Representations Of The Anthropocene From The Nineteenth Century To The Twenty-First Century: Richard Jefferies’s After London, Or Wild England, Doris Lessing’s Mara And Dann: An Adventure And Adam Nevill’s Lost Girl
Özet
Bringing three novels together, namely Richard Jefferies’s post-apocalyptic work After
London, or Wild England (1885) from the nineteenth century, Doris Lessing’s postapocalyptic
Mara and Dann: An Adventure (1999) from the twentieth century, and
Adam Nevill’s pre-apocalyptic Lost Girl (2015) from the twenty-first century of
England within the scope of the Anthropocene, this dissertation aims at displaying the
way English novel deals with the actual and/or imagined events and catastrophes in
nature due to human intervention for three centuries. The Anthropocene is the name of
the epoch reflecting the human impact on the nonhuman nature for centuries constantly
accelerating especially after the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century that
brought along technological advancement, urbanisation and increased population. The
anthropogenic transformation in the nonhuman environment displays the disturbed
balance of the Earth that manifests itself through catastrophes and destruction in nature.
With this perspective, the focus of the dissertation is also on how the authors’
perspective dramatically alters as a result of worsening environmental conditions of
their time and their individual experiences of life. The position of these novels among
similar novels dealing with environmental problems will be another focus of study for
this dissertation. The three novels in focus, After London, or Wild England, Mara and
Dann: An Adventure and Lost Girl will be studied through the Anthropocene theory
embodying the green perspective of posthumanism and New Materialisms which bear a
potential to generate effective solutions for the environmental, social and political crises
in the twenty-first century world by breaking free from anthropocentricism.
