A NIETZSCHEAN INQUIRY INTO JOHN CHRISTOPHER'S “EMPTY WORLD”

Year 2021, Volume: 61 Issue: 1, 435 - 453, 24.06.2021

Cenk Tan

https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2021.61.1.17

Abstract

John Christopher's Empty World (1977) is an apocalyptic novel which depicts a fatal
pandemic through the eyes of adolescent children. In specific, the story is presented
through the perspective of fifteen-year-old Neil Miller who loses his family and heads off to
the streets of London to seek company in his quest for survival in a desolated city. Neil
finally meets Lucy and Billie, two girls his age and the children then decide to move in
together. This study aims to analyse Christopher's Empty World from a philosophical, in
particular, Nietzschean point of view. Friedrich Nietzsche is a philosopher who had an
immense impact in all areas of the social sciences and the humanities. This article thereby
discusses three Nietzschean doctrines: the will to power, the eternal recurrence and amor
fati. All these three notions are interrelated in Nietzsche's cosmological theory and his
metaphysical hypothesis. Thus, the ultimate purpose of this article is to reveal how and to
what extent Nietzschean doctrines are manifested in John Christopher's Empty World.
These manifestations will be discussed with relevant references to the text in association
with the setting and prevalent themes of the novel.

Keywords

Speculative Fiction, Apocalyptic Literature, John Christopher, Empty World, Friedrich Nietzsche, Pandemic, COVID-19, Coronavirus

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