Eco-Heroism

This study examines a new narrative phenomenon: ‘eco-heroism, or else, embodied ecological crisis’. Contemporary North American fiction innovatively communicates ecological crisis as an explicitly embodied experience by reaching back to ideals of heroic corporeality, the hero’s quest narrative, and the relationship between the hero and “other” bodies. Investigating eco-heroism within the frameworks of longstanding and newly-emerging scholarly debates about ecocriticism and American heroism, Lorena Bickert argues that ecological crisis is a ‘corpo-reality’ that transpires on human, textual, and nonhuman bodies. In crisis, human heroes are humbled, fragmented multi-genre quests challenge narrative cohesion, and bodies of water, land, aliens, cyborgs, and zombies emerge as potential eco-heroic figures. These novels negate traditional heroic omnipotence, instead showcasing crisis-stricken bodies, daring to survive in a more-than-individual crisis state that persists despite the supposed presence of heroes.