ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer offers a chilling reflection of contemporary anxieties surrounding environmental catastrophes, eerily mirroring those induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate change crisis. The trilogy, which comprises Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance, chronicles a series of bizarre events unfolding within Area X. This paper analyzes the posthuman corporeality of the Biologist, focusing on her bodily transformations, through the lens of Stacy Alaimo’s transcorporeality. Area X evokes a profound fear rooted in the possibility of irreversible bodily transformation, challenging the anthropocentric view of the human body as distinct and separate from the environment. The Biologist’s encounter with the Crawler underscores the inherent permeability of the human body, highlighting its intimate and unmediated connection with the surrounding environment. Drawing upon Karen Barad’s agential realism, this analysis examines the transformation of the Biologist with the concepts of intra-action, entanglement, and diffraction, which culminates in her embodiment as a leviathan-like entity. This transformation, rather than signifying a loss of humanity, suggests an expansion of perception and a new understanding of human existence after the human form. In the final encounter between Ghost Bird and the leviathan entity, Ghost Bird acknowledges the inherence of its own and its interconnectedness within the material world. By exploring the Biologist’s transformative journey, this paper offers new insights into the possibilities of posthuman existence, relocating them in the material world.

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