Speculative Solutions: The Development of Environmental and Ecofeminist Discourse in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam

Margaret Atwood simultaneously contributes to and diverges from recent ecofeminist social and literary theory with her novel MaddAddam (2013), the final instalment to a trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake (2003) and continued with The Year of the Flood in 2009. Atwood's literary deployment of feminist and ecological discourses invites an examination of the ways in which externally developed theories inform the narrative in MaddAddam and affect subsequent literary interpretation. This investigation studies the efficacy of ecofeminist praxis in the creation of a democratic heterarchy inclusive of all genders, races, classes, and species, and by synthesizing close textual analysis with relevant sociocultural and literary theory, outlines the recent development of new ecofeminist epistemologies within the novel. In prioritizing the democratic intentions of ecofeminism, and by assessing Atwood’s implicit use of a multiplicity of inclusive ecofeminist concepts, this article highlights the growing importance of ecofeminist literary theory, and its potential futures in contemporary dystopian fiction.