CLIMATE CHANGE AND HYPEROBJECTS: AN ECOCRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DELUGE BY STEPHEN MARKLEY
Keywords:
Anthropocene, Climate Change, Ecocriticism, Hyperobjects, The DelugeAbstract
The aim of the research is to analyse how Markley’s novel, The Deluge, represents climate change as a hyperobject that exceeds human perception, spatial boundaries, and temporal scales. Employing qualitative textual analysis as a method of analysis and Timothy Morton's concept of hyperobjects as a theoretical framework, the text is examined through five properties of hyperobjects: viscosity, nonlocality, temporal undulation, phasing, and interobjectivity. The findings reveal that The Deluge portrays climate change as a hyperobject whose effects are pervasive, globally distributed, temporally unstable, and relationally entangled. Climate change in the novel adheres to human bodies, infrastructures, economies, and memories by making its presence inescapable. It manifests simultaneously across regions and disrupts linear notions of time through recurring and uneven crises. The research draws attention to the urgent need to address environmental degradation before climate change becomes a hyperobject and highlights the importance of promoting sustainable actions, as crossing environmental limits may lead to irreversible threats to the planet. It also underscores the value of climate fiction in articulating the lived consequences of the Anthropocene.
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