When Grasses and Grains Were Ravaged: Reading the Viral Pandamic and Natural Disaster in Science Fiction, The Death of Grass
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This paper examines the imagination of natural disaster in a science fiction (SF) in order to explore the elements and the representation of uncontrollable natural catastrophe when human beings struggle for food supplies to survive in The Death of Grass. John Christopher imagines the horrifying landscape of virus attack on grain crops which has a great impact on our society with a sense of fear. In this study, Simon Estok’s idea of “ecophobia” (2009) is discussed in relation to the viral pandemic as a threat to humans and this study attempts to reveal Christopher’s ecological consciousness. The novel setting is a focal point of the Anthropocene when humans become the center of exploitation and natural resources have been depleted without environmental ethics. This paper aims to; first, study the representations of the natural disaster and ecophobia in literature as an apocalyptic vision in western culture via the ravaging virus on grain crops. Second, it discusses the novelist’s ecological awareness and environmental ethics embedded in the plot of natural catastrophe based on facts and imagination of SF which can be regarded as ecocritical writing.
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