An environmental critique of American post-apocalypse narratives: ecocriticism and ethics

This essay is concerned with the place of nature as it is represented in entertainment, predominantly film and video games. Through close-textual analysis of films The Road (John Hillcoat 2009) and WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008), and videogame The Last o f Us (2013), this paper seeks to analyze post-apocalypse representations on screen to raise questions about environmental morality in mainstream culture and ecocritical thinking. The central argument of this paper is that post-apocalypse narratives are manifestations of the public anxiety about environmental catastrophes, which reflect cultural fears. The essay concludes with a discussion of current environmental conversation in political, and social platforms in relation to these narratives, and how they contribute to the culture of fear in the United States.