The Darwinian world of the COVID-19 pandemic in Jodi Picoult’s Wish You Were Here: An evolutionary perspective | ||
| Journal of Languages and Translation | ||
| Article 3, Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2023, Pages 20-39 PDF (356.25 K) | ||
| Document Type: مقالات بحوث مبتکرة | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/jltmin.2023.277581 | ||
| Author | ||
| Nihal A. Adel Zaki Muhammad | ||
| Department of English, Faculty of Al-Alsun (Languages), Minia University, Egypt | ||
| Abstract | ||
| This study aims to demonstrate how Jodi Picoult’s Wish You Were Here (2021) exposes the conflict between humankind and the contagious COVID-19 virus within an evolutionary framework. Since the outset, the narrative is overwhelmed by Darwinian symbols and motifs; hence, it provides a Darwinist approach through which the events of the narrative are examined. Nevertheless, in this study “Darwinian” addresses not only Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection but also Brain Boyd’s concept of evocriticism, a more contemporary manifestation of Darwin’s evolutionary assumptions. Within the Darwinian worldview the narrative establishes, I argue that the struggle between human beings and the COVID-19 pandemic is an evolutionary struggle for existence in which only the fittest survives. To prove this premise, this study first introduces the Darwinian and evolutionary background the narrative reinforces, highlighting Darwin’s theory of evolution and such emerging literary schools of literary Darwinism and evocriticism. Then, it explores how the narrative applies the same evolutionary notions to both the virus and characters by identifying how the virus tries to spread as fast as possible to ensure its survival and how characters, on the other hand, evolve adaptive behaviors to fight the pandemic. Most crucially, the study shows how Picoult evokes a more optimistic attitude toward the future of the pandemic. Finally, it illuminates the adaptive function of this piece of fiction stemming from its simulative ability. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Darwinism; evocriticism; COVID-19 Pandemic; adaptation; Jodi Picoult | ||
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