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The Dialectic of Myth: Creating Meaning in the Anthropocene

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The Dialectic of Myth: Creating Meaning in the Anthropocene THE DIALECTIC OF MYTH: CREATING MEANING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE Moira Marquis A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature in the College of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2020 Approved by: Priscilla Wald Matthew Taylor Pamela Cooper Aarthi Vadde Patrick O’Neill © 2020 Moira Marquis ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Moira Marquis: The Dialectic of Myth (Under the direction of Priscilla Wald and Matthew Taylor) This dissertation interrogates the ecological purposes behind representations of indigenous and traditional myths in contemporary Anglophone novels, specifically David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (2004), Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (2004-2014), Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon (2014), Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (2010) and Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (2006). These novels, I contend, use myths to argue that climate change is not an inevitable result of human nature but rather the product of one cultural story — what I call the Enlightenment myth — which asserts humanity’s need to dominate nature. Conversely, the Yorùbá, Waanyi Aboriginal, Celtic and new age science/spiritualist myths depicted in these novels understand humanity as incapable of mastering nature without dire consequences for both the world and ourselves. Challenging the longstanding—and frequently racist— dichotomy between civilized science and irrelevant or mystifying folk belief, my project illustrates how myths are increasingly employed as a rhetorical tool to foster ideas of human interdependence with nature. My work challenges the definition of myth as “false supposition” and instead asserts myths are always cultural stories whose merit should not be measured through claims of objectivity but rather by the cultural practices they manifest. iii Ba mhaith liom an saothar seo a thoirbhirt do mo mháthair agus gach uile bhean i mo chlann. Níor tháinig an fhaill dóibh a mianta féin a bhaint amach. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without my co-director, Priscilla Wald who from the very beginning has believed in my project and pushed me to clarify and complicate my ideas. Nor would I have been able to complete this project without the help of my co-director Matthew Taylor's generosity of attention and spirit. My committee members Pamela Cooper, Aarthi Vadde and Patrick O’Neill have given me invaluable guidance and been integral in the ideas that form this work. I am indebted to Neel Ahuja, GerShun Avilez, Erick Downing, Walter Mignolo and Nancy Armstrong for their teaching and mentorship. I am also indebted to the support of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UNC Chapel Hill for their ongoing support of my research and to the Northeast Modern Language Association for their support of my research. This thanks would be incomplete without acknowledging the love and support of my family, Mac, Liam and Patrick, without which nothing else would be possible for me. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: SEEING THE ENLIGHTENMENT AS MYTH ................................... 1 CHAPTER I: NATURE AS FATE .................................................................................... 43 CHAPTER II: REIMAGINING ADAM ........................................................................... 75 CHAPTER III: THE DREAMERAND THE DREAM ...................................................... 105 CHAPTER IV: THE ALIEN WITHIN ............................................................................ 138 CHAPTER V: THE FAIRY FAITH ................................................................................ 170 vi Introduction Seeing the Enlightenment as Myth Just as myths already entail enlightenment, with every step enlightenment entangles itself more deeply in mythology--Dialectic of the Enlightenment We’re living in a time of ecological collapse.1 This issue shadows every other social issue we could possibly encounter because it threatens our very ability to survive. Responses to climate change and the sixth extinction elicit many responses—grief, fear, denial—but so far, no ideas for ecological social change have been widely embraced as politically viable.2 Instead, many assume only the worst outcomes are possible: massive loss of human and non-human life.3 Some even try to turn extinction into a positive, going so far as to assert the earth will be better off without humans, when it eventually recovers.4 I am not resigned to this. I am also not convinced by ideas of a violent, ecological revolution that will overthrow the current order. 1 IPCC, 2019: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, M. Tignor, E. PoloczansKa, K. MintenbecK, A. Alegría, M. Nicolai, A. Okem, J. Petzold, B. Rama, N.M. Weyer (eds.)]. In press. 2 Elaine KamarcK, “The Challenging Politics of Climate Change.” Brookings, 23 Sept. 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-challenging-politics-of-climate-change/. 3 For example, Donna Haraway, ends her work Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016) with a fable that begins in a world where ecological destruction has resulted in a massive human population crash, which the narrative implies is regrettable but necessary in order to re-establish ecological balance. 4 See Alan Weisman’s book, The World Without Us, Picador, 2008 as a very popular example. 1 History tells us that although revolutions make big promises, they don’t deliver.5 Instead, what is needed is a non-violent, widely appealing solution that can facilitate the kind of fundamental and systematic change the world is demanding from humans. I am interested in such a solution because I am invested in the continuing survival of human life and reject the idea that human life is by definition ecocidal.6 The contemporary novels I read in this dissertation are similarly interested in systematic and ecological social change. Nnedi Okorafor, Alexis Wright, and Margaret Atwood have publicly stated their investment in finding a solution to climate change and the sixth extinction.7 Interestingly, all of them also use indigenous and traditional myths in their novels in order to begin to theorize what this solution might look like. I argue this rhetorical strategy illustrates the 5 See Stephanie Black’s film Life and Debt (2001) for the failure of Jamaica’s revolution and The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) on the failures of the Irish revolution as examples and Bailey Stone’s The Anatomy of Revolution Revisited: A comparative Analysis of England, France and Russia, Cambridge University Press, 2013 for more general analysis. 6 Many studies illustrate how human communities can actually foster ecological wellbeing, not create ecological destruction. See Richard Schuster, et al. “Vertebrate Biodiversity on Indigenous-Managed Lands in Australia, Brazil, and Canada Equals That in Protected Areas.” Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 101, Nov. 2019, pp. 1–6. ScienceDirect, doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2019.07.002, Victor M. Toledo, “Indigenous Peoples and Biodiversity.” Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, edited by Simon Levin, Academic Press, 2013, George Holmes, et al. “Fantastic Beasts and Why to Conserve Them: Animals, Magic and Biodiversity Conservation.” Oryx, vol. 52, no. 2, Apr. 2018, pp. 231–39, doi:10.1017/S003060531700059X and Claudia Sobrevila, The Role of Indigenous Peoples in Biodiversity Conservation : The Natural but Often Forgotten Partners. 44300, The World BanK, 1 May 2008, pp. 1– 102. documents.worldbank.org, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/995271468177530126/The- role-of-indigenous-peoples-in-biodiversity-conservation-the-natural-but-often-forgotten-partners. 7 See Ed Finn, “Margaret Atwood: It’s Not Climate Change. It’s Everything Change.” Slate Magazine, Feb. 2015, https://slate.com/technology/2015/02/margaret-atwood-interview-the-author-speaKs-on-hope- science-and-the-future.html, Abraham Riesman, “Author Nnedi OKorafor Talks LaGuardia, WaKanda, and … Garfield?” Vulture, Jan. 2019, https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/nnedi-okorafor-talks-laguardia- waKanda-and-garfield.html, and Alexis Wright, “We All Smell the SmoKe, We All Feel the Heat. This Environmental Catastrophe Is Global | Alexis Wright.” The Guardian, 17 May 2019. www.theguardian.com, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/we-all-smell-the-smoKe- we-all-feel-the-heat-this-environmental-catastrophe-is-global. 2 central role of narrative in creating and maintaining human social worlds.8 Narratives can either sanction the current social order, critique it or suggest a new social order. Underlying every story are beliefs about who people are, why we act the way we do and how human life fits into the world around us. These beliefs not only give shape to narratives but also work to construct our social worlds so that people can interact with each other with reliable results. As newness is encountered, either through changing environments or through new social conditions, narratives shift to sanction or condemn those conditions, either serving to perpetuate them or offer alternatives. I argue narrative’s powerful role in shaping how we live has not been considered enough in environmental discourse and that peaceful and ecological social change can happen quickly if the power of narrative to shape our social worlds is leveraged. The traditional and indigenous myths used in these
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