Human-Nonhuman Interdependent Relationship during Fictional Pandemics in The Animals in That Country (2020) and How High We Go in the Dark (2022) in Comparison with COVID-19
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This paper examines the human-nonhuman relationship during the pandemic in McKay’s The Animals in That Country and Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark, pandemic narratives published during COVID-19. It employs material ecocriticism and ecophobia to examine this interspecific relationship. While the widespread nature of a virus unquestionably causes tremendous impact on humans and the natural environment, this paper proposes that the agential virus in a pandemic discloses and highlights the undeniable entangled relationship between humans and other living beings. During the viral pandemic crisis, both novels depict humans’ unwavering attempt to separate themselves from other living lives, for they fearfully believe that other animals are the origin of the virus. Both texts, nonetheless, illustrate the human need for nonhumans to survive this bleak situation. Since the two pandemic-related novels were published during the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper concludes that the human-nonhuman relationship reflected in fictional pandemics calls for a reconsideration of human-nonhuman entanglements to prevent future disasters.
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