The Capitalocene Hero: Exploring Climate Change, Capitalism and Hegemonic Masculinity in Lydia Millet’s How the Dead Dream and Nathaniel Rich’s Odds against Tomorrow

Abstract

The paper considers the representations of masculinity in the protagonists of Lydia Millet’s How the Dead Dream and Nathaniel Rich’s Odds against Tomorrow, two contemporary cli-fi novels that critique neoliberal capitalism and it's accountability in exacerbating climate crisis. Using R. W. Connell’s concept of transnational business masculinity which is considered to be the model for the current hegemonic masculinity of the globalised world, the paper seeks to explore the masculinities represented by the protagonists of these two novels to find a correlation between attempting to resist transnational business masculinity and a desire to question neoliberal capitalism, thus emphasising a careful practicing of gender for climate activists and including gender as yet another dimension from which to consider the climate change discourse.