Create, Destroy, Refigure: Capitalocene Identity In Margaret Atwood’s Oryx And Crake And The Year Of The Flood

This text examines and interrogates the presence of the new term “Capitalocene identity” in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. In defining Capitalocene identity as “the compilation of climate crisis and late capitalism-altered experiences, available social roles, and economical and physical spaces that influence the formation of human identity,” this study brings together developing climate crisis studies research such as climate psychology and trauma response theory, etymologies of “identity” and its related terms, and the understanding of Atwood’s narrative as a work of speculative fiction rather than science fiction proper. As such, traditional components of identity—memory, relationships, class and social status, and gender identity—are examined as being inherently warped through Capitalocene structures and experiences, thereby creating a Capitalocene identity in Atwood’s characters.