An Ecocritical Interpretation Of The Three Spaces In The Year Of The Flood

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer who has achieved international fame.In the novel The Year of the Flood(2009),a Waterless Flood(an infectious pestilence)sweeps through the entire society and brings an apocalypse to the earth.The stories of the two survivors,Toby and Ren,the narrators of the novel,reflect a society with social and ecological crisis.The publication of The Year of the Flood gets a rapturous reception from numerous scholars.They have analyzed the novel on its environmental concerns,the construction of dystopia,the technique of classical reconstruction,etc.So far,there are few articles exploring the work on its space construction and sense of placelessness,so the paper hopefully can provide readers with a new perspective and also make a contribution to the research on Atwood‘s works.An ecocritical reading of the novel The Year of the Flood from the perspective of ecocriticism reveals the construction of three spaces: Pleebs is an evil dystopia where people are destitute,HelthWyzer Compound is a prison to uphold the superiority of mind and its dominance of the society,and Edencliff Rooftop Garden is an eco-utopia aimed at the reconstruction of a wonderful world.However,all three spaces collapse on the arrival of the Waterless Flood or the plague.Judging from the place research in ecocriticism,the reasons to account for their destruction are as follows.As a ―non-place‖ without place-attachment,the Pleebs breaks down because its people can hardly protect it when they themselves are wallowing in the mire of identity crisis and social chaos.As the ―One True Place‖,the Compound is destroyed when those spaces from which it derives the source of development through exploitation collapse.As a utopia of imporosity and singular culture,the Edencliff falls apart because its Gardeners fail to resist the overwhelming power of evil from the outside.To sum up,it is imperative to critically think about the place consciousness in ecocriticism: only by building an open place where place-attachment is ensured,place justice is asserted,and the coexistence of multiple cultures are allowed,can people really care about their place or their homeland,and thus alleviate the current social and ecological crisis.