The Misanthropocene in California: Susan Straight’s Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights and Joan Didio
Katarzyna Nowak-McNeiceIt focuses on Susan Straight’s Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights (1994) and Joan Didion’s The Last Thing He Wanted (1996), comparing their representations of California and its characteristic elements such as the jacaranda tree or the state’s symbol, the poppy. Following Kantian discussion of the concept, misanthropy is understood as a negative assessment of (and not an emotional attitude toward) humanity’s moral shortcomings such as racism, greed, or deceitfulness. Finally, the conclusions present the resolution of the misanthropic attitudes in the light of Michael Marder’s vegetal ontology, arguing that while Didion offers a partial solution of the misanthropy she portrays, it is Straight’s novel that suggests a way beyond the impasse of the Misanthropocene by thinking with plants.