ABSTRACT
MaddAddam (2013) is the last novel of the trilogy with the same name that Margaret Atwood started ten years before. The word “MaddAddam” is a palindrome that can evoke circularity, eternal return. Whether the ending of the dystopian trilogy supposes the eternal return of the same or a hopeful “repetition that saves” is what this chapter tries to discuss. This chapter shows that it is only when the human survivors learn that Craker/human reproductive abilities are still possible and both groups start to share memories and culture that the bonds between the posthuman and the human are established. Moreover, especial attention will be paid to the issues of fertility and motherhood—recurrent topics for Atwood that were already central in her most canonical work, The Handmaid’s Tale. “Posthuman motherhood” is approached both as a spiritual motherhood exemplified by Toby’s mentoring of the Craker child—Blackbeard—and as biological motherhood: the birth of the hybrid offspring of women and Crakers. The newborns represent the source of hope in the novel: miscegenation. Nonetheless, MaddAddam is actually a heterosexual society which still maintains a strong gender-role division in an apparent backlash for women’s opportunities and rights.
