Postmodern Neo-Romanticism and The End of History in Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy

Abstract

Abstract:Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy addresses the end of history in three senses: the global triumph of capitalism, the end of historicity, and the end of the world. Atwood weaves together these meanings of the end of history, showing how the eternal present of consumerist simulacra is also a trajectory toward ecological and social disaster. However, Atwood's trilogy is itself symptomatic of this postmodern capitalist condition. Atwood accepts the social and political parameters of the capitalist present, while escaping into a neo-romantic fantasy of post-human primitivism.