Laughter as a Weapon against Climate Change : Climate fiction, Satire and Emotions in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy

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Supervisors: De Bruyn, Ben
Faculty: Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres
Degree label: Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation germaniques, à finalité approfondie
Abstract: The famous author Margaret Atwood wrote the satirical cli-fi novels Oryx and Crake (2008), The Year of the Flood (2008), and MaddAddam (2013), also known as the MaddAddam trilogy. Climate fiction has the power to inform people of global warming and to engage them in climate activism. An analysis of Atwood’s cli-fi satire can help to determine how humor can help to encourage people to think about global warming and act on it. The first chapter introduces the Anthropocene, cli-fi, Margaret Atwood, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Chapter two analyses satire, humor, and emotions in cli-fi. This chapter defines how inward-directed and outward-directed cli-fi satires might evoke different emotional responses in the audience. The third chapter analyses Atwood’s satirical targets in the MaddAddam trilogy connected to global warming.