Postapocalypse reimagined : catastrophe, capitalism and simulation in Briohny Doyle's The Island Will Sink

Abstract

In her essay 'The Postapocalyptic Imagination' (2015), Australian author Briohny Doyle defines the postapocalypse as distinct from apocalypse due to an absence of revelation. In addition, the author argues that late capitalist narratives of endless progress are grounded in an apocalyptic eschatology. By contrast, literature of the postapocalypse goes beyond 'The End' in order to resist the teleological drive of the dominating socio-economic system. Doyle's conception of the postapocalypse is exemplified in the author's debut novel The Island Will Sink (2016). This work of near-future science fiction satirises the problematic, apocalyptic narrative strategies of late capitalism while representing postapocalyptic modes of resistance. By constructing a world beset by the natural disasters of an ongoing climate crisis, in which nomads and sects occupy ruins while rich elites live in high-tech luxury homes, as narrated by a cyborg with a tenuous grip on reality, The Island Will Sink models the postapocalyptic blueprint laid out in the essay published a year before. This exegesis explores how Doyle translates the theoretical concepts of 'The Postapocalyptic Imagination' into literary fiction via The Island Will Sink. My exegesis orbits a creative component constituted by several extracts from my own debut novel entitled Let the Cows Go, Moo. The extracts included roughly follow the core plot of the work, one of comic fiction set in a near-future Australia where animal husbandry is outlawed to combat climate change, as navigated by a morally ambiguous protagonist. The exegesis creates a conversation with my creative component around subjects such as Anthropocene discourse, systemic narrativizing within late capitalism and the societal roles of animals.

Date of Award	2022
Original language	English