From Holocene to Anthropocene and Back Again: a Deep Ecological Critique of Three Apocalyptic Eco-Narratives in the Long Nineteenth Century

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FROM HOLOCENE TO ANTHROPOCENE AND BACK AGAIN: A DEEP ECOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF THREE APOCALYPTIC ECO-NARRATIVES IN THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY

TAYLOR PATTERSON LOVELLE B.A., Arcadia University, 2013

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts Department of English 2018

This thesis entitled: From Holocene to Anthropocene and Back Again: A Deep Ecological Critique of Three Apocalyptic Eco-Narratives in the Long Nineteenth Century written by Taylor Patterson Lovelle has been approved for the Department of English

Sue Zemka (Chair)

Laura Winkiel

Jason Gladstone

Date

The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline.

Lovelle, Taylor (M.A., English)

From Holocene to Anthropocene and Back Again: A Deep Ecological Critique of Three

Apocalyptic Eco-Narratives in the Long Nineteenth Century

Thesis directed by Dr. Sue Zemka

This thesis utilizes concepts of the ecocritical theory of deep ecology to elucidate non- anthropocentricism and nature’s agency as depicted by three apocalyptic eco-narratives written in the long nineteenth century: Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826), Richard Jefferies’ After London

(1885), and M. P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud (1901). I offer readings of these texts as

“Anthropocenic” science fiction novels, building upon Paul J. Crutzen’s work on the

Anthropocene, our current geological epoch. Utilizing literary, historic, and scientific rationale, I make an argument for the reframing of literary periods according to geological transformations due to human interaction with the environment and collectively term apocalyptic eco-narratives written at the time of the Industrial Revolution through today as “Anthropocenic.” In my analysis,

I demonstrate how Shelley’s, Jefferies’, and Shiel’s science fiction works exaggerate environmental concerns contemporary to their respective historical moments, and I offer deep ecological interpretations of their perceptions of industrialism and pollution, specifically in and around London. I also expound upon the way in which all three novels depict nature as an active, nonhuman character with agency and intention, either inducing an ecological apocalypse to protect itself or, as in Shiel’s novel, to punish humanity for ecological crimes. My “deepist” approach attempts non-anthropocentricism whenever possible and allows a progressive, nontraditional critique of these texts primarily from nature’s perspective—not humanity’s. Particularly, this thesis is interested in how nature retakes and re-greens spaces that are polluted by human activity or

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abused in the interest of human consumption. Demonstrating the way in which perceptions of nature’s agency evolved through the long nineteenth century and providing historical context for

Great Britain’s ecological condition, I position that these three Anthropocenic texts ultimately blame London’s industrialism for ecological devastation in and around the city and conflate natural phenomena, like volcanoes, with industrialist pollution in fictional explorations of nature’s agency and potential ability to retaliate against humanity for irresponsible environmental practices. In the last chapter, I analyze the way in which Biblical allusion is used in The Purple Cloud to both sensationalize and rationalize punishment for anthropogenic climate change as an ecological sin according to the Book of Genesis.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis would not have been possible without the enthusiasm of my advisor and mentor,

Dr. Sue Zemka. I appreciate not only her immense knowledge and scholarly wisdom, but also her willingness to guide me on my first, lengthy, scholarly endeavor. I am also grateful to Dr. Kelly

Hurley for recommending Richard Jefferies’ After London to me, as well as my good friends and cohort members, Emma Butler-Probst and Angela Gattuso, the former of whom introduced me to

M. P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud and both of whom provided advice, friendship, and much-needed coffee dates.

I am dedicating this thesis to my family because, in the words of my grandmother, who was the most brilliant person I have ever met, “Family is everything; if you don’t have family, you have nothing.” Grammom valued my academic pursuits and constantly reminded me that God’s plan for my life involves writing because it’s what makes me happiest. My husband Josh has been a sounding board for this thesis from the start, not only tolerating the interspersion of date-night conversation with discussion about non-anthropocentricism and killer smog, but also volunteering feedback and ideas that encouraged me to think outside of the box. I’m also inspired by my parents’ unconditional love for me and by their encouragement in telling me to do what I was born to do.

The Lord of the Rings references in this thesis are for my four hilarious and kind siblings; they keep smiling and secure in the world. And, last but not least, I’m blessed to have known and loved

Sammy, Sequoia, Gulliver, and many other furry/feathery/scaly nonhumans, all of whom taught me—before I even picked up a book in this master’s program—everything I need to know about deep ecology and the intrinsic value of nonhumans not just in our lives but throughout God’s creation.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: “Apocalyptic Eco-Narratives”: Genre, Context, Theory 1

CHAPTER ONE: Inhabiting “A Cloud-Enshadowed Land”: Deep Ecology in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man 16

CHAPTER TWO: “Green Everywhere”: Non-Anthropocentricism and Nature’s Agency in Richard Jefferies’ After London 32

CHAPTER THREE: “The Conflagration of The World”: Anthropogenic Apocalypse and Biblical Allusion in M. P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud 51

CONCLUSION: “Trees Talk”: How to Understand Nature in the Anthropocene 73

BIBLIOGRAPHY 77

INTRODUCTION

“APOCALYPTIC ECO-NARRATIVES”: CONTEXT, GENRE, THEORY

For as long as the written word has been used to communicate human experience, nature has played an essential role in an ongoingly conflicting narrative of harmony and strife. As it arises in lyric poetry of the Romantic era, for example, writers, like Blake, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, enjoyed the feeling of personal fulfillment and spiritual enrichment that being immersed in a natural setting brought. A similar sense of fulfillment and enrichment carried into the Victorian era, but writers of this period seemed to sense a change in the way nature wanted to be perceived by humanity, as my thesis demonstrates. But, as was the case centuries ago and is the case now, humanity’s obsession with the natural world has, for the most part, been strictly anthropocentric: we project our emotions, desires, and expectations onto nature, expecting it to reflect our human condition in a way that helps us better understand ourselves and our place in the world.

Today, anthropocentric views of nature remain quite polarized. Even when viewed in a positive light—for its beauty, vitality, and open spaces—nature frequently continues to be understood as a reflection of human emotions and experiences. When viewed in a more negative sense, as something dangerous or in opposition to humanity, then attempts are made to control nature or harness its powers for human consumption and use. Both positions, whether positive or negative, purport a misunderstanding of the natural world, deny nature’s agency, and perpetuate the perception that humans are not part of the biosphere but separate from it, existing on another plane or dimension, the antithesis to the nonhuman world. But the idea that we humans are somehow isolated from the natural world—that there is no connection between humanity and

nature, the indoors and the outdoors—is not only false but dangerous for humans and nonhumans alike.

To illustrate, J. R. R. Tolkien’s mid-twentieth century trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, contains an excellent example of the potential consequences involved with humanity’s ignorance about nature’s agency. In the second book of Tolkien’s trilogy, The Two Towers (1954), one particular scene demonstrates a prevailing mode of thought that humans and nature oppose one another and, therefore, are separate from one another. Tolkien’s Ents—a slow-moving species of cognizant nonhumans—battle against Saruman’s industrialized Isengard, which has been divided from the surrounding Fangorn Forest by walls and towers—an enforcement of separateness and division between nature and humanity (or, in this case, heroic talking trees and their evil wizard and orc enemies). In this sense, the division between humans and nature is as much physical as it is philosophical. “ ‘Down with Saruman!’ ” the leader of the Ents, Treebeard, declares after lengthy deliberation with his fellow Ents. As guardians of the forest and its many nonhuman inhabitants,

Treebeard and his Ent friends desire to continue a peaceful, reclusive existence apart from the troubles of humanity and humankind.

Their reluctance to engage in battle against Saruman initially seems to perpetuate one way in which nature tends to be viewed anthropocentrically, as passive, especially to humanity’s various endeavors. Treebeard informs hobbits Merry and Pippin—in his characteristically unhurried speech—“‘We Ents do not like being roused; and we never are roused unless it is clear to us that our trees and our lives are in great danger’” (Tolkien 488). However, disgusted by

Saruman’s “treachery” and “wanton” cutting down of Fangorn forest, Treebeard discards passivity for activity and leads the Ents’ march on Isengard in protest of the destruction of Fangorn Forest’s natural spaces. Treebeard and his fellow Ents fight back, well-aware that they are possibly

marching to their “doom” (489). Yet, the Ents’ agency in protecting their forest lands is more than an offer of a fantastical escape into another world where nonhuman creatures fight for their survival against seemingly indomitable, evil forces; rather, the Ents’ inspiring display of agency asks readers to evaluate their perceptions of nature in the reality of their own experiences and answer the questions, Is nature cognizant of the abuses done to it by humanity? Can it fight back?

What happens when it does?

Though Tolkien’s masterpiece trilogy is considered epic fantasy, my thesis primarily explores three works of science fiction; yet, a similar theme remains between my chosen literary texts and the scene of the Ents’ retaliation: ecological turmoil caused by human destruction of natural spaces as an effect of industrialism. Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826), Richard

Jefferies’ After London (1885), and M. P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud (1901) were written in the late-Romantic and Victorian eras, and all three involve ecological apocalypses, or cataclysmic events caused by forces either of nature or of a deadly combination of nature and human pollution.

In The Last Man, the cause of the apocalypse is wholly natural, for example; wind and clouds spread a deadly plague throughout the world, a plague caused by a volcanic eruption, decreasing the human population to just one man. In After London, a flood destroys most of England and reduces the city of London to a deadly marsh, a scar on an otherwise recovering landscape, which exists as a cautionary tale regarding the deadliness of human filth. Finally, in The Purple Cloud, the title entity is a hybrid combination of volcanic ash and industrialist chemicals and kills all life indiscriminately, human and nonhuman. While After London involves a localized apocalypse and, for the most part, excludes mention of the rest of the world, The Last Man and The Purple Cloud present planet-wide apocalypses, aptly demonstrating the way in which science fiction exaggerates contemporary fears to epic proportions in a speculative future world of our own making.

Weik von Mossner defines the “environmental narrative” as inclusive of “any type of narrative in any media that foregrounds ecological issues and human-nature relationships, often but not always with the openly stated intention of bringing about social change”—a definition that includes Tolkien’s Ent-scene (3). Narratives help humans make sense of existence, and according to Mossner, research suggests that “the events we mentally simulate in response to a story can continue to impact our emotions, attitudes, and behaviors after we have finished engaging with it”

(7). Therefore, one effect that reading about a speculative, future world of ecological devastation can have upon readers is the experience of a healthy dose of self-reflection during reading and perhaps even a lifestyle change—conscious or not—after reading. Tolkien’s Ents, for example, dwell in the minds of readers long after closing The Two Towers because it paints a vivid picture of an imaginary world in which green spaces are under attack and offers compelling heroes—in this case, talking trees—as remedy for abuse of natural spaces. The Ents’ determination and willingness to sacrifice themselves to protect their homeland of Fangorn Forest evoke emotions that readers continue to feel—and even wrestle with as they reevaluate archaic perceptions of natural as passive. According to Mossner, following emotions are thoughts, and following thoughts are actions, which are necessary to ensure that the empathy eco-narratives attempt to teach us carries into the reality of how we think about and treat nature in our everyday lives.

Additionally, environmental narratives fluidly translate into other genres, like epic fantasy, but are especially welcome in science fiction, which “imagines possible alternate and future worlds that can be either dystopian or utopian” (138). The Oxford English Dictionary defines “dystopia” as “[a]n imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible” (OED, my emphasis). It is the opposite of “utopia,” meaning, “[a]n imagined or hypothetical place, system, or state of existence in which everything is perfect” (OED, my emphasis). Because my thesis takes

a distinctly non-anthropocentric approach in analyzing three Romantic- and Victorian-era texts, I demonstrate the way in which nature is represented in The Last Man, After London, and The Purple

Cloud as an active, nonhuman character with agency and intention to induce an ecological apocalypse of its own accord, rather than study depictions of apocalyptic events strictly as they affect humanity—though they undoubtedly do. In each futuristic, speculative scenario presented by these works, the human population is decimated, and the post-apocalyptic world appears bleakly dystopian in an anthropocentric sense. However, my study is non-anthropocentric, focusing instead on the experience of nature. Particularly, I am interested in how nature in these texts retakes and re-greens spaces polluted by industrialist human activity or abused in the interest of human consumption. In two of these texts, The Last Man and After London, nonhumans flourish in the post-apocalyptic worlds; thus, I call these “eco-utopian.” Though they demonstrate humanity’s downfall, they do not appear dystopian in a non-anthropocentric sense because they are not focused on human experience but on nature’s experience of rebirth, regrowth, and renewal.

Oppositely, The Purple Cloud is distinctly eco-dystopian because the apocalypse kills off nonhumans with humans, and, thus, the natural world suffers as much as the human.

When viewed non-anthropocentrically, the major concern of all three novels I’ve chosen to work with is the way in which nature fights back against human destruction of ecosystems. I argue that the prevalence of apocalyptic eco-narratives—not only in the texts I’ve chosen to analyze but also in several other works published in the nineteenth century, some of which I reference—proves that the environment had become a major concern for writers by the period of the nineteenth century that was most affected by the Industrial Revolution. Two factors contributed to rising concerns about humanity’s role in the rapidly changing environment, especially in and around London: natural phenomena and industrialism.

I want to note here that, throughout this thesis, I refer to “natural disasters” as “natural phenomena” because I believe this term removes an anthropocentric sense of blame from nature, especially when events like volcanoes and earthquakes are involved and assumed to be

“disastrous” for humans (and nonhumans). In her book Dancing with Disaster, Kate Rigby writes about the danger and unhelpfulness of using the term “natural disaster” because it places emphasis on nature, blaming “natural” causes for ecologically tumultuous events that are frequently influenced by anthropogenic—human-caused”—climate change (10). Rigby offers the term “eco- catastrophe” in place of “natural disaster,” but I find this terminology problematic, being a mere synonym to the term “natural disaster.” Instead, my use of the term “natural phenomenon” purports non-anthropocentricism by entirely removing humans from the language.

The second factor, the Industrial Revolution, is the primary concern of this thesis, though natural phenomena do play an important role in each novel discussed. In the late-nineteenth century, London was the world’s greatest metropolis of commerce. In Victorian Time:

Technologies, Standardizations, Catastrophes, Trish Ferguson writes, “The Victorian era witnessed the development of a radically altered spatial and temporal environment” in and around

London. Following the agricultural shift from small-scale to commercialized farming, the expansion of the city involved the takeover of natural land for industrial purposes, such as factories, a process that was aided by railways and faster means of transportation (2). The more the city expanded into the countryside, the less of the countryside there was, and the more writers and thinkers expressed their concerns about its disappearance. Atmospheric disturbances caused by Tambora in the Romantic era only amplified environmental concerns. While the explosion influenced the world’s atmosphere for years afterward, the worst of it only affected Great Britain in immediately noticeable ways from 1815 to 1817 (Boer and Sanders 153). However, the effects

of London’s new, humanmade climate of smog that began with the Industrial Revolution continued well into the mid-twentieth century.

The way in which humans have come to influence the natural world has recently become known—especially in geology, but also in literary criticism—as the “Anthropocene.” Paul J.

Crutzen demonstrates the long-lasting effects of the Industrial Revolution not only in the atmosphere but in polar ice caps in his groundbreaking work in which he first suggested the term

“Anthropocene” as a categorization of our current geological epoch (Crutzen, “Geology of

Mankind”). The Last Man, After London, and The Purple Cloud respond to a period roughly mapping onto Crutzen’s particularly convincing dating of this new epoch in geology, which he, alongside many prominent scientists, determines to have begun with the Industrial Revolution.1

Therefore, my ultimate rationale for choosing these three texts out of other science fiction works published at this time is due to their awareness of the creation of a new type of “nature”—a creation that combines human activity with the natural world to make an unsettling hybrid of disease and filth—or killer smog.

Crutzen is a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and shared the

Nobel Prize in 1995 with two other scientists for research conducted on the growth and disappearance of the ozone layer (Crutzen, “Anthropocene Man”). In May of 2000, he and E. F.

Stoermer wrote in the Global Change Newsletter, “It seems to us more than appropriate to emphasize the central role of mankind in geology and ecology by proposing to use the term

‘Anthropocene’ for the current geological epoch” (Crutzen and Stoermer 17). This was the first suggestion of a new terminology for a geological epoch proceeding the Holocene (Crutzen,

1 Crutzen’s dating of the Anthropocene is most convincing and helpful to my argument; however, other potential datings have been offered. In her article “Storytelling: From the Early Anthropocene to the Good or the Bad Anthropocene,” for example, Jan Kunnas argues for a multistage Anthropocene. See Works Cited for full reference. 7

“Geology of Mankind”). Two years later, in 2002, Crutzen further defined his concept of the

Anthropocene as having “started in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when analyses of air trapped in polar ice showed the beginning of growing global concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane” (Crutzen, “Geology of Mankind”). In 2011, he co-authored a paper with colleagues Will

Steffen, Jacques Grinevald, and John McNeill, providing an exact start date for the Anthropocene epoch: “[T]he year A.D. 1800 could reasonably be chosen as the beginning of the Anthropocene”

(Steffen, “Conceptual and Historical Perspectives” 843, 849).

Crutzen also notes that the steam engine proved especially fateful for the transition out of the Holocene epoch and into the Anthropocene (Crutzen, “The Geology of Mankind 23). Invented in 1712 by Thomas Newcomen, the first operational steam engine “used atmospheric pressure to do work” (Morris 42). Ironically, however, in the mid-nineteenth century, when the effects of human activity upon the environment were first noted by geologists, it was also discovered that the atmosphere had been “using” the machine all along (Steffen, “The Anthropocene: Are

Humans…” 615). The atmosphere absorbed chemicals that were emitted from London factories to create a new type of “environment,” particularly over London proper, that was neither humanmade nor natural but, instead, what Jesse Oak Taylor terms “abnatural,” or “away from” nature—being both natural and humanmade (J. Taylor 5). In After London, for example, a poisonous cloud forms over the marsh of old London, a combination of natural and humanmade causes; and, in The Purple

Cloud, the title entity is a hybrid harbinger of death, part nature and humanity.

To Crutzen and his co-authors, the Industrial Revolution changed human activity from primarily agricultural to manufacturing, which “set the species on a far different trajectory from the one established during most of the Holocene,” the former geological period in which humans depended only upon hunting, gathering, and small-scale farming for sustenance (Steffen 847).

While some geologists are hesitant to admit the earth has transitioned away from the Holocene epoch, others have argued for the necessity of recognizing the way in which humans have caused such widespread, global changes to the environment as to directly influence the earth’s climate, its land surface, oceans, and air, and ultimately geological stratigraphic material. With geologist colleagues, Crutzen argues, “Humankind, our own species, has become so large and active that it now rivals some of the great forces of Nature in its impact on the functioning of the Earth system”

(Steffen 843).

I find Crutzen’s work on the Anthropocene useful because it provides a scientific rational for reframing literary periods according to technological and ecological developments. A benefit of engaging with the geological concept of the Anthropocene is that it could map literary periods less arbitrarily and more practically, according to human interaction with the environment. Science and literature are intertwined in ways that literary history prevents scholars from seeing due to divisions of styles and prescribed canon, such as is the case in the terms “Romantic” and

“Victorian.” The former period is named for a trend in British culture, the latter for the period spanning Queen Victoria’s reign. However, opening literary analysis to scientific and geological concepts provides a fresh, interdisciplinary framework that allows for a broader appreciation of literature’s place in science and geology and a better understanding of our role in shaping—and being shaped by—our environment through time. Ultimately, reframing literary periods to reflect geological events encourages taking responsibility for our part in affecting and shaping our planet.

Defined as “[t]he era of geological time during which human activity is considered to be the dominant influence on the environment, climate, and ecology of the earth,” the Anthropocene can more simply be translated from its combined use of both Latin and Greek: “the age of humans”

(OED). Crutzen writes, “It seems appropriate to assign the term ‘Anthropocene’ to the present, in

many ways human-dominated, geological epoch, supplementing the Holocene” (Crutzen,

“Geology of Mankind”). Though the term “Anthropocene” is loaded with possible anthropocentric interpretations, the term encompasses our modern-day understanding of anthropogenic environmental changes and, in that sense, is non-anthropocentric because its primary concern is with nature’s experience in “the age of humans.” In whatever way one approaches it, humans are involved; therefore, it is a valid argument that anthropocentricity is inescapable in systems of geological dating. For example, I am well-aware aware that my natural tendency is toward anthropocentricism because I am a human being, who also happens to be reading works by human writers and who is writing for a human audience. However, to the best of my abilities, I attempt a non-anthropocentric perspective of these texts to bridge the gap of understanding between my own humanity and the nature world. With that said, I do not use the term “eco-centric” in my analysis because I do not believe a fully eco-centric perspective is possible. Aside from being used in my attempt to prioritize nature in my readings of The Last Man, After London, and The Purple Cloud, another reason for utilizing the term “non-anthropocentric,” rather than “eco-centric,” is to call attention to the word “Anthropocene” hidden inside of it. This recalls the irony in addressing non- anthropocentricism and the intrinsic value of nonhuman life in literary works positioned within a geological dating in an age primarily characterized by the geological impact of humans.

In keeping with my non-anthropocentric theme, I offer analyses of these apocalyptic eco- narratives using the radical ecocritical theory of deep ecology to elucidate their textual representations of humanity’s perceived place in the Anthropocene. I also expound upon deep ecology conceptions of non-anthropocentricity, as well as nature’s agency and intrinsic value.

“Deep ecology” is a term first coined by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess in the 1970s (Sessions

165). Though an academic philosopher himself, Naess describes deep ecology not as a philosophy

or ideology but, rather, a peaceful “movement” of direct political action (Naess, “The Deep

Ecological Movement” 199). In 1998 Naess claimed to be in the minority of academics using deep ecology not only as a political directive but also as a philosophy, but the movement has since picked up steam (204).

In his book Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century, ecocritic George Sessions demonstrates the way in which the “movement” has become implemented in academia as a theory through his description of “deep ecology movement theorists,” which positions the two descriptors side by side to create the sense that those who subscribe to this ecocritical theory are perhaps a little of both, members of a movement and theorists, in various combinations (Sessions 173, my emphasis). Deep ecology practices non-anthropocentricism by supporting the “intrinsic value” of the natural world apart from human influence and understanding (68). As a more radical ecocritical theory—one that prefers political action over philosophical inquiry—it essentially creates a framework for thinking about the nonhuman, natural world in terms of equality with humans and proposes a reevaluation in the way we treat our earth.

As my predominating theory for this project, deep ecology informs my analysis of After

London, The Last Man, and The Purple Cloud because it helpfully emphasizes the interconnectedness and inextricability of humans and nature as purported in various ways by these texts. Furthermore, it allows for a reading of nature that differs from the norm of these historic time periods. As is demonstrated in three chapters of this thesis, the works I’ve chosen to critique involve varying degrees of deep ecological theory, especially regarding nature’s agency and

(non-)anthropocentricism. The Last Man, After London, and The Purple Cloud show how nature cripples humanity so that it is no longer driven by industrial greed, resource acquisition, and heedlessly destructive expeditions into uncharted territory. Quite telling of how the issue of

nature’s agency and human anthropocentricism persists to this day, let alone in the Romantic and

Victorian eras, Microsoft Word tellingly underlines “cripples” in the previous sentence and suggests—in a helpful little dialog box—that I should use “cripple’s” as a possessive form. In other words, the writing application refuses to acknowledge that the noun “nature” can have active verbs—such as “cripples”—ascribed to it and thus possess agency or activeness. Apparently, Word knows very little about the ecocritical theory of deep ecology, though I’ve been using this application to write about it for over a year now. The result is not only recuperative for nature, which flourishes as it regains its damaged and lost spaces, but also permits a new start for humanity in a purer, more natural world than they’d lived in before.

Each of the proceeding chapters focuses on deep ecological concepts, but the degree to which deep ecology is applicable in each text varies. For this reason, I have chosen to analyze The

Last Man, After London, and The Purple Cloud in chronological order of publication to demonstrate the progression in thinking about nature over time. For example, in The Last Man, longstanding ideas about the separateness of nature from humanity remain present in the narrative, but protagonist Lionel Verney thinks about nature as a “deepist,” a progressive stance for a character written into existence in the early part of the nineteenth century. In After London, industrialism in London had been well underway for nearly a century, so the text demonstrates a stronger sense of nature’s agency than The Last Man does and offers a non-anthropocentric perspective that varies from almost all other eco-narratives written at the time. Lastly, The Purple

Cloud presents an apocalypse of natural and humanmade causes that destroys all living beings, humans and nonhumans, thus showing that, at the start of the twentieth century when the work was published, authors like Shiel were experimenting with ideas about the interconnectedness of nature and humanity and the consequences of polluting nature. As time progresses, therefore, so

do authors’ ideas about the separateness of nature and humanity, nature’s agency in fighting back against abuse, and the role of humanity in causing harm to our world.

The principles of deep ecology have been established by Arne Naess’ in “Eight Points,” or tenants, and George Sessions writes that Naess’ distinction between “deep” and “shallow” environmentalism points to a division between well-meaning environmentalists, who disagree— with varying amounts of anthropocentricism—about why the environment should be of concern at all (Garrard 24). Should the environment be protected “for preservation of natural resources only for the sake of humans,” as seen according to the “shallow” view, or because of its “intrinsic value” apart from human experience and needs, as seen according to the “deep” view? Essentially, anthropocentricism still prevails in “shallow” environmentalist views, while “deep” environmentalist views depend upon non-anthropocentricism. This is what makes “deep” ecology so radical and in “opposition with almost the entirety of Western philosophy and religion” (Garrard

24). It forces us to think outside of ourselves and our own human experiences to develop a deeper understanding of the natural world and our role as cohabitants of it.

My goal is to utilize deep ecology as a theoretical starting point in my readings of the chosen texts, not politically, but practically, which involves deviating from a strict deep ecology reading when it is helpful to do so. For example, I hardly believe these texts encourage environmental activism, and this causes the texts to depart from Naess’ idea of deep ecology as political action; however, the texts do support deep ecology as a philosophy.2 George Sessions writes of Naess as a “philosophical guru [of deep ecology],” which I believe gives me additional license to consider Naess’ activism as theory (Garrard 23).To summarize, I argue that these literary

2 In “The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects,” Naess notes that he doesn’t consider deep ecology to be a “philosophy in any proper academic sense, nor is it institutionalized as a religion or an ideology. Rather, what happens is that various persons come together in campaigns and direct actions … predominantly nonviolent way” (Naess, “Deep Ecological Movement” 199). 13

texts—published in the period following the Industrial Revolution—demonstrate environmental concern suggestive of awareness of the geological shift in epochs from the Holocene to the

Anthropocene before Romantic- and Victorian-era writers had the vocabulary and scientific knowledge to back their understanding in evidential science. This is apparent in the portrayal of humanity’s destruction of the environment in these texts, as well as their suggestion of the need for a dramatic shift in which nature regains what has been stolen from it or transformed into new, hybrid shapes. A similar occurrence in all three texts is the way in which nature recovers its space by weaponizing human-destroyed, ecologically-dangerous, and, ultimately, anthropogenic atmospheres to warn future human generations about the interconnectedness of the biosphere.

Because deep ecology best allows for exploration of how my chosen texts operate at and respond to the hypothetical beginning of the geological Anthropocene epoch, I have evolved this eco- theory to assist my reading of intrinsic worth, non-anthropocentricism, and agency in The Last

Man, After London, and The Purple Cloud. In the third and final chapter, I include an analysis of how Shiel utilized Biblical allusion throughout The Purple Cloud as a means of describing what was, at the time, indescribable: anthropogenic climate change of major cities, like London, was unnamed, but noticed and experienced by writers living in London at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth.

I have also striven to be interdisciplinary by including specialists from a variety of disciplines to include scientific, historic, and geological framing, as much as literary criticism, which was slim for these unique, little-known science fiction texts. Aside from the scientists and theorists previously mentioned in this introduction, I also build my analysis upon the work of

Bruno Latour, Heidi Scott, and Jesse Oak Taylor, as well as other scientists, historians, and biographers, whose ideas assist my understanding of these apocalyptic eco-narratives.

As they march on Isengard, on the abusers of Fangorn Forest, the Ents chant,

To Isengard! Though Isengard be ringed and barred with doors of stone; Though Isengard be strong and hard, as cold as stone and bare as bone, We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door… To land of gloom with tramp of doom, with roll of drum, we come, we come; To Isengard with doom we come! With doom we come, with doom we come! (Tolkien 488). Though Saruman tried “ring[ing] and “barr[ing] his stronghold with “doors of stone” to keep nature at bay, his forced separation between Isengard and the natural world is not only unrealistic but also untenable. Eventually, nature will have had enough, as demonstrated by the Ents’ fierce determination to bring justice to their fallen forest friends, cut down by Saruman and his orc minions in a frenzy of industry. The Ents decide to “hew” and “break” Saruman’s insubstantial defenses and bring “the tramp of doom” with them to even the playing field and inform Saruman and the orcs that the forest is not as passive as it seems. And, as Treebeard gazes at Isengard before the attack, he prophetically mumbles, “Night lies over Isengard” (490). As will be seen in the proceeding chapters, the same can be said for London—and the world, for that matter.

CHAPTER I

INHABITING “A CLOUD-ENSHADOWED LAND”:

DEEP ECOLOGY IN MARY SHELLEY’S THE LAST MAN

In 2092, a deadly plague sweeps the globe, leaving no nation, no people, no race, no class untouched. Eight years later, Lionel Verney’s entire family is dead, as are all of his closest friends.

He is the only human survivor. Together, Verney and his sole companion, a shepherding dog, traverse the empty planet searching for another living human soul—but the planet is not quite empty. Verney notes myriads of surviving lifeforms, though nonhuman, for only humans succumbed to the plague’s contagion. In fact, Verney claims that “the world’s wonders were never to be exhausted,” a statement that is especially true given the disappearance of humankind from the biosphere and continuation of flora and fauna (Shelley 335).

Mary Shelley wrote The Last Man in 1826, when 2092 seemed much further away than it does today. The novel is divided into three parts, the first being an introduction to the main characters and the development of their relationships with each other. Lionel Verney, who narrates in first person, lives an orphan amongst nature, “rough as the elements, and unlearned as the animals” (9). In the second part, Verney first hears rumors of a plague sweeping westward across

Asia and Europe; later, the plague makes a more noticeable appearance, killing humanity across the globe in a fearful frenzy coupled by the darkening of the sun (178). In the third and final part of the novel, only a few survivors remain, and Lionel’s family and friends tragically diminish in rank until he is left alone, the sole human survivor of the plague.

In this first chapter, I demonstrate how Lionel Verney exercises an astute understanding of the natural world, even appreciating nature apart from his own experience; thus, I argue he is one of the Romantic era’s first “deepist” fictional characters. By “deepist,” I refer to a practitioner of the theory of deep ecology, especially one who recognizes the intrinsic value of nonhuman lifeforms. Throughout Shelley’s apocalyptic eco-narrative, Verney takes note of nature’s constancy, even its flourishing apart from human activity. While I spend much time elucidating

Verney’s deepist views, I also discuss a flaw in his deepism by our modern standards: though he admires and respects the natural world, never mistreating it or attempting to conquer it, Verney projects characteristic nineteenth-century thought regarding the separateness of nature and culture, the natural world and the human one. This is a division not recognized by today’s version of deep ecology; however, Verney’s recognition of the importance and significance of nature apart from human interaction does demonstrate an understanding of nature that was forward-thinking at the time of the novel’s publication. Thus, I critique Verney’s first-person narration of events through the lens of deep ecology, first demonstrating how Verney’s way of thinking greatly contrasts most

Romantic ideas about the natural world, then close reading scenes in which Verney practices deep ecology.

Something that should be noted: though my discussion of The Last Man is anthropocentric in the sense that I study a human character and his perception of the outside world, my real interest is in this human character’s surprising non-anthropocentricism, which primarily aligns with deep ecology’s first tenant. The overall plot of the novel, however, can be thought of as an exploration of deep ecology’s fourth tenant, which is imminently described. For the purposes of this chapter, however, I concentrate on deep ecology’s first tenant as it is practiced by protagonist, Lionel

Verney.

Deep ecology is perhaps most readily recognizable by its radical rejection of anthropocentricism, which it replaces with non-anthropocentricism due to what George Sessions describes as “the need for humans to identify with nonhumans and the wild world” (Sessions 173).

This is primarily because the theory of deep ecology was born in the 1960’s ecological revolution as a “critique of anthropocentricism” (165). In his overview of deep ecology, Greg Garrard names

Arne Naess as the “philosophical guru” of deep ecology (Garrard 23). According to Alan Drengson and Bill Devall in their introduction to a collection of Naess’ writings, The Ecology of Wisdom,

Naess is “hero and national treasure” in his home country of Norway (Dengson and Devall 4). His work has inspired the creation of the Foundation for Deep Ecology and the Institute for Deep

Ecology, as well as the online journal The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy (5). Naess suggests

“eight points” to define deep ecology (Naess, “Deep Ecological Movement” 196), the first and fourth being the most well-known and defining tenants of the theory and, thus, the tenants I focus on in this thesis (Garrard 24).

In the words of deep ecology guru Arne Naess himself, the first tenant of deep ecology is as follows:

The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent worth). These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes (Naess, “Deep Ecological Movement. (196-197) The first tenant asserts that the existence of nonhumans in our biosphere should be respected and honored as intrinsically valuable and that our appreciation of the natural world should be unrelated to human needs and sustenance. Further differentiating deep ecology from “shallow” eco-theories are its approaches to several topics of environmental concern, such as pollution and land and sea ethics. The “deep approach” to pollution involves evaluating the issue from “a biospheric point of view, not focusing exclusively on its effects on human health, but rather on life as a whole,

including the life conditions of every species and system” (200). By adopting an inclusive perspective on issues of pollution, the deep approach reflects non-anthropocentricism in its concern for the impact of pollution on all species. Similarly, the “deep approach” to land and sea ethics requires an acknowledgement from followers that “[t]he earth does not belong to humans…

Humans only inhabit the lands, using resources to satisfy vital needs” (202). Humans abuse the earth when the amount of resources extracted from it exceed what is needed to survive. Deep ecological theory purports that using restraint from overusing the earth’s resources promotes a healthier ecosystem for all species, human and nonhuman.

While this first tenant defines the theory, the fourth tenant is more controversial in its suggestion of population reduction.

The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantially smaller human population. The flourishing of non-human life requires a smaller human population. (Naess, “Deep Ecological Movement” 196-197) At first glace, this fourth tenant appears misanthropic—or, seeking to do away with humanity altogether or even reduce its numbers in drastic ways—in its inference that there are simply too many humans living on this earth. However, in his article, “Demystifying the Critiques of Deep

Ecology,” Harold Glasser defends this fourth tenant by informing critics of deep ecology that the theory is not, in fact, misanthropic; rather, he suggests that deep ecology’s “ecocentricism” takes the entire biosphere into account, nonhuman and human existence included (Glasser 215). In fact,

Naess, Glasser insists, doesn’t even require that deepists discard anthropocentricism but that

Naess’ “focus was directed at our willingness to raise and take seriously the search for fundamental causes and the consideration of radical responses” (216). In the text of interest for this chapter, The

Last Man, as well as After London and The Purple Cloud in the subsequent two chapters, humanity’s numbers are significantly reduced in “radical” ways, reflecting this fourth and more controversial tenant of deep ecology at work in literary representation. Even founder and advocate

of the Industrial-Revolution-dating of the Anthropocene, Paul Crutzen, rather hopelessly gestures to the prospect of “global catastrophe” as the only way to slow or altogether stop the oftentimes- negative interaction of humans in and with the environment. Without a “meteorite impact, a world war, or a pandemic,” Crutzen writes, “mankind will remain a major environmental force for many millennia” (“The Geology of Mankind 23). While it is doubtful that Crutzen actually wants a cataclysmic event to occur, he imagines that, unless the population is significantly reduced, humans will continue to overpopulate the earth, thereby maintaining status as the most influential

“environmental force” on the planet for ages to come.

Aware of the “radical” nature of deep ecology, Arne Naess explains that writers utilizing deep ecology as a viewpoint “try to articulate the fundamental presuppositions underlying the dominant economic approach in terms of value priorities, philosophy, and religion” (“Deep

Ecological Movement” 203). Thus, deep ecology initially intimidates because it not only encourages self-reflective (re)evaluation of traditional anthropocentric viewpoints but also argues that the existence of nonhuman life in our biosphere is equally as valuable as human life.

Subsequently, better and more helpful environmental policies can be enacted through deep ecology’s call to political action, or deep ecology as a movement, but the more immediate effect of using this theory—of peering through its non-anthropocentric, nontraditional lens—is renewed respect for the environment and realization of our role in protecting it against ourselves (Naess,

“Deep Ecological Movement” 195).

However, while The Last Man, After London, and The Purple Cloud do not openly suggest immediate population reduction, they do respond to a period of history in which human effects on the environment were becoming more apparent and alarming, making population an issue of concern. In The Last Man, two factors could have influenced Shelley’s decision to involve her

imaginative decimation of humanity with atmospheric issues: one is natural, the other manufactured.

On April 5, 1815, Tambora erupted in the Dutch East Indies, sending more gases and dust into the stratosphere than any other volcano before or since: “[F]or years they circled the globe and reduced the amount of solar radiation that could reach the earth’s surface” (138-139).

Furthermore, weather patterns changed, creating droughts in some places and floods in others, which, in turn, produced worldwide famines and sickness (148). One historian writes about the way in which volcanic ash from Tambora’s explosion, drifting through the atmosphere, “seemed to cause a severe diarrhea—a plague that affected horses and cattle as well as people,” which may have influenced Shelley’s ideas of a worldwide plague (Stommel 11). In the second part of The

Last Man, we read about the plague spreading from “the East” to Athens, infecting and killing its way across the Asian and European continents (Shelley 178). Immediately following this momentary glimpse of the plague, which is not revisited until later in the second part, is the occurrence of a natural phenomenon, further revealing a conflation of Shelley’s experience with natural phenomena and the potential “plague” caused by Tambora’s ashes: “A strange story was brought to us from the East… [A] black sun arose, an orb, the size of that luminary, but dark, defined, whose beams were shadows, ascended from the west” (178). An unknown planetary object effectually rises from the west, frightening not only because of its contrast to the sun and moon’s rising in the east and setting in the west, but also because of the chaos it causes for humans and nonhumans alike. Verney narrates the experience, as he heard it from witnesses of the event, with his usual concern for his fellow, nonhuman inhabitants: “wild animals in the woods took fright” and “birds, strong-winged eagles, suddenly blinded, fell” (179).

Scott claims that, following the three major volcanic eruptions of Laki in 1783, Tambora in 1815, and Krakatoa in 1883, a “chaotic worldview” emerged in the Romantic era that continued into the Victorian (19). With uncontrollable natural phenomena and evolutionary theory, nature became seen as acting solely on evolutionary principles, untethered from God’s will and having no concern for humanity. Thus, the effect of the natural phenomenon in The Last Man is to lead witnesses of the event to places of worship with renewed efforts at seeking religion for comfort.

However, Verney appears quite at ease with nature’s ways. Commenting on the arbitrary “lashing” of the wind, persistent on carrying the plague around the world regardless of the life it encounters,

Verney says, “Thou sweepest the earth, and oaks, the growth of centuries, submit to thy viewless axe” (183). His use of the word “viewless” suggests an understanding of the natural world that many writers, particularly in the Romantic era, struggled to comprehend, which is that the workings of natural phenomena have nothing to do with human experience or divine punishment from God; they are merely physical, geological, ecological systems in motion. To Verney, nature’s

“viewless axe” is not aimed at certain groups of people for purposes of punishment, or with any sort of conscious intention. The natural world can only be considered to have intentionality when viewed anthropocentrically, ascribing to it human emotion and personality, but Verney maintains a sense of non-anthropocentricism in believing that nature has no intentions because it has no consciousness. Indeed, a few pages later, we discover the plague has covered the entire world, with no distinguishing between people deserving or undeserving of punishment and, ultimately, death

(207). Verney observes that “the visible mechanism of our being is subject to merest accident”

(184). He does not involve God or anthropomorphize nature to make sense of its seemingly malefic intents; rather, he simply accepts nature’s workings as natural, unstoppable, and unintentional.

Though it has a conscious creator, nature is not used by God to punish humans for sinfulness.

Furthermore, he does not employ the term “chaos” to describe nature’s workings because they can only be considered “chaotic” when viewed anthropocentrically: what is “chaos” is based on human rationale, which considers “chaotic” anything it does not understand.

A second factor that could have influenced Shelley’s decision to involve atmospheric issues in her novel is revealed in Verney’s repeated mention of thick clouds hovering over England as it relates to pollution and overpopulation, which are two aspects addressed in the first and fourth tenants of deep ecology. In fact, Verney seems more comfortable with nature’s perceived chaos than he is with the human-induced atmosphere over London. For example, shortly after the unidentified planetary object drifts in and out of the earth’s atmosphere, the plague reaches London

(198). In the very first line of the novel, Verney describes England as “a cloud-enshadowed land” and a “cloudy isle” (5, 179). Though England’s twice-mentioned cloudiness could be referring to its unique island climate, Verney’s observations align with cultural concerns at the time regarding pollution of industrial cities and the harmful effects of overpopulation on ecosystems.

In Building Jerusalem, a book relating the creation and industrialization of London in the

Industrial Revolution, Trisham Hunt writes, “Britain was the first modern nation to industrialise and to urbanise” (Hunt 16). World political power was the result, as was an obscene amount of filth and “noxious plumes” from factories throughout the capital of London (20). Trading environmental harmony for worldwide economic power, London would bear in its skyline a dark, ominous scar of a cloud for more than a century following the Industrial Revolution (21).

Chimneys continued to “vomit” up their smoke—a metaphor that gave London the overall impression of sickness and disease. Overpopulation in poor neighborhoods throughout the city led to the creation of 70,000 tons of human waste per year, carelessly discarded in the streets and rivers and replacing fresh water with “gurgle[ing] vast latrines” (22). Unfortunately, London’s

population only increased as Queen Victoria’s reign continued into the late-nineteenth century

(386). Piecing together Shelley’s imaginative extinction of humanity via plague and her deepist protagonist Verney’s preoccupation regarding the climate of his home country reveals an overall concern with human-induced changes to the environment over London proper, long before its notorious “smog” came into existence.

Verney’s perception of changes to his atmosphere is “surprising” not because of his concern for the natural world: most Romantic writers adored nature and found fulfilment in it.

Rather, his interest in atmospheric change reflects a “deep” approach to nature that contrasts the anthropocentricism of other Romantic writers, like Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge and precedes concerns about London’s smog problem in the mid- and late-1800s. Though the

Romantic writers moved past pre-Enlightenment ideas of conquering and controlling of nature, they frequently anthropomorphized nature in their obsession with its beauty and spiritual renewal, instead seeing “false appearances” in it, as John Ruskin suggested in 1856 (Ruskin, “Landscape,

Mimesis and Morality” 26). This tendency to appreciate nature only in terms of its relation to human emotions and experience the critic Ruskin terms “pathetic fallacy,” or the projection of human characteristics onto objects in nature. According to writers who project in this manner cause themselves to become “entirely unconnected with any real power or character in the object” of nature. Citing an example, Ruskin quotes O. W. Holmes’ 1850 poem Astraea in which a crocus is described as “spendthrift”: “How is it that we enjoy so much the having it put into our heads that it is anything else than a plain crocus? It is an important question” (Ruskin, “Landscape, Mimesis and Morality” 26). Though humans enjoy projecting their emotions and personal experiences onto objects of nature, in doing so, the risk lies in anthropomorphizing a crocus, transforming its “real

power or character”—as “a plain crocus”—into a “spendthrift,” human-like object, when really it is simply a crocus blooming as nature would have it.

Directly exercising what Ruskin calls the “pathetic fallacy,” William Blake, writing in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, believed that nature reflected the human mind, always seen through a filter of “imagination,” though some people have better imaginations than others, according to Blake, and, therefore, can more deeply appreciate the beauty of nature. Blake took pride in being a “Man of Imagination,” even writing that “Nature is Imagination itself… As a man is, so he sees. As the Eye is formed, such are its Powers… To Me This World is all One continued Vision of Fancy or Imagination” (Blake 16). Emotional connection to nature results from exercising an anthropocentric imagination when perceiving, observing, or writing about the natural world, unfairly projecting human interpretations onto nonhuman species; and Blake unapologetically admitted that he was in possession of a powerful imagination, one which allowed him to “see Everything [he] paint[ed] In This World” in a manner altered by his human imagination. According to him, this enhanced the experience of enjoying natural world.

Acknowledging the existence of the age-old correlation between the earth and human experience, Ruskin argued that “the love of nature, wherever it has existed, has been a faithful and sacred element of human feeling” (Ruskin, “Landscape, Mimesis and Morality 30). Yet, Ruskin’s conviction that imagination shouldn’t be a substitute for “real power or character in the object” in nature seems to point toward a deep ecology perspective, one that allows for the appreciation of the natural world without anthropomorphizing it or imputing human emotion and experience.

Ruskin appears to have understood the appeal of writing from one’s imagination but maintained obvious sentiments against it because of its resultant “pathetic fallacy”: “[T]here is something pleasurable in written poetry which is nevertheless untrue,” he retorts (Ruskin, “Landscape,

Mimesis and Morality” 26). Thus, according to Ruskin’s non-anthropocentric standpoint, Blake’s dependence upon his own imaginative processes for understanding the natural world was unrealistic and inaccurate because it forced nature to assume human characteristics. When brought into dialogue with deep ecology, Blake’s thinking demonstrates anthropocentricism, or the belief in the superiority and importance of humans over nonhumans, flora and fauna.

While Blake believes “Nature is Imagination itself,” or a reflection of human “Fancy,”

Shelley’s protagonist Lionel Verney feels no such need to “imagine” the natural world for himself

(Blake 16). Rather, he appreciates its value apart from his own human experience. In the third part of the novel, after most of Verney’s family and friends have died, a scene unfolds that exemplifies

Verney’s deep ecological standpoint:

Nature, or nature’s favourite, this lovely earth, presented her most unrivalled beauties in resplendent and sudden exhibition…vine-covered hills…dark mountains… And, as if the world’s wonders were never to be exhausted, [the Alps’] vast immensities, their jagged crags, and roseate painting, appeared again in the lake below, dipping their proud heights beneath the unruffled waves… So we remained while, lightened of the pressing burthen of fate, forgetful of death, into whose night we were about to plunge; no longer reflecting that our eyes now and forever were and would be the only ones which might perceive the divine magnificence of this terrestrial exhibition. (Shelley 335) With the beauty of the Alps to behold, Verney forgets “the death of man” and that a “living and beloved friend” sits beside him, and rather than project feelings of sadness, distress, or anger onto the vision before him, he is awestruck; his troubles melt away. In this moment, his idea of nature appears in direct contrast to Blake’s.

William Wordsworth, though less anthropocentric than Blake’s and Coleridge’s, maintained that nature and humanity lead two separate existences. In 1800, Wordsworth wrote that

“man and nature as essentially adapted to each other, and the mind of man is naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting qualities of nature” (Wordsworth 20, my emphasis). Believing that nature and humanity adapted to each other, Wordsworth’s anthropocentricism led him to

believe nature existed solely for the benefit of human development and virtue; however, Blake also projected his imagination onto the natural world with anthropocentric intentions. Had Blake been in Verney’s situation, he would have written about the “dark” and “jagged” peaks as reflective of the tragedy of his experience, having lost family and friends, his home, his safety. Yet, Verney makes note that the only reflection made in this scene is found in the lake, not in a creation of his own imagination. In this reflection, the mountains stand “proud,” though humankind has been humbled; and, though the human world has been shattered, the lake remains “unruffled.” Verney explains in his narration that, while he and his small company initially “reflect” upon their unique ability to experience the beauty of the Alps perhaps for the last time in the history of humanity, even this anthropocentric reflection of the event fades from his mind. Thus, it seems that at the end of humanity, there is no place for anthropocentricism, even in one’s own thoughts.

As decade earlier, in 1817 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, however, wrote with staunch anthropocentricism when he declared humanity was “self or intelligence,” “subject,” “active,”

“representative,” and “conscious,” while nature was the complete opposite, being “objective,”

“passive,” “represented,” and “without consciousness” (Coleridge 21). The only importance he ascribed to nature was in its “necessary antithesis” to humanity—a “required” oppositeness that enabled humanity to create “acts of knowledge.” Though he clearly divided nature from culture, the natural world from the human one, Coleridge did come close to removing the nature-apart- from-culture distinction when he asserted that nature and culture needed to melt together indistinguishably in the process of creating knowledge, “the objective and subjective [becoming] so instantly united, that we cannot determine to which of the two the priority belongs.” However, by simply experiencing “this terrestrial exhibition” without projecting his own personality, Verney

is able to come to an understanding regarding his place in the natural world as part of a whole— not that he is the whole himself.

Had he been able to speak with Verney, Wordsworth would perhaps have encouraged him to experience nature’s virtuous effects on the character; but, Verney already considers the natural world remedy for a tumultuous soul. While Verney believes in God, he expresses his faith best when in natural, outdoor settings, rather than inside the traditional venue of spiritual edification, the church. For example, after attempting to join a dying congregation of parishioners, Verney finds some temporary relief from his suffering as “the Creator looked down in compassion and promise”; however, when a chorister drops dead mid-song, Verney is reminded of his struggle to survive and the tragedy of humanity’s imminent end. Thus, he flees the church, trading its interior spaces for the “open air…among nature’s beauteous works” where “her God reassumed his attribute of benevolence” (226). Inside the church, Verney is reminded of humanity’s collective death by plague and is overwhelmed by an almost claustrophobic sense of helplessness in the face of worldwide disaster; but, in nature, he is able to maintain his faith in a loving God of nature, who not only created the world but also its human and nonhuman inhabitants.

Later in the novel, however, Verney’s attention turns from worshipping the creator to the created as he attempts to make sense of his fate as one of the last humans left alive. When he happens upon a dying organ player in an abandoned church, Verney listens to the solemen, resonant chords of Joseph Haydn’s “New-Created World” and narrates, “[O]ld and drooping as humanity had become, the world yet fresh as at creation’s day, might still be worthily celebrated by such an hymn of praise” (336). Verney is comforted by the fact that all species of flora and fauna continue peaceful existences with no apparent distress over the sudden, tragic death of humanity as a collective and that, therefore, the words to Haydn’s oratorio remain true—a constant

amidst so much change. Rather than embitter Verney, this knowledge impresses upon him a sense of hopefulness in the earth’s sustained existence long after humankind has faded away. This is perhaps Verney’s deepest “deepist” moment of non-anthropocentricism: though he knows he is not long for this world, nature will continue on, with or without human existence. And this thought sustains him until he is the last man alive.

Interestingly, Bruno Latour takes up a similar argument to Ruskin’s in his book We Have

Never Been Modern. While Ruskin found fault with the “modern” way of writing about nature in his contemporary moment, Latour critiques the term “modern” as it is used today in regard to current perceptions of nature. He states that pre-Enlightenment ideas about conquering and controlling nature—the opposing “other”—persist to this day because of the continued oppositional use of the terms “nature” and “culture,” which suggest humanity still considers itself as existing on a separate plane, apart from nature. The age-old separation of nature from culture— or the natural world from the human one, the “great outdoors” from the “inside”—is ultimately an othering of nature. Latour argues,

[I]f we have never been modern—at least in the way criticism tells the story—the tortuous relations that we have maintained with the other nature-cultures would also be transformed. Relativism, domination, imperialism, false consciousness, syncretism…would be explained differently (11-12) Thus, to Latour, our perpetual dependence upon the false opposition of nature-apart-from-culture prevents humanity from reaching a truly “modern” era, one in which we consider ourselves part of nature and nature part of us, with no division between us. He proposes the use of the phrase

“nature-culture” to articulate our connectivity with our natural world—after all, nature is “a bit more and a bit less than a culture” (7). Latour also suggests that problems, such as “[r]elativism, domination, imperialism, false consciousness, [and] syncretism,” result from the traditional division of nature and culture.

There is a limit to what language can achieve in terms of remedying our relationship with nature. Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer take on the idea of domination of nature, stating that this human desire essentially reveals fears about humanity’s powerlessness before indomitable natural forces (Adorno and Horkheimer 79). They discuss the irony of humanity’s attempt to conquer the natural world through language: “The very spirit that dominates nature repeatedly vindicates the superiority of nature in competition.” In other words, to conquer nature, we imitate it and adapt it, which Wordsworth suggested; but, subsequently, this ironically demonstrates nature’s superiority (Wordsworth 20). Only by the “consciously contrived adaptation of nature,” which Blake attempted through “Vision of Fancy or Imagination” (Blake 16), can humanity convince itself of having any “control” over nature (Adorno and Horkheimer 79). Coleridge, on the other hand, is unapologetic in his belief that nature is “passive” and the “necessary antithesis” to humanity’s acquisition of knowledge through experience (Coleridge 21). Yet, in The Last Man,

Lionel Verney understands that humans cannot conquer or control nature by using language that anthropomorphizes it, any more than they can prevent a lethal worldwide plague from being spread by the “course of the elements” (Shelley 183).

In the novel’s final scene, Verney plans to sail around the world with his adopted dog, books, and maps, in search of surviving humans (374). In the next chapter, I demonstrate the way in which Richard Jefferies’ After London ends with a likewise inconclusive venturing into nature of main human character (not protagonist, as I explain in the chapter) Felix Aquila, who has hopes of clearing land for a settlement for human inhabitants; yet, this is not what Verney does in the final scene of The Last Man. Ever appreciative of nature’s continued existence and having no intention of conquering anything but his own curiosity and boredom, Verney merely insists on

finding fellow humans for their familiar, comforting presence in the wake of losing his all of his loved ones.

In this chapter, I have argued that Verney is a surprising Romantic character, who exceeds our expectations regarding typical nineteenth-century understanding of humanity’s relationship with and respect for the natural world. While his non-anthropocentricism greatly contrasts the anthropocentricism of Romantic writers, like Blake and Coleridge, it occasionally overlaps with

Wordsworth’s more ever-so-slightly more progressive view that nature offers something of value to humanity other than self-reflection and imaginative exercise: spiritual benefits. However,

Verney’s perspective does not force an agenda upon nature. His narration, thus, reflects contemporary Romantic-era concerns regarding dangerous changes occurring to the environment, specifically in London, due to increased human activity; and his uniquely non-anthropocentric approach signifies a deeper understanding of and respect for nature that precedes the founding of deep ecology but nonetheless possesses its same sentiments regarding the intrinsic value of the natural world and the destructive effects of overpopulation. Though his well-intentioned narration maintains a separation between humanity and the natural world, Verney remains engaged with and respectful toward nature throughout the narrative, even expressing his concern for anthropogenic changes in the environment over England. Thus, while the “Anthropocene” has only recently become a term used to describe our most recent geological epoch, it appears that literature, like

The Last Man, anticipates the Anthropocene. In the case of Shelley’s novel, an apocalyptic event decimates humanity, thereby imaginatively solving the problem of a problematically overpopulated world.

CHAPTER II

“GREEN EVERYWHERE”: NON-ANTHROPOCENTRICISM AND NATURE’S AGENCY

IN RICHARD JEFFERIES’ AFTER LONDON

Richard Jefferies’ 1885 novel After London describes England’s inglorious demise. The apocalypse is initially caused by natural, ecological forces, as with The Last Man. The narrative tells us that “an enormous dark body” passed through earth’s atmosphere—interestingly, an event that also occurs in The Last Man before various forms of atmosphere spread a global plague.

Consequently, the oceans shifted, tides turned, rain fell, and a giant Lake, spelled with a capital

“L,” filled England’s interior (Jefferies 47). London, formerly the greatest city on earth, the heart of commerce, the epitome of Western civilization, fell with complete submission before nature’s indomitable forces. The text relates, “For this marvelous city, of which such legends are related, was after all only of brick, and when the ivy grew over and trees and shrubs sprang up, and lastly, the water underneath burst in, the huge metropolis was soon overthrown” (48). All traces of humanity succumbed to nature; earth and water conquered brick. What had taken nearly two thousand years to evolve into a megacity of trade and industrialization, nature destroyed in less than a generation (6).

An initial, anthropocentric perspective of the conflict in After London could mistakenly portray nature as antagonistic because of its systematic destruction of England and its inhabitants.

However, close reading Jefferies’ language throughout the novel quickly reveals that, because of human disregard for environmental sustainability, nature enacts an apocalypse, not out of

malicious aggression with the intention of punishing and destroying humanity, but in self-defense.

Essentially, nature reminds surviving humans that they alone do not make up the whole of the biosphere: nonhumans inhabit it alongside them.

In this chapter, I argue that, in After London, nature is not only an active character but also the protagonist. This is for three reasons: firstly, the only important human character in the narrative is left entirely out of Part One, allowing nature to take centerstage in the novel’s development; secondly, Jefferies’ emphasizes the fact that the only important human character is named after a nonhuman entity found in nature; and, thirdly, the use of passive voice diminishes humanity’s influence, while, oppositely, active voice bolsters nature’s. All three methods of purporting nature’s agency enhance its presence as an active participant in the storyline and shrinks humanity’s important and involvement, which also deprives humanity of the agency that it has traditionally deprived nature. It is as if humanity had its chance on stage, but, having delivered a terrible performance involving the destruction of the environment by industrialization and modern machinery, it is given a backseat to the novel’s action. After London’s non-anthropocentricism is a startling reversal of the usual roles of nature as antagonist and humanity as protagonist. Thus, the ecocritical theory of “deep ecology” proves especially useful for understanding Jefferies’ novel as an eco-narrative that projects into a future, imaginative world the exaggerated fears of the author regarding the pollution of London in the late-Victorian era.

Richard Jefferies makes an attempt at telling nature’s story during a time when anthropocentricism was the prevailing worldview, not unlike it is to this day; for that reason, it is difficult to place the book within preconceived notions of genre. After London can be described as having three parts: it is a naturalist manifesto, aspiring to capture the minutiae of the natural world, while critiquing humankind’s failures of caring for it; it is Victorian, situated in the heart of Queen

Victoria’s reign and possessing many of the usual attributes of the Victorian tale; and it is post- apocalyptic science fiction, its events following the evacuation of mankind from England and the destruction of London in a future, speculated scenario set up by scientific fact. For its odd positioning among at least three distinct genres of writing, After London allows for a uniquely interdisciplinary approach due to its preoccupation with contemporary issues of ecology and early environmentalist sentiment. An analysis of After London as an Anthropocenic text—and an eco- utopia, at that—makes placing the novel within a genre easy: as a text published during the height of environmental and atmospheric concern in London, After London reveals that hot-button issues of today’s world—particularly climate change, sustainability, clean energy, and conservation— find relevance in works published over 130 years ago.

Paul J. Crutzen’s dating of the Anthropocene at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the Industrial Revolution aligns with the timing of After London’s concerns about humanity’s impact on the environment, particularly in and around London proper. Though After

London appears later in the nineteenth century, its publishing date corresponds with what many geologists and historians concur to be “the beginning of the fossil fuel age,” or the period occurring between 1780 and 1880 (Coffin and Stacey 673). This is, perhaps in part, because

Jefferies was a naturalist, who, according to his few biographers, preferred the company of nonhumans to humans and natural settings to the hustle of the city.3

In their discussion of the events surrounding the Industrial Revolution, historians Judith

Coffin and Robert Stacey write,

Over the space of two or three generations, a society and an economy that had drawn on water, wind, and wood for most of its energy needs came to depend on

3 For detailed biographical information on Jefferies, see Works Cited for full citations of biographies by W. J. Keith, Brian Taylor, and Henry Salt. 34

steam engines and coal. In 1800, the world produced 10 million tons of coal. In 1900, it produced 1 billion: 100 times more. (673) This era of “unprecedented economic growth” changed the previous relationship between the

British people and their environment (673). Early “proto-industrialization” of England’s landscape first occurred in the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries and involved the appearance of factories in formerly rural landscapes (674). Also, by the 1790s, agricultural transformations changed the face of the British countryside: large-scale commercialization replaced small-scale, family-owned farming and removed land ownership from farmers to landlords and manufacturers hungry for profit (675). The subsequent “enclosure” of farmlands, fields, and pastures became cause for concern, especially for writers and thinkers of the era, like

Jefferies, who saw the disappearance of the British countryside due to commercialized agriculture and manufacturing as an environmental threat.

One of the earliest documents known to recognize the negative effects of manufacturing and industrialism upon the environment—and the passing from the Holocene to the

Anthropocene epoch—is George Marsh’s 1864 work “Man and Nature,” reprinted in 1965 by

Harvard University Press as The Earth as Modified by Human Action4 (Steffen, “The

Anthropocene: Are Humans…?” 615). Marsh foresaw humanity becoming the world’s greatest environmental threat and having as much of a negative impact on global ecosystems as natural phenomena. Additionally, Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani wrote in 1873 about a “new telluric force” that had the “power and universality” to rival the earth’s deadliest natural occurrences, such as volcanoes and earthquakes (Crutzen, “The Geology of Mankind 23). Thus, in just the 60 or 70 years immediately following the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, scientists, like

Marsh and Stoppani, already foresaw and warned against humanity’s negative impact on the

4 For full citation for Marsh’s The Earth as Modified by Human Action, see Works Cited. 35

environment. It was not until the International Geological Congress of 1885 in Bologna, however, that geologists officially recognized the geological changes occurring across the globe, which pointed to rapidly escalating human activity and influence on the environment (Steffen,

“The Anthropocene: Are Humans…?” 615). Jefferies’ novel appears, coincidentally, the same year as the International Geological Congress, in 1885. While it is true that Jefferies did not possess the geological vocabulary regarding the concept of the “Anthropocene,” After London nonetheless illustrates an intuitive sense of the Anthropocene, particularly in the novel’s depiction of London’s fall and nature’s takeover, which is described in proceeding pages.

After London appeared as one of the last of Jefferies’ works, published just two years before his early death (B. Taylor 98-9). His prior works were nonfiction and naturalistic in scope, such as

Field and Hedgerow, Hills and the Vale, Life of the Fields, Nature Near London, Wild Life in a

Southern Country, and The Story of My Heart, among many other books and articles. In a 1965 biography of Jefferies, W. J. Keith comments, “After London is not one of [Jefferies’] best books…

[It] leaves the reader with a sense of admiration, but also of bewilderment” (122). Yet, he admits that “it is an important document in his biography as man and as artist, and deserves greater attention than it has generally received” (122). The novel displays the same passion for nature as his earlier nonfiction, yet After London is generally categorized as a “scientific romance,” with which Jefferies’ himself concurred (B. Taylor 117).

In its contemporary moment, as mostly remains the case now, After London was quickly discarded as “fanciful,” a tale lacking literary elements, like character development and plot.

However, this is not because Jefferies lacked storytelling capabilities but because After London’s unconventional focus is not on humans but on nature. Its distinct non-anthropocentricism understandably went unrecognized and unappreciated by its first critics because deep ecology was

not yet a theory—let alone a movement purported by Arne Naess. However, Jefferies’ love for the outdoors gave him a deep appreciation for natural environments, which, in turn, allowed him to readily practice the general principles of deep ecology.

While heavily discussed in journals, such as The Spectator, After London was written about almost exclusively in the context of Jefferies’ life and never as an intrinsically valuable work of literature on its own. Several biographies published between 1894 and 1982 dedicate space to discussions of the novel, but all fail to recognize its non-anthropocentricism and speculate on various other, anthropocentric aspects of the text, such as the reason for its tragic depiction of humankind, the autobiographical elements of its only noteworthy human character, and its

“pessimistic,” nightmarish qualities regarding London’s speedy depopulation (B. Taylor 1 and

120). When contemporary reviews managed to include a few words about the novel’s specifics, they offered mixed reactions. In one such review, published by The Academy in April 1885, just after the release of After London, critic Grant Allen admits that the novel is “fanciful” yet redeemed for its use of science and naturalistic detail aiding the author’s otherwise unruly imagination.

Published just twenty-six years after Darwin’s 1859 On the Origin of Species, After London, Allen attests, possesses “curious touches of naturalistic description” in providing details about England’s jungle-like landscape and surviving species of animals “developed by natural selection,” as well as a “sociological sketch of the wild races” of England’s surviving remnants of humans. However, aside from offering praise regarding the novel’s more naturalistic tendencies, Allen criticizes After

London for lacking compelling characters and followable action that seemed to focus more on “the novelty of the surroundings than on any element of ordinary romance or movement toward an end”

(Allen). Unfortunately, Allen, like his other contemporaries, fails to recognize the text’s non- anthropocentricism and, therefore, interprets After London’s apparent lack of captivating human

characters as inferior novel writing. However, when its non-anthropocentricism is recognized and considered, After London becomes a highly complicated display of nature-centered writing that deviates from the usual human-centered approach taken by most novels at its time of publication.

This also seems to have set the stage for the general obscurity of the novel in academia today

Greg Garrard writes in his description of deep ecology, “The shift from a human-centred to a nature-centred system of values is the core of the radicalism attributed to deep ecology, bringing it into opposition with almost the entirety of Western philosophy and religion” (Garrard

24). After London’s weighty focus on nature is non-anthropocentric and, therefore, does not purport a “system of beliefs and practices that favours humans over other organisms” (Garrard

206). In an anthropocentric novel, humans star as the protagonists; the natural world is used as a complicating factor for a strictly human narrative, furthering human character development or providing a useful backdrop for human interaction. Also, while an anthropocentric text “favours” humans, After London seeks to disfavor them at every turn, going to great lengths to prove their

“Relapse into Barbarism,” as Part One of the novel is titled.

This is an attribute of the text that proved worrisome to biographer Henry Salt, who calls the very title of After London “opprobrious to the patriotic citizen” for its “somber picture of the ruins of a defunct civilisation” (58). The text tells us that surviving humans have “countenances from which every trace of self-respect had disappeared” (Jefferies 26). They are “like vermin”

(27), acquire their food by begging (25), and are violent (28) and insane (38). Previous locations of civilization, like towns and cities, are infected with “human evil” (21), especially certain areas of London, which features toward the end of this chapter. In contrast, nature is lovely and pure

(56), its water “sweet” (270), and its vegetation a “delight” (272). The language paints vivid images of nature’s virtue and humanity’s corruption, demonstrating a preference for nature over humanity.

In effect, After London introduces humans as the complicating factor for nature’s narrative—a literary approach that would have been unheard-of and difficult to comprehend for critics who were contemporary to After London’s publication, when non-anthropocentricism wasn’t yet a frequently practiced viewpoint.5 Jefferies’ 1965 biographer W. J. Keith comes closest to a non- anthropocentric understanding of After London when he comments, “Man returns to Nature not through any desire on his part, but because Nature returns to him” (116). Humans have no role in the events that unfold but to attempt survival—and fail.

George Sessions describes the way in which the theory of deep ecology was born from the 1960’s ecological revolution as a “critique of anthropocentricism” (Sessions 165). The goal of non-anthropocentricism, as purported by “deepists,” is “to identify with nonhumans and the wild world” (Sessions 173). Supporting this is Part One’s concentration on various flora and fauna, fields, grasses, marshes, and hills, as well as dogs, cats, pigs, mice, deer, birds, and even zoo animals. Only a few pages are dedicated to condescending illustrations of “relapsed” humanity, which makes the title of this first part intentionally misleading, for the focus is primarily on nature’s progression, not humanity’s diminishment. Thus, the novel presents in its opening passages a world where nature acts and humans react in passive roles.

The most obvious depiction of this reversal of active and passive roles for nature and humanity in After London lies in the fact that nature enacts an ecological apocalypse of its own volition. As previously noted, the text tells us that “an enormous dark body” influenced the tides, caused London to flood, and forced people to flee England, where survival became untenable for humanity (Jefferies 20). Only a few rogue characters managed to live, the “lower and ignorant,” while the “upper classes made use of their money to escape,” fleeing westward (21). When the

5 As discussed in the previous chapter, John Ruskin, in “Landscape, Mimesis and Morality,” does, however, critique the notion of anthropocentricism, specifically in Romantic literature, but he is a progressive thinker for his time. 39

novel begins, the narrator informs us that the apocalypse happened nearly 30 years ago and that

England has experienced dramatic ecological changes in that short time span.

The apocalypse operates threefold, purifying England’s industrialized landscape, preventing human survivors from advancing industrially, and ultimately cautioning humans against future mistreatment of the natural world. As laid out earlier, After London, aside from purporting nature’s threefold plan of reclamation, additionally employs three strategies for lessening human importance, thereby asserting itself as a non-anthropocentric text. The first of these strategies involves the positioning of nature—flora and fauna—literally and figuratively before human characters, which is consistent with Jefferies’ naturalist writings. The narrative demonstrates this by discoursing on the natural world for the entirety of Part One, or the first sixty pages of the novel, illustrating that humans are not the story’s main concern, nor are they even its protagonists. Chronologically, an anthropocentric novel usually presents a human character prior to the rising action to familiarize readers with the character, his or her personality, motives, desires, and his or her current situation, which inevitably launches into a conundrum that is—usually— resolved by the end of the novel. However, in a non-anthropocentric text, humans are pushed into the background, but Heidi Scott writes that, throughout the narrative, nature steps into “an active role of self-recovery” (63). In this way, nature thrusts itself into the spotlight, pushing humanity aside, and presents itself as having a “personality,” with motives and desires. However, nature is not anthropomorphized by the text but operates without the adoption of human characteristics as it actively repairs the wounds of humanity’s carelessness and contamination.

The opening chapters of After London are dedicated to establishing nature as a nonhuman protagonist, which is accomplished by a thorough discussion of how greenness struggled to retake a landscape ruined by human abuse, as well as scientific and technological advancement. The

following passage is an example of the language in Part One of the narrative as it diminishes human action and bolsters nature’s active participation in recuperating its lost territory:

It became green everywhere in the first spring, after London ended, so that all the country looked alike. The meadows were green, and so was the rising wheat which had been sown, but which neither had nor would receive any further care… [T]he footpaths were greenest of all, for such is the nature of grass where it has once been trodden on. (1) “Green,” reoccurring throughout the passage, emphasizes prolific plant growth and exemplifies the robust health of England’s human-free landscape. Traces of humanity lie hidden in the undergrowth, quite literally, and are only hinted at with words like “wheat,” which is a crop planted by humans for human consumption, and “footpaths,” cleared by humans for human travel. But the wheat that had been planted before the apocalypse is not be reaped, and, with no human feet to beat them down, pathways will blend into the natural landscape. Every mark of humanity vanishes as nature takes control so that “all the country looked alike” (1). It is a cathartic scene for nature, one of self-repair and healing demonstrative of agency and intention.

What follows is sixty pages of description regarding the state of flora and fauna around

London and its new Lake. In chronological order, we read of various human-altered landscapes being overtaken by green growth once more. Nature’s healing hands soon cover fields of crops, footpaths, irrigation canals, and dams. Animals of all species take advantage of the absence of humans by unimpededly reproducing and contributing to England’s new, wild ecosystem, even in and around the seemingly-uninhabitable London proper. Jefferies’ describes animal life in painstaking detail, including descriptions of microevolutionary processes and activities of mice, cats, rats, dogs, cattle, pigs, sheep, horses, birds, deer, zoo animals, snakes, beavers, aquatic birds, and even elephants. As if an afterthought, humans are mentioned in a chapter titled, “Men of the

Woods,” in which Jefferies relays information regarding their degradation and overall brutality; tellingly, bushmen and gypsies, the lowest class of humans, according to Jefferies’ narration, are

described with as much scientific and naturalistic detail as the flora and fauna in the novel’s other chapters.

One example of the way in which After London reduces humanity to just another species living and surviving in England after the Lake-apocalypse, is its inclusion of only one human character of any major importance, and he is not introduced until after nature’s story has already unfolded with prominence. This character, named Felix Aquila, does not appear until sixty pages into the text, which confirms that Jefferies’ priority was not to provide the usual tale of humankind’s endeavors and trials but nature’s: truly, After London is nature’s story, not humans’.

After detailing humanity’s downfall and nature’s renewal of the landscape in Part One,

Jefferies finally introduces us to a character he doesn’t criticize: a young man, Felix Aquila, whose name, when literally translated from Latin, means “the lucky eagle,” or the majestic bird of prey that is difficult—if not impossible—to tame, just like nature itself (“Felix Aquila”). As a third- generation, post-apocalyptic human, Felix Aquila’s very name demonstrates the pervasion of the natural world into all aspects of surviving humans’ lives, even claiming space in the meanings of their names.

Involving subtleties of language, After London adeptly utilizes the passive and active voices to demonstrate nature’s agency; humanity is rendered powerless through the passive voice, but nature takes control through the active. For example, we read, “Great holes were made through the very hills for the passage of the iron chariot, but they are now blocked by the fallen roofs”

(Jefferies 23, my emphasis). In the passive voice, humanmade train tunnels diminish in importance; instead, the landscape acts, not humans or humanmade machines. The hills erase all remnants of human existence, collapsing train tunnels and repairing the damage to return the landscape to wholeness. Cheekily, the text asks us, “Where are the wonderful structures with which

the men of those days were lifted to the skies, rising above the clouds?” (23, my emphasis). Again, the narrative utilizes the passive voice to emphasize humanity’s powerlessness and to render irrelevant its feats of architectural engineering. Oppositely, nature takes frontstage as a direct actor and powerful controller of the narrative through the active voice: “Some say, then, that the first beginning of the change was because the sea silted up the entrances to the ancient ports, and stopped the water commerce, which was once carried on” (20). In this passage, nature is the direct causer of change: the sea—an element of the natural world commonly thought of as being wild and ultimately uncontrollable—clogs up human ports, halts commercial activities, and causes general mayhem for humanity. While nature actively engages in the storyline, humans are passive in this passage about the sea’s progression: human commerce is described as being “once carried on,” or a thing of the past and no longer important or of any significance. Other examples of passive-voice descriptions for humanity occur throughout the novel, demonstrating intentionality on the author’s part in maintaining a sense of non-anthropocentricism unseen in most—if not all— other novels of the era.

Forced to protect itself against humanity’s greedy, heedless advances into previously pure, green territory, nature retaliates against industrialization and scientific inventions by flooding

Great Britain and leaving a great Lake in its heartland, “200 miles in length” (Jefferies 45-46).

Water is what led humans to settle and industrialize London; in After London, it is water that drives humanity and its inventions away, putting an abrupt halt to any forward movement in scientific and technological discovery. Jesse Oak Taylor writes, “The Thames is central to the ecology of

London, and indeed it was the original reason for the city’s existence” (J. Taylor 59). However, the Lake initializes “a change and sweeping away of the human evil that had accumulated” through the ages of settlement, industry, factory-building, and human advancements in technology

(Jefferies 21). In this sense, the Lake’s progression across the English countryside resembles the

Biblical Flood in the Old Testament Book of Genesis, which God caused for similar purposes: cleansing the fallen world of evil and creating a fresh start for humanity (NKJV, Genesis 7:11-12).

Hinting at what it considers “evil,” however, the narrative immediately follows the paragraph discussed above with descriptions of several, Victorian-era inventions, such as telephones, trains, and even early skyscrapers. The omniscient narrator notes, “[B]ut of these things not a relic remains,” demonstrating how even the greatest of human inventions stand no chance against nature’s will to regreen the land (23). In contrast to human inventions, Jefferies writes that the Lake is an incorruptible natural space, “proverbial for its purity and cleanness”

(256). Directly contrasting the fragility and temporality of human invention, nature is

“incorruptible,” continuing to exist long after the number of humans has severely diminished— something that Mary Shelley’s Lionel Verney recognized and respected in The Last Man. Thus, the Lake is the ultimate symbol of nature’s response to human advancement grown harmful to the natural world. Heidi Scott relates, “Jefferies’ detailed description of natural succession introduces humanity as a force of ecological disturbance whose impacts can nonetheless be remediated quickly” (Scott 59). While flooding is an efficient and expedient way of cleansing the land of human-created towns, cities, commercialized farms, and factories, it also permits a fresh start not only for the natural world to regain lost space but for humanity, beginning anew in a world where its diminished population and lack of scientific and technological inventions force conscientiousness about the effect of industrialism and pollution on the environment.

After purifying England with the Lake, nature embarks on the next stage of its systematic reclamation process, penning in human survivors on what few hilltops sustained floodwaters. We read that “there was not one single open place, the hills only excepted, where a man could walk,

unless he followed the tracks of wild creatures or cut himself a path” (Jefferies 4). Surviving humanity is forced to live in cramped hilltop forts, hemmed in by wild vegetation and unnavigable rivers, and thereby prevented from congregating into larger towns reminiscent of pre-apocalyptic

London with its harmful pollution. In an interesting reversal of traditional roles in which humans are active and nature passive, nature draws borders around humanity to regulate its population growth and agricultural activity (not industrial activity, as advancements in science and technology have been destroyed), quite like it once experienced at the hands of humans, who closed in fields for commercialized farming or sectioned off large swathes of land for building factories of mass production. For example, Felix Aquila and his family live in an old manor house, called “Old

House,” a “simple designation” for their “fortified residence” (69). Surrounded by dense forest,

Old House stands among a few other residences, storehouses, barns, farm animal pens, and a granary, and it is flanked by a tall, brick wall and moat (68). When Felix requests that his father, the lord of the manor, “enclose a new estate” in the forest, Baron Aquila promptly refuses, instead focusing all his agricultural efforts on a small garden of fruits, herbs, and flowers tucked safely inside the manor walls (99-100). Felix’s father permits crops to be grown only for sustenance and never for immense profit, thereby demonstrating Arne Naess’ “deep approach” to land and sea ethics, which argue that “the earth does not belong to humans… Humans only inhabit the lands, using resources to satisfy vital needs” (Naess, “Deep Ecological Movement” 202). While the manor contains of a few small crop fields within its walls to sustain the residents of Old House, these fields—combined with Baron Aquila’s small vegetable garden—contrast the large-scale industrial farming and deforestation of pre-apocalyptic England.

A few years before After London, John Ruskin wrote about environmental concepts discussed by Naess’ land and sea ethics—more namely, the possibility of living in harmony with

the earth, rather than abusing it or attempting to control it, even by language. In “Landscape,

Mimesis and Morality,” Ruskin argues that

[A]ll real and wholesome enjoyments possible to man have been just as possible to him, since first he was made of the earth, as they are now; and they are possible to him chiefly in peace [with the earth]. To watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over ploughshare or spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray,—these are the things that make men happy; they have always had the power of doing these, they never will have the power to do more. The world’s prosperity or adversity depends upon our knowing and teaching these few things: but upon iron, or glass, or electricity, or steam, in no wise. (Ruskin, “Landscape, Mimesis and Morality” 31) Ruskin expresses the importance of “real and wholesome enjoyments” of nature, such as farming, gardening, reading, meditating or thinking, praying, because these are “chiefly in peace” with the earth. He describes nature as a place of healing and wholeness for humanity and distrusts modern inventions because they are born solely out only of the desire for greater “prosperity,” not enrichment or fulfilment. Similarly, Felix attempts to invent new contraptions to assist the manor in expanding its territory, thereby wielding power over the environment; yet, he doesn’t understand his father’s respect for nature because, to Felix, nature is means to an end, a way of gaining control over one’s circumstances and of increasing one’s station in life through opportunities for material and financial gain. Though Baron Aquila finds fulfilment and solace in his garden endeavors and ignores Felix’s inventions, he is mocked for his seemingly small-scoped interest in the garden, when Felix believes his father could accomplish much more for his family by wresting additional land from the surrounding forest.

However, throughout After London, nature does not sit idly by, watching as the next generation of surviving humans overpowers its natural spaces. So that humanity will never forget its destructive treatment of nature prior to the ecological apocalypse and flooding, nature enacts stage three of its reclamation of space by providing a cautionary tale for human survivors. Rather than flood all of London with its cleansing waters, the Lake leaves a portion of the city untouched.

But, over time, this area becomes so saturated that the water-table rises into London’s old sewer system and explodes, causing the abandoned, empty city to collapse in the filth of its former inhabitants:

For all the rottenness of a thousand years and of many hundred millions of human beings is there festering under the stagnant water, which has sunk down into and penetrated the earth, and floated up to the surface the contents of the buried [waste] (Jefferies 49-50). While nature chooses to purify much of the British landscape with the “beautiful” waters of the great Lake, it leaves a part of London unsubmerged—a stagnant, putrefying marsh and permanent scar on Great Britain’s post-apocalyptic landscape (56, 47). Trisham Hunt’s Building Jerusalem relates, “The vision of London as a bog, as a swamp warming with infection and sinking in its own

(frequently excrementitious) mire would become a favourite motif for Victorian critics of the capital” (Hunt 33). Thus, the marsh—or, as the novel calls it, “the very essence of corruption”— demonstrates After London’s concerns about the permanency and irreversibility of environmental damage to postindustrial landscapes (Jefferies 266). It is both manufactured and natural, essentially a hybrid of human and nature, and could be a reference to the “the Great Stink of 1858,” when increased levels of sewage collaborated with lack of wind and airflow around London and the

Thames to create an unbearably putrid stench that even “Parliament was evacuated and the city essentially shut down, as anyone who could afford to do so fled to the countryside” (J. Taylor 59).

Similarly, when Felix finds himself in the marsh, he discovers that “the earth was poison, the water poison, the air poison, the very light of heaven…poison”—evidence of humanity’s lasting destructive effect on natural spaces (Jefferies 266). Jesse Oak Taylor writes of After London’s putrefying marsh, “[T]his sojourn into the toxic wasteland that was once the capital leaves little doubt that [Londoners] brought destruction on themselves” (J. Taylor 204). Thus, the marsh scene depicts the most startling reclamation of space in the novel. As seen with The Last Man, and as is

shown in Chapter III regarding The Purple Cloud, nature weaponizes humanity’s own historic, industrialist filth to warn against future abuse of the environment, and any humans who enter the marsh die—except Felix, whose name, of course, means “luck” (OED). Thus, while the novel, for the most part, upholds the opposition of humanity and industrialization against nature and landscape, the marsh is only one moment in which the two seemingly oppositional entities are joined together, not by an effort on humanity’s part, which remains passive, but by nature’s active recovery. Weaponizing a hybrid of human filth and natural elements of water and air, the marsh reminds humanity of the irreversible damage it has done, specifically to London’s environment.

Thus, in its non-anthropocentricism and assignment of agency to nature throughout the text, After

London, like Shelley’s The Last Man, possesses early awareness of what is now called “the

Anthropocene epoch” but was, in the late nineteenth century, as yet unnamed, though it was undoubtedly felt and experienced.

This leads me to a discussion of the conclusion of the novel. Having barely survived the marsh, Felix discovers a beautiful natural haven, a clearing in the forest, and is “much taken with this spot…well suited for a settlement and the founding of a city” (Jefferies 295). One would think

Felix learned from his near-death experience in the marsh and would stop to consider the dangers implied by the marsh regarding humanity’s desire to conquer and, subsequently, abuse natural spaces. But, in this moment of irreverence and even forgetfulness on Felix’s part, After London seems to suggest that history is in danger of repeating itself in an endless cycle of avenged abuses.

This interpretation is supported by the fact that Richard Jefferies was a lifelong lover of the outdoors and a dedicated naturalist; he must have relished the thought of nature reclaiming space in over-industrialized England. Brian Taylor, one his biographers, writes, “[I]n Jefferies’ descriptions of [London’s] demise, there is something amounting almost to controlled glee” (B.

Taylor 35). So, whether Felix achieves his goal of creating a settlement, we’ll never know for sure: the novel ends without an answer. With a name meaning “luck,” he could have a chance—but just a chance, and perhaps a slim one. Judging by the novel’s consistent non-anthropocentricism and insistence upon nature’s agency, however, it is likely that Felix and his plans for settlement were overtaken by the forest. Most likely, Jefferies would have wanted it that way. With its inconclusive ending, After London allows us to imagine a future with or without human existence, a future in which something is quite certain: nature persists and always will, as Lionel Verney understands in

Mary Shelley’s The Last Man. Thus, when viewed non-anthropocentrically, After London purports an Anthropocenic eco-utopia because there is a happy ending for our protagonist, nature—though perhaps not for humanity. Latour writes, “The point of living in the epoch of the Anthropocene is that all agents share the same shape-changing destiny” (“Agency” 15). As an Anthropocenic eco- utopia, After London demonstrates nature’s agency and ability to shape its own “destiny,” though not particularly pleasant for the majority of England’s human residents. After London’s non- anthropocentricism and focus on nature’s agency, rather than humans, forces a change in perspective, making nature “subject” and active, humans, “object” and passive. Latour argues that, in order to stop humanity’s endless cycle of abusing the environment, we will need to “distribute agency as far and in as differentiated a way as possible—until, that is, we have thoroughly lost any relation between those two concepts of object and subject that are no longer of any interest any more except in a patrimonial sense” (15). After London comes very close to “distribut[ing] agency” in its non-anthropocentricity; however, while it does distribute agency farther than do many eco- narratives, it still maintains the unhelpful opposition of nature-against-humanity, humanity- against-nature.

In the next and final chapter, I demonstrate how The Purple Cloud addresses this opposition and figuratively burns it to the ground—along with all major cities in the world. I also continue an analysis of nature’s weaponization of anthropogenic environmental change in The Purple Cloud.

However, where After London purports a separation between nature and humans (excluding the marsh scene and the hybridization of human filth and natural elements), Shiel’s rather sensational

1901 novel features a deadly hybrid of natural phenomena and human-produced chemicals, the deadly effects of which exaggerate concerns about anthropogenic environmental change in vivid purple and livid flames on a planet-wide scale.

CHAPTER III

“THE CONFLAGRATION OF THE WORLD”: ANTHROPOGENIC APOCALYPSE AND

BIBLICAL ALLUSION IN M. P. SHIEL’S THE PURPLE CLOUD

Arctic explorer Adam Jeffson murders humans and nonhumans alike so that can become the first man on earth to successfully reach the North Pole—the last uncharted domain (Shiel 35).

When he arrives, however, he discovers that he has awakened a mystical “living creature,” a deadly purple vapor that is frightening in its hybridity of natural phenomena and omniscient, omnipresent,

God-like characteristics (41). At the time, Jeffson cannot comprehend the cloud’s existence or rationalize it with evidence-based science—an alarming experience for a botanist, whose field of study involves experiential analysis and hands-on experimentation. The cloud, however, is ethereal, mystical; it is not of this earth, yet somehow wholly earthly. Its very existence defies all that Jeffson thought he knew about the world and its natural phenomena. Therefore, desiring to relay his surreal experience of witnessing the cloud to readers, in his first-person account, Jeffson utilizes Biblical allusion as a way of framing the fantastic and unbelievable in commonly recognized and practiced Judeo-Christian belief, permitting readers to experience the cloud through familiar Biblical stories involving the fall of humanity from perfection in the Garden of

Eden. Jeffson sees the cloud as possessing God-like characteristics as it enacts Biblical vengeance upon humanity for committing ecological sins, as Adam and Eve committed in the Garden of Eden; for, when Jeffson flees the Pole, he realizes that, though he is the first man to reach the Pole, he is now the last man to roam earth.

In this last chapter, I demonstrate The Purple Cloud’s use of Biblical allusion points to an awareness of geological changes that humans were making to the earth’s biosphere, particularly around London. I argue that The Purple Cloud’s preoccupation with Old Testament allusion demonstrates an awareness of the earth’s geological transition from an epoch of relative ecological harmony—similar to that of the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis that the text so frequently references—to an epoch of ecological devastation and strife, which is our current Anthropocene epoch. Thus, the purple cloud from the North Pole ultimately represents a perceived transition from one geological epoch to the next, one in which there can no longer be a separation between nature and culture because of humanity’s influence on the biosphere and its ability to affect change in elements of nature, especially in micro-climates existing over major cities. Once again, deep ecology assists my dissection of this complicated eco-dystopia, where humans and nonhumans alike are destroyed but mourned by the narration, dead but alive in ways that haunt the text and gloom its atmosphere.

Because The Purple Cloud remains in obscurity for the most part, I begin my analysis with an overview of the text’s publication and reception. Matthew Phipps Shiel conceived of the novel in 1898 and wrote it through 1899; he then published it as an abridged serial version—interestingly, without reference to the trilogy it was a part of—in The Royal Magazine in January 1901 (Billings

84). Due to positive reviews, The Purple Cloud was promptly published as a complete book later that fall (109-110). The other two texts in the trilogy are The Lord of the Sea and The Last Miracle,

The Purple Cloud being the second and middle text; however, the three are only loosely connected by prefatory notes that merely describe the stories as being about three varyingly destructive future events (83). Once published, the book received highly optimistic reviews, as it had in serial form.

Brian Stableford writes in Scientific Romance in Britain, 1890-1950, this “last man story” (36) is

“generally—and rightly—considered to be Shiel’s finest work” (78). Reviewer for The Academy

W. W. Jacob wrote in October, shortly after the book’s appearance,

[N]othing could be madder, giddily and gorgeously madder, than The Purple Cloud. And, at the same time, nothing so mad could well have more method in its madness. Mr. Shiel has apparently set out to be more sensational than anybody ever before was, and he is handsomely succeeding. (Jacob 361) Shiel’s “sensational” writing imagines an apocalypse of vividly described purple fumes that destroys all living, sentient beings and, according to Jacob’s glowing review, sets his long- nineteenth-century, apocalyptic eco-narrative apart from the many others written in the era. Forty- seven years later, in 1948, an editor of Shiel’s collected works, A. Reynold Morse, modifies

Jacob’s declaration of Shiel’s literary success, writing that Shiel is “one of the greatest writers ever to use the English language…at once so formidable, majestic and remote a citadel that it is difficult to decide just how to approach him” (xvii, xiv).

Morse’s comments are made more interesting when considering Shiel’s island homeland, the volcano of Montserrat in the West Indies, a vibrant realm of greenery abounding with nonhuman species. Shiel seems to have based much of The Purple Cloud on this island of his childhood (Sutherland xiv). Though Montserrat’s volcano remained dormant, its fumes reminded island dwellers that their lives could end in one, speedy explosion: there would be no escape for humans or any of the island’s diverse species. One can imagine the effect this had upon young

Shiel. When Krakatoa blew its top in Indonesia in 1883, Shiel was still living on Montserrat

(Sutherland xv). Two years later, however, he left the “slumbering sulfur monster” for England

(Billings, Introduction). Due to Shiel’s close encounter with the volcano of Montserrat, a partly autobiographical reading of The Purple Cloud is perhaps valid when taking into consideration the novel’s intense and inescapable (part-)natural phenomena.

Judging by the “purple vapour” always “brooding” on the horizon in The Purple Cloud, it seems that growing up on volcanic island, as well as the reality of Krakatoa’s explosion, influenced

Shiel’s perception of nature’s unstoppable power and humanity’s vulnerability when faced with natural phenomena (Shiel 42). This called human agency into question. When the purple cloud is unleashed from its polar slumber in a “circular clean-cut lake…that seemed to be wheeling with a shivering ecstasy,” it kills both humans and nonhumans. Shortly after leaving the Pole, Jeffson makes the observation: “Silent, silent: for neither snort of walrus, nor yelp of fox, nor cry of startled kittiwake, did I hear: but all was still as the jet-black shadow of the cliffs and glacier on the tranquil sea: and many bodies of dead things strewed the surface of the water” (Shiel 45). While only a few lucky walruses and crabs survive, all of humanity is extinct, having dropped dead in fumes of purple vapor.

At the time of The Purple Cloud’s publication, the British had not yet laid claim to the

North Pole, despite intense efforts; it would not be until 1909 that two American explorers would claim they had reached the Pole—and not without extreme controversy (Robinson 155). While

Americans and British alike sought to conquer this last, “uninhabited” domain for themselves,

Jeffson’s observation of dead humans and nonhumans after his visit to the Pole suggests—in a rather “deepist” way—that even the most remote, “uninhabitable” regions of the world are called so only because of their incapacity to support human life, though nonhuman life may abound.

Furthermore, the scene’s depiction of numerous dead Arctic nonhumans implies that, even the

Arctic—a seemingly inhospitable place, eluding humankind for millennia—was already occupied prior to the arrival of human explorers, like Jeffson, by “bears, walruses, foxes, thousands upon thousands of little awks, kittiwakes, snow-owls, eider-ducks, gulls” (47). But Jeffson notes, they are all “dead, dead” because of an “inconceivable catastrophe” that has “destroy[ed] all life” (47).

A few pages later, we read about his former crewmates, who “had died, it seemed, rather suddenly, for nearly all the twelve were in poses of activity” (51). This is an obvious moment in which deep ecology operates within the text.

However, The Purple Cloud differs from Shelley’s The Last Man and Jefferies’ After

London in that it is eco-dystopian, rather than eco-utopian. This is primarily because the apocalypse kills both humans and nonhumans, thereby creating a negative outcome for all living, sentient beings involved. While the purple cloud targets all living beings, human and nonhuman, it is, itself, a combination of its targets; neither fully human, nor fully natural, the purple cloud is the hybrid formed from environmentalist nightmares, an entity that combines human pollution with natural phenomena to create a weapon that does not distinguish between human and nonhuman, culprit and innocent. In this sense, the purple cloud darkly reminds of After London’s marsh, which kills trespassers with poisonous vapors, and purports a Latourian hybrid of “nature- culture” that represents Anthropogenic change in the environment (Latour, We Have Never Been

Modern 7). In the previous two texts discussed in this thesis, the “natural world” appears in juxtaposition to the “human world” due to the obvious difference in human and nonhuman fates, as well as the cause of the apocalypse: humans die, while nonhumans survive, and the apocalypse is caused by nature alone. In other words, while nonhumans flourish in the post-human worlds of

The Last Man and After London, humans and nonhumans are both included in the same fate in The

Purple Cloud and die from purple vapors from the Pole that are neither fully nature, nor fully humanmade. Thus, Shiel’s novel depiction of an eco-dystopia demonstrates the interconnectedness and inextricability of human and nonhuman existence in a world where no one ecological harm goes unpunished.

The purple cloud is not an entirely natural phenomenon, as Jeffson later discovers. Upon returning to the mass grave that London has become, Jeffson finds a newspaper article from The

Times containing scientific explanations for the purple cloud. He reads various viewpoints of scientists, who speculate that a volcanic eruption from somewhere in the tropics formed the purple cloud of doom. With attention to scientific detail that is typical of the science fiction genre, Shiel embarks on several pages of chemical descriptions to ground the existence and deadliness of the purple cloud in scientific evidence. Due to the amount CO and CO2 found in its chemical makeup, scientists staunchly believe the cloud came from the depths of a volcano (98). Another scientist provides rationale for volcanic activity by describing how the levels of cyanogen present in the air suggest a disgorging of the earth’s deepest chemical deposits from “volcanic depths”; however, this second scientist admits that cyanogen is infrequently found in nature and more likely produced by human activity as the unfortunate byproduct of pit-coal mining. A third scientist, named

Sloggett, is a professor from the Dublin Science and Art Department—a nod, perhaps, to Shiel’s

Irish heritage (Sutherland xiii). He believes the cloud was indeed the result of “an eruption— another, but far greater Krakatoa—probably in some South Sea region” (Shiel 99). From firsthand accounts of fleeing human populations, Sloggett describes the purple cloud as having

languid tongues of purple flame, rose-coloured at their edges [due to] cyanogen and hydrocyanic acid vapour, which, being inflammable, may have become locally ignited in the passage over cities, and only burned in that limited and languid way on account of the ponderous volumes of carbonic anhydride… (98) Though the cloud was initially created by natural causes, its fiery coloration is created by human means: industry in large cities. According to Sloggett’s argument, dangerous amounts of flammable chemicals, such as “carbonic anhydride”—expelled by factories operating in major, industrialized cities—mixed with chemicals in the cloud to ignite alarming shades of purple or magenta, an unnatural hue, especially when viewed from doomed inhabitants below. Thus,

Sloggett identifies the purple cloud as being part-natural, part-manufactured, a creation of both nature and of humanity, naturally caused yet humanly intensified, a glowing harbinger of death.

Sloggett’s report also indicates that all living beings “down to the lowest evolutionary forms, would disappear” unless locked into tightly sealed chambers until the vapors subsided, which explains how walruses and crabs survived, perhaps by hiding in airtight chambers within icebergs

(99). According to Sloggett, only vegetation will survive the purple cloud’s onslaught when it arrives in London. And, judging by Jeffson’s observations of London’s wasteland of death and destruction, Sloggett was, unfortunately, correct. Here it is perhaps important to note that the survival of a few fortunate sled dogs, walruses, and crabs in the text serves as reminder to Jeffson that, while he is indeed the last human on earth, he is not the last sentient being. His lone survival would have perpetuated the idea that he is “special” or “above” nonhumans, but the survival of a few other nonhumans alongside him reinforces the equality of humans and nonhumans from the careless perspective of the purple cloud; thus, it cannot be assumed that Jeffson has been saved because he is human if other nonhumans also have been spared. In fact, Jeffson laments his survival as “one poor human soul” and finds no consolation in having been kept alive (42).

The purple cloud haunts Jeffson as he wanders the earth alone. Its most sinister quality is its hybridity, a depiction of geology and industry at work in monstrous ways. Had the purple cloud been solely natural in essence, the text would have perhaps inferred that humanity would one day be killed by something entirely outside of its control, like the natural phenomena of a volcano.

However, the purple cloud’s perpetual, fiery reignition over every major city with which it crosses paths partly implicates humanity in causing its own demise and, likewise, the demise of other nonhumans because the cloud is fueled by humanmade pollution from factories. In fact, upon reading Sloggett’s analysis and, thereby, discovering the way in which the purple cloud exists and

continues to function, Jeffson travels the world for the purpose of setting cities on fire himself before the purple cloud has the change to arrive (181). In this sense, Ailise Bulfin writes, Jeffson becomes “a kind of individual incarnation of geological forces” (Bulfin 162). Knowing that humanity has already died, which he can only assume is the case throughout the entire world,

Jeffson exercises a morbid sense of agency in speeding the destruction of humanmade cities, though this action by no means reduces the purple cloud’s damage and only causes a chain reaction of burning cities, flaming clouds, and utter destruction, which he somehow still survives.

Alan Mikhail asserts human agency through the use of alarming statistics of interference with the natural world and the acquisition of various flora and fauna as resources for its survival:

In the early twenty-first century, humans directly impact over 60% of the world’s land surface; they shape 41% of the world’s marine environments; over two-thirds of fisheries have been depleted, exploited, or over-exploited because of human harvesting; humans have caused the extinction of over a quarter of bird species; humans consume 40% of the plants grown in any given year; they are now responsible for the transport of more materials in the terrestrial environment than any non-human process… In short, humans have collectively become Earth’s most powerful geophysical force (Mikhail 211) His assertion that humanity has become the world’s “most powerful geophysical force” is quite radical and assumes that no natural phenomena, such as volcanos and high-seismic earthquakes, will occur in the near future; for, unstoppable forces of nature certainly put humanmade environmental changes into perspective, human-induced changes occurring over longer periods of time and natural phenomena over often drastically short periods. Yet, Mikhail’s words also echo

Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani’s use of the term “new telluric force” in 1873 to describe the way in which humans have taken over the biosphere, its land, sea, and skies (Crutzen, “The

Geology of Mankind 23). However, by downplaying nature’s agency in the Anthropocene, Mikhail runs the risk of assuming—as Coleridge did in the Romantic era—that nature is “passive” or

“objective” (Coleridge 21). Jeffson makes these assumptions when he races to the North Pole and

is surprised when nature retaliates “in the substance of a living creature,” one that strikes “baleful shrinking terror” into his heart (Shiel 42).

Similarly, clouds would haunt Shiel. Following his departure from Montserrat and its occasional, dormant volcanic plumes, he arrived in London in 1885—the same year that Richard

Jefferies published After London. By this time, the Industrial Revolution had been underway for nearly a century, and smog had become an entity of its own in London, hovering over the vastly overpopulated city of unregulated industrialization and rampant disease caused by pollution in the atmosphere. Oftentimes, Londoners died suddenly from choking to death in its fumes (85). Over

50,000 tons of carbonic acid, which was produced by coal-burning, were sent into London’s immediate atmosphere daily (Jones 184). Smog was the hybridization of factory chemicals and natural fog produced by the Thames, and it plagued London proper for the entirety of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. In January and February of 1880, dense smog took the lives of 2,000 people, smothering them to death (184).

London smog became embedded in British consciousness and appeared in different literary forms in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Six apocalyptic works appeared within an eleven-year timespan, between 1880 to 1901, and are worth noting for their depictions of various forces of nature—not just smog—destroying London. William Delisle Hay’s The Doom of the Great City appeared in 1880, five years prior to Jefferies’ After London, and was written in response to

London’s deadly smog of 1880 (Jones 187). In 1892, Robert Barr’s “The Doom of London” appeared; and, just two years after Shiel published The Purple Cloud, Fred M. White wrote a collection of four short stories under the same name as Barr’s work, The Doom of London—but notably in italics, not quotations—in 1903 and 1904 (188). These end-of-London texts, aside from

demonstrating a general ill-will toward the great city of London—reveal major environmental concerns surrounding, what Jesse Oak Taylor calls smog’s “abnaturalism.”

In The Sky of Our Manufacture, Taylor describes Victorian smog as a humanmade climate with agency, an “abnatural” force that continues to “adapt, mutate, migrate, and evolve, even under artificial conditions” (5). Taylor demonstrates the ways in which Victorian writers, like Charles

Dickens and Virginia Woolf, penned and catalyzed environmental awareness by conceptualizing

London’s smog through the medium of fiction. However, their representations of smog evoked strong emotions of disgust and concern in readership, leading to political action regarding issues of pollution and unregulated industry in the city. Victorian writers, as Taylor tells us, enabled their contemporary British readers to envision the deadly effects of the smog and, thus, enact reform.

Ultimately, however, Taylor argues that London’s smog is the first instance of recognized anthropogenic climate change and initiates the appearance of the “Anthropocene” in the genre of

Victorian fiction.

The purple cloud is anthropogenic, speculated as a hybrid creation of a natural phenomenon and human pollution. Its very existence proves that humans influence geology, even to the extent of exercising agency in ending not only its existence but also, unfairly, the existence of nonhumans.

As Jeffson tries to make sense of the hellish disaster unleashed by his discovery of the North Pole, he narrates, “I noticed, stretched right across the south-eastern horizon, a region of purple vapour which luridly obscured the face of the sun: and day after day I saw it steadily brooding there. But what it could be I did not understand” (42). For this new creation, this antagonist of both humans and nonhumans, Jeffson has no words other than “purple cloud” or “purple vapour”; he does not possess the scientific knowledge to explain the hybrid “living creature” he witnesses.

One critic, who noticed anthropogenic change before it was officially recognized by the

International Geological Congress of 1885, was John Ruskin, who delivered two lectures in

February 1884, ominously titled, “The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century.” In two parts,

Ruskin’s lectures assert that there has been “radical change, during recent years, in weather aspect”

(Ruskin, The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century iv). Ruskin notes that, while many people consider his observations to be “imaginary or insane,” he continues an investigation of “cloud phenomena…which are peculiar to [the mid-nineteenth century]” because nothing had been written about this “cloud” earlier in London history and because it has not, so far, “received any special notice or description from meteorologists” (2). Of course, one year after this, the

International Geological Congress met and concurred that Ruskin’s cloud is certainly not like other clouds naturally occurring in our atmosphere. Despite apparent silence from the scientific community regarding this “peculiar” cloud, Ruskin suggests his audience is witnessing the creation of a distinctly urban phenomenon: “You are all familiar with one extremely cognizable variety of that sort of vapour—London Particular” (Ruskin 8-9). He describes the cloud, malevolently hovering over the city, as being different from other, natural cloud formations because its particular

“kind of vapour…lies to a certain depth on the ground,” which differs from the usual, naturally occurring cloud “that floats at a certain height in the sky,” the higher being “heavenly,” the lower

“earthly” at “roof level” (9). Ruskin’s comparison suggests a division on multiple between the natural and the unnatural, the heavenly and the earthly, the higher and lower atmospheres. Thus, the “London Particular” cloud, to Ruskin, represents human interference with the environment and is symbolic for corruption of pure, “heavenly” nature for “earthly,” human purposes: it is the

“plague-cloud” of industrialism.

In Chaos and Cosmos, Scott sheds light on the connection between natural phenomena occurring in the nineteenth century and the “plague-cloud” Ruskin brought to his listeners’ attention in his lectures: “The comprehension of volcanic eruptions led atmospheric chemists to draw an analogy with industrialization. Like eruptions, industrial pollution caused climate anomalies linked to the release of aerosols and greenhouse gases” (Scott 50). The association of volcanic eruptions with pollution was historically believed, even before science could provide solid evidence: Scott cites from an editorial article in the Edinburgh Review in 1804 relating the extreme interest of the editors regarding “the inherent soundness of an initial link between volcanic and industrial pollution” (Scott 50). Although volcanic eruptions are typically followed by cooling atmospherics, industrial pollution increases temperatures. Regardless of the exact science involved, which was not solidified until the twentieth century, scientists of the time conversed about the similarity between volcanic explosions and the carbonic acid explosions witnessed everyday throughout the city of London in the form of factory smoke (50). The connection between a natural phenomenon and humanmade pollution, however flawed and primitive at the time, nonetheless created the impression “that sensational events in geological history informed an anthropogenic future” (51).

Lacking the geological and environmental terminology to explain the changes he witnessed as occurring in the natural world due to human corruption and pollution, Shiel utilized Biblical allusions from the Book of Genesis to express his concerns about anthropogenic changes to the environment. Whenever Jeffson comes across dead bodies, they are coated in “a purplish ash or dust, very impalpably fine” and the “aroma of peach-blossom” (51). Shiel’s description of “a purplish ash or dust” and “aroma of peach-blossom” appears much more pleasant in comparison to the reality of the black, heavy soot that choked Londoners to death (Shiel 51). However, his

language utilizes the common cultural framework of Judeo-Christian belief in the Forbidden Fruit and the fall of humanity. As is exemplified by the Garden of Eden’s role in determining the fate of humanity, the issue of nature’s agency is age-old, for, according to the Bible, a simple tree determined the fall of humankind and expulsion from paradise. Bulfin writes, “[R]eligiously- informed conceptions of apocalypse were integral to [the] dominant religion” of Victorian society, which was Christianity (155). Moreover, Shiel’s father was a Methodist preacher (Sutherland xiii).

Thus, The Purple Cloud is grounded in a traditionally held belief system that offers a parallel to the transition from the Holocene to Anthropocene epochs in the story of the Garden of Eden and fall of humanity.

The Garden of Eden is a place of new beginnings and ecological harmony—everything the

Anthropocene is not, ecologically, and something the Holocene is commonly believed to have been. Interestingly, the Holocene epoch is referred to by the Commonwealth Scientific and

Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Globaïa, and the International Geosphere-Biosphere

Programme (IGBP), among other scientific and environmental research organizations, as the

“Garden of Eden” due to its “stable climate” (“Welcome to the Anthropocene”). In the Holocene, humans had only just begun hunting, gathering, and conducting small-scale farming. No major, permanent, or irreversible changes were made to the earth’s surface, oceans, or atmosphere.

Though Shiel never uses the terms “Holocene” or “Anthropocene,” The Purple Cloud demonstrates the dangers of humanity overreaching its boundaries as cohabitants of the earth by involving Judeo-Christian belief as rationale for abiding by divinely-ordained ecological guidelines that protect against abuse of the natural world.

It should be noted here that there is some overlap between Christianity and deep ecology, though they have been perceived as being at odds with one another. Arne Naess himself, founder

of deep ecology, writes that Christians “have actively taken part in the deep ecology movement.

Their interpretations of the Bible, and their theological positions in general, have been reformed from what was, until recently, crude dominating anthropocentric emphasis … sometimes overlooked” (Naess, “Deep Ecological Movement” 207). Naess also places emphasis on Jesus’ peaceful example as reason for Christianity’s alignment with the main tenants of deep ecology.

Regardless of readers’ religious belief or unbelief, however, the general analogy drawn by The

Purple Cloud’s Biblical allusion is the same: the post-Fall, post-apocalyptic, post-Holocene world is one ruled by death, spiritually, socio-politically, and environmentally.

To summarize perhaps the most catalytic event of the Christian Bible, in the opening chapters of Book of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, Adam and Eve live in the paradisal Garden of Eden at peace with the earth, until they sin against God by eating fruit from a tree that God has commanded them to abstain from consuming for purposes of sustenance. This is tree is called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” as Genesis tells us:

And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil… [T]he Lord God commanded the man [Adam], saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” (NKJV, Genesis 2:9, 16-17) Though God commanded Adam—who presumably relayed this information to his wife, Eve—not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, all other plants in the garden were made available to them, including the tree of life. Unsatisfied, however, with the boundaries God enforced on the consumption of his creation, Adam and Eve both disobeyed and ate the fruit from the one tree in the entire Garden that God warned them not to harvest.

Similarly, in The Purple Cloud, before Jeffson reaches the Pole, the earth exhibits general

“stability”: Jeffson had not yet transgressed any clear ecological boundaries (“Welcome to the

Anthropocene”). In an early scene analogous to Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden, Clodagh,

Jeffson’s fiancée, encourages Jeffson to join the North Pole expeditionary force and tempts him, saying, “The man who first plants his foot on the North pole will certainly be ennobled” (17). Her words echo the infamous words of the serpent—or Satan—in the Garden of Eden: “[Y]our eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (NKJV, Genesis 3:5). In this sense, The Purple Cloud compares the “ennobling” of being the first to claim the Pole to having one’s eyes “opened” regarding what is “good and evil,” or right and wrong (Genesis 3:5). Clodagh offers Jeffson the possibility of fame and fortune in the same way that Eve holds out the Forbidden

Fruit to Adam, a tempting gesture with promises of glory and honor (Genesis 3:6). Sure enough,

Clodagh’s prompting spurns Jeffson to join the venture; likewise, Adam takes the Fruit from Eve, and their eyes are “opened” (Genesis 3:7). Perhaps unsubtly, after all, Shiel gives Jeffson the first name of “Adam,” and Jeffson refers to Clodagh as his “Eve” (Shiel 17). Later, Jeffson seems to have learned a lesson in trusting his “Eve”: when he meets a young girl, who was born in an airtight chamber beneath Constantinople post-apocalypse, she reads the Bible with religious fervor and, never having been named as a child, suggests she be called “Eve” (Shiel 226). Understandably,

Jeffson refuses. Just before reaching the Pole, Jeffson hears Clodagh’s words in his mind: “Be first!” (39). Yet, when he lays eyes on the “eternal inner secret” at the Pole, we read, “[T]he very instant that my eyes met what was before me, I knew, I knew, that here was the Sanctity of

Sanctities” (41). Jeffson’s spirit “seemed to groan and die within” him (41); compatibly, in

Genesis, after eating the forbidden fruit together, Adam and Eve realize they have made a grave mistake; for, when they heard God “walking in the garden in the cool of the day,” they hide from him and feel shame for the first time in the short history of humanity’s existence (Genesis 3:8).

Thus, Biblical analogy in the text—heavy-handed at times—suggests that the fall of humanity ended Adam and Eve’s ecological harmony with God’s creation and introduced the unfortunate couple to a fallen world, one in which their sins would influence not only their treatment of the environment but where the reverse was also true. In his severely disappointed speech to Adam and Eve, following their disobedience, God says, “Cursed is the ground for your sake; / In toil you shall eat of it / All the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17). Also because of the

Fall, humans were forced to farm, killing animals and tilling the land for sustenance. However,

God himself took the first life since creation, killing a lamb to make clothes for Adam and Eve so that they would no longer be ashamed of their nakedness (Genesis 3:7, 21). The implication is that humans had been vegetarians in the Garden; after all, God told Adam and Eve to “have dominion” over the earth but, regarding sustenance, directed them to the plants in the Garden (1:26). Similarly,

Jeffson comments toward the end of the novel that if he and his new “Eve” should procreate, their children “will be vegetable-eaters,” primarily because there are no nonhumans to consume, but secondly because “it is not certain that meat is good for men” (Shiel 261). And, though the fall brought the death of nonhumans into the world before it brought death for humans, in the very next chapter Adam and Eve’s son Cain kills his brother Abel in the first murderous act toward a human (Genesis 4:8). Thus, the fall is categorized by an introduction of death for nonhumans and humans alike, just as it is in The Purple Cloud with the title entity’s rampage of destruction.

More Biblical allusion appears in the cloud’s guardianship of the Pole, as well as its fiery underbelly. One allusion remains in the Book of Genesis, while the other brings in New Testament eschatology. When Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden, God stationed angels at the

Garden’s gate, wielding a “flaming sword which turned every way to guard the tree of life”

(Genesis 3:24). The sword’s “turn[ing] every way” resembles the way in which Jeffson observes

the “living creature” at the Pole “wheel[ing] for ever round in fluttering lust” and always staring at a mysterious “pillar” in the center of “fluid of the lake,” as if guarding it from trespassing, undeserving eyes (Shiel 41). While the sword assists the angel in protecting the Garden from human encroachment of its God-ordained boundaries, the purple vapor guards the pillar in the lake from Jeffson’s sight—it being “a most burning shame for a man to see” (41). On the pillar is inscribed a “name, or word graven all round in the ice of the pillar in characters he [Jeffson] could never read; and under the name a long date.” Interestingly, this seems to reference Christ’s second- coming as described in the New Testament book of Luke, where Jesus says, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only… Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:36, 42). The placement of this allusion suggests that the pillar reveals the month and date of Christ’s return, or of the apocalypse in

Christian eschatology, especially as recorded in the last book of the New Testament, the Book of

Revelation. However, before Jeffson has the chance to read and fully understand the meaning of the name and date inscribed on the pillar, the purple vapor attacks: Jeffson faints, then he awakens in a post-apocalyptic world. The flaming sword stationed at the Garden’s gate is a symbol that enforces death and denies the first human couple the possibility of an eternity in the Garden, in the same way that “languid tongues of purple flame, rose-coloured at their edges” deny humans— except for Jeffson and his new Eve—any future existence in the world, post-purple cloud (98).

Just as the Judeo-Christian tradition of the fall serves as a reminder that humans are no longer living in an eternal, ecologically-harmonious Garden of Eden, The Purple Cloud’s demonstration of an apocalyptic world reflects upon the idea of living at—or even after—the end of time. For example, in London, Jeffson checks the time out of habit on his “old silver chronometer” but finds the hands have stopped at “3:10 P.M., the precise moment at which all the

clocks of London had stopped—for each town has its thousand weird fore-fingers, pointing, pointing still, to the moment of doom” (Shiel 123). As he travels throughout London, Jeffson grows increasingly more agitated by the appearance of these “weird fore-fingers” of doom. Bulfin writes about how Shiel’s incorporation of time-keeping and technology, exemplified by the abused clockwork phonograph, “accentuate[s] the importance of the temporal aspect of human existence”; however, while time gestured to the advancements being made in science and technology, it also pointed to possibility that humanity had reached its end—“a topic of great interest to the popular writers who were beginning to establish the confines of the emerging genre now referred to as science fiction” (Bulfin 154). In a subsequent scene, Jeffson discovers a “clockwork phonograph” but becomes so angry with the uselessness of time-keeping that he “nearly [tears] it into pieces…half-kicking” the phonograph to release his frustration (Shiel 135-136).

The temporality of human existence weighs on The Purple Cloud like an atmosphere of its own. Jesse Oak Taylor, elucidating the way in which literal atmospherics directly influence the literary atmosphere of the Victorian novel, states, “Atmospheric thinking emphasizes adjacency; it considers the way that bodies of all kinds influence the conditions of possibility in their vicinity”

(J. Taylor 6). Throughout The Purple Cloud, a late-Victorian novel, Jeffson narrates his unsettling experiences with atmosphere, whether the purple vapor looming on the horizon or the smell of peach-blossom. The sights, the smells—all remind Jeffson that he is living at the end of the world, which he helped bring about. Jeffson’s role in the apocalypse is equated to Adam’s taking of the fruit in Genesis. In the Bible, the fall is seen as having occurred for reasons of spiritual agency; however, in The Purple Cloud, Jeffson’s reckless excursion to the Pole is also given spiritual connotations. When he invades the “Sanctity of Sanctities,” the “old eternal inner secret of the Life of this Earth,” which was “a most burning shame” for him to witness, punishes him—and all

sentient beings, for that matter—because Jeffson transgressed the boundaries of the “living creature” at the Pole, the guardian of time’s final stopping point. When the cloud unleashes its fury upon humanity, Jeffson is to blame, and that knowledge haunts him throughout the novel in the same way that the fall haunts Christians, who believe the world is now fallen due to Adam and

Eve’s first sin in the Garden. Though I do not embark on a discussion of spiritual agency, as set forth in the Bible, for obvious reasons, it is worth reiterating the way in which both Stoppani and

Mikhail focus on humanity’s agency in the Anthropocene. Jeffson’s role in the apocalypse—both in trespassing an ecological boundary at the Pole and burning down cities across Europe— demonstrate in literary terms Stoppani and Mikhail’s similar belief in human agency in causing anthropogenic changes to the earth.

However, because my analysis involves deep ecology, I return to Bruno Latour, who proposes we not overlook nature’s agency in the Anthropocene. He describes humanity’s current situation as a time in which the earth’s speedy environmental changes are happening too fast for us to comprehend, let alone counteract. In an article titled, “Agency at the Time of the

Anthropocene,” Bruno Latour writes, “[T]he Earth has now taken back all the characteristics of a full-fledged actor. [I]t has become once again an agent of history, or rather, an agent of what I have proposed to call our common geostory” (Latour, “Agency” 3). As The Purple Cloud demonstrates, the tables have turned: the earth is now an active agent of change, and we are helpless to stop it or involve ourselves any more than we have. Thus, while Jefferies’ entire novel demonstrates nature’s agency, Shiel’s imbues the purple cloud with agency, and, though the purple cloud is not fully natural, it is initially created by a natural phenomenon, a volcanic eruption.

Traveling across the world and killing all living beings in its path, the purple cloud even

weaponizes humanity’s pollution of the environment by interacting with chemicals over major cities in order to destroy all remnants of human civilization.

Like Jefferies’ poisonous marsh, the cloud demonstrates the interweaving of nature with humanity, the natural with the manufactured. It is “nature-culture” embodied in an apocalypse force of anthropogenic adaptation (Latour, We Have Never Been Modern 7). While Romantic writers, like Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, and even Shelley’s non-anthropocentric Lionel

Verney, maintained a distance between humanity and nature, Latour writes, “There is no distant place anymore” (Latour, “Agency” 2). No longer can humans stand apart from nature, viewing it objectively and at a distance; we are intertwined with nature, inseparable from it, part of it, and deeply involved with its workings. Our actions affect the entire biosphere of humans, nonhumans, plants, oceans, atmosphere, landscape, and, ultimately, geology. There is no more distinguishing between nature and humanity—a characteristic of the Anthropocene that becomes apparent in The

Purple Cloud’s depiction of an apocalyptic phenomena that is both nature and humanity, a combined role of villainy bringing about the destruction of human and nonhuman lifeforms alike, because we are alike.

Ultimately, The Purple Cloud sends this message to readers: haunted by the mistakes of our Garden of Eden ancestors, we risk repeating history by transgressing the boundaries God has set in place regarding our place in the biosphere, just as Jeffson transgresses and is subsequently haunted by the cloud at the Pole. “What I had seen, or dreamed, at the Pole followed and followed me,” he narrates (Shiel 44). Though Shiel’s use of Biblical allusion is often oppressive, his utilizations of Biblical allusion are meant “to sensationalize or add moral weight” to the narrative

(Stableford 171). Yet, for all of its Biblical allusion, The Purple Cloud’s eschatology is “as much a theological fantasy” as science fiction (Stableford 78). It compares the Garden of Eden to the

Holocene and the Biblical fall of humanity to the Anthropocene at a time when the two geological terms were not yet existent. Shiel appears to have recognized anthropogenic changes in the atmosphere surrounding his new residence of London, as did many other writers in his time, and conflated these anthropogenic changes with the volcano of Montserrat, a natural phenomenon that could also change the environment for the worse, killing humans and nonhumans alike, and without warning. His creative use of Biblical allusion provides a commonly understood framework for engaging with his narrative.

In Ecology without Nature, Timothy Morton writes “The word environment still haunts us, because in a society that took care of its surroundings in a more comprehensive sense, our idea of environment would have withered away” (Morton 141, author emphasis). Earlier in the novel,

Jeffson describes the purple cloud on the horizon as “like the smoke of the conflagration of the world, and I noticed that its length constantly reached out and out, and silently grew” (Shiel 42).

Silent but moving, seemingly distant but imminently dangerous, the purple cloud is an omniscient, omnipresent ghost that is hauntingly hybrid and effervescent: it only expands in size and deadliness with every new city it engulfs in flame. Perhaps, then, Shiel’s eco-narrative warns us that, if we are not careful in our treatment of the natural world, we will not be able to escape an anthropogenic apocalypse of our making; for, it is illogical to think we can outrun ourselves.

At the end of the novel, Adam Jeffson and his new “Eve” anticipate an onslaught from a second purple cloud and barricade themselves in the coal mines of London, thus complicating the plot by yet another apocalypse (260). This does two things for the text. First, it lends irony to the text as survivors of the first onslaught return to the very source of the purple cloud’s anthropogenic fire: the coal mines. Second, it implies that it is still not the end of the world but perhaps long past the end of the world—and with still no relief in sight. Jesse Oak Taylor writes that the

Anthropocene, as a geological naming device, “offers a paradoxically new perspective on the present, reminding us that we inhabit the future: we live after the end of the world” (Jesse Oak

Taylor 21). With this said, The Purple Cloud seems to offer a bleak view of the post-apocalyptic

Anthropocene, a disastrous future unfit for humans and nonhumans alike, locked in a continual cycle of death and destruction. There is no healing, no recovery—only endless purple clouds, igniting in “ponderous volumes of carbonic anhydride” over cities thick with humanmade pollution and anthropogenic change to the once pure atmosphere (Shiel 98). Chemical fires, with their “languid tongues of purple flame, rose-coloured at their edges” create a domino-effect of unending fire upon the earth (98). Flaming anthropogenic clouds make the sky a single flame, the earth an ember, the sea a poison (98). Jeffson’s earlier observation that the purple cloud appeared as “the conflagration of the world” proves prophetic: for him, the last man alive, it is a slow, steady haunting through and long past the end of time—not by natural phenomenon, but by a creation of his and his fellow humans own making.

CONCLUSION

“TREES TALK”: HOW TO UNDERSTAND NATURE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

In 2016, scientist Suzanne Simard delivered a TED Talk with a surprising claim: trees communicate with each other with “intelligence” (Simard). Beneath the forest floor is another world “of infinite biological pathways that connect trees and allow them to communicate,” says

Simard, who grew up in the forests of British Columbia. Though her career began as a forester, she became disappointed with the commercial tree harvesting industry’s unsustainable rate of clear-cutting and decided to return to school to study as a forest ecologist. Her TED Talk is the culmination of thirty years researching “complex, symbiotic networks” below the forest floor.

Convinced trees could communicate with one another in ways scientists didn’t yet understand, Simard delved deep into the forest—not the lab—to conduct an experiment. Putting plastic bags over a selection of trees that she suspected to share a dense mycorrhizal network beneath the soil, she injected carbon-14 (a radioactive gas) into the bags that covered birches and carbon-13 (a stable isotope) into the bags that covered firs to track any potential communication between the two species of trees. Sure enough, as Simard monitored the levels of C-14 and C-13 in each bagged tree, she discovered the trees were “in a lively two-way conversation.” In fact,

Simard learned, “mother trees”—or “hub trees,” the oldest and most established trees in the forest—send their seedlings extra carbon through this underground network, which quadruples their survival rate. Mother trees even recognize their own offspring and prioritize them over other young trees in their mycorrhizal network. Additionally, if a mother tree dies, or if it is severely injured, it will pass on chemical defense signals and extra carbon to its healthier neighbors. “So

trees talk,” Simard concludes. Her research shows that trees are not passive, unreceptively existing and having no ability to either act or protect themselves; rather, they are “complex systems” with dense webs of communication beneath the surface of the earth that make it possible for trees to communicate with each other and adapt to their environments. According to Simard, these webs of communication “make the forest resilient.” However, if too many mother trees are killed, the whole forest risks collapse, which is why it is important to protect old-growth forests, “the repositories of genes and mother trees and mycorrhizal networks.” Thankfully, Simard ends her

TED Talk by attesting to forests’ ability to “self-heal.”

In my introduction, I posited questions to consider regarding nature’s agency in

Anthropocenic eco-narratives of science fiction, which I hope this thesis helped address; however, here I add another question: how should we understand nature in the Anthropocene?

Returning again to Tolkien’s Ents: Bregalad, another Ent and friend of Treebeard, relates,

“[R]owan-trees”—the trees Saruman so recklessly cut down—“took root…many many years ago in the quiet of the world” (Tolkien 486). “And these trees grew and grew, till the shadow of each was like a green hall, and their red berries in the autumn were a burden, and a beauty and a wonder.

Birds used to flock there.” The rowan-trees provided a life-sustaining ecosystem for flora and fauna alike, until “[o]rcs came with axes.” Now, Bregalad mourns his fallen tree friends, but he and fellow Ents do not sit idly in response to their premature deaths (487). Instead, the Ents begin their march, “their mind…all on one thing: breaking Isengard” (489). Their collective desire to avenge their fallen comrades illustrates with epic-fantasy flair what Suzanne Simard asserted: that trees communicate with intelligence and purpose and have the ability to heal and protect themselves. As they rally forces, Treebeard remarks, “We have a long way to go” but that “[i]t is something to have started.” Perhaps, in this sense, Tolkien’s Ents would have made Arne Naess

proud: like good deep ecologists, they identified an environmental threat and created a movement to put an end to that threat and restore ecological harmony in Fangorn Forest. Interestingly, as cognizant nonhumans, they are hybrids, in their own sense. Like that of the marsh in After London or the purple cloud in Shiel’s novel, they exist as both natural and human, speaking with words and language from hollows in their trunks, seeing out of burls for eyes, walking on two legs made of roots, and throwing rocks at Saruman with spindly branches for fingers. Unlike the marsh and the purple cloud, however, Tolkien’s Ents harm only the antagonists of nature, who are Saruman and his orc minions; their march of vengeance does not involve weaponizing hybrid forms of nature and humanity because the Ents themselves are the hybrids and heroes of the chapter.

I primarily started on my own “march” of literary analysis and historical positioning because of my love for nature and, especially, nonhumans. In this thesis, I have combined my passion and interests to produce something that, I hope, elucidates the complicated and often volatile relationship between humans and nature in the scope of Anthropocenic, apocalyptic, science fiction eco-narratives. I have also sought to shed light on the importance of the intersection between science fiction and eco-narrative as a place to gain deeper empathy for and understanding of nonhumans and their intrinsic value in our biosphere. Ultimately, I wrote what I wanted to read, and I hope it encourages other writers of all disciplines and fields of literary study to pursue an interest in science fiction eco-narratives. By somewhat exaggerating environmental concerns contemporary to their publication, these texts frequently prophecy future scenarios and offer a means of preparing ourselves for likely outcomes that we can, then, reverse or counteract before it is too late.

So how should we understand nature in the Anthropocene? Well, if according to Suzanne

Simard’s research, “trees talk,” then we can start by reading eco-narratives of the Anthropocene—

from 1790 to Tolkien to today. If, according to Weik von Mossner, narrative is “a means for making sense of the world,” then it consists of more than just words on a page but of potential real- world approaches to creating solutions for sharing our world with our nonhuman neighbors

(Mossner 7). It is my idealistic belief that novels like The Last Man, After London, and The Purple

Cloud have the potential to make us into kinder humans, friendlier cohabitants, and braver protectors of this planet, our home.

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