Apocalyptic Misanthropy and the ‘Fall’ of Modernity in Mid-Twentieth Century American Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Abstract

This article critically examines misanthropy and anti-modern sentiment in post-apocalyptic fiction. Focusing on Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon (1959), it explores the misanthropic potential of apocalyptic fantasies that imagine the end of the world as both a clean slate and a deserved punishment for a sinful, ‘fallen’ humanity. The novel’s conservative outlook frames the apocalypse as an opportunity to return to idealised ways of life, evoking biblical themes and misogynist narratives to underscore its engagement with misanthropy. Sin and moral excess are identified with a mid-twentieth-century modernity, which precipitates its own downfall. These misanthropic longings map on to the nature-culture divide prevalent in modern, Western culture, where nature is depicted as a pastoral idyll, which is opposite to technological modernity. Through an examination of these misanthropic constructions, this article highlights the ways post-apocalyptic fiction more generally reflects and shapes societal anxieties about modernity, the natural world and human fallibility. Finally, it challenges these misanthropic paradigms by discussing their narrow conception of power and responsibility and their incapacity to imagine meaningful futures.