Falling birthrates, eugenics, and infertility in fiction; and how it reflects reality.
‘As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children’s voices’ — Miriam, Children of Men
The notion of propagation of the human race is not only about creating a future; it is about creating a legacy to make our existence appear less futile. Dystopian futures have often referred to a world where having children is not necessary or a good idea. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave, New World, children are decanted en masse, removing the need for traditional reproduction. In Cormac Mc Carthy’s The Road, having a child could mean the next meal for your family. Even Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games shows a poverty-stricken future where children compete to the death. The concept of the family unit is threatened in these visions. But what about fiction that deals with the inability to have children? What if the world is dying because there are no more children, and how does this affect society?
I have chosen three texts, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, PD James’s Children of Men, and Jane Rogers’s The Testament of Jessie Lamb, to represent different interpretations of infertility and reproductive anxieties future.
These worlds are in the throes of death, whether they accept it as a fact or not.
