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Haleigh West

Tina Katsanos

Critical Thinking and Communication

April 4, 2018

The Year of the Flood: Critical Reflection

The Year of the Flood is a dystopian novel written by Canadian author, Margaret

Atwood. This work depicts a future in which environmental degradation and human technology

have permanently altered both the landscape of the Earth and the frame of society. In this novel,

Atwood reflects the current state of environmental and social issues of reality well; often by

using her own neologisms, incorporating religious contexts, and creating a violent social order.

Atwood’s society depicted in The Year of the Flood calls attention to the future of real life, as

many mistakes made in the real world are reflected in the novel.

Margaret Atwood utilizes a host of neologisms to outline the environment and society of

the novel. Neologisms are words that authors create for describing ideas or things not found in

reality. Many of Atwood’s neologisms are used to illustrate the new species of animals created

through genetic modification. For example, Atwood writes “She’d worn surgical gloves, a

bulletproof vest made of silk from a spider/goat splice lifted from the AnooYoo guardhouse…”

(Atwood 22). In this excerpt, she depicts one of the main characters, Toby, as using a bulletproof

vest made from a spider/goat. While this is not as creative as some of her other neologisms, the

idea of a “spider/goat” has origins in real life. Actual technology has been used to modify female

goats to produce spider silk during lactation, resulting in the presence of the silk in the goat’s

milk. The act of creating a new species of animal is a precarious subject; the ethics and
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repercussions are still a relevant debate. Relating to the novel, this is no different. There are

many perspectives regarding gene slicing, often based on social class or religious group. This

quote is an example of how Atwood blurs the line between reality and fiction in her work.

Another neologism used by the author is a lower-class restaurant chain called “SecretBurgers.”

According to Atwood, “The secret of SecretBurgers was that no one knew what sort of animal

protein was actually in them…” (Atwood 33). While there are not any direct examples of this

idea in the real world, it closely parallels that of the fast food chains currently operating. When a

customer orders an item with animal products, there is almost no way to know where that

product originally came from. Even at grocery stores, the majority animal products do not

include information regarding the source of the item. This aspect of reality raises the question as

to why some companies do not incorporate sources; as well as to whether or not the information

concerns the consumer. In The Year of the Flood, the answer to this question is no: hence the

lives of common people were controlled by the CorpSeCorp corporate government.

In this work, Atwood utilizes religious context to reveal the relationship between religion

and the environment. The most prime example of this is Atwood’s fictional group known as the

“God’s Gardeners.” She initially described the group as “…various heights, all colors, but all in

dark clothing – holding their slates with slogans printed on them: God’s Gardeners for God’s

Garden! Don’t Eat Death! Animals R Us! They looked like raggedy angels…” (Atwood 39).

Later in the same scene, the leader of this group, named Adam One, preaches about the negative

consequences of eating and killing animals, to which an anonymous voice yells “’Shut the fuck

up, ecofreak,’…” (Atwood 40). This exchange highlights the main relationship between the

classes of people and the environment. Throughout the novel, the God’s Gardeners are a group

loosely based in Christianity whose main concern is the treatment of the Earth. In the views of
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the Gardeners, the Earth is a sacred gift from God that is to be preserved. However, the non-

religious citizens of this society find this belief strange, even controversial. This parallel is seen

in real life, as the idea of environmental activism remains in the realm of fringe culture. While

this status is constantly improving via education, media sources and influential organizations

continue to perpetuate the “tree-hugging hippie” stereotype. In The Year of the Flood, Atwood

focuses the plot of the novel on an event known to the Gardeners as the “Waterless Flood.” The

author illustrates the aftermath of this event by stating “’The debris left by the Waterless Flood,

like that left by any receding flood, is not attractive. It will take time for our longed-for Eden to

appear, my Friends’” (Atwood 369). The Waterless Flood is a reference to the Christian Biblical

flood: in which God cleansed the Earth of violence using a massive flood. Relevant to the novel,

the God’s Gardeners believed that there would be another flood that would erase human life on

Earth, resulting in the eventual return of the Garden of Eden. Likewise, many scientists currently

hypothesize that human impact on the Earth could reach a metaphorical “tipping point,” in which

effects on the environment cannot be reversed. These theories suggest outcomes such as

irreversible global warming and climate change, potentially leading to catastrophic consequences

for the human race. In both the novel and reality, this situation is only preventable if changes are

made.

In The Year of the Flood, Atwood creates a hostile social order in which the classes of

citizens are directly controlled by the governing corporation. She created a visible separation of

society by establishing a corporate government that had only one bottom line. She reveals the

relationship between the CorpSeCorps and the lower class “pleebmobs” by writing “The local

pleebmobs paid the CorpSeCorpsMen to turn a blind eye. In return, the CorpSeCorps let the

pleebmobs run the low-level kidnappings and assassinations, the skunkweed grow-ops, the crack
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labs and street-drug retailing…” (Atwood 33). This quote discloses that the CorpSeCorps was

only concerned with money, regardless of the source. It also reveals that the state of society had

degraded to organized crime and corruption. This behavior in society is usually indicative of near

anarchy, as the traditional government became derelict. This can be connected to the current state

of the U.S. government as corporations continue to encroach on the legislative process. More do

corporations act as citizens, and in return politicians act in favor of corporate will instead of the

common citizens they claim to represent. Atwood clearly establishes the danger of this

encroachment in The Year of the Flood, as it is obvious that the desire for profit greatly

outweighs the desire for protecting the people.

To conclude, Margaret Atwood plainly outlines the threats posed by environmental and

social degradation in The Year of the Flood. She includes elements of both fiction and reality to

present the potential effects of social stagnation. By relating the events of this novel to the

current state of affairs, one may conclude that change and activism are necessary to avoid such a

worst-case scenario.