The Nightmare of Boundary Dissolution: Technological Writing, Cognitive Deconstruction, and Postethical Dilemmas in "Annihilation"

Abstract

Jeff Vandermeer's "Annihilation" is one of the masterpieces of the new ghost story and a unique seedling of contemporary climate change novel genealogy. This book borrows the theme of the unknown and mysterious ecological region "The Shimmer" and shows an extreme scientific and technological catastrophe based on an extreme thinking experiment. From a theoretical point of view, the paper uses Timothy Morton's theory of "superobjects", Slavožižek's "real world", and Rosi Braidotti's post-human theory to discuss how the natural force of the novel's unique technological writing in the narrative purposefully destroys the cognitive structure of human beings (including scientific rationality and linguistic representation). Letting the characters enter a post-ethical situation that cannot be measured by old ethics further proves that Zone X can be seen as a terrifying and grotesque epitome of modern civilization, a "terrifying ecology". After analysis, it is found that the novel uses the writing of ecological horror in Area X to point to the impact of superobjects such as climate change on the framework of modern people's understanding of the nature of the world, and even the disintegration of the behavioral principles followed by modern people - traditional ethics. Not only that, but this part also proposes the possibility of a new possible post-human ethics that can abandon human-centrism and coexist with the unknowable and uncontrollable.