The End of the World, the End of « Me » ? A Portrait of the Post-apocalyptic Character

Abstract

The traumatic XXth century made humans believe their existence was getting close to an end. This worry is particularly noticeable in literature, where the "post-apocalyptic" genre is meeting a real success. There are many examples of it in the occidental contemporary literature, such as the British play « The tin can people » by Edward Bond, the French experimental novel Des anges mineurs by Antoine Volodine, or the famous American novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy. This study shows how the literary character is built in post-apocalyptic fictions. Men there seem to be, in fact, more of « subhumans ». So close to be dead, they seem to struggle with their memory and their language. Then, have we reached what Volodine calls « the end of Literature? » The post-apocalyptic character is fascinating because he’s a big paradox.