In his strange and provocative novel Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer foregrounds the power of nature and the nonhuman in a way that challenges traditional assumptions that nature is only ever passive. His work relates to Rosi Braidotti’s theoretical framework in her book The Posthuman, in which she argues against Western humanism and its highly anthropocentric values and advocates a nature-culture approach to posthumanism that “rejects dualism [. . .] and stresses instead the self-organizing (or auto-poietic) force of living matter” (2330). Essentially, the human should no longer position itself in opposition to, and as master of, nature, but recognize and appreciate the inherent liveliness and will of the nonhuman in a “re-enchantment of the world” (2351). Braidotti proposes that this new, interconnected relationship between nature and culture, between the human and nonhuman, also requires a reframing of humans not as isolated individuals but as “non-unitary subject[s]” (2352) who exist in constant interaction with everything around them. A significant aspect of Braidotti’s argument is “expanding the notion of Life towards the non-human or zoe” (2352), zoe being a Greek term that refers to the raw matter of biological life, often seen as rather inert or bare of spirit. Braidotti believes in an affirmative reevaluation of zoe; we must instead conceive of it as possessing its own agency and intelligence. In Annihilation, the environment that is the primary setting for the book—the inscrutable Area X—and everything in it seem to be imbued with a unique vitality and consciousness. Over the course of the novel, Area X actually changes the narrator’s physicality and the way she perceives the world; this supports Braidotti’s conception of zoe and the non-unitary subject, and it embodies an ecocritical posthumanism.

Traditional humanism tends to rest on the idea that it is the naturally ordained purpose of humans to achieve progress through discovery and knowledge, and it celebrates the objectivity of science. However, Area X and its organisms repeatedly combat classification by the scientists. The materials gathered by the biologist from within the tower (which in itself is strikingly alive in the way it seemingly lives and breathes) exceed her rational understanding: “My samples told me a series of cryptic jokes with punch lines I didn’t understand [. . .] The tissue sample from the hand-shaped creature resisted any interpretation” (VanderMeer 71). These zoe seem to intentionally put effort into revealing little about themselves, thwarting scientific expertise and logic. After examining another sample taken from the creature who killed the anthropologist, the biologist struggles to comprehend the fact that it looks, more or less, like human brain tissue, wondering, “Was it really human? Was it pretending to be human?” (VanderMeer 73). The biologist contends with the idea that not only do these organisms present themselves as unknowable, but they may also have the ability to willingly mimic the biological structures of humans. Even the photographs they took in the tower are unusable, either out of focus or completely dark; this scene demonstrates that the zoe of the tower actively troubles scientific rationality and refuses to become part of the “knowledge claims” that, as Braidotti puts it, are simply “expressions of Western culture and its drive to mastery” (2336). In all ways, the life forms of Area X, even on the minute cellular level, resist attempts to discern their true nature through scientific instruments, knowledge, or observation.

Not only does this mysterious place fight back against the “imperial tendences” (2333) that Braidotti believes are key aspects of traditional humanism and scientific dogma, but Area X as a whole is in the process of growing of its own accord. In fact, VanderMeer even suggests that Area X has always protested categorization and existed on a rather ambiguous timeline, as it becomes clear to the biologist from reading journal accounts that “for years before there had ever been a border, strange things had happened along this coast. There had been a proto-Area X” (VanderMeer 113). Before human endeavors to understand and take ownership of Area X, and even before their naming of it, this transitional environment has seemingly always operated with its own agenda. Now, according to the psychologist, Area X is extending its reach: “‘The border is advancing. For now, slowly, a little bit more every year. In ways you wouldn’t expect. But maybe soon it’ll eat a mile or two at a time’” (VanderMeer 129). Area X’s ability to reorganize itself, to develop in ways that people could not “expect,” suggests it has a kind of conscious subjectivity, which also explains why the Southern Reach—the shadowy, nebulous organization in control of organizing scientific exploration—continues to send expeditions: they fear all the unknown variables of Area X and have been desperately seeking concrete answers. The biologist, however, eventually comes to believe it might be beneficial if Area X keeps expanding: “[T]he thought I cannot dislodge after all I have seen, is that I can no longer say with conviction that this is a bad thing. Not when looking at the pristine nature of Area X and then the world beyond, which we have altered so much” (VanderMeer 192). Thus, in the manner Braidotti believes is necessary for posthumanism, the biologist “remov[es] the obstacle of self-centred individualism” (2352) and anthropocentrism, and instead takes into account what may be best for the world at large.

Furthermore, this rejection of individualism and emphasis on “an enlarged sense of inter-connection between self and others” (Braidotti 2351) is enhanced by the biologist’s exposure to spores within the tower and the gradual alteration of her sensory functions. When she inhales the spores, she thinks, “I was unlucky—or was I lucky?” (VanderMeer 25); even in the moment, she puts aside any scientific need to be certain what the spores will do to her, and she does not discount the possibility that close contact with this foreign entity could prove advantageous. Initially, the biologist experiences a heightening of senses as a result of the exposure, “so that even the rough brown bark of the pines or the ordinary lunging swoop of a woodpecker came to [her] as a kind of minor revelation” (VanderMeer 37). She suddenly possesses an elevated awareness of the nonhuman world around her, experiencing what previously seemed banal and usual as thrilling, valuable, and nearly extraordinary. She refers to this sensation as a “brightness” and reflects, “I can describe it in no other way” (VanderMeer 83). As a biologist, she has already seen and understood much of what the world has to offer, but her self-evolution is so entirely new that it escapes her linguistic capabilities. The spores and the human body seem to interact in “a process of auto-poiesis or self-styling” (Braidotti 2342) that causes the biologist’s modifications; the matter already inside her is changed and reorganized by the zoe agents that entered her. She is now a composite of more than just her original parts and becomes representative of the non-unitary subject.

As the novel continues, the biologist’s heightened sensory perception truly shifts her relationship with the nonhuman and her individual sense of identity and subjectivity. As she moves through Area X, she thinks, “It was as if I traveled through the landscape with the sound of an expressive and intense aria playing in my ears. Everything was imbued with emotion, awash in it, and I was no longer a biologist but somehow the crest of a wave building and building but never crashing to shore” (VanderMeer 89). Her bodily affect and subjectivity now feel inextricably joined with her surroundings, causing Area X to feel musical, lively, active to her, almost in a spiritual way. She transforms from a mere isolated individual into “a more complex and relational subject” (Braidotti 2337) that exists not in opposition to nature but in a continuum with it; she starts to abandon her singular identity as “biologist” and is able to be at-flow with the environment. The brightness enables a “truthful seeing” (VanderMeer 90), a re-enchantment of the world for someone who has long perceived everything through the clouded lens of rationality and objective observation.

With this newfound sense of interconnectivity, the biologist begins to discard her fundamental scientific beliefs which have often driven her overwhelming desire for knowledge of the world and its life forms: “Observing all of this has quelled the last ashes of the burning compulsion I had to know everything… anything… and in its place remains the knowledge that the brightness is not done with me” (VanderMeer 194). She recognizes that the only thing she can be truly certain of now is the presence of this brightness—a subjectivity and consciousness that lives in a dynamic network of human and nonhuman relations. She wonders what will become of her, how else she may transform or evolve, and speculates, “Will I melt into this landscape, or look up from a stand of reeds or the waters of the canal to see some other explorer staring down in disbelief? Will I be aware that anything is wrong or out of place?” (VanderMeer 194). Although strange and awe-inspiring, these possibilities do not seem to particularly trouble the biologist; her confidence in her intricate, undeniable enmeshment with the world proves a comfort. By the end of the novel, the character of the biologist works in conjunction with Braidotti’s assertion that we need “alternative ways of conceptualizing the human subject” (2344), as the reader is left wondering if the biologist is still human at all, in the sense that we traditionally understand it.

One may assume that because the main group of scientists is composed only of women and leaves men out of the equation, thus challenging the traditional male ideal of Western humanism as Braidotti recommends, there could be opportunity for a feminist approach as well. However, Area X does not seem to have any regard for gender and has a tendency to defy, disorient, or even kill any human life forms that attempt to know it or take control of it in any way. As a result, Area X and its zoe emphasize a “serious de-centring of ‘Man’” and cause all humans in general to become merely “the former measure of all things” (Braidotti 2329). Throughout Annihilation, Area X and all it contains perform in ways that subvert any assumption that humankind is the apex of some natural, scientific hierarchical structure by resisting rational human “discovery” at multiple levels. This novel centers the vibrant power and selfhood of all biological life and, in a true ecocritical posthumanist turn, considers how we might reconstruct our perceptions of the nonhuman in order to coexist respectfully and harmoniously with it.

Works Cited

Braidotti, Rosi. “From The Posthuman.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 3rd edition, edited by Vincent B. Leitch, et al., Norton, 2018, pp. 2329-2352.

VanderMeer, Jeff. Annihilation. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.