THE INCESSANT CRISIS: A MACHEREYAN READING OF MARY SHELLEY’S THE LAST MAN

Abstract

First published in 1826, Mary Shelley’s The Last Man is a dystopian novel that depicts the life of Lionel Verney in 2100, who is living in the last days of the Anthropocene as the human population has been eradicated due to a pandemic. While the novel is regarded as the first post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, it had been neglected until the 1960s. Despite owing its context to the nineteenth century, the novel addresses several modern-man issues. The anxiety produced by apocalyptic visions and the fear of extinction are two of the significant twenty-first-century issues due to the ecological crisis and COVID-19 pandemic, which are accurately relatable. Moreover, Lionel’s existential dread and identity crisis represent and predict the confusion of modern man. Since the work was written a century before the twenty-first century’s traumatic incidents, its perspective on the twenty-first-century man’s issues is outstanding. In this study, The Last Man would be scrutinized in the light of Pierre Macherey’s post-Marxist theory of gaps to see the socio-political elements addressed by the novel that aided Shelley in predicting successive generations’ miseries. Moreover, it is discussed if the twenty-first-century man, situated in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, could escape the ecological crisis and build a better future on earth by attending political changes.