With formerly bustling cities transformed into forsaken ghost towns and familiar infrastructure presented as strange relics of a past civilisation, post-apocalyptic fiction depicts the destruction of reality as we know it. So why are we so fascinated by these end-of-the-world narratives?
We’ve all asked ourselves what would happen if everything came crashing down. How would we survive? What would the collapse of civilisation look like? With geopolitical tensions reaching boiling point and scientists issuing their ‘final’ warning on the climate crisis, the threat of doomsday is present in everyone’s lived realities – and impossible to ignore.
It’s no surprise then that these narratives spill over into culture in the form of post-apocalyptic fiction – from the fungus-effected demise of humanity in HBO’s The Last of Us to the baron and threatening wastelands of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
Despite often being pessimistically bleak, these stories have long held an allure – the thought of an apocalypse appeals to us on some level. But what exactly is behind this morbid fascination?
At their core, post-apocalyptic stories are a reflection of the times – they’re real-life narratives that have been seen through to their most desolate endings.
“Post-apocalyptic fiction has always been about taking the fears and problems of a society and exaggeratedly reflecting them back,” says Alex Strang, an insights editor at Canvas8. “During the troubled times we’re living in, the popularity of post-apocalyptic fiction has surged – perhaps as a way for people to consume stories about timelines and potential outcomes that are actually worse than the one they're already living.”
Engagement with dystopias and post-apocalyptic fiction comes in periodic cycles, with the genre rearing its melancholy head each time humanity faces existential threats or crises. In the wake of World War II, for example, a spate of apocalyptic stories related to the atomic bomb surfaced; a trend that emerged again in the 1980s amid the escalation of the Cold War arms race.
But more than a simple rumination on global tensions or a warning against destruction, these stories reveal something deeper about the desires of societies experiencing crisis themselves.
“Perhaps the apocalypse becomes shorthand for starting over and shedding the burdens we have accumulated,” writes Chris Begley, a professor of anthropology at the University of Transylvania, in his book The Next Apocalypse. “[O]ur apocalyptic fantasies capture something we long for: the chance to do it all over, to simplify, or to get out from under something like debt or loneliness or dissatisfaction.”
When observed in this way, such stories seem liberating. They depict what the erasure of society would look like, something that carries cathartic appeal for audiences who are living through a period of polycrisis.
In the case of The Last of Us, the decimation of the human race enables nature to reclaim the planet from the brink of ecological collapse. The result is as beautiful as it is brutal – an adventure akin to frontier America where the protagonists fight their way across the country against a backdrop of toppled skyscrapers, hostile urban jungles, and utopian enclaves.
So, to say that post-apocalyptic fiction is pessimistic is reductive. The future-facing perspectives that unfurl in these stories often speak to a sense of hope and unity. “There's a collective element to post-apocalyptic fiction that isn't reflected in traditional horror narratives,” says Strang. “Whether it’s subtle or at the forefront – post-apocalyptic fiction is about what could happen to us, not just the individual.”
In witnessing society’s collective fears play out through a fictional lens, these narratives offer a coping mechanism. They force people to observe these fears to their bleakest conclusions – an act that leaves audiences rooting for the survival of humanity against its existential threats while also offering glimpses of a fresh start for civilisation.
So, the next time you find yourself immersed in the story of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, ask yourself what has drawn you to this tale of destruction – the answer could be more nuanced than you think.
