ABSTRACT
This chapter delves into the feminist ecocritical perspective that is presently gaining momentum in Gothic Studies. It seeks to explore the dissolution of gender alongside a Gothic interrogation of anthropocentrism in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy and Alexander Garland’s filmic adaptation of Annihilation. In both, an all-female group of scientists venture into a mysterious and seemingly Edenic stretch of nature which soon tilts toward the uncanny, becoming a source of dread and uncertainty. VanderMeer’s nameless protagonist undergoes a metamorphosis, gradually adapting to her surroundings. While her gendered body as well as her initial motivation dissolve and allow her to transform beyond the boundaries of self and other, Garland’s cinematic adaptation seems to reject the Ecogothic dissolution of gender and instead confirms a heteronormative status quo. Particularly in comparison to its adaptation the transgressive potential of VanderMeer’s protagonist becomes apparent: her uncanny transformation moves past traditional literary and cinematographic depictions of the woman-as-nature trope and into the potential of a post-gender future.
