Abstract
Paul Auster’s In The Country of Last Things represents a future dystopian society where all mankind suffers not only from starvation, diseases, murder, and lack of resources but also from a near-total destruction of humanity. Anna Blume, an eighteen-year-old young lady, arrives in an unnamed land in order to search for her brother, William, a journalist who disappeared while on an investigation. However, as soon as Anna arrives, she realizes that the only way to survive in this dystopian land is to forget her former comfort and former self “I continued to live and breathe, to move from one place to another, but I could not escape the thought that I was dead, that nothing could ever bring me to life again.”
Drawing on Anna’s personal experiences, this presentation focuses on connecting the environmental and gender issues that appeared in this future dystopian society with the present society in which we are involved. Part One concentrates on associating the dystopian elements that appeared in Last Things—the weather, rape, murder, diseases, starvation, lack of resources and shelters—with our present society. Part Two further uncovers the utopian elements behind those dystopian circumstances, analyzing the relation between utopian/dystopian ideas and the environment surrounding us. In this section, the following will be discussed: the “language of ghost”; masturbation; “runners” and “leapers”; Ferdinand’s ship and Isabel’s magic; “shit and garbage”; the “assassination Clubs” and “Euthanasia Clinics”; the heterosexual love between Anna and Sam; and the lesbian love between Anna and Victoria.
The last part of the presentation focuses on the symbolism of the character Anna and her connection with the readers. Although several crises make Anna a candidate for rescue, her intelligence makes her an independent survivor, representing an agent between the world of the future and the present. Through Anna the ecofeminist, the readers realize that the oppression of women and the earth can no longer be addressed in isolation. In fact, if we intend to make our world a better world, it is necessary to start making efforts to solve the environmental and gender issues we have in our society now so that our future will not become one where “the farther you go back, the more beautiful and desirable the world becomes” but rather one where the farther we go on, the more beautiful and desirable the world becomes.