, or mountains.’52 The public awareness of Lowell’s assertions certainly increased the credibility of Wells’ story of a Martian race of people. The devastatingly toxic purple cloud in The Purple Cloud carries a chemical compound, a deadly ‘gas which was either cyanogen, or some product of cyanogen’.53 Cyanogen, by that time, was known to be poisonous. These and the previous examples combined indicate that the rise of apocalyptic fiction was closely tied to the advent of science fiction.
Evolution and entropy
Evolution and entropy feature prominently in stories about the end of the world at the turn of the century. The most widely known example is probably H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895), which is permeated with evolutionary thought54 and depicts a world that has arrived at the end of its time: First age of extinction 35
The darkness grew apace; a cold wind began to blow in freshening gusts from the east, and the showering white flakes in the air increased in number. From the edge of the sea came a ripple and whisper. Beyond these lifeless sounds the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to convey the stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives—all that was over.55
The novel attributes the end of time to the processes of entropy, as our solar system seems to have lost all energy: The Earth has ‘come to rest with one face to the sun’ and the dying sun displays a mere ‘dull heat’.56 However, the end of the world in The Time Machine is only a short episode that lacks many of the characteristic features of apocalyptic fiction. The slow and long-lasting processes of evolution function predominantly as contextual ideas, not as actual threats as in other contemporary stories of the end of the world. Another example of the presence of evolutionary thought in apocalyptic fiction is Lincoln A. Green’s The End of an Epoch (1901): The last man on Earth, Adam, states he survived even though he did not have ‘any special fitness to survive’,57 echoing Herbert Spencer’s phrase ‘Survival of the Fittest’. The best example of the significance of evolutionary thought in late 19th century apocalyptic fiction is H. G. Wells’ other classic The War of the Worlds (1898). Martians invade the planet Earth to make it their new habitat because ‘[t]he secular cooling that must some day overtake our planet [Earth] has already gone far indeed with our neighbour.’58 Again, ideas of entropy resonate in this quote. Evolutionary theory and social Darwinist ideology are alluded to even more strongly. The narrator early on in the novel claims that ‘life is an incessant struggle for existence’.59 Ultimately, the apocalyptic battle between Martians and humankind is indeed decided by the effects of the evolutionary process when the Martians and their native red weed plant die of terrestrial microbial infection:
In the end, the red weed succumbed almost as quickly as it had spread. A cankering disease, due, it is believed, to the action of certain bacteria, presently seized upon it. Now, by the action of natural selection, all terrestrial plants have acquired a resisting power against bacterial diseases – they never succumb without a severe struggle, but the red weed rotted like a thing already dead.60
Comets and cosmic threats
Comets are the ultimate agents of apocalypse in late Victorian and Edwardian British fiction. Even apocalyptic stories that do not feature a comet threat show an awareness of them. For example, in Robert Cromie’s The Crack of Doom (1895), when a member of the Cui Bono Society announces that they want to bring an 36 British Apocalyptic Fiction end to this world, the narrator Arthur Marcel mockingly assumes that ‘you will accomplish this triviality by means of Huxley’s comet’.61 Likewise, The End of an Epoch (1901) refers to ‘periodic scares about the destruction of the world by collision with a wandering comet.’62 George Griffith’s ‘The Great Crellin Comet’ (1899) and its novel-length adaptation The World Peril of 1910 (1907) anticipate or directly respond to contemporary fears of a comet collision.63 The astronomer Arthur Lennox, who is madly in love with the millionaire Crellin’s daughter Auriola, detects a comet that threatens life on Earth, either by direct comet impact or by changing the Earth’s atmosphere. Only thirteen months remain before the cataclysm. In consideration of what entropy has taught her, Auriola is appalled: ‘I always thought that we had a few million years of life to look forward to before this old world of ours gets worn out.’64 Lennox believes he can save the world by shooting explosives at the comet. His plan works and the world is saved. Remarkably, that makes Lennox a rare positive scientist figure in contemporary apocalyptic fiction. In Owen Oliver’s ‘The Long Night: A Story of the Next Decade’ (1906), the proximity of a comet slows down Earth’s rotation until it comes to a standstill, with the British Isles on the side averted from the sun. This part of the world is expected to be ‘ice-bound and uninhabitable’,65 the other side of the world will suffer under eternal daylight. As another result of Earth’s slowed rotation, the moon crashes down, making people think that ‘it was the dissolution of the world’.66 When the comet eventually passes, Earth’s rotation recommences and humankind survives, the only difference being that an individual day is now much longer, lasting for more than 28 hours. A supposedly dangerous comet has similarly mild consequences in H. G. Wells’ In the Days of the Comet (1906). Instead of death and devastation, the green-white comet’s encounter with our world brings merely a ‘great Change’ to humanity, fostering ‘peace on earth and good will to all men’.67 Even though the idea of apocalypse is not foregrounded in The Days of the Comet, the novel at some point nevertheless makes reference to contemporary beliefs of catastrophic comet collisions: A preacher ‘link[s] the comet with the end of the world’, associating the appearance of the comet ‘with international politics and prophecies from the Book of Daniel.’68 Even though Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt (1913) does not feature a dangerous comet, the comet scare of 1910 evidently resonates in the novella’s plot. As the solar system of the Earth travels through the universe, a belt of poisonous ether has entered the atmosphere. Professor Challenger expects the poison belt to kill all of mankind: ‘Our planet has swum into the poison belt of ether, and is now flying deeper into it at the rate of some millions of miles a minute […]. It is, in my opinion, the end of the world.’69 Having foreseen the event, Challenger has invited a few friends to bring oxygen cylinders to his house First age of extinction 37 to prolong the inevitable end.70 When the poison belt surprisingly withdraws, Challenger, his wife and his three friends appear to be among the few survivors. It turns out, though, that the ether merely put people in a temporary state of catalepsy so that humankind reawakens in the course of the next day. In this way, The Poison Belt not only takes up contemporary fears of apocalyptic comets but also suggests that these fears are somewhat exaggerated. There are two other stories that, while they are not about an apocalyptic comet, fit into the category of cosmic catastrophe. The apocalyptic menace in ‘The Great Sacrifice: A Scientific Romance’ (1903) by George C. Wallis comes in the shape of a cloud of meteors which, upon hitting the sun, would emanate so much heat as to make life on Earth impossible. Having detected this threat, the alien inhabitants of Mars send messages to Earth to warn mankind. The short story’s main character, the astronomer Harrison, is able to decipher the Martian communication: ‘[T]his is a warning of world-peril, so far as I can see, a sentence of death for all humanity.’71 The Martians, however, prevent the disaster by building a hydrogen shield, sacrificing the planets Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter and in the end even their own home planet Mars in the process. As a result, ‘the earth is now the largest planet of the Solar System’.72 While ‘The Great Sacrifice’ shows an awareness of the insignificance and unpredictability of human existence in the face of universal chaos, it also regards the Earth and its inhabitants as exceptional and worthy of sacrifice. Moreover, with Earth ending up as the largest planet in our solar system, the short story restores the belief that humanity has its place at the top of the order of life. In J. S. Fletcher’s ‘The New Sun’ (1913), it is a solar system body that threatens to bring doom to the world. The astronomer Dan discovers a new star that is rushing towards the Earth, causing a mysterious yellow fog, a remarkable increase in temperature and eventually a cyclone. London descends into chaos as ‘half the people are dead, and the other half mad.’73 As the star is about to hit Earth, a stroke of fortune saves humankind: ‘[T]he great star which we saw rushing upon us, was suddenly arrested, split into fragments, when that darkness fell, and that we were saved.’74 The fortuitous ending of ‘The New Sun’ once more calls attention to the late Victorians’ insight that human survival is not part of a design but the result of random good fortune.
Dangerous scientists
A number of stories, which revolve around a scientist and his terrifying invention or discovery, also leave a mark on British apocalyptic fiction before 1914. The scientist’s fatal role is not surprising as the image of scientists in the Victorian novel became increasingly bleak. The discoveries of geology and astronomy 38 British Apocalyptic Fiction and the popularising of evolutionary theory, especially in its distorted form of Social Darwinism, produced a prevailing image of a cold, unemotional, and, by extension, amoral scientist.75 In apocalyptic fiction, these mad scientists purposefully create a lethal weapon that they intend to unleash on humankind. Representing science, they are manifestations of the contemporary fear that science may turn against the human race. The scientist in The Crack of Doom (1895), Herbert Brande, is capable of disintegrating the atom, which gives him the power to create massive explosions. Convinced that humankind’s material existence is a magnificent failure, Brande and the obscure Cui Bono Society plan to ‘release the vast stores of etheric energy locked up in the huge atomic warehouse of this planet’76 to destroy Earth and restore the universe to its original etheric state. The Englishman Arthur Marcel befriends Brande and learns about his terrible scheme. In order to save the world, Marcel secretly changes Brande’s prescription formula for the cataclysmic bomb. When Brande wants to celebrate that ‘the suffering of the centuries is over’,77 the bomb in fact causes only a minor earthquake. Science- savy Marcel, because of his ability to make the necessary changes to the formula, saves the world. In the short story ‘The Purple Death’ (1895) by W. L. Alden, it is the bacteriologist Professor Schwartz who creates a terrible microscopic disease of apocalyptic potential. Schwartz crosses several microbes to invent the Purple Death, a microbic poison which could quickly wipe out Europe’s entire population: ‘It kills in less than thirty minutes, and there is no remedy which has the slightest effect upon it.’78 Schwartz develops this disease to cure Europe from overpopulation, an allusion to Malthusian ideas, but dies from illness before he can execute his plan. He is buried with the lethal tube containing the Purple Death in his hand which will continue to pose a threat if ever broken open. A. Lincoln Green’s The End of an Epoch: Being the Personal Narrative of Adam Godwin, The Survivor (1901) features mad bacteriologist Azrael Falk. Falk creates a terrible microscopic disease that brings humankind to the brink of annihilation. He cross-breeds several foreign germs to develop a vicious brain fever called ‘Bacillus paradoxus’. With the exception of the elderly, this fever kills everybody upon infection within the next 36 hours. When the bacillus is accidentally allowed to spread, the world appears to be doomed. Within weeks, ‘London was left without a single human inhabitant.’79 Only the young British bacteriologist Adam and his love interest Evelyn manage to survive. The novel is more ambivalent in its judgement of science than other contemporary examples. Falk, on the one hand, creates the disaster. Yet it is Adam’s scientific knowledge, on the other hand, that saves Evelyn when he expertly uses the last remaining syringe of antitoxin. First age of extinction 39
Fear of the foreign
Remarkably, apocalyptic fiction around the turn of the century links fear of science and the scientist to fears of foreign influence and domination. In all three examples in which the scientist wilfully creates an apocalyptic threat, he is a foreigner, alien and harmful to English society. This can be read in context of contemporary fears of invasion as can be found in The War of the Worlds as well.80 In ‘The Purple Death’ (1895), the first person narrator calls the character of the German scientist ‘Professor Schwartz’ despite the fact that ‘it was not his name’.81 ‘Schwartz’ is derived from ‘Schwarz’—the German word for black— and is thus easily associated with Germany. The character of Schwartz can also be linked to death as the colour black, for which he stands, can be read as a colour of mourning. Moreover, Professor Schwartz’s outward appearance is compared to the portraits of German military officer Helmuth von Moltke. This makes him not only purely German but also a potentially aggressive dangerous enemy. The association between the character’s name, fears of the foreign, and death is even more obvious with scientist Azrael Falk in A. Lincoln Green’s novel The End of an Epoch (1901). ‘Azrael’ is the English spelling for the Arabic name ‘Azra’il’. Azra’il, in turn, is the Islamic archangel of death and, in addition, a name that is traditionally ascribed to the angel of death in some Hebrew lore.82 His name not only identifies Azrael Falk as a foreigner but it also carries negative connotations connected to death and destruction. Further marks of otherness are Falk’s German accent and that he resembles a ‘stranded cuttlefish’,83 a creature outside its usual environment. By contrast, Herbert Brande in The Crack of Doom is not as easily distinguished as being different in appearance. However, the first description of Brande puts him in stark contrast with the English homodiegetic narrator. Arthur Marcel is described as ‘an active, athletic Englishman’ whereas Brande has a ‘pale, intellectual face’.84 If we take Marcel as the prototype for an Englishman, something that the novel implicitly suggests, then Brande is certainly marked as negatively different.
Case study: ‘The Star’
By describing the close and almost fatal encounter between a wandering planet and Earth, H. G. Wells’ short story ‘The Star’ (1897) not only reflects upon contemporary fears of a cosmic catastrophe but also comments on the enlightening role of science and the triviality of human existence. At the 40 British Apocalyptic Fiction beginning of the story, the planet movement becomes erratic when a star from far away approaches and enters Neptune’s orbit. Under the eyes of a number of astronomers and an increasingly interested public, the star collides with Neptune and the two now joint solar bodies continue their journey through our solar system. On Earth, people’s initial excitement and fear of the approaching star soon gives way to indifference again. However, the story’s main character, a master mathematician, calculates that the star will also collide with Earth, causing the end of the world. As a result of the master mathematician’s warning, some people desperately start praying to God. The others still go about their normal life, laughing off the gloomy prophecies. After the star’s path is changed and momentarily slowed down by Jupiter, it heads directly for Earth. Floods submerge massive parts of the land and earthquakes erupt all over the world. Just when the world appears to be doomed, events take a fortunate turn. Rather than colliding with Earth, the star just misses it and travels towards the sun. On Earth, the earthquakes persist for some more months, the star’s heat has melted most of the polar caps but humanity has survived and order is eventually restored. On Mars, Martian astronomers have observed the whole series of events. They find it amazing that the star’s damage to Earth, from their point of view, is so negligible. The account of the build-up and the eventual catastrophe mirror and strengthen late Victorian anxieties over the devastating effects of a comet collision. In fact, both the master mathematician’s initial prophecy and the effects of the star passing by at close proximity resemble Professor Falb’s predictions from the 1890s. Like Falb, the master mathematician anticipates ‘[e]arthquakes’ and ‘floods’.85 These expectations are eventually met when the star is about to collide with Earth. There are repeated descriptions of a ‘growing tidal wave’, ‘devastating floods’,86 and ‘seething floods’.87 In addition, Earth’s devastation includes ‘earthquakes’88 and ‘earthquake shocks’.89 Moreover, the public reaction to the master mathematician’s prophecy of the end of the world in ‘The Star’ bears a resemblance to the announcement of apocalyptic comets in the 1890s. As in the case of Professor Falb, the master mathematician’s prediction of the end of the world, while causing anxiety in some, is mostly met with disbelief: ‘The master mathematician’s grim warnings were treated by many as so much as mere elaborate self-advertisement.’90 Moreover, ‘the laughter’91 with which the master mathematician is ridiculed evokes the hostile undertones of contemporary newspaper articles on Falb’s announcement of the end of the world.92 In telling the story about the approaching comet and the potential end of the world, ‘The Star’ makes a distinction between educated men of science and unsophisticated people. The short story values the knowledge of the educated and scorns the ignorance of the uneducated. When the star first appears, it only First age of extinction 41 attracts the interest of scientific people who ‘found the intelligence remarkable enough’.93 As a man of science, the master mathematician is the first to realize the great threat the star poses. By contrast, there are a number of African characters who believe the star to be a happy appearance rather than a dangerous one. A newly wedded African man is delighted that ‘even the skies have illuminated’94 for his wedding celebrations. Two African lovers feel comforted by the star’s appearance, referring to it as ‘our star’.95 As the star is indeed dangerous, the story appears to disapprove or even look down on these ignorant characters. It also seems to disrespect the non-secular notions of ‘[s]turdy Boers, dusky Hottentots, Gold Coast negroes, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese’ who still view bright stars in the sky as harbingers of ‘war’ and ‘pestilence’.96 Evidently, as the catastrophe shows hardly any traces of religious thought,97 ‘The Star’ welcomes the secularization of ideas and the progress of science. The secularized world view of ‘The Star’ is also perceptible in its outlook on human existence. Wells’ short story leaves no doubt that Earth is only a small, insignificant planet in the vast universe:
The sun with its specks of planets, its dust of planetoids, and its impalpable comets, swims in a vacant immensity that almost defeats imagination. Beyond the orbit of Neptune there is a space, vacant so far as human observation has penetrated, without warmth or light or sound, blank emptiness, for twenty million times a million miles.98
The insignificance of Earth is even more pronounced at the tale’s end when it switches to the Martian’s perspective. First, the existence of another species on Mars, which apparently is not so much different from the human species, shows that human existence is not as unique as Christian belief makes it to be. Second, in view of the great devastation to the planet and the near downfall of mankind, the Martians’ assessment that the star only caused ‘little damage’99 appears unjustified. Yet the story’s heterodiegetic narrator explains the Martians’ view, pointing out that the story of the star ‘shows how small the vastest of human catastrophes may seem, at a distance of a few million miles.’100 On the grandest of scales, the survival of humankind is reduced to a triviality. H. G. Wells’ ‘The Star’ displays the change in perspective on human existence and apocalypse. As a result of the scientific discoveries of the 19th century, humanity is no longer the undisputed centre of God’s creation, is vulnerable to the moods of nature, its existence relegated to pettiness. The secularized world view and the secularized take on the end of the world is evident in the threatening star. Just as comets and stars used to be thought of as agents of God’s will, so are they now manifestations of nature’s accidental ways. Hence, chance has the star on a collision course with Earth, and chance, in the end, spares humanity. 42 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Case study: The Violet Flame
Fred T. Jane’s The Violet Flame: A Story of Armageddon and After (1899) depicts contemporary views and anxieties about science, anarchists and foreign domination. The mad scientist in The Violet Flame, French professor Mirzarbeau, is the embodiment of all these fears. In an attempt to forge ahead the anarchist society Finis Mundi, Mirzarbeau promises its members the end of the world in order to cure humankind. He says he is capable of bringing about the world’s end with the help of one of his machines. He claims that this machine is able to set off a comet on a collision course with Earth. Mirzarbeau publicly indulges in fantasies of omnipotence and is thereupon ridiculed at a lecture, which prompts him to demonstrate his power using a second one of his machines. With this machine, he is able to turn people and things into stone miniatures. Mirzarbeau himself is immune to the powers of his machine as he carries a mysterious protective green disc. He employs this second machine to blackmail the British government into handing him over the Empire and subsequently rules cruelly over the British people, even though only for a short time. An American millionairess, Landry Baker, ostensibly befriends Mirzarbeau but only to steal his protective green disc. She hands it to the narrator character Lester who, together with government official Bentham, storms Mirzarbeau’s laboratory. They use his second machine to turn Mirzarbeau into a pebble. Lester and Bentham then decide to destroy all of Mirzarbeau’s machines, accidentally setting off the movement of the comet towards Earth and starting the breakdown of order. Tidal waves and earthquakes start threatening humankind and chaos breaks out. At first, London survives but later is struck by the comet which turns everything into grey stone except for the only two people with a green disc, Lester and Landry (to whom Mirzarbeau had given another one of the green discs at a time when he thought she was a genuine friend to him). Lester and Landry end up as the only survivors of the cataclysm and become the solitary inhabitants of a new but stony Eden. The nature of Professor Mirzarbeau’s scientific activities is clearly influenced by the scientific discoveries of the 1890s in the realms of physics and chemistry. Most prominent is Mirzarbeau’s use of violet rays that, so the novel indicates, are identical to Roentgen’s X-rays. When operating his machine, Mirzarbeau ‘project[s] a ray of violet into the atmosphere’101 which, when reflected back to Earth, turns everything into stone. It is explained that violet is ‘the colour of the almost supernatural x rays’,102 thus making the violet ray and the X-ray one and the same thing. Apart from the reference to X-rays, The Violet Flame also refers to the discovery of argon. It is the ‘gaseous envelope of argon surrounding every body’103 which, when hit by the rebounding violet ray, leads to the petrified miniature bodies and eventually to a world of stone. First age of extinction 43
The foreigner’s knowledge and the Englishman’s ignorance of science are to blame for the apocalypse in The Violet Flame. On the one hand, the Frenchman Mirzarbeau’s supreme knowledge of science gives him the opportunity to construct a machine that controls the fate of a comet in outer space. With that machine, Mirzarbeau could ‘hit the earth and burn it up!’104 One could say that the disaster has its origins with him. However, while Professor Mirzarbeau is willing to abuse this power, he does not actually intend or cause the apocalyptic event to happen that kills almost all of humankind. It is two of the English characters who make the catastrophe irrevocable. In their desperate attempts to stop Mirzarbeau’s rule, they destroy Mirzarbeau’s scientific apparatus. They, along with the rest of England, believe that this achievement is for the best of mankind. Lester is even praised by the public ‘as the man who had saved the world’.105 However, in fact, Lester’s and Bentham’s actions have disastrous consequences. Dornton points out to Lester:
I presume you know that when you and Bentham smashed up the machine in the underground laboratory you set free the comet which is now rushing to destroy the world. That machine kept it back!106
Unfortunately, Lester and Bentham are not aware of this although Lester, upon an invitation by Mirzarbeau, had the opportunity to inspect the scientific machine closely. Therefore, the two Englishmen’s ignorance of science proves to be disastrous for the human race. The inference is twofold: On the one hand, humankind is not mature enough to cope with the powers of science. This is exemplified through the character of the mad scientist. It is Mirzarbeau’s lack of moral consciousness that triggers the fatal events. On the other hand, it is the British lack of knowledge in the field of science that might lead to the world’s end and Britain’s downfall. Although science and the British lack of knowledge in science share the blame, it is the immoral and power hungry scientist who is shown to be most guilty of causing the apocalypse in The Violet Flame. Professor Mirzarbeau, described as ‘a man of science’,107 exploits his expertise to further his mad ambition for world domination instead of using it for the good of mankind. At one of the Finis Mundi society meetings early in the novel, he announces: ‘I am the man you want […]. I can destroy the whole earth’.108 Following that meeting, he increasingly realizes what he can achieve with the kind of power that is at his disposal. Consequently, destroying the world no longer presents a real option for him. Instead, it serves as a credible threat of force with which he blackmails Britain and the world into making him ‘its supreme ruler’.109 To implement his plans, Mirzarbeau does not refrain from killing people nor does he experience any pangs of conscience. He merely calls it ‘a 44 British Apocalyptic Fiction demonstration’110 of his power when he turns a crowd of people into stone during the lecture at the Albert Hall. As is shown through his constant threats and acts of annihilation, Mirzarbeau will do whatever is necessary in order to become the sole ruler of the world. After his first experiment with the violet ray at Waterloo Station, he announces in a poster that he will ‘destroy all the earth unless my power be recognized.’111 His fellow human beings simply do not mean anything to him.112 Mirzarbeau’s knowledge of science turns him into personified evil. The idea that Mirzarbeau represents an evil power is further stressed through a number of religious allusions, in particular to the Book of Revelation. When Mirzarbeau starts to use science to accomplish his plans of ruling the world, Lester recognizes him as ‘the devil’113 and the ‘embodiment of diabolical power’.114 Mirzarbeau’s status as the devil is reinforced through explicit references to the Beast in the Book of Revelation. In The Violet Flame, Dornton, a shady character, identifies Mirzarbeau as the Beast during the meeting at the Finis Mundi society to a disbelieving audience. He supports his theory by drawing attention to Mirzarbeau’s name. He places the Greek numerical equivalent next to each character and adds up the numbers so that it amounts to 666. He points out to Lester that ‘666 is the number of the Beast as given in the Book of Revelation.’115 When Mirzarbeau learns about his new nickname, he does not disapprove but quickly adopts it: ‘I am the Beast’.116 For him, the name symbolizes the power of ‘ruling all the world’.117 In the following, the parallels between Mirzarbeau and the Beast are emphasized. Of course, both stand for the temporary reign of evil. Moreover, both the biblical text and the novel prominently feature the powerful mark of the Beast. In the Book of Revelation, ‘no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark’ which he received ‘on his right hand or on his forehead’.118 To have received the mark is, then, essential for survival. The same is true for the green discs, ‘the Mark of the Beast’119 in the The Violet Flame. These parallels between the biblical Beast and the Beast Mirzarbeau and the consequential inference that Mirzarbeau is a secularized version of the Beast clearly identify him as society’s enemy. As such, he is marked as an outsider, an alien to (British) society throughout. Mirzarbeau’s status as an unwelcome intruder into society is also apparent by his socially unacceptable appearance and national origin. It is evident from the beginning of the novel that Mirzarbeau’s outward appearance does not allow him to be an accepted popular member of society. The presumably English narrator, Lester, uses exclusively negative and derogatory adjectives to describe him. When he encounters Mirzarbeau for the first time, Lester describes him as ‘the untidiest and most disreputable-looking man I have ever set eyes on’.120 Mirzarbeau is more than once identified as the ‘the fat little professor’.121 He is also called an ‘untidy, little man’122 and a ‘ridiculous figure’.123 There is a strategy First age of extinction 45 to make Mirzarbeau small and disorderly. Not even his movements are properly human as he is described as waddling rather than walking.124 Fred T. Jane’s illustrations further underscore the negative characterisation of Mirzarbeau. He is not only depicted as the ‘fat little professor’ but is indeed shown to be repulsive. His head is almost bald with protruding ears, which makes him resemble a pig (Figure 2). In addition, his big round glasses hide his eyes so that it seems as if
Figure 2: Lester and Landry Baker laugh at Professor Mirzarbeau’s appearance. Fred T. Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 70. 46 British Apocalyptic Fiction he has two white holes in his head, giving him an almost inhuman appearance (Figure 3). Furthermore, Mirzarbeau’s identification with anarchists puts him even more strongly at the margins of British society. Mirzarbeau’s speech before the members of Finis Mundi identifies him as a sympathizer of anarchist ideas. In fact, Mirzarbeau is initially even united with the anarchists in their common objective to bring an end to the world. It underlines his status as social outcast because the Finis Mundi anarchists are also clearly characterized as anti-British. In one of the meetings of Finis Mundi, a speaker describes the British flag as ‘bestial and so foul’125 and is ‘tearing at the flag, stamping on it, spitting on it’126 before he attempts to burn it. In accordance with their role as social outsiders, the narrator depicts the Finis Mundi anarchists and their society in completely negative terms. They are ridiculed as ‘hysterical’127 and described to be behaving like ‘maniacs’.128 Furthermore, their physical appearance is repulsive and marks them as half-witted: ‘Every man and woman of them—a full half were women— had curiously dilated eye-pupils which gave them a strange, half-idiotic, half- intelligent expression.’129 This kind of characterization of anarchists was common in British popular fiction of the time.130 Anarchists were described as having distorted asymmetrical features and generally an unkempt appearance and were thus dehumanized and excluded from society as amoral, irrational beings. Although Mirzarbeau soon pursues his own goals and not those of Finis Mundi, his terrorist methods and his ambition to rule the world nevertheless conjure up contemporary anxieties of the anarchist threat. In the course of the novel, he attacks British society twice. He makes Waterloo Station disappear131 and turns those attending his public speech into stone. In both instances, the loss of human life leaves him emotionally unaffected. In this way, he corresponds to the public’s image of the anarchist as a bomb-throwing, randomly killing criminal or beast132 even though historical evidence does not support this biased opinion.133 Shpayer-Makov points out: ‘The only person killed by an anarchist weapon in Britain was the French anarchist Martial Bourdin, who died while mishandling a bomb in Greenwich Park in 1894.’134 Nevertheless, the portrayal of Mirzarbeau as an anarchist supporter is in accordance to the stereotypical late Victorian ‘notion of anarchists as a danger to humanity’.135 Fictional representations of anarchists made the public believe that the socialist agenda, for which the anarchists stood, was just a subterfuge to hide their real intentions: ‘Motivated by envy and self-advancement, they want neither equality nor freedom for society, but aim at fulfilling their own selfish ambition of ruling Britain, Europe or all of civilization.’136 The Violet Flame is just another example of this tendency in late 19th century popular British fiction.137 Mirzarbeau is, furthermore, characterised as a social outsider in The Violet Flame through his French identity. At the beginning, he is described as First age of extinction 47
Figure 3: Professor Mirzarbeau gesticulates to Landry Baker. Fred T. Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 180. 48 British Apocalyptic Fiction an ‘Anglo-French scientist’.138 The French aspect of his personality, however, seems to dominate. First of all, his Frenchness is highlighted by his foreign name ‘Fleuris Mirzarbeau’.139 Mirzarbeau repeatedly uses a number of French words such as ‘voilà’, ‘sacré’, ‘peste’, ‘parbleu’, and ‘pardieu’.140 His use of a foreign language noticeably sets him apart from all the other characters who only speak English.141 In addition, Mirzarbeau seems to be an exemplary representative of France. When talking about Mirzarbeau’s attraction to Landry, Dornton remarks: ‘Being a Frenchman, he is naturally susceptible to feminine charms’142 and indeed Mirzarbeau does fall for Landry. Mirzarbeau’s distinct French identity in relationship to his actions is revealing when considering the historical context. The fact that it is a foreigner, a Frenchman in particular, who designs the apparatus that brings about the end of the world, can be related to contemporary British fears of loss of power in Europe and the world. To a minor degree, economic rivalry also plays a role in The Violet Flame. In one of the expository chapters of the novel, England is described as ‘still the centre of many financial operations and the home of wealth’143. However, the London Stock Exchange, ‘the world’s premier financial centre’144 at the time—functioning in the novel as a pars pro toto for the whole of British commerce—is challenged by new markets. The Esdraelon Stock Exchange, the bourse of the Euphrates Valley and Syria market, resists British plans to have a single gold currency and succeeds in establishing a second, silver one at ‘the Battle of Esdraelon’, which leads to ‘bimetallism’.145 English commerce is, thus, apparently portrayed to be no longer uncontested and the new contenders are from the Orient of all places. This echoes the historical situation when the international market was more and more in non-British hands.146 The prospect of a rising, foreign stock market receives an even more frightful connotation through its connection to the discourse of the apocalypse. Dornton, in his reply to Mirzarbeau’s speech at the Finis Mundi society, claims that ‘Armageddon has been fought upon the Esdraelon Stock Exchange’.147 In consequence, one can imagine that the Esdraelon Stock Exchange might prevail over the London Stock Exchange, which then would shrink to insignificance. The Violet Flame, as an example of mad-scientist apocalyptic fiction in late Victorian Britain, mirrors the contemporary anxieties of political overthrow, either from within or without. The mad scientist, in his roles as foreigner and anarchist, represents these fears. As a foreigner, he symbolizes the rise of foreign powers, in this specific case France, and their challenge to British hegemony in the time of the New Imperialism. His superior scientific knowledge with which he threatens British society and the world mirrors the end of British superiority. Thus, science carries negative connotations in The Violet Flame, working to the disadvantage of Britain in fighting off foreign rivals. Hence, apocalyptic fiction serves as a vehicle to mirror fears of foreign invasion or domination and First age of extinction 49 the decline of Britain and its Empire. Identified as a member of an anarchist group, Mirzarbeau stands for the domestic threat Britain feared at the time. The anarchists, armed with terrible scientific machines and stigmatized as violent terrorists, are depicted as enemies of British society and thus as threats to its stability.
*
Advances in the sciences, namely the discovery of the second law of thermodynamics and the formulation of evolutionary theory, paved the way for secularized discourse about the apocalypse and were the prerequisite for the advent and ensuing popularity of a new (sub-)genre of fiction in the 1890s and beyond. Stories of cosmic catastrophe and comet collision illustrated a new perspective on the existence of mankind. In these tales, mankind’s ordinariness and insignificance, at least from the perspective of evolution and in context of the size of the solar system, is contrasted with the massive dimension and destructive power of the comet, one of the predominant agents of catastrophe during this era. Yet, these early instances of secularized British apocalyptic fiction still betray a close affinity with biblical apocalypse, more so than later generations. The wonders of science, however, are not only a precondition for early apocalyptic fiction, science also emerges as one of the major themes of British apocalyptic fiction; it is scrutinized and its nature evaluated in many of the short stories and novels. In the majority of cases, science is viewed ambivalently if not outright negatively. The dangerous, potentially mad scientist is the personification of a suspicious pessimistic attitude towards science. As this character is recurrently a foreigner, British apocalyptic fiction takes on a more pronounced British perspective, juxtaposing the fear of the foreign with fear of scientific discovery (or fear of British backwardness in the sciences) to reflect upon Britain’s declining role in international politics. The literal fictional end of the world serves here as a metaphor for the end of British domination in the world. Ch ap t er 3
Apocalyptic wars
Britain during the interwar period
For the period between the First and the Second World Wars, the discourse on apocalypse forms predominantly around war. The First World War proved to be a devastating and traumatic experience for the British people. ‘The war that will end war’, H. G. Wells’ famous slogan which captured the euphoria with which the British public at first welcomed the Great War, brought destruction and misery unlike any other war before and exposed war as a monstrosity. An unprecedented number of British soldiers died and were wounded during the conflict.1 Moreover, the Spanish influenza epidemic, which emerged towards the end of the war, brought about an additional number of victims and further lowered British spirits: ‘The emotional fallout of the war was compounded by the flu epidemic that swept into Britain in the last months of it, dealing the war- weary populace a cruel blow.’2 The flu’s death toll increasingly measured up to the number of war victims as ‘Great Britain suffered perhaps 250,000 losses, one-third of the numbers killed during the war. The newspaper columns listing the numbers of dead from flu began to rival and even outpace those listing the numbers of dead from the war.’3 It was not only the magnitude of the war and its aftermath in sheer numbers that proved to be so upsetting but also the means by which the Great War was fought. The introduction of modern warfare was truly traumatic, not only for soldiers but also for the people at home. Military airplanes, for example, were used for the first time and proved to be frightfully daunting: ‘Raids over London by German aircraft in the autumn of 1917 caused great destruction and produced deep-seated fear among the civilian population.’4 Next to war airplanes and the introduction of tanks and armoured cars, it was especially the utilization of poison gas which left a shocking impression in British society. Vera Brittain, a nurse in the First World War, commented on the gruesome effects of gas poisoning on the soldiers: ‘[G]reat mustard-coloured suppurating blisters, with blind eyes – sometimes temporally, sometimes permanently – all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke.’5 Such graphic detailed descriptions haunted the public’s imagination so that, in consequence, the gas mask became ‘a vivid symbol of the horror of war’.6 Political cartoons Apocalyptic wars 51 from Punch like ‘The Blessings of Peace or Mr Everyman’s Ideal Home’ give evidence of public fears of poison gas attacks in reaction to the First World War (Figure 4): An Englishman and his pets have all put on gas masks for protection in reaction to the Air Raid Precautions Act of 1937 coming into effect.7 Therefore, ‘despite the irrefutable statistical evidence that gas had caused fewer deaths than conventional weapons during the Great War’, such depictions reinforced the Britsh public’s attitude ‘to regard gas as anything other than the ultimate obscenity in the god of war’s armoury’.8
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Figure 4: The British population is prepared for the next gas attack. Cartoon by Ernest Howard Shepard. Punch, 24 November 1937: ‘The Blessings of Peace or Mr. Everyman’s Ideal Home.’ 52 British Apocalyptic Fiction
As a consequence, the role of science and technology9 in society was re- evaluated as they had played a vital part in the new, brutal dimension of the Great War. Up to that point, the attitude towards science was ambivalent. On the one hand, science was a promoter of development and advancement, on the other hand, it appeared to have the capacity to bring misfortune. The experience of the First World War ‘meant the end of the traditional idea of progress’.10 The example of poison gas had compellingly illustrated the devastating consequences of science when put to use in the realm of warfare. Poison gas ‘came to symbolise the power and the misuse of science’11 and stood representatively for the dangers of war throughout the interwar period. This intensified scepticism towards science is conspicuously demonstrated in the Punch cartoon ‘The Dawn of Progress’ (Figure 5). It shows a human figure blinded by poison gas and several other people crouching down in misery. Aeroplanes seem to have dropped the poison to attack those on the ground. Apart from alluding to a fear of air raids, the cartoon points towards science’s fatal role in the future of humanity, underlined by the cartoon’s ironic title. Consequently, the figure of the scientist was reassessed in negative terms, too: ‘Scientists, since they invented infallible means of destroying the world, [became] the bogeymen rather than saviours of humanity.’12 Yet the public discussion about science in Britain was not as one-sided as it might first appear. People in Britain were aware of the ‘possibility that technology can be used beneficially.’13 During the Great War, it had become undeniable, more than ever before, that superior armoury based on advanced technology would be essential to victory. Initially, this had a positive effect on the recognition of science: ‘The straight demand for mighty weapons of offence and defence inevitably gave a great prestige to science and a stimulus to technological, if not scientific, research.’14 Accordingly, the public discussion did not revolve around the question of whether science and technology should be completely abandoned. The issue was rather to what ends they should be employed: ‘Rather than undermining national enthusiasm for technology, then, the Great War deepened political conflicts about the appropriate uses of innovation.’15 It was apparent that ‘[s]cience could provide the means of satisfying people’s desires, but it assumed no responsibility for distinguishing between good and bad desires.’16 The events of the First World War had sharpened the question of whether scientists bore some kind of responsibility for the consequences of their research. As a consequence of the devastating experience of the Great War, the British people adopted a pacifist attitude that reached its climax in the 1930s. War, which for a long time was valued in terms of ‘necessity, patriotism, glory, heroism and the nobility of sacrifice’, was now often characterized ‘as futile, brutal and horrible’.17 In the years just after the war, a broad public reaction Apocalyptic wars 53 to that realization was ‘to close the door of memory on the years of conflict’.18 In order to cope with the trauma of the Great War, there was a tendency to simply ignore it. The British public was not immediately ready for a critical examination of the war, as indicated by ‘the general election of 1918 [when]
Image not available for electronic viewing
Figure 5: Humanity collapses under aerial poison gas attacks. Cartoon by Bernard Partridge. Punch, 8 April 1936: ‘The Dawn of Progress. But how am I to see it? They’ve blinded me.’ 54 British Apocalyptic Fiction even the mildest criticism of the war effort was met by defeat at the polls.’19 With time, a pacifist movement emerged in Britain which won more and more support over the years: ‘From the mid-1920s until 1937 there was a vague feeling that it was vital to avoid war’.20 Anxieties concerning another European war towards the end of the 1920s and early 1930s helped to generate a pacifist public opinion: ‘By the 1930s, there was a widespread pacifist sentiment throughout the country’.21 However, Britain’s all-pacifist attitude slowly altered when international relations once more became hostile and threatening. The League of Nations, an organization whose agenda was to encourage disarmament and to prevent war, showed itself incapable of stopping international hostilities: ‘The League of Nations, vainly trying to operate a policy of collective security (joint action to keep the peace), but lacking strong support, failed to curb the aggressors.’22 German dictator Adolf Hitler openly pursued his plans of rearmament, a development that ‘thoroughly alarmed British opinion’23 and stoked fears about another war. Fears of an air raid were particularly great after ‘Hitler’s claim in March 1935 that the Luftwaffe had already attained parity with the RAF’.24 As a consequence, the voices calling for rearmament became stronger: ‘From 1934 on, a growing chorus in Fleet Street and Parliament lobbied the Government to counter the threat emerging from the Third Reich’.25 Political supporters of rearmament, among them Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, stressed the defensive motives behind national rearmament, ‘responding to external pressures for the sake of the nation rather than instigating international competition’26 in order to defend the change in foreign policy against pacifist public opinion. Eventually, Britain abandoned its policy of appeasement and declared war on Germany after the Germans invaded Poland in 1939.
Apocalyptic fiction 1922–1940
From the end of the Great War to the beginning of a new war
In the first decade after the First World War, there is a dearth of apocalyptic fiction. The explanation for this arguably lies in the traumatic experience of the Great War. The devastating events of the Great War muted the wish for fantastic stories in which mankind is at the mercy of natural or cosmic powers. Appropriately, the last of such cosmic catastrophe stories, at least for quite some time, were written before the start of the First World War in 1913. 27 Moreover, the public’s rejection of almost any kind of literature related to war in the aftermath Apocalyptic wars 55 of the First World War was responsible for the small number of apocalyptic war fiction in the immediate years after 1918. One could have expected a great output in future war fiction after the unprecedented horrors of the Great War, with one or the other story ‘so extreme in its predictions as to acquire an apocalyptic tone.’28 Yet the only examples of apocalyptic war fiction, if one disregards a number of post-apocalyptic novels which look back on war as the starting point for the collapse of civilization,29 are Cicely Hamilton’s Theodore Savage (1922) and, with reservations, Martin Hussingtree’s Konyetz (1924). In Theodore Savage, the eponymous hero experiences an international war that is fought with the most lethal applications of modern science, most notably ‘machine gun[s]’ and ‘gas’.30 As a result of the war, all of humanity falls back into a primitive state of savagery. To avoid a repetition of the dreadful events, efforts are undertaken to ban all knowledge of science, mechanics and engineering. Without actually pointing towards the end of all mankind, Theodore Savage borders on the genre of apocalyptic fiction in describing ‘the process of disintegration’ that leads to ‘the ending of civilization’,31 a state that is almost beyond recovery in the novel. In Martin Hussingtree’s Konyetz, the end of the world comes in the shape of a religious apocalypse. The references to the biblical text are most evident at the novel’s end: ‘The wicked returned to start the journey once again: the good lived […] The Light came, and with it a new world.’32 Up to that point, a global war dominates the novel’s plot and functions as the harbinger of the apocalypse, emphasized through continuous allusions to the apocalyptic horseman of war. Europe, with the exception of Britain, is taken over by a military alliance consisting of Soviets, Germans, and Turks; Japan has conquered Australia. The eventual invasion of London brings about the Day of Judgment, presumably saving the faithful and for the most part peaceful British population and punishing the forces of war. Leaving these two examples aside, the horrors of the Great War proved to have a lasting distressing effect on British society so that ‘no one wanted to be reminded of the war’.33 Hence, for the first decade after the ending of the War, ‘there was little public demand for literary or other cultural reconstructions of the war experience because such reminders were simply too painful.’34 Adult fiction of future war, especially in the vein of the tradition of British invasion literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, seemed entirely out of place as ‘it proved inconceivable for any writer ever again to dwell on “the pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war”.’35 Even novels which sought to re- examine the First World War in critical terms were rarely published. The public reception of Cicely Hamilton’s Theodore Savage (1922) illustrates the hostility towards war-related fiction in the aftermath of the First World War. In her foreword to the reissue of Theodore Savage as Lest Ye Die, Hamilton gives an 56 British Apocalyptic Fiction explanation of why her original publication could not attract a wider audience in Britain or elsewhere:
Six years ago – in 1922 – we were in full reaction against any and everything that dealt with war; hence Theodore Savage found no American publisher, and even in England, where the Press received it well, its circulation was less than I had hoped for.36
It is apparent that, despite its acknowledged literary merits and its pacifist message, the novel’s public reception suffered from the British (and in fact international) inability to come to terms with the events of the First World War. Futuristic fiction on the whole was unpopular due to its influential role in the build-up to the Great War. H. G. Wells’ The World Set Free (1914), which promoted a conclusive, almost apocalyptic war, had helped to manipulate the public into believing that a final war was necessary to induce a lasting era of peace. The public’s disillusionment as a consequence of the Great War ‘created a climate of thought that was distinctly hostile to futuristic fiction, because that kind of fiction had been one of the chief vehicles of the mythology that a world war would be “the war to end war”’.37 Consistently, apocalyptic fiction, closely connected to disaster and to futuristic fiction, would not be very productive in the decade following the end of the First World War. By describing scenarios of destruction, death and decay, apocalyptic fiction was far too reminiscent of the war experience. Accordingly, J. J. Connington’s Nordenholt’s Million (1923), one of the few apocalyptic texts written just after the First World War, attaches great importance to the successful yet costly reconstruction of a collapsed Britain: Nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria, cultivated by the scientist Wotherspoon are accidentally allowed to spread, all vegetation, void of nitrogen, turns to sand and a global famine breaks out. The industrialist Nordenholt establishes a community that serves as a nucleus for a new society. The reconstruction of Britain is realized in the shape of Nordenholt’s utopian city Alsgard: ‘Others may plan; others may build fairer cities in the sun: but I have given my best; and Asgard almost consoles for the loss of that Fata Morgana which I shall never see.’38 The novel thereby feeds the contemporary ‘desperate demand for a national narrative of wholeness’.39 In Hugh Kingsmill’s short story ‘The End of the World’ (1924), the two main characters Polmont and Glayde merely anticipate the apocalypse in the shape of a comet which appears to be on a collision course with Earth. In the end, the apocalypse does not even occur and primarily serves as a backdrop for the characters’ philosophical-political debates.40 Nevertheless, it is possible to read the threatening comet as a metaphor for the Great War. Kingsmill’s story continuously refers to the First World War, Glayde is a veteran who might have a Apocalyptic wars 57
‘war-neurosis’,41 and the comet’s impending strike is described as an ‘execution’.42 Based on these references, the non-violent passing of the comet in ‘The End of the World’ might indicate that humanity was fortunate to survive the Great War and seems to have been given another chance. Stories of secular apocalypse reappeared in stronger numbers after the publication of war-condemning texts written by First World War veterans towards the end of the 1920s. Ten years after the end of the Great War,43 veteran writers like Siegfried Sassoon or Robert Graves published their major, well- received prose works, representative of many veterans who had ‘come to believe that the war had been a futile massacre of young innocents.’44 Hamilton’s preface to Lest Ye Die demonstrates the change in attitude in British society towards war- related fiction. When American and British publishers (re-)issued Lest Ye Die in 1928, the same year when ‘veterans, male and female alike, produced narratives in a spate of poetry, war novels, and memoirs’,45 she hopes
that the public, on both sides of the Atlantic, has ceased to turn its head from books dealing with war and its issues; and that therefore a story of hostilities to come has a better chance of being widely read and pondered than it had in the days of war- weariness.46
Apart from the new edition of Hamilton’s novel, the outpouring of works reproaching war initially did not have any effect on apocalyptic fiction. The apocalyptic texts of the closing 1920s, William Gerhardie’s Jazz and Jasper (1928), Sydney Fowler Wright’s Deluge (1927) and ‘Automata’ (1929), do not refer directly to war but focus, with the exception of Deluge, on the devastating role of science for the future of humankind. Considering the negative reputation of science in Britain as a result of its role in the First World War, these stories might nevertheless have been written and perceived as a critique and warning of war. Apocalyptic fiction turned to war when the international crisis intensified in the early 1930s.47 Some of the stories then published turned out to be classics, namely Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men (1930) and H. G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come (1933) as well as its film adaptationThings to Come (1936). As these texts display a critical attitude towards war and fall ‘into the category of anti-war moralism’,48 they reflect the atmosphere of early 1930s British society and ‘shed light on attitudes to war, and especially on public fears and expectations about the nature of an impending World War’.49 Throughout the rest of the 1930s, fears of war continued to be consistently represented in British apocalyptic fiction. Only when the threat and devastation of the Second World War reached the British shores did British people lose interest in writing and reading about apocalyptic wars. 58 British Apocalyptic Fiction
War
Much of apocalyptic fiction from the late 1920s up to the end of the Second World War focuses on war as the starting point of civilization’s downfall. Post-First World War apocalyptic fiction is characterized by its realistic vision and perspective and hardly bears resemblance to the sensational scientific romances of the period leading up to the Great War. Some of the novels take the scenario of apocalyptic war to the extreme so that warfare (almost) brings about the end of all humankind. Interestingly, the authors of apocalyptic war fiction look back to the experience of the First World War rather than speculating on new terrors of weaponry. This is true despite the fact that these apocalyptic wars are mostly set in the future and are explicitly presented as wars after the First World War. One would have thought that writers of apocalyptic fiction would portray a technologically more evolved kind of warfare like other writers of future war fiction before them.50 However, it appears that the weapons used in the War were held to be devastating enough for apocalyptic scenarios: ‘Futuristic speculation in 1920s Britain was dominated by the notion that weapons of war were already available which […] would almost certainly result in the destruction of civilization.’51 Hence, military weapons already introduced during the First World War such as tanks, military airplanes and, above all, poison gas predominate in interwar apocalyptic fiction. In Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future (1930), which tells the history of our and future generations of mankind, the collapse and near extinction of the Homo Sapiens ‘First Men’ is initially triggered by a series of wars. As in many other apocalyptic novels of the time, poison gas attacks play a vital role:
The whole West of Russia was flooded with the latest and deadliest poison gas, so that, not only was all animal and vegetable life destroyed, but also the soil between the Black Sea and the Baltic was rendered infertile and uninhabitable for many years. […] The poison spread across the Continent in huge blown tresses, broad as principalities, swinging with each change of wind. And wherever it strayed, young eyes, throats, and lungs were blighted like the leaves.52
While it takes another 100,000 years for the ‘First Men’ to be ultimately extinct, it is significant that the starting point of this generation’s downfall is a poison gas war. H. G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come tells the story of a utopian state that arises out of the ashes of war. The first, apocalyptic part of the novel restages the experience of the Great War. Wells’ narrator points out that it ‘was a “gas- minded world” in the forties’,53 the time when the apocalyptic war starts. In Apocalyptic wars 59 addition, ‘the great pestilence’54 breaks out after the end of this particular war, paralleling the events of the First World War. Significantly, The Shape of Things to Come amplifies the threat of war to apocalyptic proportions by suggesting that it ‘came near to destroying mankind’.55 Considering the time of its publication, The Twenty-Fifth Hour (1940) by Herbert Best not only comes to terms with the experience of the First World War but necessarily also addresses the ongoing Second World War. Appropriate with regard to both events, The Twenty-Fifth Hour presents Europe as the cradle of apocalyptic war, a ‘savage Europe where men must kill or be killed until at least the land should be all but rid of them’.56 It implies that Europe’s war, which has wiped out 90 per cent of Europe’s population and led to a breakdown of civilization, can have devastating consequences for the rest of the world, which is terribly affected by germ warfare in The Twenty-Fifth Hour. By telling the story of a British commander and an American nurse who, as the last representatives of the Western hemisphere, try to rebuild society, the novel builds its hopes for a new world on a US-British alliance, anticipating the special relationship that would dominate British foreign politics after 1945. Published at the same time as The Twenty-Fifth Hour, Alfred Noyes’ The Last Man (1940) also reflects upon past, present and future when it criticises and warns of the devastating possibilities of warfare by depicting an apocalyptic war fought with futuristic weaponry. The narrator points out that humanity, once it started the arms race, went on an unstoppable path towards self-destruction: ‘[F]rom flint to steel, from steel to gun-powder, from gun-powder to poison- gases; from poison-gases to disease germs; from disease germs to the “last resort”.’57 The ‘last resort’ is the employment of a lethal death-ray for attack and defence in international conflict without distinguishing between friend and foe. It annihilates almost all of humankind. In this way, Noyes’ novel foresees the destructive capabilities of the nuclear bomb, demonstrated only a few years later. The only future and the only way out of the arms race dilemma, as presented by The Last Man, is to gear towards religious values and to renounce science and machinery. Therefore, the novel’s main characters Mark Adams and Evelyn Hamilton—at the same time the last and, as Adam and Eve, the first man and woman of the human race to repopulate the planet—choose to join a community of Franciscan monks so that they ‘would never again be caught in the mechanical wheels of the industrial system’.58 Finally, The Hopkins Manuscript (1939) by R. C. Sherriff is a curious case because it presents two catastrophic dangers. First, the moon threatens to collide with Earth, threatening to wipe out all human existence. When the hollow (!) moon falls into the Atlantic Ocean and breaks apart so that it evenly fills up the seabed of the ocean, the disaster seems averted. Yet, a war fought among all European nations and the USA over the moon’s precious resources ensues. It ends with 60 British Apocalyptic Fiction the ‘collapse of the “Western Civilisation”’.59 It is remarkable that war, and not the moon collision as cosmic catastrophe beyond human influence, leads to the downfall of the West in Sherriff’s novel. One can convincingly argue that the plot of The Hopkins Manuscript implies that the dangers for human society are not the fantastic fictions of pre-First World War times as they are presented in Wells’ ‘The Star’ or Shiel’s The Purple Cloud. Rather, the experience of the Great War is taken as a lesson that the greatest danger lies within mankind itself.
Savagery
In its portrayal of life-ending war, apocalyptic war fiction often describes humanity in debased and dehumanised terms. In Theodore Savage, the family name of the eponymous (anti-)hero becomes the attribute for the entire war generation. The war described in Theodore Savage leads to a ‘sudden lapse into primitive conditions’60 from which humanity is unable to recover. It deprives mankind of its human qualities by turning them into ‘unhuman creatures’ or ‘wolfish men and women’.61 The characterisation of an angry mob of people desperately searching for food in The Machine Stops (1936) also reveals the degeneration of mankind. They are described as ‘wild beasts at feeding-time’, as ‘shrieking demons’, and as ‘fiends from hell’.62 The theme of man turning into savage already makes an appearance in earlier non-war apocalyptic fiction of the interwar period as well. It is taken to extremes in Nordenholt’s Million when starving people in London, the centre of British civilization, turn to cannibalism to feed themselves.63
Science and machinery
The fear of poison gas in apocalyptic (war) fiction is representative of a general scepticism towards science, technology and machinery. These texts take a critical stance towards chemical warfare and war machinery in particular: ‘In marked contrast to the optimistic view of science which prevailed before 1914, many novelists now saw it as essentially dangerous.’64 Specifically the use of toxic gas is prominent in several apocalyptic texts: Theodore Savage (1922)/Lest Ye Die (1928), Last and First Men (1930), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), The World Ends (1937), and The Last Man Alive (1938).65 In Theodore Savage, the characters are traumatized by the experience of the gas attacks from the apocalyptic war. This is illustrated best when Theodore has a philosophical discussion with an old dying man about the nature of humanity. Somehow alarmed, the old man immediately screams out: ‘It’s gas—it must Apocalyptic wars 61 be gas!’,66 thereby underlining the notion that the gas attacks have had a long- lasting effect upon his mental constitution. In Last and First Men, machinery combined with irresponsible human behaviour causes the eventual fall of the First Men. Rebellious proletarians take over a nuclear power plant to protest against the ruling class’ oppression. Consequently, ‘after a bout of insane monkeying with the machinery, the mischief-makers [the proletarians] inadvertently got things into such a state that at last the awful djin of physical energy was able to wrench off his fetters and rage over the planet.’67 The negative assessment of machinery and science is emphasized by the metaphorical comparison of ‘physical energy’ to a ‘djin’, a demon or evil spirit. The catastrophe annihilates almost all of humankind with the exception of only 35 people who survive near the North Pole to repopulate the planet. William Lamb’s The World Ends (1937) and A. S. Neill’s The Last Man Alive (1938) both address the danger of poisonous gas. In The World Ends, the breakdown of order is actually caused by a giant earthquake but one of the characters predicts apocalyptic devastation if poison gas is used: ‘Poison gas and incendiary bombs, spread about Europe, will create such misery that we shan’t recover.’68 A more metaphorical instance of war poison gas can be found in The Last Man Alive. In this apocalyptic novel, exceptional for the 1930s in that it is clearly aimed at a juvenile readership, a green, ‘Aryan cloud’69 releases a gas which in turn kills almost the whole population of the Earth, juxtaposing the danger of gas with the threat that Hitler’s Nazis pose. Besides the threat of poison gas, there are also a number of apocalyptic texts in which technological progress in general is regarded with suspicion and fear. Hamilton’s Theodore Savage serves as a good example: ‘Enlightenment that ended as science applied to destruction and progress that has led—to this [apocalyptic disaster].’70 Unambiguously, advanced science is held responsible for the downfall of humankind. In Sidney Fowler Wright’s short story ‘Automata’ (1929), man’s dependence and submission to machinery has irreversible consequences. Here, humankind is gradually replaced by ‘a race of automata’.71 Ever since the industrial revolution, ‘the number of men employed in every factory decreases as its machines become more numerous.’72 This is because mankind values machines as more reliable, easier to attend, and longer lasting. In the end, the last human being is led away from his workstation because of his insufficient working performance. The last man gives way to another machine. Finally, Victor Bayley’s The Machine Stops (1936) gives a voice to those fearing that Britain has become too dependent on machines as a result of modernization. When all metal for no apparent reason starts to disintegrate so that all machinery and iron constructions break down, one of the characters wonders whether that is ‘the smash-up of everything? Civilization. The Human Race.’73 Humanity’s dependence on machines, evident in the idea that ‘England is being fed by a 62 British Apocalyptic Fiction great Machine’, makes it vulnerable in the eventuality that the ‘Machine is going to stop.’74 The English population is thrown back to the Stone Age and, due to the sudden lack of resources, fights and kills over food in order to survive. All the same, this particular novel does not condemn machinery in general. There are attempts to rebuild Britain as ‘Merrie England’, a pastoral idyll that is without the ‘dismal puffing and clanking’75 of machinery. Yet, this dream of a new England is bound to fail when Buddie Jones, a tribal leader, ‘take[s] advantage of the helpless conditions of England’76 and starts to terrorize the peaceful communities in the countryside. In consequence, a new, stronger metal is created to ‘arm ourselves on modern lines’77 and fight off the threat Buddie Jones represents. Clearly, this novel is to be seen in the context of European rearmament in the mid-1930s. In the face of potential aggression from the Continent, the novel calls for proper measures to be able to defend the nation. Only ‘Tommy’, which is the nickname of the inventor of the new metal in The Machine Stops and at the same time the conventional nickname name for the ordinary British soldier,78 ‘will build [England] anew.’79 In accordance, science and machinery are welcome as long as they serve this purpose. This modified attitude towards science and weaponry is indicative of a ‘shift from moralizing about the longer- term consequences for mankind of failure to disarm to worrying about the imminent threat of war’80 in mid-1930s British fiction and in this particular case of apocalyptic fiction. Therefore, The Machine Stops is a rare instance of an apocalyptic novel in the period from the First to the Second World War in that it does not argue against the use of science for military weapons.
Case study: Things to Come
In describing the history of the fictitious city Everytown from 1940 to 2036, Things to Come (1936),81 directed by William Cameron Menzies and written by H. G. Wells, refers to contemporary anxieties of an upcoming war and discusses the future role of science and technology. The film opens on Christmas 1940 when the world is on the brink of war. While most people initially choose to ignore the threat of an attack, an air raid by an unknown enemy lays waste to Everytown and makes war a reality. The epic war that ensues lasts until 1966 when the combatants’ resources are, for the most part, exhausted by the war effort. In a final desperate attempt, the defeated enemy use their last remaining aeroplanes to drop germ bombs, spreading a lethal epidemic over the area around Everytown. Eventually, the epidemic comes to an end, enabling the people of Everytown to start rebuilding their city which has fallen back into a quasi-medieval state. Apocalyptic wars 63
The Boss (Ralph Richardson), a warlord, has taken over the leadership of Everytown. He has plans to strengthen his and the community’s position by putting warplanes back into the air and thus possibly expanding his territory. Unexpectedly, old John Cabal (Raymond Massey) arrives to inform and convince the community of Everytown to establish a world state headed by the airmen of Wings over the World. The Boss takes Cabal prisoner but Cabal makes friends with the Boss’ mechanic Gordon (Derrick De Marney). Together, they repair one of the old aeroplanes and Gordon flies off to inform Wings over the World about Cabal’s imprisonment. Using an anaesthetic gas, the airmen of Wings over the World conquer Everytown and free Cabal. The Boss, on the other hand, inexplicably dies during the attack. In the following years, Everytown undergoes great changes as the result of technological progress and modernization so that in 2036, it is a spectacular underground city. Under the leadership of Oswald Cabal (Raymond Massey), the great grandson of John Cabal, Everytown is geared towards the exploration of space. However, the sculptor Theotocopulos (Cedric Hardwicke) questions the sense of continuous progress and incites a rebellion with the aim of destroying the newly developed space gun. Just in time, the first two astronauts are sent into space. With the space project an eventual success, Cabal muses over the future of humankind and comes to the conclusion that, if man is a different animal, he must pursue advancement or he might as well die. In depicting a disastrous war, the first part of the film is a warning of war and a commitment to pacifism. Thus, the film reflects the ‘mainstream of [nineteen] thirties thinking’82 in Britain. As the setting is kept abstract by naming the city Everytown and the enemy remains anonymous throughout, the film on the surface level does not condemn or warn of a specific warmonger but represents a universal ‘hatred of war’.83 The young John Cabal puts the apocalyptic threat of war in a nutshell: ‘If we don’t end war, war will end us.’84 The rejection of war is furthermore stressed in the futile loss of human life. The pointlessness of the war is emphasized through the fact that it is never explained why the war that kills half the human race is started in the first place. In the face of this, young John Cabal aptly asks: ‘God, why do we have to murder each other.’85 It is coherent with the film’s pacifist approach that this question remains unanswered. Accordingly, the national bulletin’s statement ‘VICTORY IS COMING’86 that is released when the war draws to an end is painfully ironic. The war and its combatants do not achieve anything except that an extraordinary number of lives are taken and that the world is thrown back to a pre-industrial state. An additional example of the absurdity of war is the scene in which John Cabal tries to help an enemy aeroplane pilot after having shot him down. The enemy pilot, whose objective was to spread poison gas, refuses to put on a gas mask when gas clouds start to surround him. Instead, he insists on giving the mask 64 British Apocalyptic Fiction to a little girl to save her even though he might have ‘killed her father and mother’87 with the gas before he was shot down. Hence, this act of mercy as a result of personal interaction with an individual from the enemy side stands in total contradiction to his actions as a soldier, for whom the enemy is an anonymous mass entity. To communicate its pacifist agenda, the film draws on contemporary fears of an upcoming war. The beginning of the war through an air raid in Things to Come mirrors anxieties about a war in the future as ‘[v]irtually everyone expected the next war to involve large-scale air-raids on the civilian population, exceeding to horrors of the Great War’.88 Apart from the initial air attack, the film furthermore shows aeroplanes swarming the sky and aerial combat between Cabal and the enemy pilot. Other elements of the future war in Things to Come mirror fears that go back to the experience of the First World War. Most notably, this is demonstrated by the employment of modern war technology introduced in the Great War. For example, Things to Come prominently features tanks and aeroplanes as major components to fight war. Moreover, preparations for gas attacks are depicted in both the opening assault on Everytown as well as in the following acts of war. As the Great War ended only 18 years before the release of Things to Come, it was ‘that familiarity with the events of the First World War which very much coloured people’s perceptions of either what the Second World War would entail or how much it should be avoided.’89 Apart from the technological aspect of the war, the emergence of a great pestilence subsequent to the war also corresponds to the events of the First World War. Even though the ‘wandering sickness’ in Things to Come is man-made and thus distinctively different from the 1918 influenza pandemic, the sequence of events—the pandemic strikes just as the end to war is near—is remarkable in its similarity to the occurrence of the First World War. Furthermore, old John Cabal, when talking to the Boss about the possibilities of war to ‘end war’, mentions that he ‘seemed to have heard that phrase before when I was a young man.’90 While it remains ambiguous whether Cabal, at this point, refers to the First World War or the fictional war of the film, the phrase ‘war to end war’ is an obvious reference to the build-up of the Great War. Moreover, the representation of the attitude by Cabal’s friend Pippa Passworthy (Edward Chapman) and his son towards an approaching war also relies on the memory of the Great War rather than a 1930s perspective. While Passworthy neither believes in nor hopes for a coming war, he nevertheless welcomes it as ‘it stimulates progress.’91 When war is eventually announced, both Passworthy and his son display a juvenile enthusiasm to go to war, happily marching into it. The Passworthys’ optimistic attitude towards war is not exclusive. In one shot, Passworthy’s son serves a pars pro toto for all soldiers going to war which shows Apocalyptic wars 65
Passworthy junior in front of a silhouette of marching soldiers (Figure 6). The circumstances are reminiscent of the enthusiasm with which the British entered the war to end all war in 1914. In both cases, the outcome is fatal. After the Great War, Britain mourned a ‘lost generation’92 and Passworthy’s son is among the first casualties of the future war in Things to Come, soon to be followed by his father, so the film implies.93 By restaging the events of the First World War, the film brings back the memory of a devastating experience people seemed to have forgotten. Passworthy’s comments that ‘the last war wasn’t as bad as they make out’ and that ‘we [are] exaggerating the horrors of war’94 convey such an attitude. Additionally, Things to Come implicitly warns Britain of the dangers from fascist European countries. Everytown, even though Wells’ script betrays a different intention,95 stands synonymously for Britain in the film. Even though the setting is concealed by its name Everytown, the city in fact looks very much like London. Particularly the iconic dome of Everytown resembles the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. For the aggressor, the film, on the one hand, strongly suggests Germany. In particular, the aerial threat at the beginning of the film resonates with public worries about Germany’s air power at the time. This prompts the radio newsreader to comment that ‘there can be little doubt of [the planes’] place
Figure 6: Passworthy’s son and the soldiers going to war. Menzies, Things to Come, 0:13:15. 66 British Apocalyptic Fiction of origin’96 when he reports on a preliminary air raid on the waterworks near Everytown. In addition, the Boss’ questioning of the usefulness of books— ‘Who wants books to muddle their thoughts and their ideas’97—recalls the book burnings by the Nazis. On the other hand, Things to Come not only warns of Nazi Germany but of fascism in general by also alluding to fascist Italy. The Boss is a parody of Benito Mussolini in appearance and behaviour.98 As a fascist dictator, he naturally claims to be ‘the law’99 for Everytown. Moreover, he is hailed with the Hitler salute by one of his guards after a victorious campaign against the neighbouring hill people.100 When he returns from that battle, the people’s euphoric exultation evokes images of cheering crowds in fascist Germany or Italy (Figure 7). Throughout the second part of the film, which depicts the time after the downfall when the people of Everytown attempt to rebuild civilization, the Boss stands for the continuation of war and thus the threat of a relapse into primitive conditions. Harding points out the fatal consequences if the Boss’ regime of war was to grip mankind once more: ‘You and your sort are driving us straight back to eternal barbarism.’101 The Boss, however, is indifferent to such consequences. He is a megalomaniac driven towards power. To this end, he keeps up a state of war. And so, in order to be able to fight off his immediate
Figure 7: The crowd welcomes the victorious dictator. Menzies, Things to Come, 0:42:26. Apocalyptic wars 67 adversaries, the hill people, he wants Gordon to reclaim the sky with aeroplanes and Harding to provide him with poison gas. As the personified threat of war, it is metaphorically coherent then that the Boss is killed by ‘the new gas of peace’102 in the course of the Wings over the World invasion even though that gas is merely a narcotic. The film’s attitude towards war, however, is not as straight-forwardly pacifist as it seems at first sight. Accordingly, Jeffrey Richards’ statement that ‘the pacifist science fiction films reached their peak in 1936 with Things to Come’103 needs to be qualified. In Things to Come, there is a distinction made between a futile bad war and a necessary good war which is, therefore, justified. While the future war that lasts from 1940 to 1966 is heavily criticized, the film seems to approve of the war between the Boss’ sovereign state and the global institution Wings over the World, an organisation Cabal calls the government of ‘common sense’,104 founded to uphold ‘order and trade.’105 The initial future war is a lethal, merciless battle. In contrast, the war campaign carried out by Wings over the World, with their shiny aeroplanes and their ‘gas of peace’, resembles a clean operation that succeeds in removing the one evil—the Boss—while everybody else is fortunately left alive. Moreover, the distinction between the two wars is indicated by the musical score. The march heard during the initial war has ‘menacing undertones’106 while the music that starts with the liberation of old John Cabal is gloriously triumphant. The wars are furthermore distinguished by the values for which the Boss and Cabal stand. The Boss stands for the downfall of humanity as a result of war. This links him to the British experience of the Great War, emphasized in his statement that, rather than to make war, he wants to ‘End war! End war! I want to make victorious peace!’107 Cabal, on the other side, represents ‘law and sanity.’108 Because Wings over the World defends and promotes these positive values, the film depitcts their war against the Boss as justified. Their war is perceived as a good war as it ends the reign of the Boss. Yet, ironically, Wings over the World actually pursue the same authoritarian ideology as the Boss. The Boss accepts nobody else but himself as the law in Everytown. Likewise, Wings over the World does not accept any other government and beliefs but their own and is willing to do whatever is necessary to enforce their regime:
Cabal: We don’t approve of independent sovereign states. The Boss: That’s war! Cabal: If you will.109
We see another example of Cabal’s authoritarian regime in 2036. Oswald Cabal, the president of Everytown’s council, is fully opinionated when it comes 68 British Apocalyptic Fiction to his ideology of progress. As a result, he decides to ignore the people’s call for ‘the last day of the scientific age’110 and starts the space gun despite their protest. Therefore, the perspective of the airmen standing for a ‘benevolent dictatorship’111 is rather subjective. The idea of a good and a bad war is also evident in the characters’ reflections upon progress. Whereas young John Cabal of 1940 fears that war can ‘stop progress’,112 old John Cabal believes that the war against the Boss enables the beginning of ‘a new world’.113 This new world is a celebration of progress, emphasized by a five-minute montage sequence during which Everytown transforms from a ruined city into a modern underground metropolis. Hence, the war started by the airmen in this instance has proven to be a catalyst of progress, ironically an echo of Pippa Passworthy’s fallacious assessment on the eve of the war of 1940. Therefore, the evaluation of science and progress in Things to Come is similarly ambivalent. In condemning modern war, the film initially doubts whether humankind benefits from science and progress. The scene in which John Cabal, Grandfather Cabal (Alan Jeayes), and Pippa Passworthy discuss the subject matter of progress illustrates this best as it points to the destructive role of science in the production of modern weapons of war. Grandfather Cabal picks up one of the military toys with which the children around them play and wonders whether ‘perhaps all these new toys aren’t a bit too much for them.’114 Incidentally, the children play with a modern soldier’s helmet as well as miniature tanks, aeroplanes and artillery canons and thus with the kind of modern weapons that are used in the war to come. Therefore, it turns out that these toys, when they are real-size and lethal, indeed are too much to cope and bring humankind to the brink of annihilation. This is due to their technological—or ‘complex’ as the Grandfather puts it with respect to the toys—character which distinguishes them from the old ‘simpler’ ways of fighting war. He gives the example of the ‘wooden soldier’,115 which, in contrast to the other toys, stands for an outmoded, less devastating and more human war. The Boss’ ambition to produce flying aeroplanes and poison gas in order to fight off the hill people, and probably any other enemy, further underlines the negative aspects of science. By contrast, science employed by Cabal and his airmen is viewed positively. This is the case despite the fact that they use some of the same scientific weapons that were used in the war of 1940: aeroplanes and gas. Yet, despite the horrors that these weapons prompt in the inhabitants of Everytown who must relive the war trauma, the airmen’s gas is named ‘the gas of peace’. Undoubtedly, this new gas is less harmful in comparison to the old gas. Nevertheless, its purpose stands in opposition to democratic ideals as it is used to subdue the people of Everytown. Apart from the attack by Wings over the World, this is demonstrated when Oswald Cabal contemplates using it in order to break up the revolt set off Apocalyptic wars 69 by Theotocopulos. In both cases, however, the film embraces the (ab)use of military modern science for a seemingly higher good, the defeat of the Boss and the advancement of mankind. The double standard towards war proposed by Things to Come can be better understood by considering the British change in attitude towards war in the mid-1930s. As the Nazi threat from Germany became increasingly palpable, the will to rearm grew stronger in order to be able to defend the British nation but also to ensure peace. Pacifist ideals were suspended to guarantee the safety of the nation and stop fascist warmongers from disrupting peace in Continental Europe. Things to Come mirrors this situation: Wings over the World is committed to fighting a dictatorial warlord because this becomes a necessity in their efforts towards peace. Thus, Things to Come is characteristic for apocalyptic fiction of the time116 as well as the British popular debate in its attempt to come to terms with the challenge from Continental Europe while trying to uphold its pacifist creed.
*
The traumatic effects of the experience of the First World War are evident in the paradigm shift of the apocalyptic discourse during the 1920s and 1930s. In much of British apocalyptic fiction, war becomes the ultimate agent of misery and catastrophe. As the geographical scope of the apocalyptic war and its ruin often extends beyond British borders, apocalyptic fiction in most cases no longer serves as a vehicle for xenophobic sentiments as it did during the New Imperialism. Rather, Britain and the nations of continental Europe are often shown to be equally responsible for the cataclysm. In the absence of a moral compass, the people of the Western world reveal themselves as savages, independent of origin. End-of-the-world stories of the interwar period not only have a tendency to be bleaker in tone than their pre-Great War predecessors, they are more or less fully secularized. The apocalypse is in most cases a man-made disaster devoid of any hint or implication of divine intervention or plan. Since technical progress and scientific inventions elevated the atrocities to unprecedented quantiative levels, the public’s pacifist attitude in reaction to the First World War extends to a scepticism if not outright condemnation of science and machinery in many of the stories. This reinforces and amplifies existing suspiciousness against science in British culture before 1914. This luddite attitude is merely softened in some examples of the 1930s when Britain was on the verge of rearmament. At this time, the perspective on the phenomenon of war in apocalyptic fiction becomes more complex as the possibility of a good or just war enters the discourse. Ch ap t er 4
Nuclear threats, Cold War
Britain and the Cold War
For the time after the Second World War until the beginnings of the Soviet Union’s eventual collapse, the discourse of apocalypse in Britain is dominated by nuclear threats and the Cold War, only interrupted by the years of détente which lasted from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1970s. The end of the Second World War did not bring permanent peace and international stability but proved to be a short intermezzo to a new conflict, the Cold War. The cooperation between the Allied Powers, more specifically between the Soviet Union and the USA, ended with the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies. In the following, the US developed a double strategy of containment and liberation to fight the spread of communism. The Soviets feared imperialistic ambitions by the Americans and formed a bloc with Eastern European countries to defend itself against Western influence and aggression. The conflict between East and West rapidly intensified with the first Berlin crisis and the Korean War, prompting other nations to take sides with either one of the superpowers. The formation of two political blocs eventually found its military correspondence in NATO and the Warsaw Pact. As a result, the world became virtually divided in half between the Western democracies and the Eastern communist countries. The British involvement in the Cold War was negligible since Britain lost its position as world power and major political influence early on in the Cold War. Initially, Britain emerged from the Second World War as one of the ‘Big Three’, along with the US and the Soviet Union, which designed the post- war order in Continental Europe. However, it could not be concealed that ‘the decline of Britain to secondary status’1 was an inevitability. The nation was financially exhausted from the war efforts and economically ‘unable to match continental growth rates’2 in its aftermath. Moreover, the end of the war marked the starting point of a decolonisation process which began with the independence of India in 1947. This became most apparent during the Suez crisis in 1956. The intervention of the United States, which ended British ambitions to reconquer the Suez channel, ‘illustrated vividly that Britain was no longer an imperial power and was, in fact, a client state of the United States’.3 As a result, from ‘the mid-1950s onwards, the Cold War was predominantly a Soviet-American affair’.4 Nuclear threats, Cold War 71
During the Cold War, the British shared the American perspective that the Soviet Union posed a threat to Western democracies. Like the American political leaders, ‘British decision-makers were in general agreement that communism and collectivism posed the most serious danger to both Western security and civilisation’.5 Fears of an international communist conspiracy seemed to be confirmed in 1950 when two scientists, both involved in atomic research in Britain, turned out to be communist sympathizers. German-born Klaus Fuchs was convicted of spying for the Soviets while Italian-born Bruno Pontecorvo defected to the USSR. The idea of Western societies subverted by communists was encouraged by rumours that communists had the ability to brainwash their enemies, that ‘the “Reds” had cracked the problem of controlling human behaviour’.6 In view of that and Soviet efforts to conquer space, it seemed plausible, a Punch cartoon humorously suggests, that not only humans but also extra-terrestrials had been brainwashed or won over by the Soviet Union and its communist ideology (Figure 8).7 Therefore, Britain’s role in the Cold War was that of an American military ally, a partnership which became institutionalized with the foundation of NATO to be able to avert a dreaded Soviet invasion. Britain continued to be dependent on the United States for military support until the end of the Cold War.
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Figure 8: The Soviet communists rule on alien planets. Cartoon by Anton. Punch, 21 July 1954. 72 British Apocalyptic Fiction
It was the development of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union and the ensuing armament race that gave the Cold War conflict an increasing potential for disaster. Initially, it was only the United States which was in possession of the atomic bomb. The US had demonstrated the power of the bomb at the end of the Second World War in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Soviet military power, on the other hand, was at first based on conventional weapons. Yet already in 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb and thus changed the nature of the Cold War: ‘The 1949 Soviet nuclear test (“Joe One”) raised the stakes further, shifting government policy “from the goal of control to the goal of superiority”’.8 In their attempts to surpass the enemy, the development of the more devastating hydrogen bomb, successfully tested for the first time by the Americans in 1952 and by the Soviets in 1954, marked the next step on the escalation ladder and reawakened public concern. Since the hydrogen bomb ‘was developed by both East and West during a period of extreme tension highlighted by the ongoing Korean War and by the appointment of [the aggressive anti-communist] John Foster Dulles to the post of U.S. secretary of state’,9 it was conceivable that nuclear bombs in general and the hydrogen bomb in particular would be put to use. Dulles soon underlined the American intention to use nuclear weapons in his doctrine of massive retaliation. The prospects of a potential nuclear war were extremely worrying because ‘it was understood by 1955 that an atomic exchange in Europe would devastate the continent’.10 Besides, the mere testing of nuclear bombs, which increased to a great extent in the mid-1950s, proved to be unsafe. The H-bomb tests in the Bikini atoll in 1954 accidentally ‘doused at least three hundred people with high levels of radiation’11 and left a Japanese sailor dead. This incident further demonstrated that ‘even when one was not exposed to the direct effects of the bomb, its fallout could be deadly.’12 It caused ‘growing apprehension over the effects of nuclear weapons testing’.13 Hence, with nuclear bombs becoming bigger and more devastating, the dangers of a nuclear fallout became more prominent. Anxieties over a nuclear holocaust were additionally intensified in 1957 when ‘Russia stunned the West by launching an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and the first space satellite, “Sputnik”’.14 The event’s implication was that, ‘if the USSR had rockets good enough to place a satellite in orbit, they were a serious threat to [US] security.’15 Instead of a space satellite, the ICBM might just as well have carried nuclear warheads to hit long-range targets. Eventually, the increasing potential for nuclear disaster led to a temporary testing moratorium declared in 1958. However, after only three years, all nuclear powers resumed testing with even greater intensity. Consequently, anxieties surrounding the nuclear bomb heightened to a level that the bomb was perceived as the ultimate agent of apocalypse in the collective consciousness. Contemporary sociologist Edward Shils explains that ‘the atomic Nuclear threats, Cold War 73 bomb was a bridge over which the [apocalyptic] phantasies […] entered the larger society which was facing an unprecedented threat to its continuance.’16 By examining the weekly political cartoon in Punch, it also becomes clear that the bomb was explicitly linked to the discourse of apocalypse, especially after the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite. A two-page cartoon in Punch (Figure 9) is particularly evocative and noteworthy in this respect.17 It depicts armed dinosaurs in a nuclear war. Here, the fact that it is dinosaurs—a species whose fate is infamously connected to sudden extinction—that wage a nuclear war already anticipates the catastrophic outcome of that war. Moreover, the cartoon features a quote from Russia, the Atom and the West (1958), a book by former political advisor George F. Kennan, which emphasizes the apocalyptic dimension of the nuclear confrontation between the USA and the Soviet Union:
To-day it is everything which is at stake—the kindliness of our natural environment, the human experience, the genetic composition of the race, the possibilities of health and life for future generations. Not only is this danger terrible, but it is immediate.
Another political cartoon signals the paradigm shift from poison gas as part of the apocalyptic discourse in the interwar period up to the end of the Second
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Figure 9: Nuclear bombs will cause humankind to go extinct as a species. Cartoon by Norman Mansbridge. Punch, 5 March 1958: ‘To-day it is everything which is at stake – the kindliness of our natural environment, the human experience, the genetic composition of the race, the possibilities of health and life for future generations. Not only is this danger terrible, but it is immediate.’ (George F. Kennan, Russia, The Atom and the West) 74 British Apocalyptic Fiction
World War to nuclear weapons thereafter (Figure 10). The two characters in the cartoon discuss the possibility of a nuclear attack and believe it to be unlikely. They base their reasoning on the memory that gas bombs were never used in the Second World War despite all the severe warnings. Ironically, the iconic mushroom cloud in the background instantly undermines this assessment.
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Figure 10: Londoners doubt the deployment of the atomic bomb just when it strikes. Cartoon by Norman Mansbridge. Punch, 24 February 1960: ‘It’ll be just the same as it was with the gas in the last war – they’ll never use it.’ Nuclear threats, Cold War 75
The detonation of the nuclear bomb in the cartoon points towards the realistic possibility of a nuclear attack at the time, at least in the perception of cartoonist Norman Mansbridge and the Punch readers. Eventually, the perceived danger of nuclear weapons decreased considerably when relations between the United States and the Soviet Union eased off in the course of the 1960s. The nuclear war angst had culminated in 1962 when American intelligence discovered Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. On the brink of nuclear war, the two governments instead opted for a political resolution of the conflict. This course of action heralded a phase of détente between East and West. The Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which prohibited nuclear testing above ground, was testament to this new period and ‘represented the first major breakthrough in the negotiations between the nuclear powers to move towards disarmament […]. [T]here is no doubt that the impact of this agreement upon public opinion, in Britain as in the USA, was considerable’.18 Further efforts towards disarmament, for example SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Talk I), followed. A second Cold War, and with it fears of a nuclear holocaust in Britain and elsewhere, erupted in the 1980s when new tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union resulted in military measures. Two events in December 1979 were crucial for this development. First, NATO rebuilt the state of mutual assured destruction when it decided to install Pershing II and cruise missiles in Western Europe to meet the challenge from the SS-20 missiles set up by the Soviets in Eastern European countries. This decision ‘led Soviet political and military leaders to conclude that the West was preparing to launch a nuclear surprise attack.’19 Secondly, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan to support Afghanistan’s Communist government against the Islamist Mujahideen Resistance, which was financially and militarily supported by the United States, the United Kingdom and others. The election of Ronald Reagan as US president in 1980, moreover, proved to be problematic for East-West relations. Reagan, because of his efforts to increase military spending and his aggressive Cold War rhetoric towards the ‘Evil Empire’20 Soviet Union, was viewed by a great number of people in Britain, Benelux, Germany and Scandinavia as ‘dangerous and irresponsible’.21 A nuclear confrontation seemed to be a definite possibility as ‘neither superpower nor the independent nuclear powers in Europe had any will to initiate serious efforts at disarmament or nuclear disengagement’.22 Public opinion polls were indicative of growing anxiety among the British population as ‘the percentage of people expecting a nuclear war within the next decade rose from 13 to 39 percent’23 between 1977 and 1980. The consequences of a nuclear exchange were expected to be truly apocalyptic. This, at least, was the conclusion which scientists drew at the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs in 1980: ‘Never before has mankind been in such grave peril. 76 British Apocalyptic Fiction
A major nuclear war would mean the end of civilization and could lead to the extinction of the human race.’24 From the mid-1980s onwards, however, the Cold War came slowly to a close. The Soviet Union, which could no longer financially afford to uphold the arms race, was oriented towards détente. This, for example, became evident in the INF Treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) of 1987, ‘the most significant disarmament agreement for over 50 years, legislating for the removal of US Cruise and Pershing missiles and Soviet IRBMs’.25 Two years later, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Communist regimes in several Eastern European countries, several European leaders including Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher urged US President George H. Bush to meet with the Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev to discuss the future of Europe. Thereupon, Bush and Gorbachev met at the Malta Summit where they issued public statements which implied the end of the Cold War. Public anxieties about nuclear weapons and nuclear war in both the first phase and the second phase of the Cold War are reflected in the success of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The CND, founded in 1958, became the major mouthpiece for anti-nuclear protests. The CND’s main objective was ‘to press for a British initiative to reduce the nuclear peril and to stop the armaments race.’26 Therefore, the CND was not ‘a full-scale pacifist rejection of the immorality of war per se’ like the Peace Pledge Union but focused more specifically ‘on moral outrage at nuclear weapons’. 27 The writer J. B. Priestley, one of the CND’s founding members, even made the link between nuclear arms and ‘universal catastrophe and apocalypse’ explicit.28 At the end of the 1950s, ‘the CND became a national Movement’29 in Britain, gaining most prominence from the demonstrations it organized. The CND protest marches from Aldermaston, the location of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, to London attracted most public support and attention. Starting out as a small protest rally with merely 4,000 people in 1958, the demonstration increasingly grew in numbers until approximately 150,000 people participated in the march in 1962.30 Eventually, the decline of the CND coincided with decreasing public anxiety about nuclear issues from 1962 onwards. Especially the diplomatic resolution of the Cuba missile crisis resulted in ‘a crucial downturn in activism’31 so that by 1964, the CND had faded from national prominence. When the phase of détente ended at the end of the 1970s, the CND regained strength and general public support. This is evident in the development of CND membership: ‘CND’s national membership soared from 9,000 in 1980 to over 100,000 by early 1985’.32 Putting that number in perspective, that meant that the ‘CND had attained the largest membership of any political organization in Britain’33 apart from the Conservative Party. The favourable conditions for nuclear protest in the UK are also illustrated in the success of the Greenham Nuclear threats, Cold War 77
Common Women’s Peace Camp34, the fact that the European Nuclear Disarmament movement (END), founded in 1980, originated in Britain35 and the popularity of other British nuclear disarmament organizations.36
Apocalyptic fiction 1946–1966, 1979–1986
From Hiroshima to the end of the bipolar world
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima had an immediate impact on apocalyptic fiction. Within a year, The Maniac’s Dream: A Novel of the Atomic Bomb (1946), a mad-scientist tale by F. Horace Rose, was published. In the opening chapter, the novel explicitly refers to ‘August 6th, 1945, the day on which the first Atomic Bomb exploded on a dazed, stunned and horrified world, which had not known that the Mighty Atom of the Universe had been harnessed to the will of Man.’37 Of course, the atomic bomb as a means of annihilation was not entirely new in apocalyptic fiction. For instance, Robert Cromie in The Crack of Doom (1895) had explored this idea before.38 But the public’s perspective on the atomic bomb had changed: ‘Science-fiction movies and literature had for a generation toyed creatively with the idea of a nuclear world, without really being taken seriously. Suddenly, with Hiroshima, the future seemed to have come to the present; fantasy was reality’.39 The catastrophic power of the atomic bomb bound the genres of nuclear and apocalyptic fiction together for the years to come. Then again, despite the real threat and potentially devastating consequences of the atomic bomb, it did not instantaneously generate multitudes of nuclear apocalyptic fiction. In his vast survey of nuclear holocaust fiction, Paul Brians shares this analysis when he states that ‘few novels depicting nuclear war either outside or inside of science fiction were published before 1950. Those that were [were] not well known or not widely reviewed or sold.’40 Actually, there is only one more British apocalyptic novel, J. Jefferson Farjeon’s Death of a World (1948), which came into print in the immediate years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Apart from stereotypical mad scientists and fictitious insane warmongering politicians like Thara Menechu and Chen Koo Sin, the mischief-makers in The Maniac’s Dream and Death of a World, writers did not utilise the atomic bomb as a harbinger of the catastrophic destruction of the world. Possibly, this is because ‘the threat posed by the [atomic bomb] had been somewhat obscured by its role in ending World War II’.41 Only at the beginning of the 1950s did (nuclear) apocalyptic fiction increase in number and popularity. This coincided with the boom of science fiction in 78 British Apocalyptic Fiction general. Melvin Matthews, in his discussion of American science fiction films, gives a number of reasons why science fiction flourished at the time:
World War II and the advent of the atomic bomb; a change in the public’s attitude towards scientists, which elevated such figures as Werner von Braun and Albert Einstein to celebrity status; the Cold War between East and West, and Soviet and American competition in rocket technology; anxiety over nuclear war and paranoia over communist subversion; and the ‘flying saucer’ scare.42
Even though Matthews relates these reasons to the rise of the American SF film in particular, there can be no doubt that some of them were also influential for the increasing popularity of science fiction in Britain, be it on the screen or in book form. In addition, the same reasons help to explain why there is much more apocalyptic fiction in the 1950s than in the preceding years. As tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union intensified, all aspects of nuclear power—the bomb, nuclear testing, and the arms race in general—gained a more threatening and thus potentially apocalyptic dimension. The communists themselves started to represent a threat and apocalyptic fiction served as a vehicle for Cold War propaganda. Interest in hard science fiction was further encouraged by changes in the British education system. Ultimately, ‘the beginning of mass education was creating a new public of mainly young readers with more than a sprinkling of scientific background’.43 Moreover, there was a greater output of texts because the production of SF novels was less tedious and less expensive than in the past. British science fiction writers started ‘publishing straight into paperback, rather than emerging from the magazines.’44 Interestingly, it was not the menace of nuclear war but tales of invasion that dominated apocalyptic fiction in the first half of the 1950s. This is apparent in the face of the ’enormous popularity of [John] Wyndham, especially for his first two post-war novels of disaster’45 The Day of the Triffids (1951) and The Kraken Wakes (1953). Significantly, The Day of the Triffids ‘stands as one of the most successful science fiction novels of the twentieth century’.46 On the screen, the BBC series The Quatermass Experiment (1953) and its film adaptationThe Quatermass Xperiment (1955) were similarly successful. The serial version was ‘event television, emptying the streets and pubs for the six weeks of its duration’47 and the film ‘broke box-office records on both sides of the Atlantic’.48 TV series and film were soon followed by apocalyptic sequels, the BBC series Quatermass II (1955) and its cinema adaptation Quatermass 2 (1957). These invasion tales hit the heart of Cold War paranoia by taking up communist invasion anxieties in combination with a general ‘critique of Cold War science’.49 Stories with more explicit references to the dangerous consequences of nuclear testing and nuclear war took over from invasion tales in the late 1950s. The focus in British apocalyptic fiction clearly shifted from anti-communist Nuclear threats, Cold War 79 propaganda to warnings of nuclear armament: ‘Whereas 1950s sf film often mingled fear of the bomb with anticommunism, it is striking that by the end of the decade nuclear disaster was blamed more frequently on science, accident and human frailty than on the Russians’.50 The reception of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (1957) was influential in this development. Shute’s story about nuclear contamination, which in particular responded to ‘widespread concern about fallout from testing’,51 was a bestseller. As the bleak ending of On the Beach leaves nobody alive on Earth, it popularised the idea of extinction through nuclear catastrophe like no other fictional work before: ‘The book was serialized in more than forty newspapers in 1957, and by the 1980s the paperback edition had sold over four million copies, the highest sales of any novel centered on nuclear energy.’52 As a result, shortly afterwards, a significant number of apocalyptic novels were published in which nuclear testing or nuclear war was responsible for the cataclysm: Charles Eric Maine’s The Tide Went Out (1958), Tyrone Barr’s The Last 14 (1959) and Edmund Cooper’s Seed of Light (1959). Moreover, the success of the film version On the Beach (1959), an acclaimed Hollywood adaptation starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, showed ‘that there was a market for big-budget serious science fiction.’53 This insight had a considerable impact on British apocalyptic film. Two successful films, The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) directed by Val Guest and Stanley Kubrick’s classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) were produced. In addition, the BBC production The War Game (1965) received a limited theatrical release in British cinemas in 1966 after the film was deemed to be ‘too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting’.54 Notwithstanding some of the examples from the mid-1960s, it is evident that nuclear apocalyptic fiction petered out when the period of détente started following the diplomatic resolution of the Cuban missile crisis and the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty. Similarly to when increasing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1950s inspired a sizeable amount of invasion tales, so did political détente bring a temporary end to the output of nuclear apocalyptic fiction. The interest in nuclear war and the dangers of nuclear weapons in general declined after 1962. Searching for references to nuclear weapons, Spencer Weart analysed ‘bibliographies of magazines, indexes of newspaper articles, catalogues of nonfiction books and novels, and lists of films’ around the world and detects that ‘all these measures plunged by the late 1960s to a quarter or less of their former numbers.’55 For narrative texts, this trend continued throughout the 1970s as ‘the last half of the seventies marked a low point in the creation of nuclear war fiction. In absolute numbers, never had so little been published since 1945.’56 In British apocalyptic fiction, The Furies (1966) by Keith Roberts became the last apocalyptic novel for almost a decade and a half that addressed the nuclear threat. 80 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Consistently, nuclear apocalyptic fiction re-emerged at the time of the second Cold War from 1979 to the mid-1980s. While David Graham’s novel Down to a Sunless Sea (1979) is the first example in this context, the reintroduction of the Cold War into British apocalyptic fiction is indicated most pronouncedly by the broadcast of the BBC TV series The Day of the Triffids (1981), based on Wyndham’s classic Cold War apocalyptic text. The fact that the producers chose to adapt the novel most faithfully shows that the dominant themes of the 1950s were perceived to be relevant again. Overall, however, the fear of communism played an inferior role in 1980s nuclear apocalyptic fiction. If texts discussed the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States in greater detail, East and West were usually depicted as equally mad in fighting the enemy. Trevor Hoyle’s The Last Gasp (1983), whilst not a nuclear fiction novel, exemplifies the absurd logic of Cold War thinking. Instead, the emphasis was rather on re- familiarising a wider public with the possibility and the dangers of nuclear war. This helps to explain why stories of global nuclear catastrophe became part of young adult literature during this phase. Robert Swindell’s Brother in the Land came out in 1984 and Louise Lawrence published Children of the Dust in 1985. These books served to educate a young readership that had not experienced the first Cold War and thus were ignorant of the nuclear threat. A related attitude is apparent in the documentary style of the BBC TV film Threads (1984). In Threads, ‘[g]raphic on-screen depictions of the actual effects of nuclear war’57 were used to confront the viewers with how gruesome the worst-case scenario would be. This way of thinking towards nuclear fiction on the screen also paved the way for a TV broadcast of The War Game in July 1985.58 Ultimately, however, the easing of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union marked the beginning of the end of nuclear apocalypse. Interestingly, the last two examples of nuclear apocalyptic fiction, the films Whoops Apocalypse (1986) and When the Wind Blows (1986), were adaptations of early 1980s works, the TV series Whoops Apocalypse (1982) and the graphic novel When the Wind Blows (1982). Original stories of nuclear apocalypse disappeared as the Cold War came to a conclusion.
Nuclear threats
Apocalyptic fiction of the Cold War period is dominated by the warning of nuclear threats of various kinds. The development of the atomic bomb had introduced a new dimension to humankind’s capability for harm and destruction. The apocalypse could no longer be merely taken as a figment of a writer’s imagination but seemed an all too realistic prospect. As a consequence, there Nuclear threats, Cold War 81 are a vast number of examples which call attention to the dangers of apocalyptic war, nuclear testing catastrophes and nuclear armament. Stories of apocalyptic nuclear war show that using nuclear weapons in battle is not merely the continuation of war with other means but elevates conflict effortlessly to apocalyptic heights. J. Jefferson Farjeon’s novel Death of a World (1948) is the earliest instance of atomic war in British apocalyptic fiction after 1945. The novel relates the events of a Third World War which is most efficiently fought with atomic bombs that ‘could account for, not one hundred and fifty thousand lives, but a million’, relegating the atomic bombs dropped on Japan to ‘museum pieces’.59 Written only three years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the direct references are indicative of the bombings’ profound impact on ideas of apocalypse. This is underlined by the fact that the novel ends with the extinction of the entire human race when Gregory, one of the characters, goes mad and opens all emergency exits of a subterranean shelter that initially keeps a small number of human survivors alive in the aftermath of the war. Gregory’s madness appears to be representative of the madness that has befallen mankind in creating a doomsday device like the atomic bomb. Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (1957) is set in the aftermath of a nuclear war in which ‘about four thousand seven hundred [nuclear bombs]’60 had been dropped. The novel’s setting, Australia, and other places in the far south of the globe, on the whole remain unharmed at first as the war, a confrontation between the NATO states and the Soviet Union, had taken place in the Northern hemisphere. However, as nuclear fallout spreads to the Southern hemisphere, mankind is doomed all the same. As in Death of a World, the characters in On the Beach do not receive a second chance to rebuild civilization, strengthening the perception that nuclear war has the potential to factually eradicate humanity.61 It is noticeable that apocalyptic nuclear war fiction of the 1980s is as much concerned with the instant horror of nuclear bombing as with its long-term consequences. When the Wind Blows (1986) and two novels for adolescents, Robert Swindells’ Brother in the Land (1984) and Louise Lawrence’s Children of the Dust (1985), all draw attention to the danger of nuclear fallout. The major characters in When the Wind Blows, James and Hilda Bloggs, survive a nuclear missile attack but fall ill and eventually die after they expose themselves to contaminated air and drink polluted rainwater. Similarly, the main characters in Brother in the Land also suffer from nuclear fallout which, in the novel, kills ‘nearly as many people as the bomb itself’.62 And in Louise Lawrence’s Children of the Dust (1985), the plot is split up into three different parts, two of which describe the struggles and encounters in a post-apocalyptic world between the survivors who went underground and the survivors who stayed on the surface of the Earth and became human mutants because of their exposure to ‘radiation 82 British Apocalyptic Fiction sickness’.63 By addressing the harmful effects of nuclear fallout, these stories bring to attention the fact that Britain does not have to be the direct target of a nuclear attack to suffer its dreadful consequences. In some of British apocalyptic fiction of the Cold War era, the apocalypse is an unintentional result of nuclear weapons testing. In Val Guest’s film The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), simultaneous hydrogen bomb tests by the United States and the Soviet Union have caused ‘an eleven-degree shift in our orbit’ so that Earth is ‘moving towards the sun.’64 In Brian Aldiss’ Greybeard (1964), the USA and the USSR conduct atomic tests in space which lead to a discharge of ‘hard radiation’65 and eventually causes human infertility. And at the beginning of The Furies (1966) by Keith Roberts, ‘all news was overshadowed by the nuclear test series being run by both East and West.’66 Simultaneous tests by the Americans and the Soviets trigger earthquakes and mass devastation and allow the Furies—an energy form from outer space that has adopted the shape of a swarm of giant wasps—to take advantage of the ensuing chaos, attacking Earth and using humans as slaves to build wasp cities. In contrast to apocalyptic war fiction, these stories which have nuclear testing as the starting point of the breakdown of order present the apocalypse as an accident, a unwanted result of the existence and application of nuclear power that creates imponderabilities beyond human control. Yet it is not only these nuclear apocalypses of war and testing that highlight the inherently dangerous nature of nuclear weapons. British apocalyptic fiction during the Cold War generally warns of the existence and application of nuclear armament. Even in John Christopher’s The Death of Grass (1956), which centres on a virus that infects plants and crops and thus causes a global famine, nuclear weapons take on a menacing role. In order to shorten the British people’s suffering and to reduce chaos and anarchy, the British government develops a plan ‘to drop hydrogen bombs on cities—on one’s own people’.67 Here, clearly, the British possession of nuclear bombs is depicted as a threat rather than ensuring people’s safety. The same is true for the TV serial The Quatermass Experiment (and its film spin-off). A part of the atomic rocket bomb that Quatermass sends into space becomes ‘dangerously radioactive’68 with unknown consequences for humanity. Moreover, the entire crew of the space rocket fall victim to the atomic experiment: Two of them die during the flight; the protagonist Victor Carroon is invaded by an alien life form and eventually dies as well. Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud (1957) also criticizes nuclear armament. When a black cloud threatens to shield off solar radiation, a group of scientists manages to establish communication with the highly intelligent cloud and convince it to change its path. However, the leaders of the United States and the USSR are not patient enough for the cloud to redirect its course and, in a joint effort (!), fire off over 150 rockets with nuclear warheads to poison the cloud with radioactive Nuclear threats, Cold War 83 materials. The cloud reacts by redirecting the nuclear bombs to ‘the exact points they started out from’,69 destroying two American and one Russian city. The Black Cloud is unambiguous in its message that those who fire nuclear bombs will indeed harm themselves in the end. The first strike by the two terrestrial superpowers does not succeed as planned in disabling the cloud but instead results in the cloud’s retaliation.70 The mere detonation of an atomic bomb is responsible for the apocalyptic catastrophe in Richard Pape’s And so Ends the World… (1961). After a race to the moon which mirrors the nuclear armament race, the Soviet Union and the USA divide up the moon’s territory: ‘[I]t was agreed that Soviet Russia held sovereignty over that four-sevenths of the moon’s surface that faced towards the earth, while the Americans could lay claim to the remaining three-sevenths.’71 Both the Russians and the Americans are eager to mine Lunarite, a resource found in the depths of the moon. In an attempt to ‘displace millions of tons of underground bedrock by thermo-nuclear explosion’,72 the Soviets accidentally set off a blast that causes the moon to leave its orbit and thus catastrophically destabilizes the Earth’s ecosystem. Similarly to the examples of nuclear testing apocalypses, And so Ends the World… stresses the point that humanity has lost control over the powers of the nuclear age.
Cold War
Apart from a pre-occupation with the nuclear bomb, apocalyptic fiction after the Second World War until the mid-1960s as well as in the 1980s is characterized by the Cold War. Even in stories that do not feature nuclear bombs or communist attacks, the Cold War serves as an ever-present backdrop. In Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End (1953), for instance, Cold War competition is the starting point for humanity’s transformation into a superior species and thus the end of humankind as we know it. At the beginning of the novel, the USA and the Soviet Union are committed to a race the outcome of which will show which superpower ‘can get to the moon first.’73 The race to the moon, representative of the pursuit of dominance in the rivalry between East and West, is abruptly stopped when the alien Overlords come to Earth and help humankind overcome their Cold War obsessions. More explicitly, Stanley Kubrick’s satirical film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963) shows that Cold War mentality leads humankind into disaster.74 An American attack on Russian soil automatically activates the Russian ‘Doomsday Machine’, a ‘device which will destroy all human and animal life on Earth’.75 Despite desperate attempts by the American and Soviet political leaders to recall or destroy all aeroplanes involved in the attack, one aircraft 84 British Apocalyptic Fiction reaches its target and detonates the bomb. The absurd logic of Cold War thinking is particularly exposed when American military advisors discuss the option of survival in a mine shaft with the American President. In the face of nuclear apocalyptic disaster, they fear that ‘the Russkies [might stash] away some bombs and we didn’t’ which would create ‘a mine-shaft gap’ and allow the Russians to pursue their ‘expansionist policy’.76 Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador, who helps to mediate between the President and the Russian Premier, uses the agitated discussion to secretly take pictures of the American war room. Even in the hour of nuclear death, both East and West insist on disastrous Cold War military doctrine and futile espionage. The Last Gasp (1983) by Trevor Hoyle also addresses the catastrophic consequences of Cold War strategy. Unusual for the time of its publication, the novel does so without taking up the threat of nuclear weapons. The Last Gasp claims that ‘[t]he use of nuclear weapons is becoming an outdated concept in terms of global strategy’77 and rather focuses on eco-doom and ‘Environmental War’.78 With the oxygen level in the air already at a threateningly low level, the two superpowers develop a deterrent strategy that is based on manipulating the environment to such a degree that could make life on Earth impossible. Environmental deterrent strategy in The Last Gasp is as ludicrous as nuclear deterrent strategy: ‘Risking a global calamity in order to keep the balance of power – it’s futile to expect logic.’79 In the end, both Americans and Soviets have to work together to save humanity, establishing a colony on the moon until Earth has had enough time to regenerate itself to be able to support life again. The novel makes a political statement by suggesting that the survival of the human species and the future of the planet can only be ensured through concerted cooperation rather than Cold War competition.
Fear of communist invasion
While the previous examples take a more or less neutral position in the conflict between East and West, a considerable portion of British Cold War apocalyptic fiction uses end-of-the-world scenarios to address fears of communism to spread anti-USSR propaganda. The Day of the Triffids (1951) is an early example of how fears of a communist invasion translate into an apocalyptic invasion narrative. The triffids, a mobile plant species with a potentially lethal sting is engineered in ‘the first experimental triffid station in the district of Elovsk in Kamchatka’80 in the Soviet Union. When almost the whole of humanity goes blind, maybe because of a comet, possibly as a result of an accident in relation to ‘satellite weapons’,81 the triffids slowly take over the rule of Britain.82 In the end, the main character Bill Masen hopes that the younger generation will be able to ‘drive the Nuclear threats, Cold War 85 triffids back and back with ceaseless destruction until we have wiped the last one of them from the face of the land that they have usurped.’83 Even though communism is never openly mentioned in the novel, the triffids’ place of origin and the threat from satellites in outer space clearly point to Cold War anxieties. The idea of the triffid plague as spreading communism is also reinforced by two quotations from The Night of the Triffids (2001), Simon Clark’s sequel to The Day of the Triffids, which, at its beginning, looks at the events of Wyndham’s story in retrospect. In doing so, it draws noticeable parallels between the triffids and what communism meant to the West in the 1950s: ‘[W]aves of triffids spreading from the Russian steppes drove human survivors westward until their backs were to the Atlantic.’84 Looking back on the 1950s with a 21st century perspective, The Night of the Triffids’ narrator David Masen, son of Bill Masen, even comments on the disproportional condemnation of communism when he states that ‘the triffid had been demonized and held responsible for the destruction of the Old World’.85 Furthermore, the reading of the triffids invasion as a communist infiltration gains credibility if one considers that the first two adaptations of Wyndham’s novel, the first for the cinema screen in 1962, the second one as a BBC series in 1981, were produced at the height of Cold War crisis. In the film version directed by Steve Sekely, however, the allusions to the communist threat are toned down. Andy Sawyer rightfully points out that ‘the film loses Wyndham’s hints that the meteors may be debris from a satellite weapons system which has gone wrong and that the triffids themselves are a result of a Russian bioengineering project’.86 Instead of being created in Russia, ‘Triffidus selectus’ was ‘brought to Earth on the meteorites’.87 Hence, the film The Day of the Triffids loses most of its social commentary. In contrast, the BBC TV series from 1981 takes up the novel’s Cold War perspective more faithfully. This even extends to reproductions of some of the novel’s dialogue passages. For example, Bill’s speech in which he blames the governments’ satellite systems for the blinding of the world is changed only in nuances: ‘I suppose one of these weapons had been specially constructed to emit a radiation our eyes couldn’t stand. Something that could burn out the optic nerve.’88 In this way, the re-emergence of Cold War tensions corresponds with the return of the ‘communist’ triffids to public attention. The Quatermass TV series and films present further instances of invasion narratives that toy with Cold War anxieties and fears of communist invasion. All three series and subsequent film adaptations depict an alien invasion that threatens mankind.89 In contrast to the Wyndham novels, it is not only an invasion of the human world but also of the human body. In The Quatermass Experiment and its film adaptation, the astronaut Victor Carroon returns from a rocket trip into space, outwardly unchanged but possessed by an alien organism. Soon, Carroon starts to kill people, the alien organism spreads and reproduces quickly 86 British Apocalyptic Fiction and threatens to eliminate humanity. It would be misleading, though, to simply equate the alien with the communists in this instalment of the Quatermass series. Tony Shaw explains:
Victor could be interpreted as the disguised communist enemy within. Yet the fact that sympathy is constantly elicited for the man-monster – through its pathetic failures to commit suicide and desperate attempts to overcome loneliness by befriending an innocent child – suggests that Victor ought to be viewed as more of a victim than a threat.90
This is why it makes more sense ‘to interpret the “monster” as a metaphor for the “beast” unleashed by the atomic bomb’.91 The second instalment of both Quatermass series, on the other hand, portrays a different scenario. BBC’s Quatermass II (1955) and Quatermass 2 (1957) hint at anxieties about a communist invasion of Britain. Unnoticed by the government and public, an alien life form uses an asteroid in the Earth’s orbit to launch an invasion. A vanguard lands on Earth in the guise of meteorites and uses humans as hosts to take over a factory that was originally the site of Quatermass’ ambitious space travel project Moon Colony. Upon its arrival on Earth, the alien produces methane and ammonia, the gases it needs in the atmosphere to live, and prepares for a mass invasion. Quatermass, though, destroys both the aliens already on Earth as well as the asteroid in the nick of time. In contrast to the character of Carroon in the first Quatermass story, there is no empathy for either the alien itself or for the people invaded by it. Furthermore, the alien and its victim are characterized as lacking individuality, a common stereotype with regard to communism in the 1950s. Quatermass describes the alien’s organization as ‘[a] thousand billion intelligences if you like with one single consciousness.’92 Moreover, when invading people’s bodies, the alien organism leaves a black v-shaped mark on their body that gives the invasion victims a collective appearance.93 Thus, the second Quatermass story underlines the impression that ‘British feature films might have been more nuanced in their overwhelming support for the Western cause and condemnation of Communism [than American films], but their ideological parameters were readily identifiable’.94
Cold War propaganda
Apart from these invasion stories, there are a number of propagandistic apocalyptic novels which make the West look superior and the East (morally) inferior. Edmund Cooper’s Seed of Light (1959) serves as anti-communist propaganda. In an attempt to stop the arms race between the USA and the Soviet Union, the British government has assigned a team of scientists to build Commonwealth Nuclear threats, Cold War 87
Satellite, a weapons system that is supposed to function as a celestial policeman to encourage the two superpowers to disarm. However, the USA and the Soviet Union, themselves in the process of developing their own satellites, refuse to accept this new world order and the British government abandons its initial plan, a plot twist that illustrates Britain’s loss of political power and minor role during the Cold War era. Consequently, British Professor Bollinden and Austrian Dr Rehn, the masterminds behind Commonwealth Satellite, take control of the weapons system to ‘destroy the Russian and American launching grounds’95 and enforce peace in this way. Aboard the satellite, Rehn turns out to be a Soviet spy who intends to only destroy all the British and American bases. In order to defend this attack, the American President orders a first strike that sets off global nuclear war and almost leads to the extinction of mankind. Seed of Light stigmatizes communism as a totalitarian ideology which becomes responsible for the nuclear catastrophe. The Soviet spy Dr Rehn believes that ‘[o]nly Russia—under the so-called communist regime—has sufficient staying power, sufficient energy to bind the world together’.96 The morally superior character is the Westerner Bollinden who truly wants to destroy the weapons of the world so that East and West have a chance at peaceful co-existence. Anti-communist views are also expressed in And so Ends the World… (1961). First of all, the ‘greedy’97 Soviet regime plans to ruthlessly exploit the moon’s resources, an enterprise that brings about the cataclysmic catastrophe. Even more propagandistic, communism is presented as an authoritarian regime that is better abolished. Sibyl, an American whose marriage to the Russian Ivan Semionov is crucial in the eventual rescue of mankind, perceives the Soviet regime to be like ‘slavery’.98 Ivan himself defects to the West to gain ‘his freedom from Russia’ and to join ‘the free nations.’99 The strictly negative assessment of communism is, moreover, illustrated when the narrator metaphorically compares communism to a disease by talking of it as ‘the germ of Marxism’.100 Even in Threads (1984), which seems to be more concerned with the dangers of nuclear weapons in general rather than anti-communist Cold War propaganda, the Soviet Union is implicitly blamed for the cataclysm. The Soviet invasion of Iran triggers a political crisis between the Soviet Union and the United States, the outcome of which is global nuclear war. The fictional Soviet invasion into Iran and the attack on an American submarine boat are described as ‘the actions of a reckless and warlike power.’101 Later, it is the Soviets who move the conflict to the next level of escalation by using ‘nuclear-tipped air defence missile’102 in reaction to the Americans’ conventional bomber attack. Graham’s Down to a Sunless Sea (1979) is yet another vehicle for Cold War propaganda. Graham’s novel describes a nuclear war and the resulting fallout which dooms mankind. Israel attacks several Muslim countries with nuclear weapons. Accusing the USA of supplying Israel with those nuclear warheads, 88 British Apocalyptic Fiction communist countries retaliate and the world is thrown into global nuclear war. The only survivors are aboard a British and a Russian aeroplane. The captains of the aircrafts, the protagonist Jonah and Russian air force pilot Valentina decide to fly to the American McMurdo Station in the Antarctic where they hope to escape from the contaminated air. The novel shows the West at the top of the order. Most meaningfully, the Russian survivors are successfully colonized by the Western survivors at the American Antarctic base. When the survivor community at McMurdo Station decides to establish a world without nations and languages, it is naturally decided that ‘the future language of the land was English—any objectors could like it or lump it.’103 In addition, the protagonist Jonah is depicted as having conquered and anglicised Valentina. Within a few days, middle-aged Jonah has seduced the young attractive Russian. Besides that, he calls her ‘Val’, a more easily pronounceable English nickname for the Russian sounding Valentina.
Ambivalence toward science
The condemnation of the nuclear bomb in many cases does not result in outright criticism of science in apocalyptic works. Science is assessed in much more ambivalent terms. Quatermass 2 is a good example of apocalyptic fiction after the Second World War in which science is evaluated in conflicting terms. The fact that the original location for Quatermass’ Moon Project serves as a breeding ground for the alien indicates a critical attitude towards scientific advancement during the Cold War. Moreover, a launch of Quatermass’ new atomic rocket to be further developed on the moon project site threatens to be catastrophic. Yet, it is the very same rocket that destroys the alien asteroid and therefore wards off the invasion. Peter Hutchings explains: ‘In part this ambivalent treatment derives from a broader uncertainty at this time about the role of the scientist in the nuclear age, as someone who deals with a mysterious power that is both wonderful and immensely destructive.’104 Similarly, the attitude towards nuclear power remains ambivalent in a number of other apocalyptic stories. In The Day the Earth Caught Fire, the parallel explosion of the nuclear bombs by the USA and the Soviet Union are to blame for the disaster. Then again, it is only with the help of ‘four thermonuclear bombs, the largest ever devised’,105 that the world can be saved. In One in Three Hundred, atomic power is the only source of energy and thus becomes indispensable for the survival of mankind: ‘We simply had to use the new source of power […]—atomic power’.106 In the same way, the extra-terrestrials who find the diary of John Smith in Death of a World use an ‘atomic-propelled and atomic controlled rocket’107 to travel through space. This shows that an intelligent species can Nuclear threats, Cold War 89 also benefit from nuclear power. Therefore, it is not science in itself that is guilty of the cataclysmic disasters in Cold War apocalyptic fiction. Instead, mankind is blamed for the abuse of science and thus at least equally responsible for its catastrophic consequences. Doctor Jansen, a character from And so Ends the World…, aptly describes the human dilemma:
To think we can discover power and then find no other use for it than futile, destructive machines. We could do so much good with it, but men will never learn. […] We could make a wonderful paradise in this world but, instead, we have to have ugly, terrifying monstrosities like this [nuclear powered rocket].108
The progress of nuclear science could be beneficial for mankind but ‘humanity’s apparently natural inclination towards self-destruction’109 turns scientific discoveries into fierce weapons.
Flawed human nature
The relationship between mankind, science and the ultimate disaster explains a considerable number of apocalyptic novels which emphasize flawed human nature. The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) makes the link between nuclear devastation and mankind’s inherently bad nature explicit. As mankind hopes for its survival at the end of the film, the protagonist Peter Stenning, in what resembles a sermon, surmises that the nuclear catastrophe happened because man is ‘insensitive […], proud and defiant in his pursuit of power’.1104 The Last 1 also strongly points towards the faults in human nature. When the survivors return to Earth, ambition and jealousy cause the new society to collapse, inducing once more the downfall of mankind. Martha, one of the crew, attributes this to flawed human nature: ‘[H]atred and temper among other things, are born of man’s instinct.’111 The novel’s ending emphasizes this perspective. Instead of successfully reconstructing a better society, the survivors grow hostile to each other and the group breaks up into opposed fractions. In fact, humanity is so fundamentally flawed that it has a tendency for self-destruction. Paul, the crew’s clergyman points out that the ‘hunt for food will cause rivalry […]. Then each to arms and on to hatred and to bloodshed. On to nations and to wars and to empires and bondage. On to the inevitable destruction again.’112 In this way, the novel leads the nuclear catastrophe back to humanity’s basic defective disposition. The Fittest (1955) by J. T. McIntosh is another apocalyptic text which illustrates the post-war idea of mankind turned savage. A scientist has created four species, so-called paggets, of evolutionary advanced animals which turn against their creator, start killing humans and take control over a disintegrating society. 90 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Thus, even though nuclear science does not feature, the careless handling of science is of major importance here as well. In consequence, humanity, instead of uniting against a common enemy, turns against itself. Thus, even though the animal species pose the initial threat to mankind, mankind’s deterioration from civilized man to primitive animal dominates the second half of the novel. Accordingly, the novel’s protagonist Don points out that the worst thing in the world is ‘[m]en and women turned into human paggets’,113 thus metaphorically equating man with beast. In fact, this is a recurrent conclusion drawn by a number of novels. In Death of a World, the protagonist John Smith asks in the face of impending extinction: ‘Are we just animals—all of us, throughout the entire limitless universe’.114 In a similar vein, Edmund Cooper’s All Fool’s Day (1966) draws a grim picture of humanity’s character. In the novel, radiation emerges from the sun’s spots, directly causing mass suicide and insanity in the world. In consequence, the wild animal kingdom reclaims the world and the remaining human survivors have to battle both each other and hordes of fierce dogs. The majority of the novel’s characters, including its protagonist John Greville, stand out as unlikeable and egoistic. Similar to Christopher’s The Death of Grass and even more graphic in its description, All Fool’s Day is particularly marked by humiliation, rape and murder. Consequently, human kind is described as ‘rotten’115 and Nibs, a young psychopath who assaults Greville and rapes Greville’s companion Liz, is not considered to be an exceptional example of a human being. Rather, ‘he was of all of mankind. He was the human tragedy writ small’.116 A negative attitude towards human nature is further apparent in McIntosh’s One in Three Hundred (1953). When flaming hydrogen dramatically causes the sun to burn hotter so that life on Earth quickly becomes untenable, there is a chance of sending spaceships to Mars, a planet that has already been colonized. Lieutenant Bill Easson is chosen to be one of the ships’ captains. It is his responsibility to pick a crew, i.e., to choose approximately one person out of three hundred because of limited spaceship capacities, and fly them to Mars. In the process of compiling a list of people to go aboard his ship, Bill notices how repulsive the majority of humankind is, prepared to do practically anything from lying to killing to earn one of the spaceship’s seats: ‘The more I learned about people, the more likely they were to come off my list.’117 Eventually, Bill and his crew make it to Mars. Upon arrival on Mars, it becomes evident once more that ‘human beings aren’t perfect.’118 Rather than establishing a better society, a fierce competition for power develops which results in more murder and almost in the extinction of humankind. Nuclear threats, Cold War 91
Case study: The Kraken Wakes
John Wyndham’s invasion tale The Kraken Wakes (1953) reflects upon the dangers of Cold War mentality at a time when the conflict between East and West reached its first peak. The story starts with Phase One and the sighting of red points in the sky by the novel’s narrator, the journalist Mike, and his reporter wife Phyllis. These red points, the origin of which is initially unclear but is later revealed to have been some kind of alien spacecraft, enter the airspace of Western and Eastern countries before they come down in deep-sea areas. This violation of territorial airspace creates an almost disastrous increase in international suspicion and tension, especially between the United States and the Soviet Union. When the red dots continue to appear over domestic territory, US and Soviet military destroy a great number because they believe them to be enemy aircrafts used for espionage. Only the geographer Bocker rightfully assumes that the appearance of the red dots is the start of an interplanetary invasion. However, then and throughout the novel, he is not believed by governments and the public. The US Navy and the Royal Navy investigate those areas where a high concentration of red dots has fallen into the sea. The exploration of the deep sea turns out to be fatal as the research vessels are destroyed and the crews killed at the bottom of the ocean. When the Americans continue their investigation efforts, one of their ships disappears without a trace. As a consequence, the US forces, and later the British, retaliate by dropping atomic bombs on the enemy in the sea. Meanwhile, at the beginning of Phase Two, the aliens further prepare their colonization of Earth. They sink military and non-military ships that cruise over deep-sea areas in order to protect their habitat and they start mining operations on the bed of the ocean to establish underwater communication links. As a result, maritime travel and trade become constrained. US forces retaliate once more and bomb the area where American ships have been lost. This course of action turns out to be disastrous as the US warships are destroyed in return and a nuclear bomb aboard one of the ships explodes and contaminates the surrounding territory. Soon after, the aliens’ attacks spread to the mainland. Sea-tanks eject a variety of sea-anemones, hence the name Krakens, which catch, collect, and devour human inhabitants. The first attacks take place in the Caribbean but quickly extend to other regions until they hit Europe and the British Isles. Again, military force is used to defend these attacks and, in consequence, the land attacks of the Krakens or Bathies, as they are called, become rarer. The aliens change their strategy at the start of Phase Three. Fog patches appear over the Polar Regions as the Bathies start melting the ice of the Arctic and Antarctic to raise the sea levels and drown humanity. In addition, the Kraken attacks resume, killing many and endangering all inhabitants at the coastlines. 92 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Therefore, more and more people have to flee the coastal regions to move to areas of high altitude. After the global population is severely diminished in numbers—only 10–20 per cent have survived due to the attacks, illness, and lack of nutrition—humankind is eventually rescued. The Japanese have developed a weapon that emits ultrasonic sounds underwater which is lethal to the Bathies. Humanity is now able to reconstruct society. The Kraken Wakes is dominated by Cold War ideology. This is evident in the deadly competition between two rivals for world domination and conquest. The human race and the aliens start a confrontation that only comes to an end with the extinction of the Bathies. In the course of this conflict, both parties engage in an arms race as they take increasingly extreme measures to overwhelm their enemy. The human race utilizes missiles, nuclear bombs and, ultimately, ultrasonics. The aliens employ means to destroy underwater vessels and ships, attack with their sea-tanks and sea-anemones and, in the end, use their resources to melt the polar ice in order to drown humanity. Therefore, even though the aliens are not made to be the Russians, the analogy between Cold War rivalry and the opposition between humanity and the aliens cannot be mistaken:
Two intelligent forms of life are finding one another’s existence intolerable. I have now come to believe that no attempt at rapprochement could have succeeded. Life in all its forms is strife; […] a rival form of intelligence must, by its very existence, threaten to dominate, and therefore threaten extinction. Any intelligent form is its own absolute; and there cannot be two absolutes.119
The idea that two different forms of life cannot peacefully co-exist but have to be in conflict with each other until ‘one will exterminate the other’ 120 corresponds to the political notion of the 1950s that either the capitalist West or the communist East would eventually prevail in the Cold War and win over its rival. Moreover, the analogy is even more plausible when one considers that The Kraken Wakes was written at the time of the Korean War, when fears of invasion were widespread and East-West relations were tense. The analogy between the fictional war against the aliens and the real-life war against the communists is made explicit when the British press criticizes the government’s reluctance to use the atomic bomb: ‘Having made it, we were too scared to use it in Korea; now, it seems, we are too scared to use it on the Bathies.’121 The conflict between humanity and the aliens merely seems to amplify the idea that humanity ‘can’t even tolerate anything but the narrowest differences of views within our own race.’122 Cold War ideology serves as a perfect example of this perspective. Despite the eventual defeat and extinction of the enemy Bathies, The Kraken Wakes is not a piece of Western propaganda. The fact that a Western ally, the Japanese, succeeds in overwhelming the alien species might suggest the superiority of Western science. Moreover, the flight path of one group of the red Nuclear threats, Cold War 93 dots, discovered first in Finland and taking an East-West direction via Sweden, Norway, and Ireland,123 could imply the red dots’ Soviet origin. These, however, are the only hints that support a communist identity of the aliens and a pro- Western agenda of the novel. Rather than Western enemies, the Bathies are more strongly characterized as an equal threat to both East and West and thus to all humanity. Mike finds out that, during the aliens’ landing, the red dots cross through Western and Eastern skies and, as a result of that, are shot down by both sides.124 He also learns that the Bathies attack cruising ships in the deep-sea areas independent of national affiliation. The British, for example, lose the Atlantic cruiser Queen Anne and the Russians admit to have ‘lost one large freighter and one unspecified naval vessel’.125 In addition, East and West eventually join forces after the Russians are ‘willing to co-operate with other powers in putting down this menace to the cause of world Peace.’126 For most of the novel, it is not quite clear whether the information about the Russians’ actions and intentions is actually true or whether the Russians merely pretend to be threatened by the Bathies. After all, the novel’s homodiegetic narrator only allows for a limited point of view of what happens in Russia. Yet the idea that the Soviets have to be regarded as being on the same side as the Westerners is confirmed towards the end when the Russians are equally threatened by the aliens’ flooding of the planet. Faced with ‘the formation in Central Russia of a great inland sea’,127 the Soviets, like their Western counterparts, make use of nuclear bombs in the hope of stopping the rise of the water levels. With East and West on the same side and the aliens on the other, The Kraken Wakes neither warns of a communist threat nor serves as a moral boost in the East-West rivalry. Instead, the plot of the alien invasion serves to illustrate and explore the fatal potential of Cold War thinking. Most apparently, it depicts a lethal ‘Darwinian’128 struggle between two species. Bocker recognizes the essence of the conflict:
I say now we must attack as swiftly as we can find the means, and with the full intention of complete extermination. […] For the moment we have pushed them back, but they will return, for the same urge drives them as drives us – the necessity to exterminate, or be exterminated.129
The ‘them or us’ mentality displayed in The Kraken Wakes is fatal in that it inevitably must result in death and destruction and cannot lead to a peaceful solution. Both humans and the aliens follow a strategy of confrontation. In The Kraken Wakes, this leads to a hot war and eventually ends with one species extinct and the other species reduced to a fraction of its number. It is rather fortunate and coincidental, as the events of Phase Three show, that humanity survives at all. Despite this, the Cold War mentality is preferred over conciliatory approaches. Bocker’s alternative response to the landing of the aliens, which would be taking an ‘amiable and sympathetic approach’130 to the arrival of a different life form 94 British Apocalyptic Fiction on Earth, does not stand a chance in the mind-set of the Cold War. The fact that Bocker’s other assessments and predictions with regard to the Bathies all prove to be right—he is the first to realize an extra-terrestrial intelligence behind the red dots, he foresees the unavoidable battle between humanity and aliens, he is the first to understand the Bathies’ tactics of melting the Polar ice—suggests that his idea of reconciliation could have been successful. Humankind and the Bathies could have shared the world. Phyllis supports his view when she points out that the deep seas are ‘of no conceivable use to us, a part we can’t even reach’ and therefore could be left for the aliens if ‘it happens to suit them’.131 The narrator Mike, too, believes that Bocker’s call for a compromise is ‘a sensible suggestion’.132 In this way, The Kraken Wakes mildly challenges the logic of Cold War ideology. Mocking Cold War paranoia condemns the black-and-white mentality of the time. On the side of the West, this is most evident in the common man’s inclination to think that the aggressors from the depths ‘must be the Russians.’133 Tuny, the wife of a friend of Phyllis and Mike, represents the ordinary citizen in that she blames any threat or negative development on the Russians and is sure that it is the Russians’ idea ‘to make trouble everywhere they can.’134 She claims that the alien presence in the sea ‘was thought up in Moscow’135 so that the Russians could attack the West without being blamed and punished for it. Later, when more and more icebergs appear after the aliens start melting the polar ice, she demands that the government should stop ‘the Russians from making icebergs.’136 Tuny’s views are ridiculed by the narrator’s description of her as being ‘decorative’137 rather than intelligent and the later insight that the aliens’ melting of the ice creates the icebergs, and by no means the Russians. The idea that Tuny stands for the ordinary person is further underlined by the anti-Soviet sentiment of the ordinary man in an episode in a British pub. There, one of the guests points out that the Russians, in contrast to everybody else, did not lose any ships in the sea—something we later find out is not even true. He would like ‘to know why not’,138 implying that he believes that the Russians are responsible for the sinking of the ships. The Kraken Wakes satirizes not only the ordinary Western citizen’s paranoia of the Russians but also the Russian’s paranoia of Western aggression. The Soviet government interprets any event as an act of hostility from the ‘capitalistic warmongers.’139 When, for instance, the Western countries decide to build more aeroplanes to make up for the inability to travel the seas, this is regarded as ‘no more than a part of a bourgeois-fascist plan by warmongers’.140 Fog patches, created by the Bathies’ melting of the polar ice, are immediately blamed on the Americans and understood as ‘a menace to Peace.’141 As a consequence of this paranoia, the real danger from space is ignored for the longest time, bringing humankind to the brink of annihilation. Nuclear threats, Cold War 95
Therefore, the satirical elements of the novel are not only used to ridicule both the attitudes of East and West but also to point towards the dangers that come with narrow-minded Cold War thinking. The lack of mutual trust in Cold War ideology prevents the East from cooperating with the West in fighting the aliens. Even when the aliens start sinking ships and thus seriously interfere with international maritime navigation, Soviet distrust prevails as they refuse to share their scientific knowledge with the West: ‘It could scarcely be expected of the Soviets that they should make a present of their discoveries to warmongers.’142 Moreover, The Kraken Wakes illustrates that reciprocal suspicion has the capacity for escalation with potentially devastating consequences for all of humankind. Suspicion is the reason that they blame each other for any unexplained phenomenon. The arrival of the red dots, the sinking of the ships, and the fog patches of the Arctic serve as good examples of that. The fatal aspect of this strict ideological thinking is that enemy aggression, even if it is based on unfounded information, generates a demand for retaliation. This is what happens after the British passenger ship Queen Anne is sunk: ‘There’s a rumour running wild here that the Russians did it. […] [I]t’s got to be stopped. If it isn’t, there might be enough pressure worked up to force the Government out, or make it send and ultimatum, or something.’143 During the build-up of the atomic weapons race, ‘something’ very likely refers to the deployment of ‘atom bombs’144 which would, in consequence, throw the world into a devastating nuclear exchange of apocalyptic dimensions. Consistent with a warning of the dangers of Cold War strategy, The Kraken Wakes adopts a critical attitude towards the nuclear bomb. While the bomb is not directly responsible for the cataclysm, it does not help humankind to deal with the alien invaders successfully at any point in the novel either. The initial bombing of the deep-water areas proves futile as the bombs do not prevent the aliens from continuing their mining operations. Instead, the use of atomic bombs only has damaging consequences for the environment and humankind. First of all, any attempt at a potential peaceful solution with the aliens is thwarted ‘when we prodded them with the first atom bomb.’145 Moreover, the bombs exploded in the sea ‘kill an awful lot of fish quite uselessly, and make a lot more radio-active’,146 seriously harming the marine environment. Furthermore, when the Americans plan to use nuclear bombs in the Caymen Trench, their carrier ship is exploded by the aliens with the result that two more ships involved in the mission ‘[succumb] to the bomb’.147 Most vitally, ‘the extensive use of hydrogen and other fissile-material bombs’ by the British government in reaction to the appearance of the mysterious fog patches accelerates ‘the disintegration of the ice-fields’148 in the Arctic and thus speeds up, rather than stops, the disastrous flooding process. It is only too appropriate with the negative assessment of the atomic bomb that 96 British Apocalyptic Fiction a non-nuclear device, the Japanese ultrasonic weapon, eventually succeeds in overwhelming the aliens. As nuclear bombing is shown to be futile or to have damaging effects, the idea that atomic weapons represent a universal remedy to solve conflicts is revealed to be false. In The Kraken Wakes, the common British man, the British press, and the British government all believe at some point that using the nuclear bomb solves problems. A salesman, one of the guests in the pub, demands that the British military should ‘go out to bomb ‘em [those who sink the British ships] to hell before they get up to more trouble’.149 The Nethermore Press also strongly calls for the deployment of nuclear weapons justifying it with the fact that all the financial investment into the bomb has to pay off eventually: ‘Billions have been spent upon this Bomb which appears to have no other destiny but to be held up and shaken threateningly, or, from time to time, to provide pictures for our illustrated papers.’150 The British government, in addition, orders ‘the Royal Navy, partly in deference to public feeling, but probably more for reasons of prestige, [to send] down a bomb’151 after the first explorations of the deep-sea areas end fatally. In all these cases, the detonation of nuclear bombs does nothing to improve the situation but further escalates it. Hence, The Kraken Wakes implies that atomic weapons are not a means to ease or end Cold War hostilities. This makes The Kraken Wakes a general critique and a warning of 1950s world politics. Wyndham’s novel recognizes the capacity for disaster inherent in the combination of Cold War thinking and paranoia with nuclear weapons. While fears of communist invasion might be subliminally addressed, the alien invasion mainly serves as a backdrop against which the possibility of Cold War catastrophe is projected. In this way, the dysfunctionality of Cold War strategy is doubly shown. First, Cold War paradigms fail in the conflict with the aliens, thus killing the great majority of the world’s population. Second, the logics of the Cold War dramatically increase tensions between East and West, equally putting humankind at risk. In times of the atomic bomb especially, the escalation of international (or interplanetary) suspicion and conflict is shown to reach a dimension bordering on the apocalyptic.
Case study: The Tide Went Out
Charles Eric Maine’s novel The Tide Went Out (1959) takes up popular anxieties surrounding the dangers of nuclear bomb testing as a starting point to investigate the sinfulness of human nature and the decline of Britain. A series of Anglo-American H-bomb tests under the code name Operation Nutcracker has accidentally led to fractures in the Pacific Ocean’s seabed. Seismic disturbances Nuclear threats, Cold War 97 across the globe are the immediate consequence. Moreover, the ocean’s water pours through the cracks into the subterranean cavities. Over time, all the oceans and seas are to run dry. The corollary is a severe change in climate because there is no longer enough moisture available to form rain clouds. Therefore, the only water resources still accessible to mankind are the icy Polar Regions. The majority of humankind, those people who cannot make it to either the Arctic or Antarctic, is bound to die. The main character of the novel is Philip Wade, a journalist who works for the weekly magazine Outlook, which is based in London. Wade is married to Janet; they have a son called David. The marriage has not been happy, especially after Wade had a short affair with another woman. This is why Wade, who also has an alcohol problem, prefers spending time and flirting with fellow Outlook writer Shirley. The story begins with Wade finding out that the government has prevented the publication of his article on the Nutcracker tests. Soon, it becomes evident that the nuclear tests have caused devastating damage; earthquakes in London and all over the world are proof of that. With the help of Outlook’s owner Stenninger, Wade gets a job with the International Bureau of Information (I.B.I.), a new government department. There, he edits and manufactures news to boost the public’s morale in times of crisis. Officially, the government works on a design to pump water from the Polar Regions to Britain. In case this plan is not successful, the government’s secret emergency plan is to evacuate a selected group of people to the Arctic where a camp is being set up to ensure the survival of the human race. When supplies come to an end and the populace begins to grasp the gravity and hopelessness of the situation, law and order start to break down in and outside London. Moreover, Britain faces invasion from across the—now dry— English Channel as there is general mass migration towards the poles. In stark contrast, Wade as a government employee is privileged to live in a security sector in London, provided with comfortable housing and a plenitude of food. Moreover, his family, Janet and David, are sent ahead to the government camp in the Arctic. He stays behind to continue feeding the public with propaganda, so that a minimum level of order is guaranteed, and is due to follow them with one of the final air lifts. After he fails to make progress with his love interest Shirley, Wade indulges in an affair with his colleague Sue. When a fire breaks out in London, the situation becomes increasingly serious. Wade and Sue take a helicopter to survey the scene but break down outside the security perimeter. Sue dies and Wade, after murdering several people, makes it back to the government zone where, to his horror, everybody has already left. He travels to the airfield from which the government aeroplanes start for the Arctic. The last aeroplane is ready for take-off yet government employees and military soldiers fight over the remaining seats. Wade outwits everybody 98 British Apocalyptic Fiction and, after killing the people who stand in his way, takes sole possession of the aeroplane and takes off for the Arctic. During the flight, the government camp’s defensive units shoot him down. Years later, Wade’s wife Janet leads her son to believe that Wade stayed behind in London to serve the people and died a good and honourable man. The H-bomb tests in The Tide Went Out echo and extrapolate anxieties about nuclear testing in the 1950s in order to warn of the nuclear bomb. Most notably, this is done by references to Western nuclear tests on the whole and the fatal Operation Castle H-bomb tests in the Bikini atoll in 1954 in particular. Operation Nutcracker generally shares the characteristics of the nuclear test series carried out by the West in that it has a similar name and location. The fictional test series Operation Nutcracker in The Tide Went Out follows the naming of the American and British test series in the 1950s that almost all started with the word ‘Operation’. Moreover, Operation Nutcracker takes place ‘in the [fictional] Kaluiki group of islands in the South Pacific’,152 thus in the vicinity of where the Americans and the British conducted their tests. More specifically, the dangers of nuclear testing are emphasized by alluding to the Operation Castle Bravo Test. Like the Castle Bravo Test at the time, Operation Nutcracker is considered to be ‘the biggest man-made explosion of all time’.153 Furthermore, radioactive fallout spreads beyond expectations and is ‘detected in the most improbable zones of the world.’154 Clearly, poetic licence here amplifies the problem and the popular anxiety about nuclear fallout. Nevertheless, the analogy remains intact due to the fact that the H-bomb fallout in The Tide Went Out is also discovered much further away than originally thought possible. In addition, as with the tests in the bikini atoll, it is Japanese people who accidentally become the first casualties of the Nutcracker test. In contrast to the events of 1954, the fallout has no further effects on the planet’s population. Yet instead, the H-bomb test series results in ‘recurrent earth tremors in the Pacific and the Far East’, leading to the devastation of ‘smaller towns in the Japanese islands’.155 Apart from the allusions to actual H-bomb tests, The Tide Went Out adopts popular anxieties about nuclear tests unfounded in reality. This becomes clear when looking at the central dilemma of the story, the fracture of the Pacific Ocean’s seabed and the accompanying earthquakes as results of the nuclear tests. It seemed feasible at the time that the immense power of nuclear test bombs could affect the geology of the planet and thus trigger earthquakes and other natural catastrophes. This cataclysmic potential presents nuclear testing as being just as dangerous as nuclear war. Even though the testing of atomic bombs brings about the destruction of the planet’s geology, scientists and nuclear power are not depicted in strictly negative terms. Admittedly, when Wade happens to go to a church service, the priest calls attention to the fact that hydrogen bombs are ‘designed for one Nuclear threats, Cold War 99 specific purpose—destruction.’156 Therefore, he calls the hydrogen bombs ‘the ultimate evil’157 because they turn against God’s creation. The role of science as a whole, however, is more ambivalent in The Tide Went Out. It is the scientists who provide the survivor’s camp in the arctic with the ‘warmth of atomic heating.’158 Neither scientists nor atomic power are assessed in negative terms here but are considered to be essential for survival. Wade’s thoughts succinctly express the ambivalence of scientists and atomic power in The Tide Went Out: ‘Those who have the power to destroy also have the power to create.’159 Hence, it is not science in itself that is essentially bad. Rather, the decision-makers, who abuse science, are responsible for destruction and disaster. For that reason, The Tide Went Out characterizes politicians and the government in negative terms. In his sermon, the priest criticizes both groups as he regards the responsibility for the cataclysm to lie with the scientists and the politicians.160 They invented the bomb and had it tested. Whereas the scientists seem to serve the public good after the nuclear tests go fatally wrong, the politicians, who are supposed to act on behalf of the people, pursue selfish motives, primarily that of their own survival. The government establishes both the Arctic camp and the government zone in London to help an elite caste of politicians, their relatives, and their friends to survive. The general population is left to die. Controlling the people through propaganda and rationing is ‘not for their [the people’s] benefit—it’s for ours [the government employees]. It’s a ruthless rearguard action to keep the peace while the privileged ones pull out.’161 Thus, when London finally perishes in flames, disease and death, the top-ranking government officials have already long been evacuated. The uneth ical d imension of this course of action is unmistakable in Colonel Brindle’s comment as he destroys all evidence of the government’s activities. Brindle, who is to profit from the government’s plan himself, compares the fate of the British people with that of ‘the million Jews that Hitler destroyed in the gas chambers and ovens of his concentration camps.’162 By likening the government’s doings to one of the biggest atrocities in human history, Brindle passes direct judgement on the political class. Yet it is not only government officials who lose their humanity. All of mankind adopts an immoral attitude. This becomes especially noticeable when human behaviour is no longer restricted by values imposed by civilization. As soon as society is collapsing in The Tide Went Out, humanity reverts to natural law, ‘to the law of the survival of the fittest.’163 The rule of law is lost and replaced by the rule of the strongest. As a result, the ‘niceties of social relationships are as dead as a dodo’164 and thus gone forever. In this Social Darwinist world, humankind can no more be distinguished from ‘desperate beasts’.165 In pursuing survival and personal pleasure, the people of London commit the ultimate sins when they ‘rape’, ‘murder’ and practice ‘cannibalism’.166 100 British Apocalyptic Fiction
The population’s relapse into barbarism is often part of apocalyptic fiction’s generic code and thus could be dismissed as genre convention; yet the emphasis on the immorality of humanity in The Tide Went Out is reinforced by the behaviour of the novel’s main character Wade. In the majority of apocalyptic fiction, the main character serves as a moral authority, maintaining the ethical standards of civilization. This is different in The Tide Went Out. Wade is as selfish and immoral as the rest of the population. The novel hints at this even before the breakdown of society occurs. From the beginning, he is deceptive in both his professional and his private life. He has given up on the ‘integrity of true journalism’ and is more than willing to add ‘a little dirt, a little distortion’167 to his articles just like everybody else does to get ahead in the business. As a husband, he has betrayed his wife by having had a secret ‘affair with another woman’168 merely to indulge in sexual pleasure. For Wade, other people are there to be exploited with no regard for their feelings. This becomes especially clear in Wade’s relationship with Shirley. Throughout the novel, Wade turns to Shirley whenever she is of use to him but never considers or respects her perspective. On one occasion, he himself admits: ‘I didn’t think of you at all, and I didn’t attempt to look at things from your point of view.’169 At the beginning of the novel, Shirley is good enough for some flirting and kissing. Later, she is convenient for Wade because she can fulfil his sexual needs. He visits Shirley for the simple fact that ‘she was a woman and, even more important, because she would be available at short notice.’170 He obviously does not appreciate her as a person. When Wade starts an affair with Sue, Shirley becomes redundant and he decides ‘never to think of her again.’171 However, after Sue dies in the London fire and Wade is desperate for food and lodging, he heads for Shirley’s home once more. Eventually, Wade’s immoral behaviour comes to a climax when he struggles for survival in a world without rules. In order to reach the Arctic, he betrays several people’s trust, scorns the rules of war, and, most crucially, kills a number of people in cold blood. Wade’s motto of ‘every man for himself’ is not only evident in his deeds but also in his thoughts. In several free direct thought passages, he refers to himself as ‘brother’.172 It is only himself and his own survival that matter to him because he believes that the ‘world survives so long as you survive.’173 Other people, in contrast, are reduced to their role as ‘enemies’174 which he has to eliminate in order to survive. The description of Wade, the government officials and the British populace as egoistic, immoral beings indicates a negative perspective on humanity. Human beings are essentially not designed for peaceful cooperation but for fierce and brutal competition. In other words, humans are savages and thus prone to aggressiveness and (self-)destruction. As shown, this is evident in the portrayal of apocalyptic London in The Tide Went Out. It is, on a grand Nuclear threats, Cold War 101 scale, also palpable in the nuclear arms race between the Western powers and the Soviet Union which is the reason behind the nuclear tests and consequently responsible for the apocalyptic disaster.175 Atomic weapons are simply the most advanced means for humankind’s capacity to murder and destroy itself. In adopting the view of human beings as savages, The Tide Went Out follows the perspective of contemporary literary intellectuals in Britain such as William Golding. Their idea of universal savagery in human beings—‘the savage within’176—replaced the traditional conception of colonial Third-World people as savages.177 Next to the detonation of ‘the atomic bomb and the general success of science’, it was also the experience of the Second World War and of Nazi cruelty that undermined the Western ‘claim to superior rationality and general culture’.178 This connection between savage behaviour and the Nazi slaughter is, as pointed out, also made in The Tide Went Out as well when Brindle compares the activities of the British government to that of Hitler. Therefore, The Tide Went Out not only reflects upon the nuclear arms race of the 1950s but also takes a critical look at the Second World War. The novel alludes to the Second World War several times. A number of characters, for example, talk about what they did in the war. Wade ‘flew a helicopter a few times in the final year of the war.’179 One of the soldiers who helps Wade to capture the government aeroplane was ‘a sniper in the last war’.180 While these references to the Second World War are rather general, there are some specific allusions to the Blitz which resonates in the descriptions of the London earthquakes. When the first earthquake hits London, the city is described as looking ‘like the victim of an air raid’.181 The comparison is taken up again after another earthquake has shaken London even more devastatingly: ‘Oxford street in London resembled the aftermath of an air raid’.182 The references to the Blitz are particularly striking when related to the myth of the Blitz and the savage behaviour of the London population. The myth of the Blitz was created during wartime and was further popularized after the war by social researcher Richard Titmuss.183 According to the myth, the British people ‘became united as never before [in reaction to the air raids], with a strong bond of equality of sacrifice. Presiding over this new national spirit was a benevolent government that provided inspirational leadership’.184 As the term ‘myth’ already suggests, the myth of the Blitz did not correspond with reality but was ‘constructed during the war for patriotic purposes.’185 Instead of ‘unity of purpose, high moral, calmness and valiant struggle’,186 people followed their own law, often disregarding the codes of civilization. The British troops looted ‘what they required from the locals’187 and ‘there were a large number of shootings of “suspicious” characters, many of whom had done nothing worse than possess fair hair’.188 Moreover, previously existing class divisions did not 102 British Apocalyptic Fiction change through the war but were sustained and increased during the period of the Blitz:
As members of the establishment were able to take refuge in country houses, in comfort and out of the way of the bombs, or in expensive basement clubs in the city, the lower- middle and working classes were forced to stay in the cities and face up to the deadly raids with inadequate provision for shelter.189
Noticeably, this discrepancy between actual behaviour and mythical is a major theme in The Tide Went Out. The novel deconstructs the myth of the Blitz and its creation in that it shows the true and cruel behaviour of the London citizens. The majority of the British people do not show solidarity but perceive each other as bitter enemies.190 The government is malevolent towards its people and only protective of its own interests. And just as during the Blitz, the privileged classes, i.e. mainly the government officials in The Tide Went Out, have superior chances of survival. The novel also unveils the creation of the myth of the Blitz. The government in The Tide Went Out feeds the London population with the same kind of propaganda that established the myth of the Blitz, thus providing ‘morale boosting’191 in similar fashion. For instance, the number one hit on the radio, promoted by the government, ‘is a thing called “Shoulder to Shoulder”—all about how we are all brothers and sisters in arms, facing whatever may come with cheerfulness and optimism.’192 Ironically, Wade hears about this song just after he has been attacked and beaten up by a group of street toughs which marks ‘the beginning [..] of incipient chaotic anarchy.’193 The song’s propagandistic message clearly counters and negates the actual events like the myth of the Blitz counters and negates the true behaviour of the people in Second World War London. The myth serves to re-establish the good in humanity. This becomes visible in the novel’s ending. Wade’s son David is ‘satisfied’ that his father, ‘a fine man’, stayed behind to help people rather than fighting ‘everyone’ and stealing ‘an aeroplane’,194 actions David initially suggests for what his father should have done. Janet’s lie, then, is supposed to point her son to a future in which human beings are no longer savages but restored to selfless, moral creatures once again. Moreover, the decline of British moral strength can be seen in correspondence with the decline of Britain as a nation. When the seabed runs dry, Britain loses its economic strength and its militarily superior position. Most significantly, the British economy, ‘which depends so much on imports’,195 collapses as a result of the end of maritime trade. Britain finds itself cut off from global commerce as ‘most of the ports and harbors of the world are going to be useless’ and shipping is ‘paralyzed’.196 Immediately, there is a shortage of ‘grain, timber, newsprint, meat, metals, raw material of all kinds’,197 emphasizing the British reliance on Nuclear threats, Cold War 103 trade and its helplessness in the future. In the long run, all commercial activities, even those of the industrial businesses, the backbone of British economic strength, suffer severely and break down: ‘The critical shortage of fuel oil and petrol, and the closing of export markets coupled with the complete cessation of imports, spread like leprosy throughout the factories of the countries.’198 In addition, Britain, which is no longer surrounded and thus no longer protected by water, is susceptible to invasion from the Continent. Only shortly after the English Channel has become dry and Britain has ceased to be an island, Wade observes a ‘battle between the invaders from across the Channel and the coastal defenders.’199 The collapse of Britain, not only from within but also from without, seems inevitable. The decline of the British economy and the threat of invasion in The Tide Went Out clearly mirror the situation in 1950s Britain. Politically and economically, Britain had lost its dominant position in the world. The economic and political decline is strongly echoed in the reference to the ‘Suez Canal’ which becomes ‘impassable’200 in the early stages of the water drought. The loss of the strategic gateway during the Suez crisis epitomized both Britain’s political and its economic decline at the time. Besides, with the development of long-distance missiles, Britain had become vulnerable to attacks. In this context, the end of Britain as an island in The Tide Went Out as a consequence of the detonation of nuclear bombs appears to be deeply symbolic. Britain’s insular location, which for centuries worked to protect the British against invasion, no longer provided any security against nuclear attacks and was thus irrelevant. The Tide Went Out, like many other examples of British apocalyptic fiction of the time, conceives the development and employment of nuclear weapons and missiles as a threat to Britain’s future. It would be hasty and too simplistic to disregard this as a similar scepticism towards science as can be found in the interwar period. British apocalyptic fiction in the 1950s presents a more complex case. Suspicion towards the government and a pessimistic image of humanity in general are just as vital in fuelling fears about the end of Britain and an impending apocalypse.
*
The formation of a bipolar world in the aftermath of the first atomic bomb detonations defines post-Second World War apocalyptic discourse. Unlike the end-of-the-world stories of the interwar period, Cold War apocalyptic fiction does not reimagine the horrors of the past but looks fearfully ahead to impending horrors of a nuclear holocaust. Nevertheless, it also continues and refines themes from the previous era of apocalyptic war: International military conflict is shown to have the potential to take on cataclysmic dimensions beyond recovery. In an 104 British Apocalyptic Fiction escalating hot Cold War, the difference is that the bomb as the instrument of doom is simply a technologically more advanced and more harmful version of First World War poison gas. It is surprising in this context then that Cold War end-of-the-world fiction does not wholly condemn science and its application. Rather than science, which is viewed in fairly neutral terms, it is humanity and its flawed disposition that is blamed for the fate of civilization and its downfall. A number of stories reflect upon the savage nature of humankind even more drastically and pronouncedly than during the interwar period. The Second World War and the Holocaust had proven of what humanity, at its very worst, is capable. In addition, there is also a second, politically motivated dimension to British apocalyptic fiction of the Cold War period. Many of the novels and films serve as a vehicle for Western anti-Soviet propaganda, echoing chauvinistic tendencies of apocalyptic fiction from the New Imperialist era. This time, though, Britain, no longer the stand-alone world power of the past, finds itself as one of several members of a US-led Western alliance. Ch ap t er 5
Eco-doom
The environmental movement in Britain and the world
During the years of détente, the discourse on apocalypse centred on fears of ecological catastrophe. New Environmentalism, the environmental movement that seized Britain and the world in the late 1960s and that lasted up to the mid- 1970s, was initially closely connected to the threats of the nuclear age. There had been a general awareness of the potential dangers of nuclear testing for a civilian public and the environment ever since the nuclear fallout of the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific had accidentally contaminated several hundred people and killed a Japanese fisherman. Therefore, when nuclear tests increased in great numbers towards the end of the 1950s, poisonous fallout became the ‘first truly global environmental issue’.1 The controversy over nuclear fallout also established a scepticism towards technology, a major theme later to be taken up by the ecological movement: ‘[T]he fallout question undoubtedly alerted many people to the idea that technology could cause unlimited environmental contamination and that everyone could be affected’.2 The strong link between early ecological concerns surrounding nuclear fallout and the later emerging environmental movement is also apparent in the advent of the publication Nuclear Information which originated as a mimeographed sheet published by the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information. Nuclear Information started out in 1958 by investigating the consequences of radioactive fallout, for example in the Baby Tooth Survey. Yet, over the next ten years, the publication eventually took on the name Environment, to reflect ‘more accurately [..] the magazine’s expanding reach’3 beyond nuclear pollution. This development, from ecological concerns over radioactive fallout to a broad environmental movement, was strongly advanced by the publication of the non-fiction bestsellerSilent Spring. American biologist Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) propelled the debate about humankind’s careless and arrogant treatment of the ecosystem to new dimensions.4 In fact, the book is ‘frequently credited as signifying the beginning of the environmental revolution’.5 In Silent Spring, Carson pointed towards the dangers that chemical pesticides and insecticides posed for the ecological system. She showed that ‘the use of such pesticides as DDT threatened ecocatastrophe 106 British Apocalyptic Fiction because non-biodegradable organic compounds accumulated in the tissues of higher animals’.6 Birds especially but also other wildlife and human beings would be seriously harmed by this. Because of the book’s enormous success, environmental concerns unrelated to nuclear fears entered the public and political debate. Silent Spring was at the top of the prestigious New York Times bestseller list for non-fictional books in October 1962 and stayed in the top ten for over 30 weeks.7 Originally published only in the United States, Silent Spring quickly reached an international readership. It was published in 15 countries in 1963,8 one of which was Britain, where Silent Spring came out in February of that year.9 The popularity of the book ultimately had a major effect on readers and politicians: ‘Silent Spring can be implicated in instigating changes in local and national government policy in the United States […] and several European countries (e.g. Britain, Sweden, Denmark, and Hungary).’10 Most importantly, it led to the complete ban of DTT in the United States in 1972. Apart from this, Silent Spring established the discourse of man-made ecological catastrophe and thus ‘inaugurate[d] the literature of ecological apocalypse.’11 In the book’s opening chapter, ‘A Fable for Tomorrow’, Carson employs an ‘apocalyptic narrative’ to ‘extract a warning’12 against ecological pollution. A once lively and thriving town is completely deserted by humanity after all its animals and plants have died because of pesticide pollution:
The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were now lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died.13
The reference to ‘a white granular powder’,14 which is the cause behind the disaster, evokes the dangers of nuclear fallout and illustrates the grave threat posed by chemicals. The shift in the apocalyptic discourse away from nuclear fears towards environmental catastrophe is also apparent in a Punch cartoon from 1964 that characterizes pesticides rather than nuclear weapons as the new agents of doom (Figure 11). In the cartoon, Nikita Khrushchev is prepared to extinguish Chinese weeds in his garden with the help of giant pesticide equipment. The pesticide’s name, ‘Doomsday’, foregrounds the apocalyptic potential of the chemical. Moreover, the Soviets now rely on pesticides, not nuclear weapons, to fight the West. This is at least what is suggested by the ‘Westicide’ container in the background of the drawing. A few years after the publication of Silent Spring, towards the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s, a number of environmental disasters increased public awareness in environmentalism. These highly publicized incidents ‘had the Eco-doom 107 effect of catalyzing environmental fears.’15 In 1967, the Torrey Canyon super tanker sank off the coast of Cornwall. Almost 120 million tonnes of oil leaked into the English Channel, making it ‘the biggest oil spill ever’16 at the time. Furthermore, in a desperate attempt to remedy the disaster, huge amounts of chemical dispersants were sprayed, damaging the environment even more.17 In the US, the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 caused 4 million gallons of oil to pollute the west coast after a blowout on a Union Oil platform. In addition, there were a great number of minor pollution events in the US: ‘Altogether, an
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Figure 11: Khrushchev sprays the Chinese weeds with a lethal pesticide. Cartoon by Norman Mansbridge. Punch, 23 September 1964. 108 British Apocalyptic Fiction estimated 10,000 spills of oil and other hazardous material annually polluted the navigable waters of the United States during the late 1960s.’18 Industrial pollution at Minimata and Niigata in Japan in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s is testament to the global scale of environmental contamination incidents. Chemical factories discharged small amounts of an organic mercury compound into the adjacent rivers. The mercury accumulated in food fish which, when eaten, poisoned the local population. The Minimata Disease attacked the central nervous system of those people poisoned and subsequently killed, according to the Environmental Agency of the Japanese government, more than 2,900 people.19 With the media starting to pay more attention to environmental issues, the accumulation and severe consequences of these disasters fuelled the foundation of environmental campaigns. Up to the mid-1960s, ‘questions of pollution and conservation were not newsworthy.’20 However, with environmental disasters making the news and giving environmentalism a public stage, reports on ‘environmental issues in the Times increased by 281 percent between 1965 and 1973’.21 As a result of the increase in environmental news coverage, more and more people ‘were sensitized to the potential costs of careless economic development and now lent growing support to a series of local and national environmental campaigns, which [themselves] were often given wide media attention.’22 The formation and success of Friends of the Earth (1969) and Greenpeace (1971) exemplifies the growing interest in environmental campaigning. In Britain, the Conservation Society was formed in 1966 and a British branch of Friends of the Earth was founded in 1970. Friends of the Earth especially attracted wide public interest: ‘FOE activists embarked in high-publicity campaigns to mobilize the media in support of its demands’.23 The positive reception of these campaigns led to memorial days and international conference the initiation of which was favoured by the political climate of the 1960s.24 The anti-war movement and the civil rights movement created ‘a new climate of heightened public activism from which environmentalism benefited.’25 This was particularly true because ‘activists turned to the environment at the end of the 1960s as the civil rights and antiwar movement lost momentum.’26 The activists’ endeavours eventually culminated in the first Earth Day. On April 22, 1970, over 20 million people peacefully demonstrated in the US against the deterioration of the environment, ‘kicking off […] the “Environmental Decade” of radical legislative reforms.’27 As a result, the 1970s saw the implementation of various significant changes in environmental US law.28 In Britain, the Deposit of Poisonous Waste Act was introduced in 1972, as a result of the Conservation Society’s ‘exposure of cyanide dumping in Warwickshire’,29 and the Pollution Act became law in 1972. On the global political level, the process of ecological reflection and reform gave way to the UNESCO Biosphere Conference in Paris Eco-doom 109 in 1968 and, even more crucially, the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972. The Stockholm Conference ‘was the single most influential event in the evolution of the international environmental movement.’30 The introduction of an international convention on marine dumping was realized, the installation of a global environmental monitoring system (Earthwatch) and the creation of the UN Environment Programme were amongst its results. Undoubtedly, Stockholm hugely benefited from the fact that it ‘occurred at a time when environmental concern was at its highest point since the century began’.31 Environmental concerns voiced as part of the Stockholm Conference were also related to the publication of a number of (popular scientific) books written between 1968 and 1972. These books dealt with limited resources and pollution and made bleak predictions for the fate of the Earth, often describing a possible future in apocalyptic terms. The first central publication from these ‘prophets of doom’32 was Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968). Ehrlich, an American biologist, warned of overpopulation of the Earth, suggesting that there would not be enough earthly resources to support an ever increasing population in the future. The resulting conflicts over supplies would inevitably lead to major conflicts and global catastrophe. The Population Bomb ‘became one of the best- selling environmental books of all time, with three million copies in paperback by the mid-1970s.’33 While Ehrlich did not directly address humanity’s abuse of the environment, he was the first to confront a wide audience with the finite nature of environmental resources. In The Closing Circle (1971), US environmentalist Barry Commoner focused more strongly on the ecological damage inflicted on the environment:
It was not so much that more goods were being consumed, but that their production and disposal were more costly in environmental terms. […] He emphasized that some of the most dangerous environmental perils were those that could not be seen, notably air, food, and water contaminated by polluting substances.34
Commoner blamed multi-national corporations for environmental pollution because he saw them ‘as responsible for forcing unwanted and unnecessary technology down people’s throats.’35 Commoner’s views are effectively reflected on the title page of an issue of TIME magazine from 1970 that shows the contrast between an idealized healthy environment and a desolate polluted urban environment.36 The dystopian right-hand side, emphasized by the reverse print, hints at the harmful consequences of unhealthy industrial technology: smoking factory chimneys (air), endangered bird species (food), and polluted seas (water). The caption of the title page, ‘The Emerging Science of Survival’, underlines the apocalyptic dimension the environmental threat is given. The apocalyptic ideas voiced by Commoner became part of British public discourse, for example in 110 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Michael Cummings’ cartoon for the Daily Express in 1969 ( Figure 12). The cartoon shows three aliens visiting a ruined Earth void of people. Several signs indicate that environmental catastrophes have devastated the planet. The warnings on the signs reflect Commoner’s concern over contaminated air, food, and water. Another influential publication was The Limits to Growth (1972), a report commissioned by the global think tank Club of Rome. The authors of The Limits to Growth ‘prophesied imminent global catastrophe’37 due to ecological damage. They argued that ‘the roots of environmental crisis lay in exponential growth. Catastrophe was inevitable by the end of the century, brought on by the exhaustion of resources and rising death rates from pollution and food shortages.’38 The Limits to Growth was received well, selling four million copies by the late 1970s and thus becoming the ‘best popularly known book on ecology since Silent Spring’.39 Considering that British environmentalism was ‘influenced by important U.S. authors of the 1960s, such as Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, Barry Commoner’,40 the success of these American environmentalist books paved the way for two significant British publications in the early 1970s. In Britain, A Blueprint for Survival by Edward Goldsmith and Robert Allen (1972) and E. F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful (1973) familiarized a general
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Figure 12: Aliens land on a poisoned and polluted planet Earth. Cartoon by Michael Cummings/ Express Newspapers. Daily Express, 10 November 1969: ‘So it wasn‘t the H-bomb that finished off the Earth people, after all!’ Eco-doom 111 public with ideas of ecological doom. Timothy O’Riordan notes that ‘both publications were tremendously influential because they appeared during the heyday of environmental scare publicity and popular interest in environmentalism generally’.41 A Blueprint for Survival claimed that ‘[p]opulation growth and resource consumption necessitated radical changes in attitudes and practices’.42 In calling for reform on the social, political, and economic level and also in ‘its message of doom’,43 A Blueprint for Survival echoed the position of British eco- activists and struck a note with publishers and the public: ‘The Blueprint received a remarkable amount of attention. The special Blueprint issue of the Ecologist sold out immediately, was published by Tom Stacey, and then picked up by Penguin’.44 One year after A Blueprint for Survival, E. F. Schumacher also criticized Western lifestyle in what became ‘[o]ne of the most important texts in the early Green movement in Britain’45 and a bestseller: Small is Beautiful (1974). Like A Blueprint for Survival, Small is Beautiful represented a more comprehensive attack on the ideals of Western culture. First and foremost, Schumacher ‘criticized the waste and squandering of resources and the over-reliance of Western industry on capital- and energy-intensive technology.’46 This kind of existence, he argued, would lead to an energy crisis which could ‘threaten the survival of industrial civilization’ and, even more fatal, an environmental crisis which would ‘destroy the very earth’.47 Non-fiction books like G. R. Taylor’sThe Doomsday Book (1971) supported such alarmist predictions which were then heavily criticized in a number of publications, for example in The Doomsday Syndrome (1972) by John Maddox or Thomas R. Shepard jr.’s The Doomsday Lobby (1973). This further amplified the pervasion of apocalyptic environmental catastrophe discourse in British culture. The height of this phase of environmental awareness and anxiety lasted from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. Afterwards, Western culture adopted a more moderate perspective on environmental issues. As a result, the public, to some extent, lost interest in environmentalism and ecological Armageddon for some years to come. Environmental organization membership and decreasing media interest provide evidence for this. The number of members of the Conservation Society, for example, peaked in 1973–1974 but decreased afterwards.48 Press coverage and public awareness of environmental issues generally ‘dropped dramatically after 1975, during the era of economic recession, rising unemployment, and severe labor unrest’.49 This does not mean that the ecological movement came to an end in the second half of the 1970s. The renaming of the British party PEOPLE to Ecological Party in 1975, for instance, contradicts this conclusion. More accurately, ‘environmentalism gradually became tempered by a less emotional and more carefully considered response to the problems of the environment.’50 This meant that the time of publically dreaded eco-doom was over for the time being. 112 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Apocalyptic fiction 1965–1973
From natural catastrophe to environmental fiction
Even though environmental cataclysms started to feature regularly in British disaster fiction at the beginning of the 1960s, this group of novels did not mark the beginning of the apocalyptic eco-doom period. In environmental fiction, the ‘crisis exists in the foreground, invariably providing the basis for the plot rather than merely its setting’.51 This is not the case, for example, for the apocalyptic novels of John Christopher. None of these stories are truly concerned with the ecology of the planet. The environmental catastrophe mainly serves as a backdrop for existentialist adventures and survivalist struggle. In The World in Winter (1962), a new ice age begins when the sun, for no apparent reason, loses its power due to a decrease in solar radiation. In A Wrinkle in the Skin (1965), a series of unexplained massive earthquakes terrifies the British population and geologically changes the British Isles beyond recognition. Therefore, these two tales are not much different from other, earlier stories which also featured environmental catastrophe: ‘In the early twentieth century literary images of worldwide disaster were commonplace, but they almost invariably laid the blame on agents external to human society.’52 Most of J. G. Ballard’s apocalyptic novels of the 1960s do not deal with ecological anxiety either. This is true despite the fact that they envision ‘various forms of ecological calamity.’53 His writing debut The Wind from Nowhere (1961) takes after Christopher’s novels in that the environmental apocalyptic threat serves more as scenery than theme. It features a mysterious wind current which, when becoming increasingly faster, threatens humanity. The Drowned World (1962),54 The Drought (1965), and The Crystal World (1966) are rooted in the tradition of New Wave SF.55 The English New Wave ‘defined the turn from muscular adventures in outer space to psychological examination of inner space’.56 Ballard and his New Wave contemporaries primarily use apocalyptic imagery to reflect upon psychological states of mind. The environmental catastrophe becomes ‘an external projection of a deranged inner landscape.’57 The same is true for Anna Kavan’s Ice (1967), a novel in which the extremely cold climate is descriptive of the main character’s mental state. As writers of avant-garde science fiction, Ballard and Kavan were not attempting to reflect upon contemporary public discourses of ecological anxiety. Only in The Drought does Ballard introduce the problem of pollution to rationalize the permanent aridity in the narrative.58 When public fears of environmental disaster more strongly emerged in the course of the 1960s, British apocalyptic fiction eventually started to address the realities and dangers of ecological catastrophe in earnest. In fact, ‘many Eco-doom 113 genre SF writers collaborated eagerly in the alarmism of the apocalyptic ecocatastrophists’.59 Subsequently, this led to a number of science fiction stories which dealt with ‘the possible disastrous consequences of phenomena such as pollution and overpopulation.’60 Dystopian stories about overpopulated (city) spaces were the first to be published: ‘A voluminous outpouring of literature appeared on the population-resource dilemma in the 1960s’.61 American SF authors wrote a substantial amount of overpopulation fiction,62 the short story ‘Billennium’ (1962) by J. G. Ballard and John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar (1968) are the best-known British examples. In ‘Billenium’, the masses are herded into the cities with a minimum of space to live in so that there is enough land for farming to feed the ever-growing population. Stand on Zanzibar, through its title alone, conveys the concept of overpopulation and lack of space, stating the novel’s central idea that the planet’s entire population could easily fit on the isle of Zanzibar if only standing upright and shoulder to shoulder. Yet none of these tales reach apocalyptic dimensions. Eco-doom only became ‘an important new strand of apocalyptic fiction’63 when environmental abuse and industrial pollution dominated the public discussion at the beginning of the 1970s. Almost all known examples of environmental apocalyptic fiction were published during that time. Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis and D. F. Jones’ Don’t Pick the Flowers were published in 1971, Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up in 1972. The Phaeton Condition by Douglas R. Mason became available in 1973. The comparatively small number of titles is explained by the short period of time during which ecological apocalypse dominated the apocalyptic imagination. The comparative dearth of environmental apocalyptic fiction is also connected to general developments in science fiction starting in the 1960s and progressing into the 1970s. First, the majority of science fiction writers lost interest in cataclysmic disasters. Instead, ‘the continuing mainstream of commercial sf was distinctly upbeat, constructing a universe in which technological salvation arrives through virtuous human efforts.’64 In Britain, it was merely the New Wave writers Ballard and Brunner whose interest in apocalyptic fiction was unbroken. Secondly, SF generally was not as prolific during the time of ecological anxiety as in previous times. In his historical survey of science fiction, Roger Luckhurst states that ‘genre criticism of the 1970s suspected that SF was on the verge of disappearing.’65
Environmental destruction
Apocalyptic fiction during the time of the ecological movement is preoccupied with the many ways humankind is harming the environment. Don’t Pick the Flowers (1971) by D. F. Jones warns of environmental destruction as a 114 British Apocalyptic Fiction consequence of mankind’s irresponsible treatment of our planet. Experimental drilling in the Pacific Ocean accidentally opens up a gas pocket in the Earth’s mantle from which great amounts of nitrogen escape. The eventual collapse of the nitrogen pocket triggers a series of tidal waves and earthquakes that devastate the Pacific coast of the United States. Worse, the emerging nitrogen has started mixing with the air so that the percentage of oxygen in the air is expected to ‘be reduced to a point that makes breathing less easy for those of us with chests and hearts not so good as they once were.’66 At the end of the novel, this process is still in progress, threatening to make life on Earth impossible. The novel’s title is an appeal for treating our environment more carefully: ‘Plants are our only source of oxygen […]; if you’re human, you love plants!’67 The title may also allude to Flower Power, the cultural peace movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. As another countercultural movement, environmentalism was closely linked to the anti-war movement: ‘In both Britain and the United States, many of the young supporters of the environmental movement had been introduced to activism through the experience of other protest campaigns.’68 Thus, the title’s flower is not only a metonymy for nature but also symbolizes youth and youth culture. Consequently, picking this flower is not only a hazard to the environment but also a potential danger to the survival of the younger generation and its ideals. In The Phaeton Condition (1973) by Douglas R. Mason, industrial pollution and the consequences of overpopulation on the environment have brought mankind to the brink of annihilation in the far future. The planet’s condition has become so poor that ‘all the [environmental] trends will be irreversible’69 within the next ten years, inevitably threatening to doom mankind. One of the main characters, the environmentalist campaigner Margaret, describes the ecological dilemma and the fact that humanity is failing to deal with it:
Population’s climbing back to the nineteen ninety peak, at a faster rate. Pollution levels are even higher. Do you realize that atmospheric oxygen is being consumed at one point six times the rate it’s being replaced? Will people wait until they can’t breathe before they wake up?70
Clearly, this speech’s didacticism and environmental warning is not only targeted at the novel’s other characters but also at the reader. Despite the fact that J. G. Ballard’s The Drought (1965) is a psychological New Wave novel and written some time before the height of environmental panic, it is also a condemnation of humanity’s careless handling of the Earth’s ecosystem. The novel’s narrator tells us that industrial pollution is the reason behind the lack of rain: Eco-doom 115
Covering the off-shore waters of the world’s oceans, to a distance of about a thousand miles from the coast, was a thin but resilient mono-molecular film formed from a complex of saturated long-chain polymers, generated within the sea from the vast quantities of industrial wastes discharged into the ocean basins during the previous fifty years. This tough, oxygen-permeable membrane lay on the air-water surface and prevented almost all evaporation of surface water into the air space above.71
However, in contrast to conventional environmental apocalyptic fiction, the disaster in The Drought does more than simply illustrate human mismanagement of the Earth’s ecology. The apocalyptic landscape also indicates the alienated state of mind of the main character, Dr Ransom. Thus, when Dr Ransom ‘at last complete[s] his journey across the margins of the inner landscape’,72 a redeeming rain sets in even though there is no indication that the environmental circumstances could have changed. Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis’s Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater (1971) is not about pollution but about the problem of waste disposal. In the novel, scientific efforts to cope with the increasing amount of garbage almost lead to an apocalyptic disaster. Scientist Dr Ainslie has experimented with bacteria that feed on litter. When he dies unexpectedly, the fifty-ninth variant of this bacterium, which feeds on plastic, disappears unnoticed in the London sewers. Years later, Kramer Consultancy develops a dissolvable plastic bottle for a lemonade company. This is to promote sales by advertising the environmental-friendly aspect of the product as indicated by the slogan ‘Help your environment, drink Tropic Delight.’73 Ironically, the mutant 59 bacteria in the London sewage system start to feed on the dissolved plastic bottles and spread and mutate further to eat other kinds of plastic. As a result, all plastic products malfunction and fall to pieces. This throws London and eventually parts of the world into chaos ‘as if after a nuclear holocaust.’74 Furthermore, the bacteria pose another threat because the digestion process of the plastic creates explosive gases. In the end, civilization is saved only when a scientist creates a plastic that is poisonous for the plastic eaters. As a consequence of the near-fatal events, the Kramer Consultancy’s executive board reconsiders its company policy and plans to employ science for the benefit of mankind rather than financial profit in the future. Hence, science is presented as a tool that people can use for different purposes, either to help humankind or to harm it.
Critique of capitalism
In blaming pollution for the ecological collapse, most contemporary environ- mental apocalyptic fiction often entails a critique of industrialist capitalism. This is most explicit in Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater in the character of Kramer. 116 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Kramer, the head of the Kramer Consultancy, is described as having started out as an idealist scientist who wanted to use science for the good of mankind. In the course of the novel, however, it becomes clear that his attitude has changed: ‘Every remark, every concept, every speculation was now directed towards a profit motive.’75 To make money, his company invents dissolvable plastic bottles, ignoring all potential risks. Kramer’s greed leads to chaos and disorder and, in an instance of poetic justice, to his death. The change in company ideology at the novel’s end shows that Mutant 59 is not so much a critique of science but a condemnation of capitalism. The Phaeton Condition is equally critical of industrial entrepreneurs. A group of twenty top class industrialists has foreseen the disastrous environmental developments. However, instead of trying to decrease their companies’ pollution or acting against the ecological catastrophe, their countermeasures focus on building a large underground sanctuary in East Africa. There, the twenty businessmen and those they have selected for their ark will be able ‘to sweat out the holocaust’76 while the rest of humanity is destined to die. Characterized as immoral cowards, they abdicate responsibility for the destruction of the planet for which they are mainly to be blamed in the first place.
Case study: The Sheep Look Up
John Brunner’s novel The Sheep Look Up (1972) depicts the apocalyptic consequences of industrial pollution and places the largest portion of blame on the establishment of industrial-capitalist societies. The title The Sheep Look Up is an explicit reference to the pastoral elegy ‘Lycidas’ by John Milton. Hence, the title establishes the novel’s environmental theme and love for nature while at the same time warning of, if not lamenting, its demise. Predominantly set in the US, The Sheep Look Up introduces a substantial number of characters and plotlines to draw a complex picture of the contemporary ecological problem. The protagonist of The Sheep Look Up is Austin Train. Train, a scientist who is modelled on Barry Commoner,77 used to bring the dangers of environmental pollution to the attention of a mass audience. As a result, he was regarded as the spokesperson of the ecological movement and thus became an enemy of those in power. Moreover, a growing group of environmental activists adopted him as their idol, calling themselves Trainites. Train, however, became dissatisfied with the fact that both the public and the Trainites did not really listen to his message but took advantage of his persona for their own purposes. This is why he disappeared from public view and started working incognito as a garbage collector. He returns to public life at the end of the novel when he agrees to Eco-doom 117 make a public statement in a popular TV talk show. He is then imprisoned for the kidnapping of Hector Bamberley. Hector Bamberley belongs to a family of wealthy industrialists. His father, the tycoon Roland Bamberley, tries to benefit from the ecological misery and sells water-purifying filters to the people in California. Hector’s uncle Jack Bamberley is the owner of a hydroponics plant that manufactures the cassava product Nutripon. Unlike his brother Roland, Jack Bamberly is no longer primarily interested in profit but runs his factory for charitable purposes. He places Nutripon at the disposal of Globe Relief, an international organization that supports developing countries. Yet Bamberley comes under public pressure when Nutripon is suspected of being some kind of madness-inducing drug. Deadly riots in San Pablo, Honduras, Noshri, a city in the north of Africa, and eventually in Denver are apparently caused by the consumption of Nutripon. Even Bamberley’s wife Maud suspects that he is responsible. After a confrontation between the two over this matter, Jack Bamberley dies tragically when he eats a stale candy bar. Earlier in the novel, Jack’s adopted son Hugh voices his disgust at his father’s capitalist past and leaves home. He first becomes part of a tranquil Trainite settlement in Colorado. When he becomes unhappy with the Colorado Trainites’ lack of counter-establishment action, he joins an extremist Trainite terrorist cell headed by Ossie. Ossie, who is one of many who pretend to be the missing Austin Train, and Hugh later abduct Hector to blackmail Roland Bamberley into giving 20,000 water purifiers away for free. After a while, they let Hector go when they realize that Roland Bamberley will never pay the ransom. Since Hector is under the impression that he was kidnapped by Austin Train alias Ossie, Robert Bamberley uses his political power to have the police arrest the real Austin before the transmission of the disclosing TV show. The televised trial for Austin’s presumed abduction of Hector Bamberley makes up the climax of The Sheep Look Up. Hector realizes that the real Austin Train is not identical to the one who kidnapped him. He admits that his father Roland wanted to see the real Austin Train guilty and thus bullied Hector into naming Austin as his kidnapper. Proven innocent, Austin seizes the opportunity to speak in front of a nationwide TV audience to explain the recent incidents of mass madness. A military psychomimetic, which was insufficiently disposed of in a Rocky Mountain silver mine by the US government, mixed with the groundwater and thereby poisoned Nutripon and the water supply in Denver. Austin makes a passionate appeal for treating the environment more carefully and with more respect before it is too late. However, his call remains unheard outside of the courtroom because the US President has ordered his speech to be cut off on TV. Moments later, a bomb detonated by Ossie, who was disappointed by Austin’s silence between the arrest and the trial, blows up the court of law, killing everybody in it. 118 British Apocalyptic Fiction
At the end of the novel, another scientist, Dr Grey, points out on another TV show that the Earth can still be saved if a population of the size of the United States with the polluting lifestyle of the United States would be exterminated immediately. Again, the transmission is stopped. The novel remains ambiguous about whether the US population was wiped out and whether humanity was saved. The last proper section of the book, ‘The Smoke of that Great Burning’, indicates that a nationwide civil war must have broken out in the US. Stephen H. Goldman’s reading implies that this civil war came just in time so save mankind.78 However, the quotation from ‘Lycidas’, which finally explains the novel’s title and is the only text of the final chapter ‘Next Year’, weakens this interpretation:
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.79
It strongly indicates that mankind is doomed to extinction as ‘foul and contagion spread.’ Throughout, The Sheep Look Up reflects upon the various contemporary anxieties of ecological doom, for example, the potential long-term effects of pesticides. In the early parts of the book, there are a number of short passages that relate news and facts related to environmental hazards. In one passage, it is pointed out that the Californian pelican failed to breed ‘owing to estrogenic effect of DDT on shell secretion’.80 Ossie also alludes to the insecticides’ poisonousness. He is appalled when farmers, in reaction to crop failure, irresponsibly request ‘to be allowed to turn loose all the old poisons, like DDT!’81 Apart from the pesticides’ venomousness, their existence and use is further criticized in The Sheep Look Up. Because they have been used excessively, lice and fleas have become ‘immune to insecticides’.82 An even more prominent example is the immunity of jigras, a local worm in Honduras. Whilst Global Relief workers are investigating the Guanagua province in Honduras, they find that ‘[t]his area’s been sprayed and soaked and saturated with insecticides!’83 As a result, the jigras have become ‘resistant to DDT, heptachlor, dieldrin, pyrethrum’.84 Invulnerable, the jigras are capable of attacking human food plants unchecked which eventually leads to famines in Honduras and the US. DDT, the insecticide brought to the fore through Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, is especially conspicuous in The Sheep Look Up. The presence of DDT emphasizes the lasting impact of Silent Spring in the environmental debate, inside and outside of fiction. In Brunner’s novel, DDT is used to put the environmental dangers of non-pesticide chemicals in perspective for the reader: ‘Polychlorinated biphenyls: waste products of the plastics, lubrication and cosmetics industries. Universal distribution Eco-doom 119 at levels similar to DDT’.85 One reason why DDT serves as a point of reference rather than a hazard itself is the fact that other environmental dangers are more prominent in Brunner’s novel. In The Sheep Look Up, environmental apocalypse is most imminent because pollution has ruined the terrestrial water resources. Undoubtedly, these problems of pollution ‘derive from prevailing fears and topics of the 1960s.’86 In the novel, the oceans, the Mediterranean, the Great Lakes, the Baltic and the Caspian Sea are all heavily contaminated if not already entirely devastated; industrial pollution is mainly responsible. The Mediterranean, for instance, has been ‘destroyed by the filthy wastes from European factories’.87 The Californian coast has been ‘contaminated over generations by lead shot in the water.’88 Moreover, an American plastics company poured day-to-day ‘half a million gallons of hot and poisoned water into a river that served eleven cities before it reached the ocean.’89 The consequences of this behaviour are abominable. The beaches are ‘fouled with oil and sewage, […] the water at your sink reeking of chlorine’.90 Aside from industrial pollution, environmental disasters and careless waste disposal add to the ecological and human calamities. The Atlantic Ocean was ‘made foul by a hundred and eighty thousand tons of oil from [a shipwrecked] tanker’.91 Furthermore, the American government dumped ‘an arsenical compound they invented in the First World War’ 92 just off the Florida coast. In consequence, one of the novel’s minor characters, Nancy Thorne, is poisoned and dies while swimming in the sea. While all these instances of industrial pollution are only in rare cases directly responsible for human deaths, they are the underlying cause of the decline of living conditions and, therefore, the spread of illness and epidemic disease. In this way, the pollution of the Earth prepares the ground for the apocalypse implied by the novel’s ending. The increasingly deteriorating living conditions are already apparent at the beginning of the story. The opening sections of The Sheep Look Up describe that the air and water quality has become almost unbearable as a result of pollution. The air is so repugnant that it makes people’s hands become ‘slimy with the airborne nastiness’.93 They have to ‘cough’ and their eyes begin ‘to water’94 as soon as they go outside. Therefore, most people only venture outside wearing a filter mask. Similarly, general water conditions are so terrible that clean tap water, which is only available from water-dispensers, is neither free of charge nor is it suitable for drinking. One consequence of these appalling conditions is the recurrent outbreaks of plague: ‘Over the past few weeks thirty-five million people have been sick for a week or longer. […] And according to HEW we’re going into a second cycle of the epidemic because we’ve run out of water, we’re having to re-release it before it’s been completely sterilized.’95 The situation deteriorates to such a level that the whole of the United States is gripped by a number of endemic diseases: ‘Brucellosis is the main one, but they have calls for infectious hepatitis, dysentery, measles, rubella, scarlet fever and something [that] may be typhus.’96 120 British Apocalyptic Fiction
These plagues threaten humanity as much as when they were first discovered because many of the diseases have become ‘resistant to antibiotics’.97 As with the imprudent use of pesticides, the wasteful employment of antibiotics backfires on the human race. In addition to these known diseases, a ‘new kind of influenza’98 develops and starts to kill off people. While it remains unclear what caused the emergence of this disease, it is beyond doubt that humankind’s vulnerable state of health contributes to its proliferation. By making a causal connection between their actions and the ecological collapse explicit, The Sheep Look Up blames the Western industrial nations for the environmental apocalypse. The novel time and again emphasizes that ‘rich industrial countries were ruining the planet’.99 Among the Western countries, the USA is singled out as especially liable. The United States’ biggest import is oxygen as they ‘produce less than sixty per cent of the amount [they] consume.’100 The country’s biggest export, in contrast, is ‘noxious gases’.101 The USA lives beyond its means at the expense of other countries and in the end at the expense of the whole planet. This reading is consolidated at the end of the novel. Dr Grey explains that humanity could be saved if implementing Malthusian logic:
We can just about restore the balance of the ecology, the biosphere, and so on […] if we exterminate the two hundred million most extravagant and wasteful of our species.102
The figure of two hundred million is not coincidental. It is approximately the number of American citizens at the time The Sheep Look Up was written.103 The novel, therefore, suggests that humanity could be saved if it was not for American ill-treatment of the environment. The root of the Americans’ misconduct is their capitalist economic system. The Bamberley brothers serve as representatives of the flawed American way of life. For many years, Jack and Roland Bamberley have made profits without regarding the environmental consequences of their actions. This is why Jack’s adopted son Hugh condemns their behaviour. He uses a graphic but adequate simile to underline Jack’s and the Americans’ abusive treatment of the Earth: ‘You and your ancestors treated the world like a fucking great toilet bowl. […] And now it’s full and overflowing’.104 Moreover, Hugh points out the direct connection between the Bamberleys’ wealth and the state of the planet. After abducting Hector, he calls attention to the fact that Roland Bamberley ‘inherited a fortune made by ruining the earth.’105 Notwithstanding that The Sheep Look Up denounces the USA as the worst perpetrator, the novel extends its criticism of capitalism to the other Western nations as well. It is not the US capitalism alone but ‘the greed of Christian countries’106 in general that causes the pollution and tips the ecological balance. Their Christian value system has been replaced by a capitalist-commercial value system that works at the expense and towards the destruction of God’s creation. Eco-doom 121
Capitalism is also addressed and criticized through the behaviour of a number of characters in reaction to the impeding ecological doom. Rather than taking action against the environmental decline, these characters invest their time and money in finding ways to profit from it. For example, Philip Mason and Alan Prosser start to sell home water-purifiers in the hope of making ‘a fucking fortune’.107 Following the same line of thinking, a cabdriver is going to ‘put my savings into a dry-cleaning business. […] Five minutes of rain, umbrella or no umbrella, and if you don’t go to the cleaners right away you need a new suit.’108 In both cases, it is short-term greed that drives the ambition to help people cope with the miserable conditions. The novel’s critical attitude towards this capitalist exploitation of other people’s suffering is doubly expressed. On a small scale, the water filters soon stop fulfilling their function when they become clogged with bacteria so that the sale of the water purifiers does not end up reaping the desired profit. Attempts to financially gain from environmental devastation are not only unfeasible but, in fact, fatal. This is even truer on a bigger scale: With humankind probably extinct at the conclusion of the novel, all capitalist ambitions have come to a definitive end. By attacking the capitalist structure of Western countries, The Sheep Look Up questions not only the actions of Western industrialists but the future of Western civilization altogether. The novel ‘radically exposes the decadence […] of Western society’.109 Brunner’s America, a pars pro toto for the Western world, represents a battlefield between a fascist establishment and an ever-growing discontented radical public. With the help of ‘straw dummy [President] Prexy and his cabinet of mediocrities’,110 the big corporations have turned the United States into a country where ‘every effort at reform must conform to the capitalist profit motive’.111 Dissenting opinions are no longer wanted or accepted. The environmental campaigners Professor Quarrey and Gerry Thorne are assassinated, most probably on behalf of the ‘corporate-military ruling elites’.112 The same powers are behind the lethal attack on the Trainite community in Colorado. Austin Train is put into prison simply on the basis of tycoon Roland Bamberley’s accusations. Moreover, President Prexy, who is in control of the media system, single-handedly stops the transmission of Train’s anti-establishment speech at the trial. In response to this capitalist streamlining of public opinion, terrorism gains popularity within parts of the Trainite community. Extremist Trainites attack industries with high pollution ratings, Hugh and Ossie kidnap Hector Bamberley, Ossie blows up the courtroom. In the end, the conflict between the entrepreneurs and the fanatic environmentalists only produces losers, as humankind is about to become extinct. Even Ossie’s terrorist act can only be taken as a failure. Blinded by his ideal of being a radical campaigner for the environmentalist cause, he not only kills the Bamberleys at the courtroom but 122 British Apocalyptic Fiction also Austin Train, presumably the only man who had the potential to save the planet.113 In view of these wider implications, The Sheep Look Up is more than just a piece of ecological apocalyptic fiction. Undoubtedly, the novel is primarily a warning of environmental abuse and its consequences. Brunner’s novel addresses, above all, the dangers of industrial pollution. Beyond that, however, Brunner’s novel points towards the decline of Western society. The apocalypse in The Sheep Look Up is shown to be a result of the West’s mismanagement of the planet as a consequence of its blind belief in the capitalist economic system. The USA, as the leading Western nation, becomes the centre of Brunner’s critique and, in an act of poetic justice, perishes in chaos. It is noteworthy in this respect to bear in mind that Brunner’s novel is predominantly set in the US and that Britain or British characters do not significantly feature. It suggests that, by the 1970s, Britain’s fall from political power no longer enabled it to exert influence in matters and threats of global proportion.
*
Environmental disaster dominates apocalyptic discourse in Britain from the mid- 1960s to the mid-1970s, filling the gap in the collective consciousness that détente between East and West had created. Unlike the previous periods of apocalyptic fiction in Britain, the era of eco-doom is not concerned with either military conflict or foreign invasion. Rather than focussing on and fearing aggression from the outside, it directs its attention to the dangers that lie within. Together with the attack on Western capitalism, a predominant theme of environmental apocalypse, this signals a turn towards left politics that is in line with British apocalyptic fiction’s pacifist agenda of the early and mid-interwar period. For the time frame of détente, it strictly demarcates the genre from past xenophobic or jingoistic tendencies. The apocalyptic stories themselves are not entirely new. There are numerous examples of cataclysmic environmental disasters in British apocalyptic fiction before eco-doom. This time, however, environmental disaster is no longer a setting, it is a theme. In addition and in contrast to many of these previous examples, the narratives of ecological apocalypse have in common that they appear to be more science than fiction, more realistic than extrapolated. Consequentially, the explicit didactic intentions serve to make these stories grim warnings of ecological disaster and the Western abuse of the environment. In this way, eco-doom dissolves past political alliances. The United States, the strongest and politically most important ally since the Second World War, has turned into an ungovernable threat, exposing Britain’s impotence on the world stage. Ch ap t er 6
Fears in transition
Absence of an apocalyptic metanarrative
After the end of the Cold War, apocalyptic discourse became fragmented as there was no overriding fear to fill the gap vacated by the end of the nuclear threat and the conclusion of the power struggle for world domination between East and West. At first sight, the end of the Cold War and thus the end of the nuclear confrontation appeared to mark the beginning of an era of stability devoid of global anxieties. The collapse of the Soviet Union left the United States as the primary superpower. That ‘suggested that American hegemony was complete and that the American Century […] would extend well into the twentieth century.’1 In consequence, the possibility of nuclear apocalypse for the most part disappeared from the public’s consciousness. Anti-nuclear movements such as the CND lost members and financial resources at the beginning of the 1990s.2 The danger of an apocalyptic catastrophe seemed to have been averted. As a result, the philosopher Francis Fukuyama went so far as to propose ‘The End of History’ in an article that appeared in the political journal The National Interest in 1989. Fukuyama argued that the victory of the Western capitalist countries in the epic struggle against communism inferred that all nations across the globe would eventually adopt that same Western social order, making liberal democracy the ‘final form of government’.3 One widespread interpretation of Fukuyama’s thesis was that the ideological harmony among the world’s countries would necessarily make conflicts less likely in the future and make the world a safer place.4 Naturally, Fukuyama’s theory ‘enjoyed wide publicity’5 in the US as it played up ‘to the famed complacency and optimistic spirit of Americans’6 in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. Fukuyama’s ideas attracted a wide readership not only inside but also outside the US so that his book The End of History and the Last Man (1992), which elaborated on the article’s argument, became a global bestseller.7 Yet the optimism surrounding the Western victory in the Cold War struggle quickly gave way to new fears and uncertainty. A cover story from Newsweek in 1991 concisely sums up the change of atmosphere at the beginning of the new decade: 124 British Apocalyptic Fiction
A year ago the world was steeped in euphoria. The cold war had ended, the economies of the West were booming and democracy was on the rise. Now the sunny forecasts have given way to the dark prospects of war in the desert, a free-falling economy and disarray across Eastern Europe. […] Of course it’s too soon to tell how the ‘90s will turn out. But it seems already clear that, compared with the decade just past, they will be a far more turbulent and anxious age.8
Even though the Cold War brought forth the terrifying possibility of nuclear war, the threat had at least been clearly defined, and so could be confronted and protested against. Moreover, during its final years, the chance of nuclear escalation had become increasingly slimmer. The end of the struggle produced a new ‘age of anxiety’9 which was based on the idea that ‘our unease is that we do not quite know where we ourselves are now headed.’10 As a consequence, public discourse featured a diversity of dangers with apocalyptic dimensions. Once again, fears of ecological apocalypse returned to the foreground. Similar to the period between 1965 and 1975, industrial pollution caused strong concerns among politicians and the populace. For this new period of environmental anxiety starting in the mid-1980s, the dangers of smog and acid rain as consequences of industrial pollution gained significant public interest.11 In addition, human infertility appeared to be another potentially disastrous consequence of environmental pollution. In 1995, an article in New Scientist debated the possibility of infertile mankind as a result of ‘hormone- like pollutants’12 in a cover feature called ‘End of Man? The Threat to Sperm’. However, it was the damage to the ozone layer and the consequences of the greenhouse effect on global climate that especially disconcerted the public and, in reaction, inspired a ‘new wave of environmentalism’.13 The depletion of the ozone layer as a hazard for humankind became a topic in public debate in the second half of the 1980s. In fact, the negative impact of chemicals on the ozone layer had already been an issue in 1978 when several countries banned aerosol sprays containing CFC. However, it was not until 1985 that the damaged ozone layer attracted the general attention of scientists, politicians and eventually the general public. That year, three British scientists14 detected ‘a thinning (or a “hole”) in the Antarctic ozone layer’.15 It meant that more harmful ultra-violet radiation would be able to pass through the Earth’s atmosphere. This finding left a deep impression: ‘The immediate threat of increased skin cancer and other damage to people and biological system shocked officials. Meanwhile magazine and television images of the ominous map of ozone loss carried the message to the public.’16 Fears of global warming due to the greenhouse effect amplified public anxiety over environmental decline. The increasing occurrence of climatic extremes had become noticeable in the 1970s and early 1980s. Yet, there was no clear evidence as to whether extreme rainfall or temperatures actually constituted the Fears in transition 125 beginning of climatic change. It was in the mid-1980s that the theory of a general warming of the planet gained more credibility and that this global warming, in fact, appeared to be far advanced: ‘New and more sophisticated computer models suggested that the climate was not only growing warmer, but was doing so faster than scientists had predicted.’17 The reason behind the climatic change was ascribed to the increase in human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2) and 18 other greenhouse gases. Yet, despite some fears that ‘the rise in CO2 could lead to major climatic changes—including the so-called “greenhouse effect”— with profound social, economic, and political implications’,19 there were not any strong public and political reactions. This finally changed after the ‘deadly summer of ‘88’20 when high temperatures, forest fires, and drought resulted in the death of several thousand people in the United States.21 The US summer heat wave became the costliest natural disaster in US history at the time.22 At the same time in Russia, citizens of Moscow fled the city in search of cooling water, many of them dying in the polluted rivers and ponds.23 In Britain, the high temperatures caused a severe drought so that ‘Margaret Thatcher declared a drought emergency for parts of Britain.’24 At the end of the year, British scientists not only noted that 1988 was the world’s hottest year in the last 100 years but also pointed out that the six hottest years of the 20th century all fell in the 1980s.25 All of this ‘ignited an explosion of media, public, and governmental concern that the long debated global warming ha[d] arrived’.26 The international edition of the magazines Newsweek and Time both featured cover stories on global warming from the greenhouse effect within a week.27 The National Geographic magazine’s cover of the centennial issue from December 1988 shows a vulnerable Earth from space with the headline asking the pertinent question: ‘Can Man Save this Fragile Earth?’ However, widespread public and political agitation about the planet’s ecology did not endure for an extended period of time. The dangers of acid rain and smog apparently did not seem severe enough to attract long-term public attention. In the case of ozone layer depletion, the ban of CFC and other harmful chemical compounds seemingly put an end to the destruction of the ozone layer and in this way helped to stop public anxiety. Even the debate around global warming only flared up occasionally in the course of the next few years. As ‘average global temperatures dipped’28 in the early 1990s, climate change sceptics felt confirmed in their belief that there was in fact no trend for global warming. This did not change either when a controversial report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1995 stated that there was an ‘increase in global mean temperature’ assisted by ‘a discernible human influence on global climate’.29 Despite the fact that the results of the report were ‘page-one news everywhere’,30 global warming was not seen in apocalyptic terms again until the beginning of the new millennium. 126 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Since the debate around environmental threats did not dominate contemporary apocalyptic discourse, warnings of fatal collisions with small solar system bodies (i.e. comets and asteroids) also inspired the public’s apocalyptic imagination. The scenario that an asteroid had the potential to destroy a whole species had been introduced to the public in 1980. In a paper for Nature, Berkeley scientists controversially argued that the Earth’s collision with a large asteroid had caused the dinosaurs’ extinction 65 million years ago.31 Their theory resonated strongly in the media at the end of the decade and after when more and more scientists found additional supporting evidence. National Geographic devoted its cover in June 1989 to the dinosaurs’ ‘March Toward Extinction’. With the idea of species extinction as a result of asteroid impact already circulating, news of threatening solar system objects gained an even more menacing dimension. Several incidents drew public attention to the threat of a cosmic catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions. In 1989, the asteroid 4581 Asclepius startled people around the world when it missed the Earth by a mere 500,000 miles. Despite its comparatively small dimensions, a collision would have been fatal because Asclepius ‘was firmly in a size category for objects capable of creating a global catastrophe’.32 Three years later, the rediscovery of Comet Swift-Tuttle provoked apocalyptic predictions: ‘“The End of the World!” was one of the headlines in November 1992 as sober scientists identified a comet […] that looked set to collide with the Earth in August 2016’.33 In its issue from November 23, Newsweek depicted a comet on a collision course with Earth on its cover and speculated about ‘how the world might end’34. Indeed, the scientific community was in agreement that ‘if comet Swift-Tuttle were to strike the earth, very little would be left alive.’35 The third remarkable and newsworthy (near) impact event happened in 1994 when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit Jupiter. The impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 produced ‘a stunning series of explosions that were seen from earth’36 and gave humanity an idea of how devastating an asteroid or comet strike would be. However, Shoemaker-Levy 9 would be the last small solar system body to generate public excitement and worry so that the fears of cosmic apocalypse were essentially over by the mid-1990s. As environmental anxiety and threats of cosmic catastrophe peaked only for a brief time in the aftermath of the Cold War, the 1990s showed a number of disparate public fears. Epidemics, for instance, regularly entered the public discussion. The fatal, highly infectious Ebola virus was regarded as ‘a considerable public health concern’37 at the time. Ebola first appeared in Zaire in 1976 when it killed almost 300 people in a remote town. However, the threat of Ebola appeared to be limited geographically to Central Africa and even there, outbreaks were infrequent.38 Things changed with the appearance of Reston-Ebola in 1989. Reston-Ebola caused a worldwide panic when infected Philippine monkeys brought Ebola to a laboratory in Virginia.39 It was also Fears in transition 127 detected in lab monkeys in Siena, Italy, in 1992. Moreover, outbreaks of Ebola occurred ‘almost annually in Central African countries’40 in the mid-1990s. A number of non-fiction writers popularized the great danger of Ebola. Richard Preston’s bestseller The Hot Zone (1994), which centred on the Ebola virus, received massive attention and American science journalist Laurie Garrett published The Coming Plague (1994), an international bestseller on the hazards of viral disease. In addition to the Ebola virus, the spread of AIDS caused by HIV further underlined the public’s impression that pandemics could bring about the downfall of civilization. After reports on a new lethal infectious disease accumulated in the early 1980s, scientists soon discovered the cause of it in AIDS and the HI-virus. Following a period of official denial, politicians took action in the late 1980s. In 1987, the World Health Organization started its Global Program on AIDS. One year later, World AIDS Day took place for the first time to raise awareness. In Britain, the government established a cabinet committee to control the disease in 1986. Despite these efforts, eight million people were infected with HIV in 199041 and thus doomed for certain early death. Consequently, anxiety over AIDS reached apocalyptic dimensions as is documented by a cartoon that appeared in The Independent on 28 January, 1988 (Figure 13). The skeletal figure AIDS,
Figure 13: AIDS sits on Civilization’s shoulder. Cartoon by Nicholas Garland. The Independent, 28 January 1988: ‘…For within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king keeps death his court, and there antick sits, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp…’ (King Richard III) 128 British Apocalyptic Fiction sitting on anthropomorphic Civilization’s shoulder, threatens to bring death to civilization.42 Anxiety in Western countries around Ebola and AIDS calmed down towards the end of the century. AIDS and Ebola primarily remained a problem in developing countries. 90 per cent of the people infected with HIV came from African countries alone and outbreaks of the Ebola virus were mainly restricted to the African continent. Hence, viral threats did not influence British apocalyptic discourse over a long period. Instead, the fear of the approaching millennium and the ensuing possible collapse of computer technology became just two more of many instances of end-of-the-world worries in the 1990s. To some extent, the cover of TIME magazine from January 18, 1999, illustrates that a general millennium madness in the media and among the population stimulated end-of-the-world fears.43 However, the cover also reveals that the atmosphere compared more to hysteria—‘Y2K insanity’ and ‘millennium madness’—than to genuine fears of the end. When the year 2000 came and went without much harm, millennial fears swiftly evaporated.
Apocalyptic fiction 1989–2001
With the end of the Cold War, atomic bombs and the threat of nuclear war became a thing of the past in British apocalyptic fiction and science fiction in general. Even though the nuclear arsenals still existed, they were neither interesting nor did they worry a wider populace in the post-Cold War years. In any case, this is how British science fiction writer Chris Wooding explains the limited success of Endgame (2000), his novel about imminent (but small- scale) nuclear war: ‘Whereas most of my other stories had spread to a good deal of foreign territories, Endgame didn’t. I can’t say I’m surprised. Nuclear bombs are so sixties.’44 In apocalyptic fiction, this paradigm shift is also evident. In Year Zero (2000) by Brian Stableford, one of the characters aptly describes the change in situation when he states that ‘the collapse of communism has reduced the probability of nuclear war to one in a million’.45 Ben Elton’s This Other Eden (1993) explicitly brings up the fact that the nuclear threat of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1980s has been replaced by other fears. The novel contrasts people’s means to protect themselves in their respective times: ‘[Before the 1980s,] people had built fallout shelters, as they now built Claustrospheres’46— i.e., a form of refuge developed to survive environmental devastation. And in The Hammer of God (1993) by Arthur C. Clarke, the atomic warhead is shown to be an impotent device. Fears in transition 129
Consequently, as the metanarrative of atomic apocalypse no longer served writers as a genre archetype, a variety of novels with distinctly dissimilar scenarios surfaced in British apocalyptic fiction of the closing 1980s and the 1990s. Gwyneth Jones notes:
[W]e have an embarrassment of possibilities [to let the world end]. We can crash the population with a killer virus; a decade or two of low-intensity warfare; the failure of a major food crop; a megasized pollution incident; an asteroid strike—not to mention plain old global warming, which can sink much of modern civilization in a watery grave.47
Up until that point, there had always been a tendency towards one or two apocalyptic metanarratives that led to the publication of a cluster of similar- minded stories about the end of the world. By contrast, the wide variety of stories in the 1990s, the multiplicity of micro-narratives documents the fragmentation of the apocalyptic discourse. The stories draw on contemporary anxieties popular before—cosmic catastrophe, environmental disaster—or anticipate future dominant discourses on the apocalypse—pandemics, global climate change. Two novels by Ben Elton address the need for environmentalist action to save the planet from destruction.48 Similarly to the eco-doom novels of the 1960s and 1970, Elton’s books strongly criticize capitalists for the demise of the Earth. In Stark (1989), mankind has driven the environment to the brink of collapse as a result of chemical pollution. Heat waves and rising sea levels due to global warming foreshadow inevitable eco-doom. Apparently, ‘the moment at which the world will cease to be able to sustain balanced life’49 is only a matter of time. The members of the Stark conspiracy, which consists of ‘the super-rich; those of us who own the means of production’,50 have foreseen this fatal development. However, they do not do anything to stop it because trying to save the planet would compromise their profits. Instead, to guarantee their own survival, they have bought the moon to establish a new colony for a total of 250 people there. Together with a reserve of hibernating embryos to populate the new habitat, this group is supposed to become the foundation of a lunar civilization. Despite the attempts of EcoAction, a group of environmentalists, to stop the Stark Ark rockets from launching, the Stark conspiracy leaves the Earth just when the ecological collapse is imminent and humanity on Earth is about to perish. Nonetheless, the new civilization on the moon does not survive either. The Stark members find each other’s company so unbearable that they neither procreate nor bring the embryos to life and, in the most extreme case, commit suicide. The novel’s moral seems to be that living a life that is solely geared towards profit and greed is not sustainable, not on an environmental level and not on a psychological level, neither on Earth nor on the moon. 130 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Elton’s This Other Eden (1993) presents an even more cynical scenario of capitalist environmental exploitation. In order to increase sales of Claustrosphere models, a ‘multi-billion dollar industry’51 that produces small self-sustaining sealed-off containers that enable survival after the ecological collapse, the central villain Plastic Tolstoy covertly wreaks ‘his own private environmental holocaust’.52 Moreover, he is secretly partners with Jurgen Thor, a former green activist- terrorist and icon of the environmental movement who is now head of the green political party Natura. Together, they use the reports on ecological disasters and the counter-reaction of Thor’s disciples as a marketing campaign to scare people into buying newer Claustrosphere models. In the event of doom, they have set up for themselves a Claustrosphere the size of an island. The day of ‘Eco- Armageddon’53 arrives and the citizens of the Western hemisphere disappear into their Claustrospheres, locking themselves in for forty years. Thor is killed by green terrorist Rosalie after he is forced to reveal his evil capitalist scheme. Tolstoy, in an instance of poetic justice, cannot reopen his Claustrosphere and dies in the prison of his own making. Ironically, the planet’s ecosystem is able to recover as a result of the forty-year-absence of Western civilization and presents humanity with the opportunity for a fresh start. This Other Eden shares many ideas with environmental fiction from the 1960s and 1970s, particularly with Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up, by blaming the Western nations and suggesting that a temporary absence of Western lifestyle would give the damaged planet a definite chance for rebirth. Looking at cosmic disaster tales in British apocalyptic fiction, The Hammer of God (1993) by Arthur C. Clarke is the only example of the threat of an asteroid collision in end-of-the-world stories of the 1990s.54 Humankind fears impending doom as the ultimate consequence of a potential crash: ‘The aftereffects of the impact could be even worse than the immediate consequences, as the skies were blackened by smoke for months – perhaps years. Most of the world’s vegetation, and perhaps its remaining wildlife, would fail to survive’.55 The Hammer of God is evidently a reaction to the public scare in relation to Comet Swift-Tuttle. As a matter of fact, the novel makes explicit reference when the characters discuss Kali’s potential danger: ‘[Comet Swift-Tuttle] was rediscovered by a Japanese amateur astronomer in 1992, and when its new path was computed, there was widespread alarm.’56 Examples of viral apocalypse and human infertility are equally rare. Only Plague ’99 (1989), a novel for adolescents by Jean Ure, presents a plot in which an airborne and highly infectious virus of unknown origin has attacked the British Isles in the year 1999. The infected suffer vomiting attacks and die quickly thereafter. Likewise, there is only one novel that centres on human sterility. In P. D. James’ novel The Children of Men (1992), the last baby in the history of mankind is born in 1995 when males become infertile for unknown reasons. Fears in transition 131
The novel suggests that human sterility is not the result of natural external influences but rather a divine punishment for the immoral Western lifestyle.57 The small number of titles per apocalyptic scenario does not mean that the number of apocalyptic novels itself was insignificant in the 1990s. On the contrary, the output of apocalyptic fiction is as large, if not larger, as before. In addition to the aforementioned novels, Simon Clark, James Herbert, Stephen Baxter and Stel Pavlou also published apocalyptic fiction in the years between 1995 and 2001.58 In contrast to previous times, however, the apocalyptic texts after the Cold War and before 9/11 taken as a whole are exceptionally heterogeneous. It is not possible to identify clusters of cultural fear, not even common themes. The notion that British apocalyptic fiction during this time had lost its capability to act as a seismograph of cultural fear is also supported by the genre’s turn from its roots of science fiction towards fantasy and parody. Fantasy fiction, because it ‘tells a story which is impossible in the world as we perceive it’,59 essentially does not aim for the depiction of realistic scenarios of global cataclysm. It neither warns nor reassures the reader of real-world threats to humankind. Especially when coupled with elements of parody, these narratives are so far removed from human experience that they lose some of their cultural potency and significance. Nevertheless, apocalyptic fantasy fiction, too, is a response to cultural crisis. The crisis, though, seems to concern the idea of apocalypse and apocalyptic fiction as a genre more than anything else. Indeed, there are three fantasy apocalyptic novels from the late 1980s to the year 2000 which parody the foundation of apocalyptic fiction: biblical apocalypse. In Robert Rankin’s Armageddon – The Musical (1988), Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (1990) and Brian Stableford’s Year Zero (2000), the figures from the Bible—God, Jesus Christ, the devil, Antichrist—behave like ordinary people with ordinary motives. The Christian idea of a divine plan for the end of the world and the beginning of a paradisiacal new world is completely undermined, and with it the foundation of apocalyptic fiction.
Case study: Earthdoom!
Earthdoom! (1987) by David Langford and John Grant exemplifies British apocalyptic fiction’s inclination towards parody and the comical in the late 1980s and 1990s. It features a multitude of apocalyptic scenarios that are all equally important to the story’s plot, thereby not taking any single one seriously enough and mirroring the absence of an apocalyptic metanarrative at the end of the 20th century. To achieve its comic ambition, Earthdoom! self-consciously draws attention to its own artificiality and, even more significantly, mocks 132 British Apocalyptic Fiction apocalyptic genre fiction by frequently and explicitly addressing its conventions and therefore its constructedness. In Earthdoom!, there are 100 different menaces that threaten to bring about the end of humankind. About a dozen of these are described in greater detail and are of significance to the plot, including both ‘material’ and ‘spiritual’60 catastrophes. Among these plotlines are, for example, the sudden dawn of a ‘new Ice Age’,61 the awakening of the Antichrist in a baby’s body,62 a spaceship likely to crash into the Earth, ‘all-pervasive pollution’,63 harming greenhouse effect and an increasingly damaged ozone layer, hazardous atomic tests in the Middle East, a ‘powerful X-ray pulse’64 accidentally fired at the Earth, the sterilization of the whole Solar System, an alien attack and more.65 While these threats in themselves are not necessarily ridiculous, it is the sheer amount of apocalyptic dangers that make each of them seem ludicrous. Furthermore, several of the novel’s main characters connected to these plotlines are hilariously clichéd figures from apocalyptic novels, such as world-saving scientists, hate-filled aliens, the doomsday prophesying reverend or the all-evil Antichrist. The others are also rather caricatures than properly rounded characters, for example the sex- addicted American astronaut Bart Malone, the gorgeous but brainless primary school teacher Zenna Brabham, or the careerist feminist single mother Nadia Finkelstein. The novel’s satirical disposition is further underlined by several fairly ridiculous threats to mankind. By way of example, a substance called superglue, ‘a form of life possessed of an intelligent hive-mind and an astonishing degree of mobility’,66 starts attacking humanity. Moreover, there is a mass movement of lemming hordes which are ‘carrying ruin and rabies’67 and thus threaten to infect mankind with disease. Another equally extravagant danger is a group of Adolf Hitler clones that want to establish the ‘Fourth Reich’68 and gain ‘world domination’.69 To avoid capture and criminal conviction, Hitler uses a time machine to travel to the novel’s present year 1989, successfully creates 400 ‘human carbon copies’70 of himself and haunts the world with the help of the Loch Ness monster. And even one of the conventional menaces, a comet on a collision course with Earth, is humouristically undermined. The comet in Earthdoom! is not an ordinary comet but an ‘antimatter comet’.71 While there actually have been speculations about the existence of antimatter comets,72 its unexpected presence in this context goes completely against the conventions of apocalyptic fiction, undermining its sincerity and thus creating a comical effect. The novel’s mocking attitude towards apocalyptic fiction is further emphasized by the fact that the apocalyptic dangers either have cancelled each other out or are effortlessly overcome by the end of the novel. For example, the aliens capture the Hitler clones along with the Loch Ness monster and liquidate the German dictator before he can realize his megalomaniac dreams. Other Fears in transition 133 apocalyptic dangers conveniently go away for foolish or unexpected reasons. The aliens, for instance, abort their plan to conquer the Earth because a gigantic ‘holographic representation’73 of the doomsday priest in the sky upstages their first contact with the Earthlings. The sudden and unforeseen annihilation of the antimatter comet additionally vaporizes the spaceship that threatened to fall into the Earth so that humanity is saved from both menaces at the same time. When the aliens leave behind a matter transmitter when they hastily leave the Earth’s orbit, this kind of ‘plot convenience’74 also allows the novel to dispose of the remaining threats at the end of the story. The survivors on Earth simply transfer the hordes of lemmings, ‘the superglue, Bigfeet, mutant cockroaches, glaciers, nuclear fallout, plague virus, fluorocarbon molecules, falling moon and traffic wardens’75 to the depths of the universe. This kind of deus ex machina ending fits the novel’s ironic character. Several metafictional and genre-referential comments contribute to the satirical deconstruction of apocalyptic genre fiction. In that it constantly refers to its artificiality, Earthdoom! stands in contradiction to the escapism of disaster stories. The tagline subtitle—‘The End of the Disaster Story as We Know It’— indicates the novel’s attitude. Narrator and characters repeatedly mention the existence of a designed ‘plot’76 and the presence of a ‘Reader’77 or a ‘novelist’.78 These more general metafictional elements are supplemented by comments on various tropes of apocalyptic fiction which are made to undermine generic convention. The genre’s sexism, for instance, is remarked upon and challenged. When the aliens are about to invade the Earth, the attractive female character Zenna points out that the women among the survivors have got ‘too many clothes on’.79 Her statement draws attention to the fact that women characters in apocalyptic fiction often serve as sexual objects, especially considering the representation of women in B-movies.80 Given that women in apocalyptic fiction are often either sexually objectified or reduced to their maternal role of producing offspring to repopulate the planet, another female character in Earthdoom! rightfully identifies the genre’s chauvinist nature by pointing out that ‘feminists don’t usually do well in disaster novels’.81 In accordance with genre convention, the women characters in Earthdoom! cast themselves in the role of the victim and inform the male characters that the men, not the women, are in charge of ‘saving the world with your atomic blasters and all’.82 Other comments address the poor quality of writing that is characteristic of some of apocalyptic genre fiction. The novel points out that apocalyptic fiction is stylistically inferior and that the plots are sometimes badly constructed. Accordingly, one character wishes that disaster novels would come ‘with a better class of dialogue’.83 Another character wonders why the syntax in apocalyptic fiction gets ‘so unconvincingly jerky when [writers want] to inject a bit of 134 British Apocalyptic Fiction spurious excitement.’84 The narrator complains about the ‘prescience’85 of some characters because it is merely a plot device to explain and anticipate the plot for the reader. Finally, the novel’s genre-conscious approach becomes evident in numerous allusions to classics of science fiction and apocalyptic fiction.86 For example, Earthdoom! quotes the famous line ‘So it goes’87 from John Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) when astronauts Malone and Dimpla die as a result of the anti-matter comet’s annihilation. The novel quotes the character Oswald Cabal from Things to Come (1936) when the aliens, for no apparent reason, ask humanity: ‘WHICH SHALL IT BE PASSWORTHY, WHICH SHALL IT BE PASSWORTHY’.88 The novel plays upon the famous tagline ‘In space nobody can hear you scream’ from Ridley Scott’s film Alien (1979) when the narrator points out after a gunshot that ‘in space, nobody can hear you BLAM!’89 Besides these quotations, there is also an explicit reference to the film The Omega Man (1971), an adaptation of American writer Richard Matheson’s apocalyptic novel I Am Legend (1954). Psychiatrist Dr Al Bran wonders how the main character of that film, played by Charlton Heston, survived despite being ‘surrounded by rabid hordes of albino vampires’.90 Altogether, the parody in Earthdoom! lays bare the identity crisis of apocalyptic fiction in the final years of the Cold War and the following decade. The novel exposes end-of-the-world stories as products of genre formula and thus not to be taken seriously. The novel’s humorous approach to the end of humankind indicates that, at the time, secular apocalypse had lost some of its horror and potency. Apocalyptic fiction was reduced to generic conventions and the ridiculing of these conventions.
*
British apocalyptic fiction of the 1990s is strikingly different from other periods of the genre’s history. Real-life nuclear Armageddon, which shaped apocalyptic fears in and outside of fiction for close to a half a century, ostensibly ceased to be possible and none of the (re-)emerging threats to humankind demonstrate the potential to fill the gap. Instead, the fragmentation of the apocalyptic discourse produces many distinctively different stories which hardly betray a common grounding in the same cultural spirit of the age. As a result, these stories seemingly reflect and construct present fears just as much as they convey the impression of being disconnected echoes and harbingers of apocalypses past and future: apocalyptic asteroid collisions recall the comet scares of Victorian and Edwardian times, global warming Fears in transition 135 and ecological apocalypse call back to mind eco-doom warnings of the détente period, an instance of viral apocalypse anticipates the cluster of end-of-the-world narratives surrounding pandemic and infectious disease post-9/11. By themselves, these apocalyptic stories might still be indicative of contemporary fears on a micro-level, yet, for this transitional period, the apocalyptic genre viewed as a whole is restricted in its quality to indicate and construct cultural anxiety in Britain. This is emphasized by a tendency towards a more playful treatment of the end of the world which leads to a significant number of comical examples of apocalyptic fiction. Apocalypse is not only and not necessarily something to fear, it is also something at which to laugh, undermining its traditionally inherent function to warn of dangers to the survival of the human species. Ch ap t er 7
Apocalypse after 9/11
New age of anxiety
The terrorist attacks of September 11 launched a new era of anxiety. More than 2000 people, among them 67 British citizens, died in the attacks.1 The live TV coverage of the event, which brought the ‘apocalyptic destruction’2 of the attacks into the homes of people all around the world, amplified the effect of the attacks. Aside from a wave of international solidarity with the American people, the prevalent reaction was ‘shock and fear’ and a feeling that ‘September 11, 2001 changed everything’.3 The terrorist attacks irrevocably shattered Western post-Cold War hopes for a peaceful future without threats of conflict and war. The West, with America at the forefront, ‘truly entered the twenty-first century, an era marked by uncertainty and danger’.4 In an attempt to prevent future attacks from happening and to deprive the terrorists of their home base, NATO allies invaded Afghanistan and undertook a peace-building mission there. However, reality did not sustain the illusion of a peaceful Afghanistan for long: ‘The hopes that Afghanistan’s problems would rapidly be solved had proved to be ill-founded, and the threat of a sudden upsurge of violence continued to hover like an ominous storm-cloud over the daily lives of many Afghan people.’5 While the original NATO mission in Afghanistan lasted until 2014 and was followed by a non-combat mission, a positive outcome, that is the end of war, chaos, and anarchy, is still in question. In 2008, British commander Mark Carleton-Smith had already pointed out: ‘We’re not going to win this war’.6 The attempt to restore the belief in the invulnerability of the West and its ideals turned out to be a disappointment.7 The Iraq War, the second major conflict in the US-led Western combat against terrorism, became an even more disastrous undertaking, from a legal, military and moral perspective. Without a clear UN mandate and with only limited international support,8 the United States, Britain and Spain invaded Iraq—with the intention of making the world a safer and more peaceful place. As one of the coalition forces, Britain once more confirmed its status as the ‘United States’ staunchest ally’,9 sending 35,000 troops to Iraq,10 by far the only substantial military force aside from the US. However, instead of bringing peace, the invasion and succeeding occupation brought about a seemingly never-ending civil war that lasted for years until the US withdrew its last troops at the end Apocalypse after 9/11 137 of 2011. In addition, the military failure in Iraq was matched by the moral failure of the coalition forces. In 2004, US media published pictures of tortured Iraqi prisoners from the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Their publication ‘caused public shock and revulsion all over the world’11 and further damaged the reputation of the American-led mission in Iraq. Moreover, it provoked a resurgence of terrorist attacks and anxieties.12 Public insecurity and fear surrounding terrorist attacks reached a highpoint in Europe and the UK after the Madrid and London bombings. Ever since 9/11, terrorism had already featured regularly in public discourse in Britain. It was ‘continually front-page news and the subject of much discussion on the airwaves and amongst politicians in the United Kingdom.’13 However, the fear of terrorism gained even more momentum after attacks on two European capitals. On 11 March 2004, almost a dozen bombs exploded on four commuter trains in the Greater Madrid area. Almost 200 people were killed, another 1,800 injured.14 Just over a year later, on 7 July 2005, suicide bombers detonated four explosives in a double-decker bus and three underground trains in London. That time, the terror cost the lives of fifty-six people and hurt several hundred more.15 In the way the terrorists coordinated their attacks on the public transportation systems, the incidents brought back the memory and shock of September 11, if only on a smaller scale. In addition, it showed that terrorism was an international problem and ‘that Europe, and thus Britain, had no special immunity from terrorism of the 9/11 variety.’16 The majority of the British public felt that this reality was a consequence of the Iraq War as the attacks took place in Spain and Britain, two countries which had strongly supported the invasion and deployed troops: ‘Polls after the July 7 bombings […] show[ed] that two of three Britons strongly suspect[ed] that the suicide attacks [were] related to the unjustified Iraq War.’17 Hence, the war in Iraq and thus the American war on terror did not bring down terrorism but rather propelled it. In this way, it enhanced the ‘new climate of fear’18 that had its origins in the attacks of September 11. Post-9/11 anxiety constituted a frame of reference under which, for instance, infectious disease grew into a life-threatening menace for Western populations. This was motivated to some degree by the anthrax attacks connected to 9/11.19 This attack let infectious disease, which so far was perceived to be only a natural agent of death, appear in a completely different light. It ‘focused public attention on the way in which disease-causing pathogens could be used as terrorist weapons’20 and thus underpinned the idea that biological weapons were ‘one of the foremost threats to global security in the twenty-first century.’21 Several outbreaks of diverse viruses in the year after the anthrax attacks reinforced the view that pandemic disease, along with terrorism, became the ‘defining public fear for much of Western society in the twenty- first century’.22 138 British Apocalyptic Fiction
First, the respiratory disease Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) set off public fears of a global pandemic. In spring 2003, SARS became news ‘on the front pages and on our TV screens’23 when it ‘erupted out of China into the wider world’,24 first spreading within Southeast Asia in March 2003 and soon beyond. Within just a few months, the SARS coronavirus infected more than 8,000 people in 32 countries, including four cases in Great Britain. By August, 916 people on three different continents had died of SARS.25 In addition to the absolute number of deaths, the mortality rate was startling: ‘SARS had a fatality rate of around 11 percent, high by the standards of most common diseases’,26 much higher than the influenza epidemics. SARS became ‘the first new infectious disease to cause a global health scare since the emergence of AIDS nearly 20 years earlier.’27 The outbreak of SARS propagated the idea of a devastating virus as it ‘focused popular attention on the risk of global pandemic’.28 Newspapers from all over the world reported on SARS, especially emphasizing the fatal link between infectious disease and the globalized world of the 21st century. Newspaper headlines such as ‘A Shrinking World Raises the Risk for Global Epidemics’ or ‘The Way We Live Now’29 pointed towards the fact that today ‘it is increasingly easy for a virus to be transported out of its natural environment to new areas where it can spread and find new hosts to infect.’30 Before long, concern over SARS fed into fears of viral apocalypse. Mike Fitzpatrick published an article on SARS called ‘Apocalypse from now on’ in the medical journal The Lancet in April 2003 already.31 The same year, The Daily Mail featured an interview with chemist Dr Martin Westwell under the title ‘Superbug apocalypse’. And the popular science book The Killers Within (2002) by Michael Shnayerson and Mark Plotkin was reviewed under the title ‘Apocalypse soon?’.32 Public discourse on SARS additionally reinforced the idea that humanity was in a state of war against SARS. News reports described SARS as ‘an attack by an unseen invader to which nations had to respond as they would to any other attack’.33 It became evident, however, that these extreme fears of fatal worldwide pandemic were unsubstantiated, at least with regard to SARS as the disease was contained soon after.34 Nevertheless, the danger of infectious disease appeared to be serious, potentially even for the developed countries of the Western hemisphere, something the next viral outbreak would confirm. The outbreak of avian influenza re-inflamed anxiety over a major pandemic. In 2004 and 2005, H5N1, a particularly pathogenic strain of the virus responsible for the avian flu, infected people in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia. In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed 57 victims altogether.35 Despite the fact that absolute numbers were comparatively low, this outbreak of the avian influenza ‘inflamed the public imagination’36 and caused public alarm in Britain and worldwide. The WHO issued a checklist for influenza pandemic preparedness planning to cope with calculations of ‘233 Apocalypse after 9/11 139 million outpatient visits, 5.2 million hospital admissions and 7.4 million deaths globally’.37 American university professor Mike Davis instantly published a rather sensational and scary book on the bird flu, The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of the Avian Flu Pandemic (2005). Davis’ book, which was widely reviewed in the US and Britain,38 claimed that ‘a worldwide bout of avian flu is a certainty’.39 Concern over the avian flu even inspired extraordinary political measures and reactions. In Britain, for instance, Ken Livingstone, mayor of London at the time, prepared for a worst-case scenario by hoarding antiviral drugs to keep the disease from spreading quickly. He ‘stockpiled more than £1 million worth of Tamiflu for his personal office and staff—nearly 100,000 tablets.’40 Consistently, Livingstone took the view that the avian flu posed a greater danger than terrorism: ‘We’re more at risk from dying of bird flu than we are of being blown up by any terrorist.’41 Fortunately, Western fears of a global pandemic caused by the avian flu never materialized. By the end of 2011, merely 304 people had died as a result of avian influenza with none of the victims coming from Europe or the American continent.42 In 2009, the swine flu pandemic constituted the third major virus outbreak in a decade. That year in April, a new strain of the influenza A virus H1N1 was discovered in the United States and Mexico.43 The virus could not be contained within North America but swiftly spread around the globe. Within two months, ‘a total of 74 countries and territories had reported laboratory confirmed infections’44 so that the WHO declared a pandemic in June 2009, for the first time in 40 years. By that time, there were already almost 30,000 confirmed cases of infection across the world, of which just over thousand had ended fatally. The swine flu received an exceptional amount of media attention with ‘front page headlines, constant news updates and top story status as scientists and the media tried to understand the potential threat posed by the virus.’45 Britain was strongly affected by the pandemic, counting most infections in Europe and the sixth-most worldwide (822) in the early stages of the pandemic:46 ‘The UK was one of the first countries affected in Europe and one of the few to experience a substantial first wave in spring and summer 2009.’47 The result was alarmist doomsday headlines painting more or less apocalyptic scenarios. While The Guardian predicted a mere 65,000 victims,48 The Daily Mail foresaw a much bleaker future: ‘Hundreds will be ill in weeks and a swine flu pandemic could strike 40% of us’.49 However, the swine flu turned out to be relatively harmless in the course of the next year and anxieties over the fatal consequences of swine flu infection subsided. By the summer of 2010, the swine influenza had claimed around 18,500 deaths, including almost 360 people in Britain,50 a relatively small number compared to the usual number of victims from influenza epidemics per year.51 The outbreaks of SARS, the avian flu and the swine flu in the 2000s elevated the anxiety over infectious disease to apocalyptic dimensions. The recurrent 140 British Apocalyptic Fiction outbreaks turned the virus into ‘a powerful presence in the public imagery of threat’.52 In the end, none of the individual outbreaks ultimately proved to have the potential for a viral apocalypse. Yet the enduring experience of lethal viruses starting with mad cow disease, AIDS and Ebola in the 1990s and continuing with SARS, the avian and the swine flu suggested that the end of the world brought about by a virus, however improbable, was possible:
The nightmare for the human race would be a new disease with the transmissibility of influenza and the lethality of Ebola. This would be a disease with the potential to spread widely and kill the majority of those who contracted it. This is the kind of pandemic that Lederberg and others have been warning of as a threat to human society.53
The apocalyptic danger of deadly and quickly spreading infectious diseases was furthermore enhanced by the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. British bio-molecular scientist Richard James envisioned a ‘post-antibiotic apocalypse’, a phrase that ‘reverberated through the regional, national and international press.’54 Evidently, the idea of viral and bacterial apocalypse was pervasive in Western culture in general and British culture in particular during the first decade of the 21st century. Nonetheless, it was rivalled by another public fear which was also thought of in apocalyptic proportions. At the beginning of the 21st century, concern over global warming reached a new height when scientists predicted severe climatic change if humanity was not to adapt its lifestyle. The Third and the Fourth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001 and 2007 presented new evidence to establish global warming as a fact. The reports showed a significant increase in both the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and consequently a substantial rise in global average temperatures over the course of the 20th century.55 Furthermore, the reports strongly claimed that humanity was responsible for the global climatic change because of the anthropogenic production of greenhouse carbon dioxide. In fact, the Fourth Assessment Report reckoned that ‘it is 90-99% likely that global warming since 1950 has been driven mainly by the build-up of carbon dioxide and other heat- trapping greenhouse gases, and that more warming and rising sea levels are on the way.’56 According to the IPCC’s predictions, the consequences would be far-reaching. The Summary for Policymakers envisages ‘metres of sea level rise, major changes in coastlines and inundation of low-lying areas’ and the possible extinction of up to 70% of all terrestrial species.57 Apocalyptic fears related to global warming reverberated in the British media and several science books in the first decade of the new century. Tabloid newspapers in particular published news stories in which climate change was reported about in apocalyptic contexts. In his study on the cultural politics of Apocalypse after 9/11 141 climate change discourse in UK tabloids, Maxwell Boykoff notes that ‘fear, misery and doom headlines dominated the coverage.’58 For instance, The Express foresaw the apocalypse, if not taking place in the immediate future, happening to our offspring: ‘It’s the End of the World…Mainly for Children’.59 The less sensationalist broadsheet papers also covered the issue of climate change and global warming with an extremely pessimistic outlook, such as when The Independent suggestively headlined: ‘Global warming and ozone loss: Apocalypse soon’.60 Mike Hulme concludes that the UK print media provided information about climate change ‘through scary, and almost pre-determined, doom-laden scenarios saturated in the language of fear and disaster.’61 Non- fictional book publications helped to establish the idea of the end of the world due to climate change. Hulme notes that the apocalyptic discourse surrounding climate change proliferated ‘through a new cohort of popular science books’.62 As examples, he names Fred Pearce’s With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change (2007) and The Suicidal Planet: How to Prevent Global Climate Catastrophe (2007) by Mayer Hillman et al. Apart from print media, two films furthermore amplified public anxieties in Britain. The Day After Tomorrow (2004) depicted the sudden arrival of a new ice age that, ironically, is the unexpected result of global warming. Snowstorms, hailstorms, tornadoes and tidal waves bring Western civilization to the brink of collapse before a fortunate turn of events. The film was a success at the box office, earning over 500 million US dollars worldwide, 46 million in Britain,63 making it one of the ten commercially most successful films of the year in the UK. Despite the fact that the film was more science fiction than documentary, one of its main effects was ‘to create fear of […] climate change’.64 The apocalyptic images of Western metropolises like Los Angeles and New York emphasized and reinforced already existing fears despite a lack of credibility. Just two years later, the documentary An Inconvenient Truth (2006) also centred on the disastrous consequences of climate change. The film was based on the educational presentation by former US vice-president and environmentalist Al Gore, who also served as the figurehead of the film. Though actually scientifically inaccurate,65 Gore’s warning rang true with audiences and appealed to critics and the public, not only in the United States but also all over the world.66 In Britain, An Inconvenient Truth ‘sparked a great deal of tabloid coverage and commentary’.67 In fact, the documentary film was one major reason why media coverage of climate change increased drastically in the autumn of 2006.68 Gore’s film left no doubt that climatic change might endanger the survival of humanity. Despite the apocalyptic predictions in the media, the idea of climate change as a threat to mankind remained controversial in British society. Opinion polls carried out in the UK by the BBC and The Guardian showed that a significant portion of the British people was reluctant to accept the scientific findings on 142 British Apocalyptic Fiction climate change. Up to a quarter of the British people either did not believe in climate change at all, did not see a connection between human activity and global warming, or did not think that climate change poses a threat to humanity. Moreover, an even greater group, regardless of whether they believe in climate change or not, considered the dangers of global warming to be exaggerated, especially with regard to climate change reaching cataclysmic or even apocalyptic dimensions.69 This was often shared by climate scientists who would say that ‘[n]ature will not collapse in a global catastrophe’.70 The apocalyptic rhetoric, more than anything else, served the purpose of raising public awareness. Stephen H. Schneider, one of the co-authors of the Third IPCC Report, actually admitted to this when he said in an interview that the report deliberately overstated the threat to gain public attention.71 While this strategy worked to some extent, it also hurt the overall credibility of global climate change. Regardless of some reservations about the factual truth of global warming, climate change shaped public apocalyptic fears at the beginning of the 21st century. Arguably, climate apocalypse had already taken the place of nuclear apocalypse at the end of the 1980s. Accordingly, Mike Hulme states that ‘fears of Cold War destruction were displaced around the turn of the decade by those associated with climate change’.72 However, the situation was not as clear-cut as Hulme makes it appear to be. In the 1990s, global warming was an even more contested phenomenon as a more equal number of apocalypticists and sceptics stood in fierce opposition to each other.73 Yet with an increasing amount of scientific evidence brought forward and a climate of fear building in the years after 9/11, ‘the language and metaphorical constructions of fear and catastrophe shaping this discourse have been embellished substantially’.74
Apocalyptic fiction 2001–2011
After the terrorist attacks
The general feeling of fragility and uncertainty after the 9/11 attacks fuelled a noticeable increase in apocalyptic narratives in the 2000s, largely due to an upsurge of British apocalyptic film. Eight apocalyptic films were produced in Britain from 2001 to 2011. This number stands out against the lack of apocalyptic films in the 1990s and is unrivalled in the genre’s history with maybe the exception of the 1960s. One explanation for why the visual medium of film became so popular for the depiction of apocalyptic scenarios is that the terrorist attacks of September 11 were conceivably as much an atrocious crime as they were a global TV event. The images of the crashing aeroplanes, desperate people Apocalypse after 9/11 143 jumping to certain death, the collapsing Twin Towers, the search for survivors, and the national mourning around Ground Zero in the aftermath were burned into the minds of a worldwide audience.
9/11
28 Days Later (2002) and Children of Men (2006) most impressively evoke familiar images from September 11 and the London terrorist bombings respectively. In 28 Days Later, monkeys used for virus experimentation have infected and turned the majority of the British population into fast-moving flesh-eating zombies. In the middle of the crisis, the protagonist Jim walks up to a wall on which people have put up posters and leaflets of their missing family and friends (Figure 14). This type of image was especially reminiscent and potent in the aftermath of 9/11 since it brought back to mind the pictures of flyers hung up on walls at and around Ground Zero (Figure 15), pictures which were shown on TV all over the world. Children of Men, alternatively, contains an ‘overt thematization of terrorism’.75 The film opens with the bombing of a London café in broad daylight, echoing the London bombings of 2005 and evoking the ‘iconography of 9/11’.76 In reaction to the attack, the main character Theo Faron remarks that it was ‘the second [terrorist bombing] in a month’ and names ‘Islamic’ extremists among the prime suspects for it.77 Post-9/11 fears overall set the tone for Children of Men as the danger of terrorism remains a strong theme throughout the film. In the battle over Kee, the first pregnant woman after 18 years of global infertility, the terrorist group Fishes are willing to jeopardize her life and thus the future of humanity for the possibility of exploiting her existence for their political motives. In addition to its theme of terrorism, Children of Men contains other visual references to the period after September 11. The film ‘directly references the maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, in a scene where Theo and Kee pass through a prison camp in a refugee-filled bus’.78 Moreover, the sign ‘Homeland Security’ is an explicit reference to post-9/11 US politics.79 These allusions conspicuously stand out as markers of that period, especially in view of their absence in P. D. James’ apocalyptic novel The Children of Men (1992) on which the film is loosely based. Besides these two films, the many references to terrorism in British apocalyptic novels indicate that 9/11 heralded the start of a new period for the genre. Admittedly, in British end-of-the-world films and prose fiction of the early 21st century, there is not a single instance in which terrorist attacks bring about the end of the world, nor do terrorists even present a severe threat to the survival of humankind. Nevertheless, British apocalyptic novels and films in the 2000s are filled with references to terrorism.The Snow (2004), A Planet for the 144 British Apocalyptic Fiction
President (2004), Extinction (2005), The Zombie Diaries (2006), and Last Light (2007) in fact explicitly refer to 9/11.80 Sunstorm (2005) and Flood (2008) prominently feature terrorist acts which have significant consequences for the development and outcome of the narrative. In view of these examples, it becomes apparent
Figure 14: Jim is walking away from the missing persons poster. Boyle, 28 Days Later, 0:12:28.
Figure 15: A missing persons poster in New York after September 11, 2001. Photograph by Mike Caine. Apocalypse after 9/11 145 that the fear of terrorism often serves as a backdrop in early 21st century British apocalyptic fiction against which the scenario of the end of the world can unfold.
Zombies
The resurgence of the zombie genre from the early 2000s onwards further supports the idea that the terrorist attacks of September 11 represent a starting point for a new age of paranoia. The popularity of zombie fiction, especially zombie cinema, has been an indicator of cultural anxiety in the past. Kyle Bishop notes that ‘the frequency of these movies has noticeably increased during periods of social and political unrest’,81 for example during the Great Depression and the Vietnam War. After the attacks of September 11, zombie fiction experienced its latest renaissance. Henceforth, ‘the number of both studio and independent zombie movies has risen dramatically’,82 amounting to more than a 100 films in just a few years.83 Significantly, the zombie renaissance of the 2000s is not restricted to film but extends to prose fiction. Next to several zombie fiction anthologies84 and Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), one of the most noteworthy examples of fiction is the mash-up novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009) by Seth Grahame-Smith in which the story of the classic Jane Austen novel is enriched with the fatal presence of the undead. Therefore, Bishop claims that the ‘appearance of zombies in print media other than graphic novels is perhaps the most notable evidence of a renaissance within the mainstream public’.85 While the zombie is ‘a fundamentally American creation’86 and most zombie film and fiction indeed comes from the US,87 British cinema substantially contributed to its revitalization. In effect, the apocalyptic 28 Days Later is credited for the reinvigoration of zombie motion pictures by introducing fast-moving creatures: ‘British director Danny Boyle officially kicked off the “Zombie Renaissance” with the first truly frightening zombie movie in years’.88 Moreover, the success of 28 Days Later encouraged the production of several British apocalyptic zombie films in the following years. 28 Days Later inspired not only its sequel 28 Weeks Later (2007) but also the zombie parody Shaun of the Dead (2004) as well as a number of low-budget zombie apocalypse genre pieces. Edgar Howard Wright’s Shaun of the Dead implicitly pokes fun at 28 Days Later by dismissing the initial claim that ‘the virus [in the film] was caused by infected monkeys’.89 Instead, the zombies appear out of nowhere and for no apparent reason and start attacking the British population. The independent film The Zombie Diaries (2006), directed by Kevin Gates and Michael Bartlett, like 28 Days Later, features a virus that turns humans into zombies. The episodic film starts off with reports of a pandemic which 146 British Apocalyptic Fiction originated in Asia but has spread to Europe and is about to affect Britain. In the course of the film, it turns out that the flu virus does not simply kill the infected but has the effect of turning them into flesh-eating zombies. A sequel by the same filmmakers,World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2 (2011) builds on the first film’s scenario of zombie apocalypse. It loosely continues the events of the first instalment, depicting a world in which the virus and the zombies have already eradicated most of humankind. In The Vanguard (2008), directed by Matthew Hope, a drug has turned people into violent and inhuman creatures. The film’s prologue recounts that a powerful corporation had scientists develop a drug which would kill people to counter overpopulation and a shortage of energy sources. Revolting against ‘this heinous act’, the scientists instead developed a drug that turned most of mankind into the ‘Biosyns’, a ‘dominant and savage’90 species. British novelists have also adopted the zombie narrative to describe apocalyptic scenarios. In Thomas Emson’s Zombie Britannica (2010), gangs of zombies appear out of nowhere, attacking people to infect and transform them into zombies. The British authorities and people are unable to stop the living dead from infecting the rest of the population. By the end of the novel, Britain has transformed into a ‘zombie nation’.91 Unusual for contemporary apocalyptic zombie fiction, the novel also establishes a connection between global warming and the viral zombie apocalypse. Throughout the novel, a heat wave grips Britain, apparently as a result of global warming. Carrie, one of the major characters, believes that this heat wave represents the ‘[p]erfect weather for a zombie plague’,92 suggesting a causal relationship between the high temperatures and the zombie invasion. And in fact, ‘heatwave’ is the title of the first part of the novel during which the zombies start their assault. In Flu (2010) by Wayne Simmons, it is yet again a lethal virus which poses ‘the threat of INFECTION’.93 Once infected, people die a painful ‘sweat-stained, flu-ridden death’94 and reawaken as zombies soon after, trying to hunt down and infect the remainder of the human population. Zombie Apocalypse (2010) is yet another example of a virus that turns humanity into a horde of the living dead. Put together by Stephen Jones, more than a dozen writers contribute one or several sections in the form of fictional private journals, conversations transcripts, blog entries, tweet exchanges, newspaper reports and the like. The zombie pandemic breaks out when workers excavate a burial ground from the Great Plague of London to prepare the site for The New Festival of Britain, an event to restore national pride. By doing so, they set the human reanimation virus HRV free, which is the source of a ‘powerful, voracious, all-consuming disease’.95 The zombies first take over Britain, then the United States and eventually rule over the whole world, having completely displaced humankind. The focus of Zombie Apocalypse, however, is not so much on the risks of pandemic disease but on the dangers of British nostalgia for an allegedly Apocalypse after 9/11 147 glorious past. Only when British patriotic citizens start digging up and trying to reanimate the infected bodies of dead British icons—one of which, for example, is Princess Diana—does the zombie pandemic spread beyond containment.
Viral infection
Conspicuously, many of the zombie narratives have in common that some kind of viral disease brings about the zombie apocalypse. The zombie genre functions as an apocalyptic framework used to reflect upon popular anxiety over infection and global pandemic in some of the novels, underlined by overt references to the various epidemics of the 2000s. The Zombie Diaries alludes to the pandemic scare caused by avian influenza. Not only does the virus have its source in Asia, a school spokeswoman at the beginning of the film also states that the government has assured her that ‘the molecular structure of this virus was very similar to that of bird flu.’96 Zombie Apocalypse refers to the swine flu. At the outset of the novel, many Londoners believe that the released virus is ‘nothing but a flu outbreak, more H1N1 kind of shite’.97 Flu does not single out one type of infectious disease. Rather, the novel’s characters attribute the disease in the early days of the pandemic to ‘a choice of different types of flu’,98 including swine flu, bird flu and mad cow disease. Even though the various types of real-world flu viruses are not responsible for the respective zombie pandemics and the end of humankind, their existence suggests that they helped to inspire the fictional diseases. In addition to the aforementioned novels and films, there is also one example of viral apocalypse that is not based within the zombie genre. In the British TV series Survivors (2008–2010), a remake of the 1970s TV series Survivors (1975– 1977), an aggressive flu virus triggers a global crisis, killing ‘more than 90% of the world’s population.’99 The fictional pandemic is conspicuously based on the SARS and flu epidemics as a statement by producer Hugh Warren confirms:
[Executive producer Sue Hogg] rightly saw it would be timely [to remake the original series] following the outbreak of the Sars virus, bird flu and all the reports that we are overdue a flu pandemic.100
The first cases of infection in the series are reported in China101 which establishes a geographical parallel to the outbreaks of SARS and avian influenza. The series, however, shifts responsibility away from Asia and makes the West’s ambition and arrogance accountable for this biochemical catastrophe. In the series finale, it is revealed that the pandemic broke out when British scientists lost control over ‘a genetically engineered virus that would provide a single cure for all forms of flu.’102 148 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Global climate change
Next to these narratives of apocalyptic infection, stories of global climate change equally dominate British apocalyptic fiction in the first decade of the st21 century. Over half a dozen apocalyptic narratives in the 2000s feature cataclysmic climate change of some kind. The wave of apocalyptic climate change fiction begins in 2004 when A Planet for the President (2004), The Snow (2004), and The Flood (2004) are written and published, just three years after the release of the Third Assessment Report by the IPCC. The publication of Extinction (2005) and The Deluge (2007) soon followed. Climatic apocalyptic fiction gained momentum once more in 2008, presumably in response to the publication of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report the year before. Flood (2008) and its sequel Ark (2009) as well as The Rapture (2009), a new TV version of The Day of the Triffids (2009) and Guardians of the Phoenix as short story (2010) and novel (2010) all reached the public within just three years. The increasing fear of a climate change catastrophe in apocalyptic fiction was not only due to scientific evidence found by the IPCC but also reflects the growing unease with the actions of Western nations, especially the US. By producing the largest proportion of the greenhouse gases, the West had demonstrated its key role in climate change, a view reflected and reinforced in contemporary British apocalyptic fiction. A pertinent example of British apocalyptic fiction that combines climate change catastrophe with biting criticism of the US is A Planet for the President (2004) by Alistair Beaton. At the beginning of the novel, advisers to the US President have come to realize that Earth will be unable to support human survival in the near future, mainly as a result of the American population’s appalling treatment of the environment and its consumerist waste of natural resources. Consequently, severe climate change has already started to take effect: ‘The planet is warming up. The sea-level’s rising. The ozone layer is thinning. The rainforests are disappearing’.103 From an American point of view, a reversal of this development and therefore the survival of the human race only seem possible by drastically reducing the number of people on the planet.104 To achieve this, the advisory staff convinces the American President to release a lethal virus upon the world ‘to knock off six billion people the day after tomorrow’.105 If successful, ‘Operation Deliverance’ is expected to kill everybody with the exception of the secretly vaccinated American citizens. However, when ‘the deadly new strain of flu [is] being released upon the world’,106 the vaccine fails to be effective. The last man on Earth is the US President who survived because he received a different serum than the rest of the American population. This makes A Planet for the President a rare example of apocalyptic fiction in the early 21st century to address both the threat of global warming and the dangers of a viral catastrophe in the same story. Apocalypse after 9/11 149
Ray Hammond’s novel Extinction (2005) takes global warming as the starting point for an apocalyptic catastrophe. By the year 2055, low-altitude areas like the Seychelles, the Philippines or Bangladesh have become submerged due to ‘extreme global warming’.107 Because of this, Western climate management corporations like ERGIA have helped to manipulate the Earth’s climate for decades, employing weather-control space stations to ‘manage away the worst effects of global warming’108 for solvent countries. Nonetheless, an increasing number of seismic disasters—earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis— indicate that climate management might have disastrous side effects. Scientists realize, then, that climate management is ‘seriously damaging the Earth’s magnetic field’109 and ultimately initiates a reversal of the magnetic poles. This brings about a volcanic winter on Earth which kills all but a few people from developed countries who witnessed the cataclysm from the moon and a few hundred ‘Hulk people’, people from low-altitude developing countries that started to live on rafts. The novel’s conclusion suggests a simple lesson: A restoration of paradise is only possible if people from developed and developing countries work together to build a future. As the responsibility for the apocalypse is shown to lie with the developed nations, the politics of Extinction stand in the tradition of 1960s, 1970s environmental apocalyptic fiction In Eric Brown’s ‘Guardians of the Phoenix’ (2010),110 the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere is also responsible for the climate change and significantly contributes to the downfall of human civilization. Brown’s short story is set around 2090, 50 years after a military coup in China that led to a succession of wars which eventually resulted in World War III, a five-day biological and nuclear war. However, in ‘Guardians of the Phoenix’, World War III is only one factor in the near destruction of the human race; the ensuing temperature rise is the other factor. Edvard, one of the story’s characters, remembers: ‘What humankind had begun with wars, the planet finished off with global warming’.111 In 2060, the climatic drought leads to the collapse of entire nations. Ultimately, the hot climate becomes devastating for human survival and other terrestrial plants and creatures. The outside temperature regularly reaches ‘fifty-five’112 and the ‘the little rain that [falls] evaporate[s] in the superheated lower atmosphere before it reache[s] the earth’.113 In The Rapture (2009) by Liz Jensen, humanity faces sudden global warming when the drillings of an energy exploration company trigger a cycle of disasters. In search of new energy sources, companies all over the world are exploiting sub- oceanic hydrate fields to extract frozen methane from the ocean floors, ignoring all warnings by scientists who, in worst-case disaster scenarios, predict ‘global warming on a scale that’s beyond anyone’s worst nightmare’.114 Eventually, an accident at a methane rig in the North Sea triggers a cycle of disasters—submarine avalanches, tsunamis and landslides—which have disastrous consequences for 150 British Apocalyptic Fiction the human race on both a regional and a global level. Instantly, giant waves devastate Northern Europe and submerge much of the British Isles. Moreover, the breakup of the sea floors unlocks gigantic amounts of methane gas. With methane being ten times as powerful a greenhouse gas as CO2, the much feared drastic global climate change ‘with an increase of average global temperatures by four degrees’115 becomes inevitable. The two-part TV adaptation of John Wyndham’s classic The Day of the Triffids from 2009 updates the original storyline so that the triffids are related to the danger of global warming rather than a Soviet threat. In this new version, oil extracted from the triffids serves to replace fossil fuels. The triffids, dangerous as they might be, are essential in providing enough environmentally friendly energy to lower greenhouse gas emissions. This is why the nations across the world have established triffid farms with millions of triffids: ‘Triffid oil saved the world from global warming.’116 Ensuing from this premise, the course of events more or less follows the footsteps of the Wyndham novel. There are a few more apocalyptic novels in the first decade of the 2000s that depict climatic change yet do not attribute it to either anthropogenic activity in general or global warming in particular. In The Snow (2004) by Adam Roberts, the entire surface of the Earth is covered under a layer of ice and snow of several kilometres thickness. However, the climate change is completely unrelated to human activity on Earth as it turns out that an alien life form is behind the long-standing snowfall. The invading aliens are ‘the authors of the snow’,117 requiring snow as a natural environment to survive. In Maggie Gee’s The Flood (2004), by contrast, ‘months of rain’118 produce the eponymous flood which threatens the lives of the inhabitants of an unnamed city. The novel describes the events after this period of prolonged rain until, in the end, ‘the immense water’119 in the form of a tidal wave returns and buries humankind. Likewise, a gigantic wave submerges London and the rest of Britain in The Deluge (2007) by Mark Morris. As with The Flood, the incredible disaster in The Deluge remains unexplained. It is merely at the beginning of the novel that the characters rationalize that the flooding is connected with ‘the greenhouse effect’, ‘[c]limate change’120 and ‘global warming’.121 These references show the novels’ awareness of the contemporary discourse on apocalyptic global warming. Yet, at the same time, The Deluge, The Flood and The Snow challenge the idea of human- induced climate change on a global scale because the apocalyptic climate change remains a mysterious, seemingly random natural disaster or is brought about by extra-terrestrial creatures. This is why it makes sense to use the term ‘global climate change’ rather than ‘global warming’ when speaking of environmental apocalyptic fiction at the beginning of the 21st century. Whereas global warming would strongly imply a human factor in the change of weather conditions, climate change is a slightly more neutral term. Apocalypse after 9/11 151
Case study: 28 Weeks Later 28 Weeks Later (2007), directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, employs an infection narrative to reflect upon international politics after 9/11. While the fear of a viral epidemic is in the foreground of the story at all times, Fresnadillo’s film is mainly not about ‘global anxieties about migration of bodies, capital and infection (AIDS, SARS, influenza epidemics)’,122 even though these fears strongly resonate within it. Rather, by juxtaposing the epidemic outbreak with a disastrous US American occupation, 28 Weeks Later, above all, reads as a critique of the US-led War in Iraq. In addition to that, the film brings up the idea that Britain’s relationship with the US in the early 21st century has become ambivalent if not troubled, a recurrent theme for the genre in the early 21st century.123 28 Weeks Later starts with a prologue that takes place in a remote country house at the height of British viral infection with RAGE. RAGE, as introduced in the first film of the series28 Days Later, turns any infected person into a bloodthirsty fast-moving zombie-like creature. When a group of infected zombies attack, Don (Robert Carlyle) leaves his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) behind to save his own life. 28 weeks later, an American-led NATO mission helps the surviving British citizens to reconstruct the country after the British mainland was quarantined and finally declared free of infection. Don has been put in charge of a section within the Green Zone, a security district on the Isle of Dogs where all British survivors are supposed to live and stay for the period of reconstruction. When Don’s children Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton), who had been on a trip to Spain during the epidemic, return to Britain, Don tells them that he saw their mother die and that he was powerless to help her. Shortly later, Tammy und Andy leave the Green Zone without authorization to visit their former home. They find Alice who survived the attack due to her natural immunity to RAGE infection but, nevertheless, remains a carrier of the virus. When the military forces bring her in for tests, medical officer Major Phillips (Rose Byrne) hopes that her immunity might be the key for a vaccine against RAGE. Meanwhile, Don, without permission, visits Alice in her quarantined hospital room, is bitten by her and becomes infected. He kills Alice, breaks into the containment area and starts randomly infecting people. As a result, the NATO force completely loses control over the occupation zone as a mass of the infected run amok. Subsequently, the military firebombs the Green Zone and uses gas in the districts beyond to exterminate all the infected and thus avoid further spread of the infection. Major Phillips is determined to save Andy as Andy shares his mother’s immunity to the virus. Phillips, Tammy, Andy, and the US soldier Doyle as well as Don and some of the other 152 British Apocalyptic Fiction infected are able to escape the inferno. On the way to a rendezvous point with an American helicopter pilot, Doyle is killed when the military forces drop gas on London city and Major Phillips is murdered by Don. Don also bites Andy before Tammy shoots him dead. Andy, who is now a carrier of the virus, and Tammy make it to Wembley Stadium where Doyle’s helicopter pilot friend Flynn (Harold Perrineau) picks them up and takes them away from Britain and across the English Channel. An epilogue shows a crowd of infected people emerging from a Paris underground station. The situation of London and, in fact, the whole of Britain at the beginning of 28 Weeks Later resembles the situation of Iraq after the US invasion. Like Baghdad, London is under US military rule. The sequence which describes what has happened in the 28 weeks after the prologue informs the viewer that ‘AN AMERICAN-LED NATO FORCE’124 has entered London to restore order and to bring safety to the remaining citizens. The zone of safety is called the Green Zone and thus has the same name as the safeguarded headquarter district in the centre of Baghdad during the time of the US occupation of Iraq. The allusions to the Iraq occupation are so obvious that Joshua Clover even deems it possible ‘that the audio [in 28 Weeks Later] comes from field recordings of the Baghdad Green Zone’.125 In what follows, the film emphasizes the US identity of the occupation forces as there is no sign or mention of soldiers from other nations. The military characters throughout the film are portrayed as American soldiers, played with American accents by mostly American actors so that ‘visually and verbally US forces are the main occupiers’.126 Moreover, a military guide informs Tammy and Andy that ‘the US Army is responsible for your safety’,127 emphasizing the US American’s leading role in the occupation evoking the role of the US in the invasion of Iraq and Baghdad. The outcome of the US occupation in 28 Weeks Later is equally disastrous to the US occupation of Iraq. The US fails to restore order permanently and instead exacerbates the situation by letting the virus spread beyond Great Britain. Until the fresh outbreak of RAGE, point of view shots through rifle scopes and the images from CCTV cameras supposedly convey an atmosphere of security: ‘Space is controlled and observed’.128 However, this impression reveals itself to be an illusion. Once infection breaks out again, the US military is helpless in containing it and reacts with indifferent brutality. Major Phillips succinctly explains the simple military procedure in case of another breakout: ‘Step one, kill the infected. Step two, containment. If containment fails, step three, extermination’.129 The result of this strategy is the death of almost all British citizens as well as most of the US troops. The failure of the US is emblematically captured in a shot which shows Doyle’s point of view through his rifle scope (Figure 16). The American flag towers in the midst of zombies hunting after British civilians and US soldiers. This shot of chaos and human Apocalypse after 9/11 153 suffering foreshadows the murder of the remaining British population by American soldiers and the infected (Figure 17). Hence, the film, at least partially, puts the blame on the US for the catastrophic consequences and conclusion. Fresnadillo’s film attributes the re-escalation of the infection in part to the military’s arrogant and careless approach to their mission of reconstructing Britain, constructing a parallel to the insufficient measures taken by the US in Iraq after the invasion. At the beginning of the film, all the high-ranking
Figure 16: The British people become targets for the US soldiers. Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:53:07.
Figure 17: US soldiers have massacred the Green Zone’s residents. Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:54:54. 154 British Apocalyptic Fiction officers with the exception of Major Phillips underestimate the danger the virus still might pose. They believe that the virus is already completely eradicated anyway or, in case it indeed does come back, that the US military will easily ‘kill it’.130 The combat soldiers display the same careless attitude until the breakout. Two early scenes show soldiers joking and even playacting as zombies. It is this carelessness that makes the renewed viral outbreak possible. Firstly, the US soldiers do not pay enough attention to immediately stop Tammy and Andy from illegally leaving the security zone which, in turn, is how the virus, in Alice’s body, invades the security zone. Secondly, the US military does not take the necessary precautions to stop Don or other unauthorized non-medical staff from getting in contact with Alice. Don’s security pass, which he needs for his work as a section officer in the Green Zone, allows him to enter and leave the medical centre without being checked by any military personnel. The re- escalation of infection after a short period of stability represents another parallel to the war in Iraq. After the initial swift and successful invasion, Iraq remained in a state of war for years despite US efforts to pacify the country. The film furthermore criticizes the US for its inhumane treatment of the British residents. In their attempt to keep Britain free of infection, the US military regime reduces the British citizens to defenceless captives. The Green Zone is not ‘home’,131 as Tammy suggests, but becomes a prison for the British inhabitants. And while the need for limited freedom and strict control to protect the Zone’s residents is appropriate, the military is shown to abuse their power. The first scene of Alice inside the Green Zone is a good example. It shows her brutally victimized by US military personnel in order to disinfect her. They forcefully scrub her naked body of any germs, ignoring Alice’s desperate pleas to stop their torturing. The necessity of this enforced act of cleaning before entering a secluded space establishes her status as a prisoner as the scene is highly reminiscent of the induction process of new convicts in prison films.132 The images of Alice pressed with her face against the translucent shower wall and cowering on the floor at the end of the procedure (Figure 18; Figure 19) furthermore give the scene the visual quality of a rape scene. Alice’s sobbing and screaming as well as her vain protestations ‘No!’ and ‘Get off me! Get off me!’133 further emphasize the scene’s tenor as a depiction of rape. By showing the US soldiers in the act of overstepping this kind of ethical boundary in a prison environment, 28 Weeks Later evokes the events at Abu Ghraib prison. The critique of the military operation is also evident in the subversive behaviour by some of the soldier characters. Sergeant Doyle, Major Phillips, and Flynn all ignore military orders to make ethically superior choices. Sergeant Doyle stops executing the order to shoot all targets when he sees Andy through his gun sight: ‘That’s not a target anymore.’134 Instead of following the protocol and killing all civilians, he acts as a sensible human being, disregards ‘the chain of Apocalypse after 9/11 155 command’135 and abandons his post. Likewise, the helicopter pilot Flynn takes Tammy and Andy aboard his aircraft even though he knows that any civilians are to be killed. To avoid being shot down, he even flies them across the English Channel. Major Phillips, finally, also goes against General Stone’s (Idris Elba) orders by trying to save and evacuate Tammy and Andy. She makes this her main priority because she hopes that Andy or Tammy have inherited their mother’s immunity. Their blood, then, could be ‘the key to a vaccine, even a cure’136 and could save lives. General Stone, by contrast, is not interested in finding a cure but only wants to see all infected and potential virus carriers dead. Ironically, if
Figure 18: US military personnel torture Alice I. Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:36:21.
Figure 19: US military personnel torture Alice II. Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:36:31. 156 British Apocalyptic Fiction the three soldiers had followed their orders, Andy and the virus would indeed have been killed and containment could have been successful. This, however, does not take away from the fact that the result of the occupation would have been equally fatal for the British population in case the three soldiers had followed their orders. Dying at the hands of the infected or the US military, the US occupation inevitably results in the end of the British people. By moving the disastrous US American invasion from Baghdad to London and by linking it with the extinction of the British people, 28 Weeks Later brings into question whether Britain’s special relationship137 with the US is still beneficial. Throughout the 20th century and especially since the Second World War, Britain and the US have shared a history as political and military allies. The beginning of 28 Weeks Later underlines the special bond between the two countries and suggests that the US serves, to some degree, as Britain’s guardian. The strong military presence by the US gives the impression that the US ‘will do everything to make [British citizens’] repatriation as easy as possible.’138 In the course of the film, however, the bond between Britain and the US becomes deeply damaged. The British loss of trust in the Americans as their protectors is reflected in the relationship between the two British children and Major Phillips. Despite her good intentions, Major Phillips cannot keep her promise to Tammy that she is ‘gonna get you [Tammy and Andy] both out of here’139 safely. In the end, the children actually manage to leave apocalyptic London, yet Phillips’ promise is ultimately broken. Attacked and killed by Don, she is unable to protect Andy from Don’s assault which results in Andy becoming a carrier of the virus. The Paris epilogue, then, shows that Andy, just like his mother before him, must have eventually infected others. The shot of the empty helicopter furthermore implies that neither Flynn nor the children survived the Paris outbreak. Phillips’ failure to serve as the children’s protector makes her character emblematic for the flawed efforts by the US American occupation forces. Britain’s problematic relationship with the US in 28 Weeks Later reflects a growing unease in early 21st century Britain about America’s war on terror and its consequences for Britain and its people. The many parallels between the film’s scenario and the US led invasion and occupation of Iraq indicate that the film serves as a commentary on contemporary foreign affairs. By making the British people suffer and die as a consequence of the US military’s actions, the film points towards the idea that Britain was in fact ill-advised in following the United States’ lead in the post-9/11 world. From that perspective, it is possible to read the story of the two British children, Tammy and Andy, as a warning of what might happen to Britain in the future. Betrayed and assaulted by their father, a representative of an older, pro-American generation, and failed by the US forces, Tammy and Andy cannot rely on traditional bonds and authorities for their survival. Apocalypse after 9/11 157
Furthermore, 28 Weeks Later not only criticizes the politics of the United States in the early 21st century but also challenges Britain’s political role in the world after 9/11. As the catalyst behind the fresh outbreak of RAGE, the father figure Don is partially to blame for the viral catastrophe and the demise of the British people. Reading the film within the context of the British participation in the Iraq invasion and the subsequent London bombings, Don’s failure to serve as a guardian for his wife and family is representative of the failure of the British government to fully protect the British citizens during this period. In this way, 28 Weeks Later mirrors and reinforces the British public’s critical stance towards their government’s foreign affairs in the aftermath of the attacks on September 11.
Case study: Flood
Depicting the catastrophic consequences of a massive sea level rise, Stephen Baxter’s Flood (2008) seizes upon public anxieties over the danger of global climate change in the first decade of the 21st century yet also reflects the popular controversy over anthropogenic global warming during that time. The novel is set over a 36 year-period, 2016 to 2052, during which the mean sea level rises from just one metre to over 8,800 metres, initially causing the evacuation of the lower heights and leading to mass migration to higher altitudes until the flood drowns the entire surface of the planet. The novel relates the events from the perspectives of the four central characters: the main character Lily, an American-British helicopter pilot; Piers, a British military officer; Helen, a woman from England; Gary, an American climate scientist. Significantly, they are connected through five years of captivity, held hostage by religious extremists in Barcelona. Due to their background as victims of terrorism, the novel early on establishes a theme of captivity. Remarkably, captivity is initially associated with terrorism but, in the course of the novel, is realigned with climate change.140 At the beginning of the novel, business tycoon Nathan Lammockson, who sympathizes with the victims, sends a task force which frees the four hostages. Lammockson continues to stay in touch and supports them throughout the novel. After their liberation, the ‘Barcelona Four’ part company and pursue individual interests in the face of sea level rising. Lily repeatedly saves her sister, niece and nephew from the dangers of the flood and eventually joins Lammockson in Project City, a settlement in the heights of the Peruvian Andes. Piers, after a preliminary separation from the other three, rejoins Lily and they become partners in life. Helen, who was raped and conceived her daughter Grace during 158 British Apocalyptic Fiction captivity, is separated from Grace after the liberation and thereafter focuses all her efforts on finding her. Gary joins other scientists to try and find the source of the sudden and severe flooding. One of his colleagues, Thandie Jones, discovers the reason for the deluge. Tectonic activity has fragmented the seabed, opening up gigantic suboceanic water reservoirs which pour into the oceans and bring about a continuing increase in sea level. Governments and the IPCC ignore Thandie’s theory and the accompanying warning, attributing the unexpected climate change to global warming and thus failing to anticipate the long-term consequences of the flood—i.e., a planet submerged by water. Slowly, the oceans inundate countries and continents. Helen falls victim to the flooding of the British Isles, Gary tracks down Grace and takes her to Project City. When the water reaches the top of the Andes, Lammockson puts Ark Three, a gigantic ocean liner, to sea, with Lily, Piers and Grace aboard. Ultimately, as the passengers on Ark Three run out of resources in the course of the following years, the only way of long-term survival is to secure one of the limited spaces on Ark One, a starship to launch from the United States. Lily manages to make Lammockson award Grace a spot aboard Ark One; the others stay behind on Earth. Subsequently, Piers is killed when pirates attack Ark Three and, a while later, Lammockson dies, raddled by age and exhaustion. Eventually, the novel ends with the sea closing over the tip of Mount Everest, witnessed by Lily, Thandie and the next human generation, who never properly lived ashore and, instead, is used to living on rafts and therefore does not understand the significance of the event. Evidently, Baxter’s Flood identifies global climate change as a danger of apocalyptic proportions. On the way to total submersion, humankind, as a result of climatic change, is haunted by the collapse of the terrestrial climate system,141 a series of catastrophic tectonic events, such as ‘volcanoes, quakes, tsunamis’,142 and by mass refugee migration which spreads ‘disease and conflicts’.143 Ultimately, the rising sea level destroys human civilization and makes the global environment essentially unsuitable for human survival. Consequently, the extinction of human life on Earth seems to be only a matter of time. The maps of the increasingly drowned world, which open each of the novel’s five parts, effectively illustrate the growing extent to which the flood endangers human life on the planet (Figure 20). With spaceship Ark One apparently offering the only way to survive, climate change has forced humanity off the face of the Earth.144 Yet in contrast to the popular notion in the early 2000s, it is not global warming that triggers the cataclysmic flooding. As the global climate change in Baxter’s novel is caused by leaking subterranean seas and not by ‘glacier melting, the ice caps, or the heat expansion of the water itself’,145 global warming does not pose the main threat in Flood. By comparison, global warming is in fact portrayed as Apocalypse after 9/11 159 possessing only limited apocalyptic potential. Instead, it develops its potential for disaster only as a harmful corollary of the sea level rise:
The unending rise in cee-oh-two levels in the atmosphere was one undeniable consequence of the flood. […] Aside from the warming pulse it caused, acid rain burned the leaves of the plants in the ship’s gardens and little farm, etched away at the solar cell panels, and, sometimes, stung unprotected human flesh.146
While the damaging effects of global warming on humanity and nature strengthen the overall idea of climate change as a worldwide threat to the environment and the human race, global warming itself becomes a secondary problem and, hence, loses some of its potential to scare. By way of example, Thandie trivializes its dangers, referring to the pre-flood period as ‘the good old days of global warming.’147 She implies that the threat posed by global warming is insignificant in view of the new dangers. After all, ‘the global warming crisis [..] had afflicted the planet long before the flood itself’148 and never had come near to having similarly devastating consequences. In Flood, it is solely the breaking open of the subterranean water reservoirs that brings about the apocalypse. The idea of global warming as a cataclysmic threat for humanity is further undermined by the disapproving characterization of the IPCC, an organization which stands for the danger of and the fight against climate change in general, but in particular with respect to human-induced global warming. The IPCC is characterized as an incompetent and slow-acting institution, inadequate to properly fulfil its function as the authority in matters of climate change. The negative attitude towards the IPCC becomes apparent in several condemning
Figure 20: The Earth is almost fully submerged under water in the year 2035. Image by Malcolm and Jonathan Burke (www.calculatedearth.com). Stephen Baxter, Flood, p. 349. 160 British Apocalyptic Fiction remarks by some of the main characters. Thandie calls the delegates ‘boneheads’149 and Lammockson even goes so far as to refer to them as ‘arseholes’.150 Undoubtedly, these characterizations are not voiced objectively and rationally. However, as Thandie is the one scientist who discovers the actual reason behind the sea level rise and Lammockson turns out to be one of the few characters with the foresight to anticipate and prepare for the ultimate catastrophe, their judgement is not as unfounded as it at first may seem. The fact that the IPCC delegates reject Thandie’s ground-breaking findings on the subterranean water reservoirs backs Thandie’s and Lammockson’s dismissive appraisal. To Thandie’s dismay, they blindly continue to explain the sea level rise with global warming despite the absence of any evidence: ‘[T]here are plenty of commentators taking these exceptional events as proof that global warming is a reality, even though there’s no immediate causal link’.151 In that way, Flood reinforces contemporary opinion that the scientists working for the IPCC misjudge or misrepresent the danger of global warming. The peripheral nature of global warming for the climate apocalypse in Flood does not necessarily mean that the climate change catastrophe in the novel is a natural disaster void of any human influence. Flood remains ambiguous with regard to the question whether the change in climate is the result of human (wrong-)doing. On the one hand, there is a general suspicion that humanity must be guilty or at least partially responsible for the disaster. A variety of characters in the novel believe that ‘anthropogenic activity’152 prompted the environment to change so drastically. Taking a moral perspective, Lily, the protagonist and moral centre of the novel, believes that humankind’s wastefulness ‘may have caused this global convulsion.’153 In an attempt to answer the question of human responsibility, she furthermore sees the flooding of the Earth in context with the biblical deluge. She concludes that the sea level rise is God’s punishment of mankind for having broken the Noachian covenant with God.154 Arguably representing the developing countries, Ollantay, a supposed Inca descendant who fights to gain access to Lammockson’s Project City, shares Lily’s opinion but is more specific as to who is to be counted among the culprits for the disaster. Ollantay holds only a part of humanity responsible as he blames the way of life of the industrialized countries for the catastrophe. He accusingly claims that ‘the world drowns because of centuries of [Western] industrial excess’.155 Moreover, Thandie, who represents the voice of science in Flood, also speculates that humanity’s impact on the planet’s ecology set off the cataclysmic events. In her talk to the IPCC delegates, Thandie points out that human activities have had a tremendous impact on the Earth since the Industrial Revolution, thus not only sharing Ollantay’s view but also echoing familiar observations on global warming in scientific publications of the first decade of the 2000s.156 She speculates that the Apocalypse after 9/11 161 impact now has reached the level of ‘Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference’.157 In that way, she suggests that it was in fact human influence on nature that broke open the subterranean seas. On the other hand, the novel offers a geological answer that questions human responsibility for the climate apocalypse. As a proper scientist who relies on data and evidence, Thandie herself stays doubtful because there is ‘no concrete proof’158 for mankind’s contribution to the climatic apocalypse. From her point of view, it is as likely that the flooding is a natural ecological process and so just ‘another of those dramatic but natural transitions’159 between two of Earth’s climatic stable states. The novel’s other main scientist, climatologist Gary, is equally unsure about whether it was humanity who ‘gave [the Earth] the kick in the ass that induced her to start the process’160 of transformation. And yet, as he takes into account the geological history of the Earth, Gary assuredly considers the flooding of the planet as just another natural renovation in the large scale of the Earth’s geological history: ‘[T]his whole story has never been about us, has it? It’s always been about the Earth, transforming herself as she has in the past.’161 This remark and his further elaborations on the mechanisms behind the climate change162 make the human race and its role in the apocalyptic transformation seem rather insignificant and irrelevant. Stephen Baxter’s Flood hence strikes a balance of arguments in favour and against human-induced climate change and does not support a simple global warning activist agenda. Unmistakably, it contains a warning of global climate change and its potentially fatal consequences for large proportions of the human race. Nonetheless, the novel also reflects and underlines the existence of multiple opinions on climate change in British society in the early 21st century. In particular, it offers a multi-facetted view on anthropogenic global warming. While Flood acknowledges the existence of global warming and its dangerous influence on the environment, it supports the view of many global warming sceptics who claim that its prospective dangers are overstated. One would expect global warming to be the source of disaster in a story about apocalyptic climate change and sea level rise. Yet the novel instead features a different, popularly unknown scientific phenomenon to drive the apocalyptic plot,163 therefore implicitly undermining the catastrophic effects of global warming. Moreover, in contrast to the popular but controversial conception of anthropogenic climate change, the climate change catastrophe in the novel is neither clearly a man-made nor a natural disaster. This is how Flood addresses the most contentious aspects of the contemporary debate around climate change and its capacity for disaster.
* 162 British Apocalyptic Fiction
The terrorist attacks of the 2000s put an end to the apocalypse lethargy of the post-Cold War era. The September 11 attacks and bombings of London and Madrid infused British culture with a new climate of fear. While the danger of terrorism pervades much of British apocalyptic fiction and film, it is not at the very centre of the post-9/11 apocalyptic narrative. Instead, early 21st century British apocalyptic fiction revolves around two clusters of apocalyptic discourse: pandemics and global climate change. At first sight, the fears of worldwide infection and deteriorating climatic conditions appear to be noticeably different in nature and seem to lack common characteristics. However, they are similar in that they illustrate the reality of a globalized, interdependent world. Apocalyptic pandemics are often coupled with zombie narratives in order to give the otherwise invisible threat of infection face and form. Apocalyptic climate change continues the tradition of environmental catastrophe in British apocalyptic fiction that started with détente eco-doom and which played a minor role after the Cold War. This time, though, the role of humanity in the destruction of the planet is much more ambiguous. Still, post-9/11 British apocalyptic fiction shares a parallel with some of eco-doom fiction on a political level by re-examining and re-evaluating the special relationship with the United States. More than ever before, the trusted ally from the Cold War period is eyed critically, an agent of disaster no longer to be relied on. Conclusion
Apocalyptic fiction occupies a unique position within British literary production in that it provides a chronicle of a nation’s collective fears and anxieties. These fears are manifested in a range of forms, reflecting existential shifts, technological developments, political nuances, and natural phenomena. The main chapters of this study illustrate the forces and influences that have shaped the discourse on apocalypse in Britain in the last 120 years: Cosmic catastrophes and dangerous scientists, apocalyptic wars, the nuclear threats of the Cold War, environmental disasters, viral pandemics and global climate change. These narratives shape a sense of national identity and reveal the changing factors necessary to provide a reassuring collective understanding of sustained survival. Apocalyptic fiction traces the move away from a biblical ontological understanding of humankind and its ultimate destiny towards a secular interpretation of the origin of human life and future of the Earth. The genre provides a vehicle to explore the fragility, fallibility and finite nature of humankind. The shifts in Britain’s collective fears are not only evident when following this study’s approach by looking at the corpus of apocalyptic fiction as a whole but can also be detected in individual narratives that have seen adaptations and sequels over time. John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951), which has been adapted to film (1962) and as a TV mini-series (1981 and 2009), had a sequel in The Night of the Triffids (2001) and to some degree inspired Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2001),1 is the best example of such an apocalyptic narrative. The original novel, the film adaptation and the 1980s TV mini-series were all written during the Cold War and address fears of communist invasion.2 The sequel, written in the post-Cold War era, appropriately enough lacks this cultural subtext. The 2009 TV series and 28 Days Later update the Triffids narrative in correspondence with what dominated British apocalyptic discourse at the time of production: infectious disease in 28 Days Later and global climate change in The Day of the Triffids (2009). In the case of 28 Days Later, this might be expected as the film is a loose adaptation of Wyndham’s novel anyway and represents more an amalgamation of various apocalyptic source texts and generic tropes than a straightforward adaptation. The 2009 TV series is a more striking example. While plot and characters bear a strong resemblance to Wyndham’s novel, the most significant update is the use of triffid oil as an alternative source of energy to ward off the danger of global warming, a concept that entered the public consciousness only in the 1980s, long after the publication of the original Triffid text. This is how adaptations of classic apocalyptic texts by themselves can reveal and help to construct shifts and changes in the collective fears of a nation. 164 British Apocalyptic Fiction
An observation of the development of British apocalyptic fiction over the past 120 years shows that the outlook on apocalypse changed from a national to a global perspective. In the apocalyptic stories up until the beginning of the First World War, the apocalypse is told from a strictly British point of view. The narratives are almost exclusively set in Britain; other parts of the world seemingly ceasing to exist. This suggests a world picture in which Britain stands pars pro toto for the whole world and reflects upon the British role and self-assessment as a world power at the time. This view is further supported by contemporary apocalyptic stories like The Violet Flame in which the assassination of Britain by a foreign figure is a threat to the survival of all humanity. This British self-perception increasingly disappears after the First World War and even more so after the Second World War and thus mirrors Britain’s decline on the world political stage. During the Cold War, the idea of Britain as the world is replaced by the concept of the West as the world in invasion narratives and Western propaganda apocalyptic fiction, indicating Britain’s necessary alignment with the more powerful United States. This political shift is also apparent in apocalyptic fiction outside the Cold War era. John Brunner’s environmental apocalypse The Sheep Look Up serves as a good example in that it is mostly set in the United States and thereby implies Britain (alone) can no longer adequately represent the setting for events of apocalyptic proportions.3 The process of internationalisation and globalisation of British apocalyptic fear reaches its final stage in the 21st century when the end of the world is a catastrophe unrestricted by national boundaries, political alliance, or cultural affiliation. Accordingly, some of these most recent apocalyptic stories are set all over the world. For example, Stephen Baxter’s The Flood takes place in Spain, Britain, the US, Peru, Tibet and eventually concludes in the Himalayas. Global climate change and viral pandemic, the two dominant clusters of present- day apocalyptic discourse, are symbolic of this globalization of apocalypse in that both threats develop their full disastrous potential as a result of global connectedness and interdependencies. Despite the globalized perspective on apocalypse, British apocalyptic fiction has retained a distinct Britishness, negotiating matters of national identity and foreign relations in fiction about the end of the world. In its 120-year history, British apocalyptic fiction not only formed part of the discursive formation on ideas of the end of the world but also used the apocalyptic narrative to comment on the state of the nation and its position in the world. The case study of The Violet Flame shows that, before the First World War, writers employed apocalyptic scenarios to warn of foreign invasion and Britain’s decline as a world power.4 Towards the end of the period between the two World Wars, the Conclusion 165 will towards rearmament within Britain in the face of the fascist movement in Europe is implicit in Things to Come5 and evident in The Machine Stops.6 After the Second World War, British apocalyptic fiction looks back on the war experience and comes to terms with Britain’s new role as a subordinate American ally. Narratives like The Tide Went Out question the veracity of the British myth of the Dunkirk Spirit which thrived in the aftermath of the war.7 In tales more absorbed by Cold War mentality, British apocalyptic fiction documents the British alliance with the West and positions Britain against communism.8 Finally, in reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the ensuing war on terror, apocalyptic fiction is used to re-evaluate if not redefine the relationship with the US as illustrated in the case study of 28 Weeks Later.9 These negotiations of British identity and British foreign relations gain additional potency considering that the future of the human race is at stake in these stories. Next to the negotiation of British identity, the role of science is at the forefront of British apocalyptic fiction. In many stories, science plays a significant part in the annihilation or salvation of humankind. In The Violet Flame, the foreigner’s knowledge of science and the Englishman’s ignorance of science turn the world into stone.10 In Things to Come, scientific warfare first brings humankind to the brink of extinction but is also crucial in its restoration.11 In much of Cold War apocalyptic fiction, the products of science—i.e. nuclear weapons—are responsible for the downfall of mankind. Yet there are also a number of examples that show science in ambivalent terms and not solely as an instrument of destruction.12 Therefore, it is necessary to view the role of science as interrelated with the portrayal of human nature in apocalyptic fiction. During the interwar period and the Cold War era, British apocalyptic fiction comprises harsh assessments of humanity as savage and flawed.13 In consequence, it can be argued that the judgement passed on science is to some degree neutral. Science merely provides humankind with tools that can be used for good and evil purposes. Humankind, however, because of its flawed egoistic disposition for power and domination, realizes the apocalyptic potential that science offers. In part, this attitude already exists in The Violet Flame and other apocalyptic dangerous scientist stories.14 In these stories, though, it is only one scientist who abuses the power of science whereas in later texts, we find a general condemnation of human nature independent of national origin. The interrelation between the role of science and flawed human nature is also apparent by looking at current examples of viral pandemic apocalypse and global climate change in which both themes are not nearly as pronounced as during the interwar years and the Cold War. 166 British Apocalyptic Fiction
Outlook on related fields of research The results of this study on apocalyptic fiction in Britain could provide the basis for an investigation into public fear and apocalyptic discourse from a comparative perspective. Here, one major point of interest is whether the development of the discourse on apocalypse is the same or similar across different cultures. As argued before, apocalyptic fiction in Britain became increasingly globalized in perspective over time. Accordingly, it is to be expected that viral pandemic and global climate change dominate the apocalyptic discourse at the beginning of the 21st century, not only in British culture but in other cultures as well. The same might also be true for apocalyptic discourse during the Cold War when both East and West equally feared a cataclysmic nuclear catastrophe and the Cold War enemy. For the interwar period, it is conceivable that the cultural reaction on most of the Continent was similar to that in Britain—i.e. condemning war and science. However, it would be interesting to learn whether this condemnation and fear of future war also became part of apocalyptic discourse and was expressed in stories about the end of the world in these cultures. Moreover, a comparison with countries/cultures that were not as strongly involved in the events and suffering of the Great War as Britain might bring to light a different discursive formation on apocalypse between the First and Second World Wars. Even more interesting is the time before the First World War. With Camille Flammarion’s La Fin du Monde (1893), which tells the story of a comet collision with Earth, there is one example of French apocalyptic fiction that integrates perfectly with the apocalyptic discourse in Britain. The analysis of more examples of apocalyptic fiction from this early period could help to show whether apocalyptic discourse was already international and cross-cultural in outlook from the very beginning. The main research question, then, for a cross-cultural study would be at what times the discourse on apocalypse was more strongly regionally or culturally fragmented and at what times it appears to have been more homogenous. As far as a comparative study with a single other English-speaking culture is concerned, a comparison with American apocalyptic fiction could be especially rewarding and insightful. Like its British counterpart, American apocalyptic fiction has a long and prolific tradition. Jack’s London The Scarlet Plague (1912), Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer’s When Worlds Collide (1933), and Richard Matheson’s I am Legend (1954) are only some of the most prominent examples of a large corpus of American apocalyptic fiction, the history of which is almost as long as that of British apocalyptic fiction and has not been given sufficient scholarly attention.15 As Britain and the US share to some extent a cultural background and history, parallels in apocalyptic fears are to be expected. Certainly, this seems likely for the era of the Cold War when both countries were allies in the common battle against communism. By contrast, Conclusion 167 the experience of the First World War possibly did not have such a profound effect on the apocalyptic discourse in the US as it had in Britain, since the war was not fought on US American soil. The exploration of such diverging cultural conditions and their consequences for the discursive formation of the discourse on apocalypse in the US and in Britain would be a fruitful field of research. The results of this study on British apocalyptic fiction could be used as a foil against which a history of American apocalyptic fiction can be read and compared. In addition, considering British apocalyptic stories such as 28 Weeks Later, it would be interesting to investigate in which ways American writers and filmmakers use apocalyptic scenarios to comment on US-British-relations, if they do so at all. Apart from research that investigates apocalyptic fiction from a comparative perspective, it will be interesting to observe the future development of apocalyptic discourse in Britain. As there are two quite distinct but equally significant clusters of apocalyptic discourse at present, viral pandemic and global climate change, the next few years will show whether one of these two clusters will come to dominate apocalyptic discourse in Britain. Notes
Introduction
1 Beckett, ‘News is Terrible’. 2 Cruickshank, ‘Bird Deaths’. 3 Keneally, ‘Apocalyptic Year to Come?’. 4 Stevens, ‘Will the World End Today?’. 5 Batty, ‘Apocalypse Not Now’. 6 Pope, ‘Will the World Really End’. 7 Allen, ‘End of the World Speculation’. 8 ‘2012 (It Ain’t the End)’. 9 ‘Official Charts Company: Jay Sean’. 10 ‘Box Office Mojo:2012 ’; ‘Box Office Mojo: United Kingdom’. 11 Tate Britain, ‘John Martin: Apocalypse’. 12 For a collection of articles dealing with various aspects of the flood myth, cf. Dundes, Flood Myth. 13 Frymer-Kensky, ‘Atrahasis Epic’, p. 64. 14 Haselböck, Vom Ende der Zeiten, p. 65; Hämmerly-Dupuy, ‘Some Observations’, p. 54. 15 See Davies, ‘Introduction to the Pentateuch’, p. 37. 16 Haselböck, Vom Ende der Zeiten, p. 65. 17 Newman, Real History, p. 20. 18 See Collins, ‘Introduction’, pp. 12, 18. 19 See Zamora, Writing the Apocalypse, p. 2; Lewis, ‘Days of Wrath and Laughter’, p. 196. 20 See Collins, ‘Introduction’, p. 9. 21 Zimbaro, Encyclopedia of Apocalyptic Literature, xi. 22 McKinnell, ‘Vluspá’, p. 19. 23 De Grainville, Le Dernier Homme, p. 133. 24 Alkon, Origins of Futuristic Fiction, p. 175. 25 Roberts, History of Science Fiction, p. 89. 26 Cf. McWhir, Introduction to Last Man, xvi. Furthermore, John Martin portrayed The Last Man in a series of paintings (1826; 1833; 1850). These paintings, however, are rather traditional in that they conjure up biblical imagery and do not reflect the increasingly secular quality of the literary texts. 27 Mellor, Mary Shelley, pp. 148–149. 28 In Thomas Hood’s poem, the last man states at the beginning of the poem that ‘the pest had spared my life’ (Hood, ‘The Last Man’, line 5). In Thomas Campbell’s poem, there are a number of reasons given for the extinction of mankind one of which is the plague (Campbell, ‘The Last Man’, line 17). 29 Hays, Burdens of Disease, p. 136. 30 Bradshaw, ‘Mary Shelley’s The Last Man’, p. 166; Fisch, ‘Plaguing Politics’, p. 270; Paley, Apocalypse and Millennium, p. 22. 31 Bewell, Romanticism and Colonial Disease, p. 296. 32 Pechmann, Mary Shelley, p. 186. 33 Stafford, Last of the Race, p. 219. Notes to pages 4–9 169
34 An, ‘Signs of Plague’; Cantor, ‘Apocalypse of Empire’; Lew, ‘Plague of Imperial Desire’. 35 Ackland, ‘Mary Shelley’s Revolutionary Concept’; Sterrenburg, ‘The Last Man’. 36 Snyder, ‘Apocalypse and Indeterminacy’. 37 Edgar Allan Poe’s apocalyptic short story ‘The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion’ (1839) is probably the only known exception. 38 For examples of parodies in British apocalyptic fiction, cf. chapter 6. 39 Booker and Thomas, Science Fiction Handbook, p. 4. 40 See Bould et al., Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, p. viii; Booker and Thomas, Science Fiction Handbook, p. vii. 41 Paul Goat Allen selects a list of his 13 favourite apocalyptic novels—all written by Americans—just for the year 2011 (Goat Allen, ‘Best Apocalyptic Fiction Releases’). 42 Wagar, ‘Rebellion of Nature’, p. 168. 43 Cf. Voßkamp, ‘Literaturwissenschaft als Kulturwissenschaft’, p. 77. 44 Russell, ‘Apocalyptic Literature’, p. 36. 45 James, ‘Introduction’, p. 1. 46 See May, Toward a New Earth, p. 19; Zamora, Writing the Apocalypse, pp. 3–4; Berger, After the End, p. 34. Berger, in fact, qualifies this statement when he says that, in the recent past and unlike before, apocalyptic writings respond not only to crisis but also ‘to perceived crisis’ (Berger, After the End, p. 34). What he expresses by this is that, today, it is not so important whether there is an actual, factual crisis to which writers, filmmakers and the public react but rather whether the present situation is understood by society as one of crisis. 47 Wagar, ‘Rebellion of Nature’, p. 169. 48 Elias Canetti in: Plank, ‘Lone Survivor’, p. 41. 49 Wolfe, ‘Remaking of Zero’, p. 6. 50 Clarke, having made the same observation, criticizes this generic convention heavily. He calls apocalyptic narratives ‘myths of reassurance’ and ‘deceptive dreams’ because they ‘carry the rainbow promise that Homo Sapiens will face the evolutionary challenge in an exemplary manner’ so ‘that the survivors of the great catastrophe will at least find a harmony and a meaning in their lives’ (Clarke, Pattern of Expectation, p. 293). Clarke finds this idealized idea of man and the positive influence of a cathartic catastrophe naïve and implausible. 51 See Weaver, Apocalypse, p. 64. 52 This is true for those narratives which are more or less devoid of the supernatural. Stories in which metaphysical elements still play an important role might not always have a completely negative attitude towards the approaching end. 53 Rosen, Apocalyptic Transformation, p. xv. 54 Weaver, ‘Appeal of Apocalypse’, p. 174. Here, attitudes vary as to whether the threats depicted in apocalyptic fiction represent ‘the anxieties and phobias of their authors’ (Fletcher, ‘Last Watchman after the Fire’, p. 281) or, quite the reverse, ‘reveal the reader’s expectations’ (Kreuziger, Apocalypse and Science Fiction, p. 2) of what they think might doom the human race to extinction. This seems impossible to resolve, as both authors and readers equally draw their apocalyptic anxieties from and thus reinforce public discourse, both is probably true. 55 Foucault, Archaeolog y of Knowledge, pp. 25–26. 56 Foucault, Archaeolog y of Knowledge, pp. 41–42. 57 Gaisbauer, Weltendämmerungen; Grimm, Faulstich and Kuon, Apokalypse; Gysin, Apocalypse; Kaiser, Poesie der Apokalypse; Rabkin, Greenberg and Olander, End of the World; Seed, Imagining Apocalypse; Uhlig and Kalkofen, In Erwartung des Endes; Walliss and Newport, End All Around Us. 170 Notes to pages 9–15
58 Grimm, Faulstich and Kuon, Apokalypse; Uhlig and Kalkofen, In Erwartung des Endes. 59 Gysin, Apocalypse. 60 Martens, End of the World; Mitchell, Guide to Apocalyptic Cinema; Newman, Apocalypse Movies. 61 Robinson, American Apocalypses, p. xi. 62 Böck, Kontinuität der Geschichte; Dewey, In a Dark Time; Lewicki, Bang and the Whimper; Mani, Apocalyptic Vision; May, Toward a New Earth; Robinson, American Apocalypses; Zamora, Writing the Apocalypse. 63 Ketterer, New Worlds for Old, p. x. 64 Weaver, Apocalypse, p. 1. 65 Dyja, BFI Film Handbook, pp. 28–32. 66 Aldenderfer and Blashfield,Cluster Analysis, p. 7. 67 Of course, this tactic resembles the much criticized New Historicist tendency to ‘eliminate or ignore historical differences’ (Brannigan, New Historicism and Cultural Materialism, p. 75). This is why it needs to be emphasized here that this study does not deny cultural diversity. Rather, it deliberately focuses only on the dominant discourses of apocalyptic fear to show which cultural fears most strongly concerned British culture at various points in time.
Chapter 1: A definition of apocalyptic fiction
1 See Collins, ‘Introduction’, p. 9; Russell, ‘Apocalyptic Literature’, p. 36. 2 This chapter will not deal with matters of narrative situation because, rather ironically, the biblical element of prophecy is not foregrounded in modern apocalyptic fiction and therefore is not part of its definition. This major difference underlines the notion that apocalyptic fiction is distinctively set apart from its biblical predecessors. 3 James, ‘Introduction’, p. 1. 4 Russell, ‘Apocalyptic Literature’, p. 36. 5 Cf. Daniel 7:23, 7:26; Ezekiel 38:22; Zechariah 14:11, 14:18. (All Bible references and citations quoted from The Official King James Bible Online.) The story of Noah’s ark in chapters 6–9 of the Book of Genesis share this property and the other key characteristics of the canon of biblical apocalyptic literature. However, the Great Flood is not considered to be apocalyptic because the tale of Noah and the flood (as all of Genesis 1–11) was perceived to be history, not revelation or prophecy (Wenham, ‘Book of Genesis’, p. 246). Nevertheless, due to its apocalyptic qualities, it serves as a source for apocalyptic fiction, as is evident in titles such as S. Fowler Wright’s Deluge (1927), Maggie Gee’s The Flood (2004), Mark Morris’ The Deluge (2007) and Stephen Baxter’s Flood (2008). 6 Revelation 6:12–13. 7 Cf. Gysin, Introduction to Apocalypse, p. 10. 8 Lewis, ‘Days of Wrath and Laughter’, p. 196. 9 Revelation 16:18–21 (italics in the Bible passage). 10 Mark 13:24–25, 31. 11 Daniel 2:44. 12 Revelation 21:1. 13 Revelation 22:5. 14 Russell, ‘Apocalyptic Literature’, p. 36. 15 Revelation 20:13. 16 See Daniel 12:10; Zechariah 13:9; Mark 13:27. Notes to pages 16–22 171
17 The fact that the term ‘apocalypse’ today is often simply equated with ‘end of the world’ indicates how dominant the aspect of catastrophe actually is. See the book titles Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World by Catherine Keller and Apocalypse Movies: End of the World Cinema by Kim Newman. 18 Kim Newman in his book on apocalyptic movies, for example, does not offer a definition at all. Instead, he merely links ‘global disaster’ and ‘mass devastation’ (Newman, Apocalypse Movies, p. 18) to the event of the apocalypse. In addition, he also includes invasion literature or imaginary war in his study, two genres which at times only border on the genre of apocalyptic fiction but rather represent separate genres. 19 Clarke, ‘End of the Ages’, p. 32. 20 Plank, ‘The Lone Survivor’, p. 24. 21 Detweiler, ‘Apocalyptic Fiction’, p. 154. Take M. P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud (1901) or Ray Hammond’s Extinction (2005) as examples. 22 As, for instance, in genre classics like Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826), John Christopher’s The Death of Grass (1956) or P. D. James’ The Children of Men (1992). 23 Morgan, Shape of Futures Past, pp. 101–102. 24 See, for instance, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt (1913) in which the presumed apocalypse-bringing poisonous gas turns out to merely put people asleep for a brief length of time. Another good example is Sunshine (2007) in which only the crew members of the two mission flights die in the process of saving humankind. 25 Grimm, Einleitung Apokalypse, p. 9 (my translation). Original quotation: ‘“Apokalyptisch” sollen die Werke genannt werden, die […] eine sich in fortschreitender Auflösung befindliche, unaufhaltsam auf den Untergang, die Katastrophe, zusteuernde Ordnung vorstellen.’ 26 Seed, ‘Introduction’, p. 6. 27 Wagar, ‘Rebellion of Nature’, p. 170. 28 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 405 (italics in the novel). 29 Boyle, 28 Days Later, 0:45:41–0:47:03. 30 The close association between war and ideas of apocalypse is well illustrated by the French documentary series Apocalypse: The Second World War (2009). 31 Actually, there are a number of essays dealing with apocalypse in tragedies by Thomas Kyd and William Shakespeare (e.g. cf. Ardolino, ‘Spanish Tragedy’; Hassel, ‘Last Words and Last Things’; Hunt, ‘Time and the Apocalypse’; Wittreich, ‘Apocalypse in King Lear’). 32 Cf. Berger, After the End, p. 5. 33 Cf. Berger, After the End, p. xvi. 34 For example, cf. Ketterer, New Worlds for Old; Robinson, American Apocalypses; Zamora, Writing the Apocalypse. 35 Frenkel, Bangs and Whimpers. 36 Rabkin, ‘Introduction’, p. ix. 37 Koundoura, ‘Real Selves and Fictional Nobodies’, p. 86. 38 May, Toward a New Earth, p. 38. 39 Ahearn, Visionary Fictions, p. 2. 40 Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 64. 41 Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 64. 42 Booker, Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature, p. 5. 43 Wolfe, ‘The Remaking of Zero’, p. 1. 44 Lewicki, Bang and the Whimper, p. xii. 45 James, ‘Rewriting the Christian Apocalypse’, p. 52. 172 Notes to pages 22–27
46 Wolfe, Critical Terms, p. 92; Pierce, Great Themes of Science Fiction, p. 152; Gordon, ‘Utopia, Genocide, and the Other’, p. 206. 47 Ketterer, New Worlds for Old, p. 140. 48 Apocalyptic Fiction Magazine; Donner, ‘Post-Apocalypse Now’, p. 53; Transparency, ‘Post- Apocalyptic Fiction and Science Fiction’. 49 Gordon, ‘Utopia, Genocide, and the Other’, p. 206; also see references above. An exception here is Ketterer who hints at a definition of postcatastrophe as stories in a setting in which most of civilization’s skills have been lost (Ketterer, New Worlds for Old, p. 140). 50 Apocalyptic Fiction Magazine (my emphasis). 51 Pierce, Great Themes of Science Fiction, p. 152 (my emphasis). 52 Donner, ‘Post-Apocalypse Now’, p. 53. 53 Donner, ‘Post-Apocalypse Now’, p. 54. 54 Cf. Newman, Apocalypse Movies, pp. 17–31. 55 Donner, ‘Post-Apocalypse Now’, p. 53. 56 Adams, Introduction to Wastelands, p. 1. 57 Jefferies, After London, chapter v. 58 Cf. Negley, Utopian Literature; Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature; Haschak, Utopian/Dystopian Literature; also cf. Biesterfeld, Die literarische Utopie, pp. 78–81. Admittedly, some classics of British apocalyptic fiction are entered in some of these bibliographies as well: Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826), M. P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud (1901), or Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (1957)—incidentally all novels in which the apocalypse happens over a longer period of time and the depiction of the post-disaster world is short or even missing. However, these entries appear random in comparison to the entries of the post-apocalyptic works. 59 Rosch and Mervis, ‘Family Resemblances’, p. 574.
Chapter 2: First age of extinction
1 Fichman, Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture, p. 17. 2 Chapple, Science and Literature, p. 45. 3 Bush, Temperature of History, p. 30. The Frenchman Sadie Carnot had first referred to entropy in 1824 and the German physicist Rudolf Clausius was the first scientist to formulate the second law of thermodynamics in 1850. 4 Myers, ‘Popularizations of Thermodynamics’, p. 317. 5 Myers, ‘Popularizations of Thermodynamics’, p. 318. 6 Myers, ‘Popularizations of Thermodynamics’, p. 317. 7 ‘Date of the End of the World’, The Pall Mall Gazette, 22 January 1887. These types of lectures appear to have been quite common. The newspaper Northern Echo features an article called ‘The End of the World’ which reports on a similar lecture by biologist Arthur Nicols (‘The End of the World’, Northern Echo, 11 September 1890). 8 The French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin were even earlier advocates of the idea of evolution, publishing their major works in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. However, their publications on evolution did not have the impact in Britain as Chambers’ Vestiges and later Darwin’s Origin of Species. 9 Fichman, Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture, p. 24. 10 Fichman, Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture, p. 22. Notes to pages 27–32 173
11 Fichman, Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture, p. 24; Secord, ‘Behind the Veil’, pp. 165– 166. 12 Fichman, Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture, p. 36. 13 Fichman, Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture, p. 37. 14 Darwin, The Descent of Man, p. 213. 15 Lightman, Victorian Popularizers of Science, p. 34fn. 16 Cosslett, ‘Introductory Essay’, p. 4. 17 Fichman, Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture, p. 53. 18 Fichman, Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture, p. 114. 19 Bynum, Science and the Practice of Medicine, p. 221. 20 Glasser, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, p. 26. 21 Bynum, Science and the Practice of Medicine, p. 173. 22 ‘The New Photography’, Punch, 25 January 1896. 23 Glasser, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, p. 33. 24 Apart from Roentgen’s X-ray, several landmark discoveries in physics, chemistry, and biology are proof of the progress in the sciences with which people’s increasing apprehension of scientific discoveries developed. In chemistry, Sir William Ramsay discovered the noble gases, isolating argon and helium. In physics, J. J. Thomson discovered the electron and subatomic particles, and Henri Becquerel, Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radioactivity. In biology, Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease, invented pasteurization and developed the first vaccine for rabies. Robert Koch isolated various bacterial micro- organisms. 25 Fyfe, ‘How will the World End?’, pp. 85–86. 26 Fyfe, ‘How will the World End?’, pp. 86–94. 27 ‘The End of the World’, Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle etc., 5 May 1894. 28 ‘The End of the World’, Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle etc., 5 May 1894. 29 Cf. ‘The End of the World’, Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle etc., 5 May 1894; ‘The Approaching End of the World’, Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, 27 January 1899; ‘The End of the World’, Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle etc., 4 February 1899. 30 Fyfe, ‘How will the World End?’, p. 89. 31 North, Cosmos, p. 531. 32 ‘Life from the Dead and the End of the World’, The Belfast News-Letter, 17 March 1881. 33 Henry, Virginia Woolf, p. 25. 34 Bartholomew and Radford, Martians Have Landed!, p. 87. 35 Bartholomew and Radford, Martians Have Landed!, p. 90. 36 ‘One of the Least Features of the Present Condition of the Continental States of Europe is the Abnormal and Almost Universal Activity Being Displayed in the Enlargement, Equipment, and Training of Their Respective Armies’, The Illustrated London News, 19 January 1875. 37 ‘Fixing the End of the World’, The Reynold’s Newspaper, 21 August 1887. 38 ‘Fixing the End of the World’, The Reynold’s Newspaper, 21 August 1887. 39 Lightman, ‘Ideology, Evolution’, p. 295. 40 Wende, Das Britische Empire, p. 213. 41 Arata, ‘1897’, p. 53. 42 Fichman, Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture, p. 62. 43 Schwarz, Schlüssel zur modernen Welt, p. 333. 44 Alter, ‘Science and the Anglo-German Antagonism’, p. 272. 174 Notes to pages 32–38
45 Alter, ‘Science and the Anglo-German Antagonism’, p. 287. 46 Alter, ‘Science and the Anglo-German Antagonism’, p. 280. 47 Actually, this is not so clear in The Doom of the Great City. The homodiegetic narrator’s account of the events is limited to his experiences in London before the report suddenly breaks off. However, the fact that the report is part of a letter written in New Zealand many years after the actual events potentially implies far-reaching consequences of the catastrophe. On the other hand, the novella’s title indicates that the disaster is restricted to the great city of London. 48 Sam Moskowitz notes that ‘disaster and catastrophe stories with civic significance were popular’ (Moskowitz, ‘Introduction’, p. 42) at the time. More examples of this type of short story are Grant Allen’s ‘The Thames Valley Catastrophe’ (1897), Cutcliffe Hyne’s ‘London’s Danger’ (1898) and Fred M. White’s series of London disaster stories published in 1903: ‘The Dust of Death’, ‘The Four Days’ Night’, ‘The Four White Days’, and ‘The Invisible Force’. 49 Minto, The Crack of Doom, Vol. I: p. 11. 50 Minto, The Crack of Doom, Vol. III: p. 265. 51 Luckhurst, Science Fiction, pp. 16–17. 52 Crossley, Imagining Mars, p. 73. 53 Shiel, The Purple Cloud, p. 56. 54 For example, cf. James, ‘Wells’s The Time Machine’; Pamboukian, ‘What the Traveller Saw’. 55 Wells, The Time Machine, p. 97. 56 Wells, The Time Machine, p. 93. 57 Green, The End of an Epoch, p. 8. 58 Wells, The War of the Worlds, p. 8. 59 Wells, The War of the Worlds, p. 8. 60 Wells, The War of the Worlds, p. 145 (my emphasis). 61 Cromie, The Crack of Doom, p. 49. 62 Green, The End of an Epoch, p. 33. 63 ‘The Great Crellin Comet’ is evidently a reaction to Falb’s prediction that Comet Biela would bring about the end of the world in 1899. The date of publication coincides with Falb’s prediction for the end and the threat in ‘The Great Crellin Comet’ comes in the shape of Gambart’s Comet, which appears to be simply a different name for Biela’s Comet. The World Peril of 1910 alludes to the return of Comet Halley and thus anticipates the comet scare of 1910. 64 Griffith, ‘The Great Crellin Comet’, p. 114. 65 Oliver, ‘The Long Night’, p. 44. 66 Oliver, ‘The Long Night’, p. 49. 67 Wells, In the Days of the Comet, pp. 27–28. 68 Wells, In the Days of the Comet, p. 72. 69 Doyle, The Poison Belt, pp. 238–240. 70 This precaution is reminiscent of the comet pills which were sold to protect from the poisonous gas of Comet Halley in 1910 (Henry, Virginia Woolf, p. 25). 71 Wallis, ‘The Great Sacrifice’, p. 628. 72 Wallis, ‘The Great Sacrifice’, p. 636. 73 Fletcher, ‘The New Sun’, p. 106. 74 Fletcher, ‘The New Sun’, p. 114. 75 Haynes, From Faust to Strangelove, p. 127. Notes to pages 38–44 175
76 Cromie, The Crack of Doom, p. 122. 77 Cromie, The Crack of Doom, p. 177. 78 Alden, ‘The Purple Death’, p. 7. 79 Green, The End of an Epoch, p. 334. 80 In effect, fears of invasion brought to life a whole genre of British invasion literature produced in the years between 1871 and 1914. For an overview of British invasion literature, cf. Eby, Road to Armageddon, pp. 10–37. 81 Alden, ‘The Purple Death’, p. 4. The English homodiegetic narrator substitutes the scientist’s real name for the alias Schwartz, supposedly to protect the man’s reputation. 82 Davidson, Dictionary of Angels, p. 64. 83 Green, The End of an Epoch, p. 49. 84 Cromie, The Crack of Doom, p. 3. 85 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 723. 86 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 725. 87 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 726. 88 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 725. 89 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 726. 90 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 724. 91 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 724. 92 Cf. ‘The End of the World’, Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle etc., 5 May 1894.; ‘The End of the World’, The Pall Mall Gazette, 23 September 1895. 93 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 716. 94 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 720. 95 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 720. 96 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 718. 97 There is only the vaguest allusion to the biblical flood at the end when ‘all over the earth was such a downpour of rain as men had never before seen’ (Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 728). Apart from this biblical reference, there is no sign of divine intervention with regard to the star. 98 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 717. 99 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 729. 100 Wells, ‘The Star’, p. 729. 101 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 195. 102 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 193. 103 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 194. 104 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 194. 105 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 186. 106 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 188. 107 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 40. 108 Jane, The Violet Flame, pp. 58–59. 109 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 111. 110 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 104. 111 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 81. 112 In fact, there is one exception. Mirzarbeau seems to care for Lester and Landry Baker who he initially provides with the protective green discs. However, it is only Landry he is really interested in, either in the form of genuine affection or lustrous desire. He confesses his romantic feelings to her when he says that ‘I have thought sometimes how I will kill by annihilation all of the world, leaving only me—and you’ (Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 178), 176 Notes to pages 44–48
whereas he later exchanges Lester’s shielding disc for a dummy. Ironically, it is Landry and Lester, not Mirzarbeau, who become the new Adam and Eve. 113 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 108. 114 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 171. 115 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 65. 116 Jane, The Violet Flame, pp. 72, 74. 117 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 74. 118 Revelation 13:16–17. 119 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 90. 120 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 3. 121 Jane, The Violet Flame, pp. 41, 62. 122 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 65. 123 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 71. 124 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 3. 125 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 56. 126 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 56. 127 Jane, The Violet Flame, pp. 61, 63, 83. 128 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 56. 129 Jane, The Violet Flame, pp. 54–55. 130 Schäffner, Anarchismus und Literatur in England, p. 226. 131 Choosing Waterloo Station seems significant in that Mirzarbeau thereby implicitly avenges Napoleon’s defeat by the British at Waterloo in 1815. 132 In this context, it seems more than coincidental that Mirzarbeau takes up the name ‘Beast’ in the course of the novel. 133 Schäffner, Anarchismus und Literatur in England, p. 34. 134 Shpayer-Makov, ‘Anarchism in British Public Opinion’, p. 490. 135 Gabriel, ‘Anarchist as Monster’, p. 108. 136 Shpayer-Makov, ‘Traitor to his Class’, p. 302. 137 Other late Victorian apocalyptic stories also feature the destructive anarcho-scientist: In The Crack of Doom, atomic bomb inventor Herbert Brande is the founder and leader of the Cui Bono Society which appears to be an anarchist society. And in ‘The Purple Death’, Professor Schwartz, the inventor of the deadly microbial disease, openly sympathizes with the anarchists. 138 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 3. 139 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 81. 140 Jane, The Violet Flame, pp. 8, 9, 40, 67, 100. 141 In contrast, the only other foreign character in the novel, Landry Baker, is not nearly as strongly marked as foreign in comparison to Mirzarbeau’s characterisation. She does not have a distinctively exotic, i.e. foreign sounding name and she only speaks English. 142 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 149. 143 Jane, The Violet Flame, pp. 19–20. 144 Michie, London Stock Exchange, p. 123. 145 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 23. 146 Michie, London Stock Exchange, p. 124. 147 Jane, The Violet Flame, p. 60. Notes to pages 50–55 177
Chapter 3: Apocalyptic wars
1 Numbers vary but it is established that ‘[f]rom the outbreak of war to its close the British army and navy […] lost at least 616,382 men’ (May, Economic and Social History, p. 361). To put this in perspective, all the major wars of the entire 19th century combined did not cause so many British casualties. Around 20,000 soldiers died during the Crimean and the Second Boer War respectively (Raugh, Victorians at War, pp. 53, 113) and over 300,000 soldiers lost their lives during the 20 years of British involvement in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (Dumas and Vedel-Petersen, Losses of Life, pp. 29–30). 2 Kent, Aftershocks, p. 20. 3 Kent, Aftershocks, p. 20. 4 Kent, Aftershocks, p. 16. 5 Brittain, Testament of Youth, p. 395. 6 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 179. 7 The Air Raid Precautions Act asked the British people to prepare and help fellow citizens in case of an air raid gas attack. 8 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 168. 9 In the following, science and technology will be used interchangeably in this context as technology can only ever be the result of scientific research. This conception is supported by ‘the public image of a close nexus between “science” and “technology”’ (Rieger, Technolog y, p. 39) at the time. 10 Jonsson, ‘Images of Science in Literature’, p. 175. 11 Edgerton, ‘Science and War’, p. 937. 12 Richards, Age of the Dream Palace, p. 283. 13 Miles and Smith, Cinema, Literature and Society, p. 226. 14 Marwick, Deluge, p. 334. 15 Rieger, Technolog y, p. 274. 16 Graves and Hodge, L ong Week-End, p. 203. 17 Paris, Warrior Nation, p. 155. 18 Paris, Warrior Nation, p. 147. 19 Ward, Britishness since 1870, p. 100. 20 Lowe, Mastering Modern British History, p. 432. 21 Paris, Warrior Nation, p. 155. 22 Lowe, Mastering Modern British History, p. 431. 23 Pugh, Britain since 1789, p. 198. 24 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 178. 25 Rieger, Technolog y, p. 238. 26 Rieger, Technolog y, p. 243. 27 J. S. Fletcher’s ‘The New Sun’ and Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt. 28 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 170. 29 These are, for example, Edward Shanks’ The People of the Ruins (1920) or P. Anderson Graham’s The Collapse of Homo Sapiens (1922). 30 Hamilton, Theodore Savage, pp. 104, 127. In this study, quotations from the narratives Theodore Savage and Lest Ye Die are taken from a copy of Theodore Savage. This is acceptable as both texts are basically the same novel with only the most minor changes at the beginning of the novel. 31 Hamilton, Theodore Savage, pp. 68, 105. 178 Notes to pages 55–59
32 Hussingtree, Konyetz, p. 320. 33 Paris, Warrior Nation, p. 148. 34 Paris, Warrior Nation, p. 148. 35 Paris, Warrior Nation, p. 181. It was only in popular youth literature that war was still represented and, curiously so, even in positive terms ‘as righteous, justified and, in most cases, heroic, exciting and romantic’ (Paris, Warrior Nation, p. 151). 36 Hamilton, Lest Ye Die, p. 7. 37 Stableford, Introduction to Deluge, p. xxi. 38 Connington, Nordenholt’s Million, p. 286. 39 Kent, Aftershocks, p. 32. Like other apocalyptic novels from the interwar period, Nordenholt’s Million addresses the role of science with regard to the survival of humankind. Unlike the later stories, the role of science is much more ambiguous in Connington’s novel. On the one hand, Wotherspoon’s experiments are the origin of the apocalyptic catastrophe. On the other hand, the novel’s other scientist figure, Henley-Davenport, invents an apparatus that is able to generate ‘a tremendous store of intra-atomic energy’ (Connington, Nordenholt’s Million, p. 270) to solve the community’s energy problems and thus enables survival. 40 As ‘The End of the World’ does not relate a breakdown of society, it certainly represents a non-prototypical case of apocalyptic fiction. The short story is mentioned here due to its apocalyptic title and background scenario. 41 Kingsmill, ‘The End of the World’, p. 17. 42 Kingsmill, ‘The End of the World’, p. 56. 43 Scholars and in fact some of the contemporary authors have explained the ‘ten year gap’ between the end of the First World War and the wave of commemorative war literature at the end of the 1920s in psychological terms. After a long period of suppressing the dreadful memories of the First World War, the veterans surrendered to an inner longing to cleanse themselves of the war experience and overcome it by writing it down (cf. Schneider, ‘Erinnerungsroman in der Autobiographie’, p. 37). 44 Paris, Warrior Nation, p. 154. 45 Kent, Aftershocks, p. 31. 46 Hamilton, Lest Ye Die, p. 7. 47 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 172. 48 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 172. 49 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 161. 50 For example, H. G. Wells describes a war fought with then unknown nuclear weapons in The World Set Free (1914). 51 Stableford, Introduction to Deluge, p. xxii. 52 Stapledon, Last and First Men, pp. 31–32. 53 Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, p. 51. 54 Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, p. 227. 55 Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, p. 293. The complete annihilation of the human race occurs in To-Morrow’s Yesterday (1932) by John Gloag. However, the apocalyptic scenario only takes place in a film that is presented in the novel. In this film, a Soviet attack on the United States triggers a world war. The long-term consequence of this conflict is mankind’s lapse into savagery before the human race becomes entirely extinct in the year 2,000,000 A.D. 56 Best, The Twenty-Fifth Hour, p. 225. 57 Noyes, The Last Man, p. 40. Notes to pages 59–62 179
58 Noyes, The Last Man, p. 270. 59 Sherriff, The Hopkins Manuscript, Foreword (first page though no page number given). 60 Hamilton, Theodore Savage, p. 68. 61 Hamilton, Theodore Savage, pp. 109, 91. 62 Smith, The Machine Stops, pp. 143, 148, 145. 63 Connington, Nordenholt’s Million, p. 176. It needs to be noted that savage behaviour by humankind in the face of disorder is a regular feature of apocalyptic fiction and is in no way a unique feature of the interwar period. In fact, apocalyptic fiction after the Second World War is even more pronounced and extreme in its depiction. However, it is in between the First and the Second World War that savage behaviour, especially to the misanthropic degree presented in the texts, becomes an essential and recurring characteristic and thus an established generic convention for the first time. 64 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 172. In view of the section ‘Dangerous scientists’ in chapter 2 of this study, Ceadel’s assessment on novelists’ perspective on science before the First World War needs to be qualified, at least with regard to science fiction and apocalyptic fiction. 65 In fact, the dangers of poison gas also haunted the public imagination in non-apocalyptic future war fiction of the interwar period: ‘[N]ovelists took up gas warfare almost to the neglect of other types of weapons’ (Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 168). Non-apocalyptic future gas war novels include The Gas War of 1940 (1931) by Neil Bell or Reginald Glossop’s Ghastly Dew (1932). 66 Hamilton, Theodore Savage, p. 127. 67 Stapledon, Last and First Men, p. 89. 68 Lamb, The World Ends, p. 17. 69 Neill, The Last Man Alive, p. 20. 70 Hamilton, Theodore Savage, p. 122. 71 Wright, ‘Automata’, p. 115. 72 Wright, ‘Automata’, p. 116. 73 Smith, The Machine Stops, p. 75. 74 Smith, The Machine Stops, p. 49. Neither the general theme nor in fact the title of the novel is original in apocalyptic fiction. E. M. Forster anticipated and voiced anxieties about technological progress and dependence on machinery already in his pre-war short story ‘The Machine Stops’ (1909). Almost all of humankind has retreated below the surface of the earth and is kept alive by a great machine. In the end, the machine breaks down and the subterranean population dies. ‘Humanity has learnt its lesson’ and thus will never ‘start the Machine again’ (Forster, ‘The Machine Stops’, p. 158). The few remaining survivors on the surface of the Earth reclaim the planet. 75 Smith, The Machine Stops, p. 198. 76 Smith, The Machine Stops, p. 209. 77 Smith, The Machine Stops, p. 241. 78 Donald, Fighting Talk, p. 255. 79 Smith, The Machine Stops, p. 282. 80 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 176. 81 All quotations and screenshots are taken from the Things to Come special edition DVD published by Network Distributing in 2007. As with all remaining copies of the film, this version is shorter in comparison to the release of 1936. It is nevertheless the best version available as it comes closest to the opening run of roughly 108 minutes and the later run of 98 minutes at the end of the first year in cinemas (Cf. Low,Film Making, p. 379). Moreover, the virtual extended edition on the Network publication, which hints at the lost footage, 180 Notes to pages 63–69
does not suggest that the additional material substantially alters the film’s overall meaning with regard to the argument presented. 82 Richards, ‘Things to Come’, p. 19. 83 Richards, Age of the Dream Palace, p. 280. 84 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:06:32. 85 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:19:55. 86 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:22:38 (upper-case letters in the film). 87 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:21:00. 88 Rieger, Technolog y, p. 239. 89 Cooper, ‘Audio Commentary’, 0:12:20. 90 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:37:49. 91 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:06:09. 92 Lowe, Mastering Modern British History, p. 371. 93 When old Cabal visits Everytown in 1970, he inquires after his friends Harding and Passworthy. The people point him to Harding but they are not familiar with Passworthy. 94 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:06:16, 0:06:22. 95 In Wells’ published film treatment, he emphasizes that ‘EVERYTOWN IS EVERY TOWN. That is to say, it is the average great town of our times’ (Wells, Things to Come, p. 27). The identification of Everytown as London remains vague at best in Wells’ script. 96 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:08:24. 97 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:47:56. 98 Cooper, ‘Shaping of Things to Come’, p. 15. This is probably why the film was banned in Italy. According to Cooper, ‘Mussolini was so outraged by Richardson’s obvious parody […] that he did indeed order all copies of the film in Italy to be seized.’ (Cooper, ‘Shaping of Things to Come’, p. 15) 99 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:36:56. 100 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:46:49. 101 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:45:06. 102 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:54:21. 103 Richards, Age of the Dream Palace, p. 285. 104 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:37:18. 105 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:37:29. 106 Bassett and Cooper, ‘Score of Things to Come’, p. 21. 107 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:37:48. 108 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:36:54. 109 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:39:12. 110 Menzies, Things to Come, 1:18:29. 111 Cooper, ‘Audio Commentary’, 0:38:55. 112 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:06:01. 113 Menzies, Things to Come, 1:02:19. 114 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:05:41. 115 Menzies, Things to Come, 0:05:34. 116 We find the same solution to a similar scenario in Wayland Smith’s mid-1930s novel The Machine Stops. In Smith’s novel, the new metal, symbol for the restoration or order, is used for a war that is fought to regain peace. Notes to pages 70–77 181
Chapter 4: Nuclear threats, Cold War
1 Young, Cold War Europe, p. 3. 2 Young, Cold War Europe, p. xvi. 3 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 121. 4 Greenwood, Britain and the Cold War, p. 2. 5 Hopkins, Introduction to Cold War Britain, p. 4. 6 Carruthers, ‘Not Just Washed’, p. 47. 7 In fact, this cartoon combines two contemporary anxieties: the phobia of communism and the ‘hysterical, obsessive new fear’ (Clarens, Illustrated History, p. 122) of aliens set off by UFO sightings in the USA. 8 Seed, American Science Fiction, p. 107. 9 Brians, Nuclear Holocausts, p. 17. 10 Young, Cold War Europe, p. 12. 11 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 123. 12 Brians, Nuclear Holocausts, p. 18. 13 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 116. 14 Young, Cold War Europe, p. 12. 15 Brians, Nuclear Holocausts, p. 19. 16 Shils, Torment of Secrecy, p. 71. 17 For the more examples, cf. the political cartoons of the Punch issues of 14 January 1959, 6 May 1959, 18 May 1960, and 23 November 1960. 18 Taylor, Against the Bomb, p. 107. This is true even though the settlement ‘did nothing in practice to slow the nuclear arms race, for tests continued in underground shafts at a faster pace than ever’ (Weart, Nuclear Fear, p. 260). This illustrates, once more, that public fears of apocalypse are as much a result of the existence of realistic threats as of mass psychology. 19 Pry, War Scare, p. 16. 20 Ritter, ‘Ronald Reagan’, p. 322. 21 Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, p. 131. 22 Taylor and Young, ‘Britain and the International Peace Movement’, p. 287. 23 Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, p. 65. 24 Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, p. 82. 25 Greenwood, ‘Helping to Open the Door’, p. 327. 26 Taylor, Against the Bomb, p. 27. 27 Taylor, Against the Bomb, p. 42. 28 J. B. Priestley in: Taylor, Against the Bomb, p. 43. This underlines the shift of the discourse on apocalypse from anxieties about war, as it can be found before 1945, to a more specific fear of nuclear conflict. 29 Taylor, Against the Bomb, p. 28. 30 Barberis, McHugh, and Tyldesley, ‘Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’, p. 331. 31 Taylor, Against the Bomb, p. 91. 32 Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, p. 131. 33 Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, p. 138. 34 A group of women set up a peace camp outside of the military basis at Greenham to protest against the establishment of cruise missiles there. The protest reached a climax when the women were joined by protestors to form a 14-mile human chain to connect RAF station Greenham Common with Aldermaston and the arms factory in Burghfield (Cook and 182 Notes to pages 77–81
Kirk, Greenham Women Everywhere, p. 92). In consequence, the Greenham Common women’s peace camp became the ‘best-known disarmament venture that developed independently of CND’ (Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, p. 133). 35 Taylor and Young, ‘International Peace Movement’, p. 291. 36 Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, p. 133. 37 Rose, The Maniac’s Dream, p. 7. 38 More famously than Cromie, H. G Wells’ The World Set Free (1914), a borderline case of apocalyptic fiction, also featured atomic bombs: ‘[W]ith both hands the bomb-thrower lifted the big atomic bomb from the box […] and hoisted the bomb over the side’ (Wells, The World Set Free, pp. 47–48 ). 39 Shaw, British Cinema, p. 126. 40 Brians, Nuclear Holocausts, p. 14. 41 Brians, Nuclear Holocausts, p. 17. 42 Matthews, Hollywood Aliens, p. 8. 43 Proietti, ‘Fred Hoyle’, p. 253. 44 Attebery, ‘The Magazine Era’, p. 42. 45 Ruddick, Ultimate Island, p. 138. 46 Scarborough, ‘John Wyndham’, p. 219. 47 Robert Simpson in: BBC, ‘Quatermass Creator Dies’. 48 Shaw, British Cinema, p. 128. 49 Shaw, British Cinema, p. 128. The popularity of the Quatermass franchise is also certainly to do with the success of American invasion B-movies in the 1950s: ‘American films themselves played a significant role in shaping the British cinema-goers’ perception of the Cold War [and] British producers were inclined more than ever before to put profitability before artistic merit.’ (Shaw, ‘British Feature Films’, p. 126) Not only did Hollywood release a film version of the role model of the invasion tale, The War of the Worlds (1953), but had produced several other invasion films before, for example Invasion U.S.A. (1952) or Red Planet Mars (1952), two ‘fantasies driven by Cold War-inspired anti-Soviet paranoia.’ (Booker, Monsters, p. 116) Two more classic American invasion films, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Blob (1958), followed later. The producer’s fondness of them ‘was no doubt due partly to the fact that such films could be set in a perfectly normal earth environment, thus saving the expense and technical difficulty of depicting alien settings.’ (Booker,Monsters , p. 114) 50 Hunter, ‘Earth Caught Fire’, p. 104. 51 Brians, Nuclear Holocausts, p. 20. 52 Weart, Nuclear Fear, p. 218. 53 Hunter, ‘Earth Caught Fire’, p. 102. 54 Shaw, British Cinema, p. 137. 55 Weart, Nuclear Fear, p. 262. 56 Brians, Nuclear Holocausts, p. 24. 57 Booker, Monsters, p. 172en. 58 Seed, ‘TV Docudrama’, p. 160. 59 Farjeon, Death of a World, p. 74. 60 Shute, On the Beach, p. 81. 61 More examples of apocalyptic war fiction are Tyrone C. Barr’s The Last 14 (1959), Edmund Cooper’s Seed of Light (1959), and Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) as well as David Graham’s Down to a Sunless Sea (1979), the TV film Threads (1984), the comedy film Whoops Apocalypse (1986) and Martin Amis’ Notes to pages 81–86 183
short story ‘The Immortals’ (1987). Of these, however, Dr. Strangelove, Whoops Apocalypse and ‘The Immortals’ are not prototypically apocalyptic as neither of these stories describes the breakdown of order or a world in disorder in greater detail. The apocalypse is merely an event that is implied or, in the case of ‘The Immortals’, briefly mentioned. 62 Swindells, Brother in the Land, p. 11. 63 Lawrence, Children of the Dust, p. 19. 64 Guest, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, 1:14:50. 65 Aldiss, Greybeard, p. 224. 66 Roberts, The Furies, p. 13. 67 Christopher, The Death of Grass, p. 49. 68 BBC, The Quatermass Experiment, ep. 1, 0:09:23. 69 Hoyle, The Black Cloud, p. 224. 70 John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes criticizes the use of nuclear bombs in a similar way. 71 Pape, And so Ends the World…, pp. 178–179. 72 Pape, And so Ends the World…, p. 191. 73 Clarke, Childhood’s End, p. 5. 74 For a more extensive critical analysis of Dr. Strangelove, cf. e.g. Linden, ‘Dr Strangelove’; Wolfe, ‘Dr Strangelove’. 75 Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove, 0:43:09. 76 Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove, 1:28:07, 1:28:37, 1:28:23. 77 Hoyle, The Last Gasp, p. 126. 78 Hoyle, The Last Gasp, p. 127. 79 Hoyle, The Last Gasp, p. 217. 80 Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, p. 25. 81 Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, p. 211. 82 It is not made explicit whether the triffids have taken over other countries, too. The fact that both the blinding of humanity and the spread of the triffids are said to be global events makes it rather likely that the situation outside of Britain is not much different from the one in Britain. This idea is also supported by the sequel, which is set in the US. 83 Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, p. 233. 84 Clark, The Night of the Triffids, p. 38. 85 Clark, The Night of the Triffids, p. 34. 86 Sawyer, ‘Stiff Upper Lip’, p. 81. 87 Sekely, The Day of the Triffids, 0:00:48. 88 BBC, The Day of the Triffids, ep. 6: 0:09:19. This is the corresponding passage from Wyndham’s novel: ‘Now suppose that one type [of satellite weapon] happened to have been constructed especially to emit radiations that our eyes would not stand – something that would burn out, or at least damage, the optic nerve…?’ (Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, p. 211). 89 For an overview of the three TV series instalments, cf. Chapman, ‘Origins of British Television SF’. 90 Shaw, British Cinema, p. 129. 91 Chapman, ‘Origins of British Television SF’, pp. 30–31. 92 Guest, Quatermass 2, 0:45:30. 93 Some critics also have taken this as evidence to point towards a criticism of 1950s secret government activity or social conformity in Britain (see Chapman, ‘Origins of British Television SF’, p. 35; Shaw, British Cinema, p. 128). While this may also be a feasible interpretation, the reading of the alien as communist is also convincing as alien invasions 184 Notes to pages 86–94
and government infiltration are typical tropes of Cold War fiction (see Johnston, Science Fiction Film, p. 73; Kaveney, From Alien to Matrix, p. 51). 94 Shaw, ‘British Feature Films’, p. 139. This perspective also applies to Terence Fisher’s The Earth Dies Screaming (1965), another apocalyptic invasion film which draws upon fears of a communist attack. 95 Cooper, Seed of Light, p. 47. 96 Cooper, Seed of Light, p. 54. 97 Pape, And so Ends the World…, p. 191. 98 Pape, And so Ends the World…, p. 134. 99 Pape, And so Ends the World…, pp. 108, 178. 100 Pape, And so Ends the World…, p. 170. 101 Jackson, Threads, 0:12:25. 102 Jackson, Threads, 0:25:49. 103 Graham, Down to a Sunless Sea, p. 303. 104 Hutchings, ‘British SF Invasion Fantasies’, p. 40. 105 Guest, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, 1:23:48. 106 McIntosh, One in Three Hundred, p. 121. 107 Farjeon, Death of a World, p. 6. 108 Pape, And so Ends the World…, p. 64. 109 Hollow, ‘Sir Arthur C. Clarke’, p. 163. 110 Guest, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, 1:34:04. 111 Barr, The Last 14, p. 111. 112 Barr, The Last 14, p. 111. 113 McIntosh, The Fittest, p. 128. 114 Farjeon, Death of a World, p. 192. 115 Cooper, All Fool’s Day, p. 121. 116 Cooper, All Fool’s Day, p. 62. 117 McIntosh, One in Three Hundred, p. 40. 118 McIntosh, One in Three Hundred, p. 120. 119 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 180. 120 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 68. 121 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 207. 122 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 51. 123 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 19. 124 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, pp. 21–22. 125 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 98. 126 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 98. 127 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 218. 128 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 69. 129 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, pp. 180–181. 130 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 49. 131 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 68. 132 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 107. 133 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 52. 134 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 194. 135 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 84. Notes to pages 94–101 185
136 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 194. 137 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 82. 138 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 95. 139 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 52. 140 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 173. 141 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 191. 142 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 106. 143 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 90. 144 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 90. 145 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 69. 146 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 56. 147 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 98. 148 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 218. 149 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 94. 150 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 207. 151 Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes, p. 52. 152 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 12. 153 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 12. 154 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 16. 155 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 7. 156 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 97. 157 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 97. 158 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 156. 159 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 98. 160 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 97. 161 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 74. 162 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 118. 163 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 62. 164 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 95. 165 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 119. 166 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 119. 167 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 19. 168 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 16. 169 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 95. 170 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 90. 171 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 111. 172 Maine, The Tide Went Out, pp. 20, 99, 147, 152. 173 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 147. 174 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 147. 175 It may seem that the cataclysm starts a process of rethinking when, for the first time in human history, ‘the nations of the world had agreed upon a common policy to deal with the situation’ (Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 66). This inference, however, is illusive. The political leaders of the world merely work together in setting up the Arctic camp because that gives them an advantage over the rest of the world’s populace in the race for the Arctic. 176 Sinfield,Literature, Politics and Culture, p. 139. 177 This change in paradigm is unmistakable in Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) in which he reworks R. M. Ballantyne’s jingoistic The Coral Island (1857) (Cf. Sinfield, Literature, Politics and Culture, pp. 139–142). 186 Notes to pages 101–106
178 Sinfield,Literature, Politics and Culture, p. 140. 179 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 125. 180 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 151. 181 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 25. 182 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 101. 183 Cf. Richard Titmuss, Problems of Social Policy (1950), his contribution in the civil series of the official war history. 184 Ponting, 1940, p. 138. This kind of behaviour among the British populace, which is also often referred to as the ‘Dunkirk Spirit’, was inspired by the Dunkirk evacuation when civilians supported the British soldiers in escaping from France. 185 Smith, Introduction to Britain, p. 2. 186 Ponting, 1940, p. 160. 187 Ponting, 1940, p. 91. 188 Ponting, 1940, pp. 92–93. 189 Richards, ‘The Blitz’. 190 John Christopher’s The Death of Grass presents a similar narrative. Echoing the experience of the Blitz, the Daily Telegraph in The Death of Grass states that, facing famine and social unrest, ‘it falls to the British people to set an example to the world in the staunch and steadfast of their misfortune.’ (Christopher, The Death of Grass, p. 44) The novel, then, goes on to debunk this myth: ‘rape, murder, and theft abound’ (Macfarlane, Introduction to Death of Grass, p. x) in the face of disaster. The climax of the deconstruction of British superior morality is reached when John Custance, the novel’s protagonist, is refused to enter Blind Gill, his brother David’s property and one of the few remaining havens in Britain. He deviously and forcefully invades Blind Gill which results in the killing of David, possibly even by John’s own hand. 191 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 72. 192 Maine, The Tide Went Out, pp. 79–80. 193 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 78. 194 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 156. 195 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 52. 196 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 52. 197 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 69. 198 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 77. 199 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 112. 200 Maine, The Tide Went Out, p. 69.
Chapter 5: Eco-doom
1 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 51. 2 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 54. 3 Cutter et al., ‘Editorial’. 4 For more detailed accounts of Carson’s impact on the ecological movement, cf. Brooks, The House of Life, pp. 228–229; Graham, Since Silent Spring, pp. 53–54; Fox, John Muir and His Legacy, p. 292. 5 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 55. 6 Stableford, Science Fact and Science Fiction, p. 140. Notes to pages 106–110 187
7 Cf. Hawes Publications, ‘New York Times Bestseller List’. 8 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 56. 9 Stoll, ‘Silent Spring’. 10 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 56. 11 Worster, Nature’s Economy, p. 23. 12 Killingsworth and Palmer, ‘Silent Spring and Science Fiction’, p. 178. 13 Carson, Silent Spring, p. 4. 14 Carson, Silent Spring, p. 4. 15 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, pp. 56–57. There had been a number of comparable incidents before the 1960s. However, John McCormick explains the difference in public response by the fact that the ‘accidents that occurred from the mid-1960s had much greater impact because of the heightened public sensitivity to environmental problems’ (McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 57), especially in consequence to the success of Carson’s Silent Spring. 16 Barkham, ‘Oil Spills’. 17 Barkham, ‘Oil Spills’. 18 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 58. 19 Cf. Ui, ‘Minimate Disease’, p. 131en. 20 Clapp, Environmental History of Britain, p. 8. 21 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 209. 22 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 60. 23 Rüdig, ‘Between Moderation and Marginalization’, p. 228. 24 In his study The Global Environmental Movement (1989), McCormick identifies the influence of other social movements as one of six factors responsible for the strong emergence of the environmental movement in the 1960s. McCormick furthermore lists ‘the age of atomic testing, the book Silent Spring, [and] a series of well-publicized environmental disasters’ (McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 49) as major factors. The two other factors that McCormick gives, the effects of affluence in Britain and advances in scientific knowledge, undoubtedly also played an important role but are given less attention here due to their comparatively minor significance (cf. McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, pp. 49–50, 61). 25 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, pp. 61–62. 26 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 64. 27 Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, ‘Meet Gaylord Nelson’. 28 E.g. the Federal Water Pollution Control Amendments (1972), the Clean Air Act (amended in 1970), and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (revised in 1972). 29 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 222. 30 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 104. 31 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 239. 32 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 80. 33 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 70. 34 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 71. 5 3 Bramwell, Ecolog y in the 20th Century, p. 217. 36 ‘Ecologist Barry Commoner’. 37 Bramwell, Ecolog y in the 20th Century, p. 211. 38 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 77. 39 Block in: Veldman, Fantasy, p. 236. 188 Notes to pages 110–114
40 Rüdig, ‘Between Moderation and Marginalization’, p. 232. 41 O’Riordan, Environmentalism, p. 52. 42 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 78. 43 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 231. 44 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 232. 45 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 206. 46 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 79. 47 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 290. 48 Cf. Veldman, Fantasy, p. 222. 49 Veldman, Fantasy, p. 300. 50 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 65. 51 Murphy, ‘Environmentalism’, p. 377. 52 Stableford, ‘Science Fiction and Ecology’, p. 137. For instance, Christopher’s own The Death of Grass (1956), Sidney Fowler Wright’s The Deluge (1929), or J. J. Connington’s Nordenholt’s Million (1923). There are a few stories, though, that deal with environmental catastrophe seriously, for example J. D. Beresford’s ‘The Man Who Hated Flies’ (1929). It tells the story of an extremely effective insecticide which actually kills not only unwelcome bugs but also those insects that pollinate crops, causing major harvest losses. Yet the extent of the catastrophe appears far from apocalyptic. 53 Booker and Thomas, Science Fiction Handbook, p. 60. 54 It has to be noted that The Drowned World is often regarded as one of Ballard’s disaster/ apocalyptic novels (cf. Firsching, ‘Ballard’s Ambiguous Apocalypse’; Franklin, ‘Ballard’s Apocalypse’). This is why it is mentioned here. However, it is, strictly speaking, a post- apocalyptic novel. The novel only begins at the stage of ‘order restored’, after the Earth has already drowned and humankind has successfully adapted to the new condition of post- apocalyptic world submerged under water. 55 For an overview and discussion of British New Wave science fiction writing, cf. Landon, Science Fiction after 1900, pp. 149–158; Luckhurst, Science Fiction, pp. 143–160; Roberts, History of Science Fiction, pp. 230–263. 56 Luckhurst, Science Fiction, p. 142. Ballard himself established this term for New Wave science fiction in his essay ‘Which Way to Inner Space?’ which was published in the SF magazine New Worlds in May 1962. 57 Franklin, ‘Ballard’s Apocalypse’, p. 87. 58 Still, The Drought remains an exceptional instance of British eco-doom apocalyptic fiction. It was written long before environmental anxiety reached its height at the turn of the decade which reinforces the notion that Ballard’s fiction was written rather independently of mainstream trends. Furthermore, the novel’s ending appears quite implausible from a scientific point of view. It is rather based on the logics of psychological New Wave writing. 59 Stableford, ‘Science Fiction and Ecology’, p. 139. 60 Booker and Thomas, Science Fiction Handbook, p. 60. 61 Linnér, The Return of Malthus, p. 155. 62 The most famous of these is Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room! (1966). 63 Booker and Thomas, Science Fiction Handbook, p. 60. 64 Broderick, ‘New Wave and Backwash’, p. 55. 65 Luckhurst, Science Fiction, p. 168. 66 Jones, Don’t Pick the Flowers, p. 75. 67 Jones, Don’t Pick the Flowers, p. 221. Notes to pages 114–121 189
68 McCormick, Global Environment Movement, p. 64. 69 Mason, The Phaeton Condition, p. 32. 70 Mason, The Phaeton Condition, p. 20. 71 Ballard, The Drought, p. 34. 72 Ballard, The Drought, p. 188. 73 Pedler and Davis, Mutant 59, p. 51. 74 Pedler and Davis, Mutant 59, p. 189. 75 Pedler and Davis, Mutant 59, p. 25. 76 Mason, The Phaeton Condition, p. 188. 77 Stern, ‘From Technique to Critique’, p. 113. 78 Goldman, ‘John Brunner’s Dystopias’, pp. 268, 270. 79 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 461. 80 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 17 (italics in the novel). 81 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 233. 82 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 355. 83 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 30. 84 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 30. 85 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 17 (italics in the novel). 86 Browne, ‘Government and Politics’, p. 131. 87 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 71. 88 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 16 (italics in the novel). 89 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 95. 90 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 116. 91 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 166. This alludes to the tanker disasters in the 1960. 92 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 180. 93 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 9. 94 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 7. 95 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 227. 96 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 320. 97 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, pp. 356–357. 98 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 435. 99 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 33. 100 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 31. 101 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 31. 102 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 456. The Sheep Look Up also makes use of Malthusian ideas in another passage. Dr Doe explains in an interview with Petronella that ‘only a major catastrophe which cuts back both our population and our ability to interfere with the natural biocycle would offer a chance of survival.’ (Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 337) The implicit reference to Malthus is not surprising considering the popularity of Malthus’ theory at the time, also due to the success of Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb. 103 U. S. Department of Commerce, ‘1970 Census of Population’, p. 3. 104 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 140. 105 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 300. 106 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 57. 107 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 233. 108 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, pp. 221–222. 109 Rasulis, ‘Future of Empire’, p. 113. 190 Notes to pages 121–125
110 Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, p. 307. 111 Rasulis, ‘Future of Empire’, p. 114. 112 Rasulis, ‘Future of Empire’, p. 113. 113 Even though Goldman states otherwise (cf. Goldman, ‘John Brunner’s Dystopias’, p. 268), there is no evidence that Train becoming a martyr is the event that triggers the American civil war. The riots only break out when Dr Grey announces that the death of the American population could save humanity.
Chapter 6: Fears in transition
1 Moore and Vaudagna, Introduction to American Century, p. 3. 2 Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, p. 407. 3 Briggs, ‘The 1990s’, p. 204. 4 In later justifications of his thesis, Fukuyama himself denied such an interpretation (see Fukuyama, ‘Reflections’, p. 240). 5 Bertram and Chitty, Introduction to Has History Ended?, p. 2. 6 Cumings, ‘Time of Illusion’, p. 88. 7 Burke, ‘History Man’. 8 ‘Age of Anxiety’, p. 18. 9 ‘Age of Anxiety’, p. 18. 10 Burns, Introduction to After History?, p. ix. 11 Cf. Weart, Discovery of Global Warming, p. 189; McCormick, Global Environment Movement, p. 200. 12 Vines, ‘Our Sperm Are Missing’, p. 23. 13 Rüdig, ‘Between Moderation and Marginalization’, p. 231. 14 Cf. Farman, Gardiner, and Shanklin, ‘Large Losses of Total Ozone’. 15 McCormick, Global Environment Movemental, p. 188. 16 Weart, Discovery of Global Warming, p. 153. 17 McCormick, Global Environment Movemental, p. 190. 18 Initially, the public and scientific debate on global warming focused most strongly on carbon
dioxide which was thought to be ‘synonymous with “increasing CO2”’ (Weart, Discovery of Global Warming, p. 128). The emission of other greenhouse gases was included later as part of the problem. 19 McCormick, Global Environmental Movement, p. 187. 20 Fisher, ‘Global Warming’, p. 51. 21 Fisher, ‘Global Warming’, p. 55. 22 Braasch, Earth Under Fire, p. 129. 23 Fisher, ‘Global Warming’, p. 55. 24 Fairbridge, ‘Meeting Report’, p. 700. 25 Fisher, ‘Global Warming’, p. 53. 26 Schneider, ‘Greenhouse Effect’, p. 771. 27 ‘The Greenhouse Effect: Danger: More Hot Summers Ahead’, Newsweek, 11 July 1988; ‘The Big Dry’, Time, 4 July 1988. 28 Weart, Discovery of Global Warming, p. 165. 29 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ‘Climate Change 1995’, p. 22. Notes to pages 125–132 191
30 Weart, Discovery of Global Warming, p. 173. 31 Cf. Alvarez et al., ‘Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction’. 32 Verschuur, Impact!, p. 116. 33 Briggs and Snowman, Introduction to Fins de Siècle, p. 1. 34 Doomsday Science: New Theories about Comets, Asteroids and How the World Might End’, Newsweek, 23 November 1992. 35 Verschuur, Impact!, p. 118. 36 Verschuur, Impact!, p. vi. 37 Klenk and Feldman, Preface to Ebola and Marburg Viruses, p. ix. 38 Klenk and Feldman, Preface to Ebola and Marburg Viruses, p. ix. 39 See Dobson, Seuchen, die die Welt veränderten, p. 189. 40 Klenk and Feldman, Preface to Ebola and Marburg Viruses, p. ix. 41 See Weinreich and Benn, HIV und Aids, p. 169. 42 The apocalyptic aspect is additionally strengthened by the fact that the cartoon shows Civilization as portrayed by the English King Richard II and features a quotation from Shakespeare’s play Richard II. In Shakespeare’s Richard II (c. 1595), the misrule and death of Richard II prepares the ground for the War of the Roses (1455–1485), a period of instability with regard to the English throne. Therefore, AIDS, as sitting on the shoulders of Richard II, is shown to be a long-term threat to England’s or Britain’s stability in the present. The accompanying quotation emphasizes the fact that, despite the advanced ‘state’ and ‘pomp’ of mankind at the end of the 20th century, it would be fatal for it to ignore AIDS. 43 ‘The End of the World !?!’. 44 ‘Chris Wooding’. 45 Stableford, Year Zero, pp. 61–62. 46 Elton, This Other Eden, p. 35. 47 Jones, ‘Kairos’, pp. 178–179. 48 In fact, as early as 1983, The Last Gasp by Trevor Hoyle anticipates the resurgence of environmental themes in apocalyptic fiction after its initial peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 49 Elton, Stark, p. 162. 50 Elton, Stark, p. 340. 51 Elton, This Other Eden, p. 405. 52 Elton, This Other Eden, p. 447. 53 Elton, This Other Eden, p. 470. 54 The Hammer of God is actually a longer version of Clarke’s short story of the same name. The short story appeared in ‘Beyond the Year 2000’, a special issue of TIME magazine in October 1992. 55 Clarke, The Hammer of God, p. 185. 56 Clarke, The Hammer of God, p. 212. 57 Therefore, it cannot be read as a piece of ecological apocalyptic fiction. Gail Vines’ article ‘End of Man? The Threat to Sperm’, which suggests that The Children of Men was inspired by the public discussion over plummeting sperm numbers because of industrial pollution, seems inaccurate in this respect. 58 Simon Clark, Blood Craz y (1995), James Herbert, ’48 (1996), Stephen Baxter, Moonseed (1998), Stel Pavlou, Decipher (2001). 59 Clute, ‘Fantasy’, p. 338. 60 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 221. 192 Notes to pages 132–136
61 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 59. 62 This appears to be a humorous reference to the film The Omen (1976) in which a baby becomes the host for the devil. 63 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 111. 64 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 98. 65 For a more comprehensive overview of the apocalyptic threats apart from those mentioned, see particularly pages 92–93, 137–138 and 218. 66 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 175. 67 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 84. 68 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 62. 69 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 49. 70 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 107. 71 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 37 (emphasis in the novel). 72 For example, cf. Rojansky, ‘Existence of Contraterrene’. 73 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 266. 74 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 282. 75 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 282. 76 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, pp. 267, 274, 275, 282. 77 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 260. 78 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 273. 79 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 263. 80 This is particularly true for American films from the 1950s and 1960s. If one considers the portrayal of Karen Goodwin as Janette Scott in The Day of the Triffids (1962), a similar conclusion is possible for British apocalyptic film. 81 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 277. 82 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 263. 83 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 135 (italics in the novel). 84 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 273. 85 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 274. 86 Actually, many apocalyptic novels refer to precursors of the genre. To name just a few examples, The Fittest refers to The War of the Worlds (McIntosh, The Fittest, p. 135), Don’t Pick the Flowers references Shute’s On the Beach (Jones, Don’t Pick the Flowers, p. 144), Flood cites Things to Come (Baxter, Flood, p. 431). However, in contrast to Earthdoom!, these novels merely mention one or, at most, two former examples. 87 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 251. 88 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 209 (upper-case letters in the novel). 89 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 230. 90 Langford and Grant, Earthdoom!, p. 215.
Chapter 7: Apocalypse after 9/11
1 Kean and Hamilton, 9/11 Commission Report, p. 316; Hewitt, British War on Terror, p. 30. 2 Dixon, ‘Introduction’, p. 9. 3 Bauer, ‘Terrorism’, p. 427. 4 Dixon, ‘Introduction’, pp. 3–4. Notes to pages 136–139 193
5 Maley, Afghanistan Wars, p. 230. 6 Oliver, ‘War on Taliban’. 7 For a more detailed evaluation of the war in Afghanistan, cf. Baker, War in Afghanistan, pp. 214–238; Maley, Afghanistan Wars, pp. 230–274. 8 Bauer, ‘Terrorism’, p. 431. 9 Murray and Scales, Iraq War, p. 130. 10 Kampfner, Bla ir’s War, p. 258. 11 Bauer, ‘Terrorism’, p. 432. 12 For a more detailed evaluation of the war in Iraq, cf. Bierling, Geschichte des Irakkriegs, pp. 131–180; Murray and Scales, Iraq War, p. 234–258. 13 Hewitt, British War on Terror, p. 1. 14 Lieberman and Bucht, ‘Rail Transport Security’, p. 190. 15 Bauer, ‘Terrorism’, p. 431; Hewitt, British War on Terror, p. 50. 16 Hewitt, British War on Terror, p. 98. 17 Jacobsen and Khan, ‘After the London Bombings’, p. 4515. 18 Jacobsen and Khan, ‘After the London Bombings’, p. 4515. 19 In September and October 2001, two US senators as well as several American news media agencies each received a letter that contained an Islamist anti-American note and the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Consequently, 22 people contracted the bacterial disease anthrax, five of whom subsequently died (Johnston, ‘Fall 2001 Anthrax Bioattacks’, p. 1). 20 Abraham, Twenty-First Century Plague, p. 2. 21 Smallman-Raynor and Cliff, War Epidemics, p. 706. 22 Muntean, ‘Viral Terrorism and Terrifying Viruses’, p. 199. 23 World Health Organization, ‘Speech of Dr Brundtland’. 24 Abraham, Twenty-First Century Plague, pp. 1–2. 25 World Health Organization, ‘Summary Table of SARS’. 26 Abraham, Twenty-First Century Plague, p. 14. 27 Abraham, Twenty-First Century Plague, p. 120. 28 Kleinman et al., ‘Avian and Pandemic Influenza’, p. S2. 29 Cf. Wald, Contagious, p. 5. 30 Abraham, Twenty-First Century Plague, p. 13. 31 Cf. Nerlich, ‘Post-Antibiotic Apocalypse’, p. 579. 32 Nerlich, ‘Post-Antibiotic Apocalypse’, p. 579. 33 Abraham, Twenty-First Century Plague, p. 2. 34 Turkington and Ashby, Encyclopedia of Infectious Diseases, p. 275. 35 The Writing Committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) Consultation on Human Influenza, ‘Avian Influenza A’, p. 1375. 36 Wald, Contagious, p. 269. 37 World Health Organization, ‘WHO Checklist for Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Planning’, p. vii. 38 For example, cf. Lacey, ‘They Can’t Believe’; Steinglass, ‘Hell on Wings’; Watts, Review of Monster at Our Door, p. 1275. 39 Lacey, ‘They Can’t Believe’. 40 Greger, Bird Flu, p. 272. 41 Hewitt, British War on Terror, p. 49. 42 World Health Organization, Cumulative Number. 43 The genetic composition of the virus most closely resembled influenza viruses in pigs. 194 Notes to pages 139–144
Hence it was initially given the name swine influenza, swine flu or pig flu. It only later turned out that the new virus could just be transmitted by humans and not pigs. 44 World Health Organization, ‘What is the Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Virus?’. 45 Hilton and Hunt, ‘UK Newspapers’ Representation’, p. 941. 46 Cf. World Health Organization, ‘Influenza A(H1N1)’. 47 McLean et al., ‘Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Influenza’, p. 1531. 48 Bowcott and Batty, ‘Swine Flu’. 49 In: Hilton and Hunt, ‘UK Newspapers’ Representation’, p. 943. 50 World Health Organization, Report of the Review Committee; White, ‘Government is in Talks’, p. c170. 51 The WHO states that the average number of victims from influenza infection amounts to a minimum of 250,000 to 500,000 fatalities per year (World Health Organization, ‘Influenza (Seasonal)’. 52 Mayer‚‘Viral Discourse’, p. 8. 53 Abraham, Twenty-First Century Plague, p. 14. 54 Nerlich, ‘Post-Antibiotic Apocalypse’, p. 579. 55 Bolin, Science and Politics, pp. 200–201. 56 Archer and Rahmstorf, Climate Crisis, p. 4. 57 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007, p. 13. 58 Boykoff, ‘Cultural Politics’, p. 561. 59 See Boykoff, ‘Cultural Politics’, p. 561. 60 Cf. Swyngedouw, ‘Apocalypse Forever?’, p. 218. Other similarly minded articles appeared in The Mirror or The Observer (Cf. Boykoff, ‘Cultural Politics’, p. 561; Swyngedouw, ‘Apocalypse Forever?’, p. 218). 61 Hulme, ‘Conquering of Climate’, p. 12. 62 Hulme, ‘Conquering of Climate’, p. 11. 63 ‘Box Office Mojo:The Day After Tomorrow’. 64 Bolin, Science and Politics, p. 212. 65 Bolin, Science and Politics, p. 212. 66 An Inconvenient Truth took 24 million US dollars in the US, making it one of the highest grossing documentaries of all time (‘Box Office Mojo: An Inconvenient Truth’), and earned a similar amount outside the US, indicating that its success and impact was international. 67 Boykoff, ‘Cultural Politics’, p. 554. 68 Boykoff, ‘Cultural Politics’, pp. 553–554. 69 Cf. Populus, ‘BBC Climate Change Poll’; Guardian, ‘Public Attitudes on Climate Change’. 70 Bolin, Science and Politics, p. 210. 71 Behringer, Kulturgeschichte des Klimas, p. 14. 72 Hulme, ‘Conquering of Climate’, p. 11. 73 Behringer, Kulturgeschichte des Klimas, p. 255. 74 Hulme, ‘Conquering of Climate’, p. 11. 75 Bacon and Dickman, ‘Aesthetics and Politics of Representation’, p. 149. 76 Rowin, ‘Children of Men’, p. 61. 77 Cuarón, Children of Men, 0:05:07, 0:04:59. 78 Power, ‘Invasion of the Brit-Snatchers’, p. 150. 79 Bennett, ‘Children of Men’, p. 8. 80 See Roberts, The Snow, p. 165; Beaton, A Planet for the President, p. 184; Hammond, Extinction, p. 171; Bartlett and Gates, The Zombie Diaries, 0:37:11; Scarrow, Last Light, p. 59. Notes to pages 145–150 195
81 Bishop, ‘Dead Man Still Walking’, p. 15. 82 Bishop, ‘Dead Man Still Walking’, p. 11. 83 Dendle, ‘Zombie as Barometers’, p. 45. 84 E.g. The Living Dead (2008), The Living Dead 2 (2010), The New Dead: A Zombie Antholog y (2010). 85 Bishop, ‘Dead Man Still Walking’, pp. 23–24. 86 Bishop, ‘Dead Man Still Walking’, p. 14. 87 The remake of the zombie classic Dawn of the Dead (2004), the new adaptation of I am Legend (2007) and the Resident Evil series (2002–2012) are most notable in this respect. For a first overview over zombie films in the 2000s, cf. Bétan and Colson, Zombies!, pp. 269–329. Despite its recent year of publication, though, Zombies! already seems outdated as it cannot keep pace with the new releases in the genre. 88 Bishop, ‘Dead Man Still Walking’, pp. 20–21. It is debatable whether 28 Days Later in fact constitutes a zombie movie ‘as Boyle introduced faster, more feral zombie creatures, and he kept the monsters alive rather than dead’ (Bishop, ‘Dead Man Still Walking’, p. 21). In its reception, however, critics see the film in the tradition of the zombie genre, for example, cf. Pierce, Review of 28 Days Later. 89 Wright, Shaun of the Dead, 1:29:01. 90 Hope, The Vanguard, 0:00:29. 91 Emson, Zombie Britannica, p. 429. 92 Emson, Zombie Britannica, p. 416 (italics in the novel). 93 Simmons, Flu, p. 34 (upper-case letters in the novel). 94 Simmons, Flu, p. 28. 95 Jones, Zombie Apocalypse, p. 161. 96 Bartlett and Gates, The Zombie Diaries, 0:05:24. 97 Jones, Zombie Apocalypse, p. 216. 98 Simmons, Flu, p. 80. 99 BBC, Survivors: Series One, ep. 1: 0:27:44. 100 Warren, ‘On Location’. 101 BBC, Survivors Series Two, ep. 1: 0:25:32. 102 BBC, Survivors Series Two, ep. 6: 0:50:55. 103 Beaton, A Planet for the President, p. 12. 104 Another echo of the ending of The Sheep Look Up. 105 Beaton, A Planet for the President, p. 349. 106 Beaton, A Planet for the President, p. 354. 107 Hammond, Extinction, p. 7. 108 Hammond, Extinction, p. 14. 109 Hammond, Extinction, p. 79. 110 The novel Guardians of the Phoenix (2010) by Eric Brown is an extended version of his short story. Both novel and short story share the same scenario of a world devastated by war and global warming. 111 Brown, ‘Guardians of the Phoenix’, p. 370. 112 Brown, ‘Guardians of the Phoenix’, p. 380. 113 Brown, ‘Guardians of the Phoenix’, p 372. 114 Jensen, The Rapture, p. 228. 115 Jensen, The Rapture, p. 300. 116 Power, Prodigy, and BBC Wales, The Day of the Triffids, Ep. 1, 0:35:56. 196 Notes to pages 150–161
117 Roberts, The Snow, p. 305 (italics in the novel). 118 Gee, The Flood, p. 11. 119 Gee, The Flood, p. 335. 120 Morris, The Deluge, p. 2. 121 Morris, The Deluge, p. 27. 122 Botting, ‘Zombie London’, p. 157. 123 Other examples include A Planet for the President (2004) and The Snow (2004). 124 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:11:24 (upper-case letters in the film). 125 Clover, ‘Solid Melts into War’, p. 7. 126 Botting, ‘Zombie London’, p. 163. 127 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:16:33. 128 Botting, ‘Zombie London’, p. 161. 129 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:56:56. 130 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:19:03. 131 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:16:58. 132 See Alber, Narrating the Prison, p. 233. 133 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:36:10, 0:36:16. 134 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 1:09:03. 135 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 1:14:04. 136 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:40:40. 137 Winston Churchill famously used the term special relationship in the Sinews of Peace Address to describe the political and military alliance between Britain and the US (cf. Churchill, ‘The Sinews of Peace’). 138 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:16:35. 139 Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, 0:52:40. 140 This is most apparent when Lily compares being confined to the ocean liner Ark Three as a result of the flood to her captivity in Barcelona (Baxter,Flood , pp. 368, 377). 141 Baxter, Flood, p. 206. 142 Baxter, Flood, p. 294. 143 Baxter, Flood, p. 208. 144 Actually, the cliffhanger ending of Flood suggests that there is another haven, Ark Two, which supports human life on Earth. But this is not relevant for the discussion here as the nature of Ark Two is only revealed in Baxter’s post-apocalyptic sequel Ark (2009). 145 Baxter, Flood, p. 60. 146 Baxter, Flood, p. 368. 147 Baxter, Flood, p. 60. 148 Baxter, Flood, p. 297. 149 Baxter, Flood, p. 142. 150 Baxter, Flood, p. 166. 151 Baxter, Flood, p. 54 (italics in the novel). 152 Baxter, Flood, p. 225. 153 Baxter, Flood, p. 302. 154 Baxter, Flood, p. 272. 155 Baxter, Flood, p. 247. 156 Houghton, ‘Global Warming’, p. 1346. 157 Baxter, Flood, p. 171. 158 Baxter, Flood, p. 259. Notes to pages 161–166 197
159 Baxter, Flood, p. 171. 160 Baxter, Flood, p. 466. 161 Baxter, Flood, p. 466 (italics in the novel). 162 See Baxter, Flood, p. 466. 163 In the novel’s afterword, Baxter offers references to the scientific background for the subterranean oceans and the fact that they could be unlocked in the future (Baxter, Flood, pp. 472–473).
Conclusion
1 Boyle himself stated that screenwriter Alex Garland drew on Wyndhams classic novel (Kermode, ‘Capital Place for Panic Attacks’). Indeed, Jim waking up alone in a hospital echoes the beginning of The Day of the Triffids, the figure of Major West resembles the character Torrence. 2 Admittedly, the film version does this to a lesser extent. For a discussion of these three texts and The Night of the Triffids, cf. chapter 4, section ‘Fear of communist invasion’. 3 Cf. chapter 5, section ‘Case study: The Sheep Look Up’. 4 Cf. chapter 2, section ‘Case study: The Violet Flame’. 5 Cf. chapter 3, section ‘Case study: Things to Come’. 6 Cf. chapter 3, section ‘Science and machinery’. 7 Cf. chapter 4, section ‘Case study: The Tide Went Out’. 8 Cf. chapter 4, sections ‘Fear of communist invasion’ and ‘Cold War propaganda’. 9 Cf. chapter 7, section ‘Case study: 28 Weeks Later’. To some extent, this reassessment already takes place in eco-doom apocalyptic fiction, cf. chapter 5, section ‘Case study: The Sheep Look Up’. 10 Cf. chapter 2, ‘Case study: The Violet Flame’. 11 Cf. chapter 3, ‘Case study: Things to Come’. 12 Cf. chapter 4, section ‘Ambivalence towards science’. 13 Cf. chapter 3, section ‘Savagery’ and chapter 4, section ‘Flawed human nature’. 14 Cf. chapter 2, section ‘Dangerous scientists’. 15 Cf. introduction, section ‘Literature review’. Works Cited
Apocalyptic and other fiction
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ADAM ROBERTS Royal Holloway, University of London Author of several acclaimed SF novels British Apocalyptic Fiction, 1895 Fiction, Apocalyptic British
A History of Fear British Apocalyptic Fiction, 1895 –2011
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MARTIN HERMANN Foreword by Adam Roberts