“Odd Apocalyptic Panics”: Chthonic Storytelling in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam

I argue that Margaret Atwood’s work in MaddAddam is about survival; it is about
moving beyond preconceived, thoughtless ideology of any form with creative kinship.
Cooperation and engagement cannot be planned in advance, and must take the form of
something more than pre-established ideology. I will discuss MaddAddam in light of
Donna Haraway’s recent work in which she argues that multispecies acknowledgement
and collaboration are essential if humans are to survive and thrive in the coming
centuries. By bringing the two texts into dialogue, one sees that Atwood’s novel
constitutes the kind of story deemed necessary by Haraway for making kin in the
Chthulucene. Various scenes depicting cooperation and interdependence among humans
and other animals offer chthonic models of kinship; these relationships, as opposed to
ideological and anthropocentric isolation, will serve as the means of surviving and
thriving within an ongoing apocalypse.