I am going to borrow some ideas from Jessie Weston and Sir James Frazer as I stumble through my theories about post-apocalyptic literature. Neither of these writers deals with post-apocalyptic literature, but their part of my theory is that their ideas about ritual and especially sacred rites of expiation and atonement do have some relevance in the post-apocalyptic landscape.
In my last post, I ended with the idea that most of the Biblical apocalyptic stories (broadly defined as stories that ended the social order in some catastrophic way) arose from the fires of divine judgment. To make my next point, I need to go back even further, to pagan vegetation cults and reverdie traditions. Not surprisingly, many pagan traditions place a special emphasis on the return of spring and the growing season and hail the returning warmer weather as a sign of the return of life.
At some point, the green cult gave way to the blood cult. The clearest way to explain this is to consider the Genesis story of Cain and Abel. Cain, representing the green cult, offers his sacrifice of plants to God while his brother offers an animal sacrifice—a blood offering. When God unfairly favors the blood sacrifice and Cain responds by saying something along lines of “You want a blood sacrifice? I’ll give you a blood sacrifice!” the transition from green cult to blood cult is clear.
The juxtaposition of the two cults continues, however. It is no coincidence that the two most important blood cult ceremonies—Passover and Easter—occur at precisely the time of year of the green cult, a few weeks on either side of the vernal equinox. The green cult emphasis on new life and rebirth is, in fact, a crucial part of the Easter tradition as Christ conquers death and is resurrected. This rebirth after a blood sacrifice is part of an ancient tradition of linking the land’s fertility to the land’s leader. In the Fisher King antecedents, the king had to be ritually killed periodically to ensure the continued fertility and prosperity of the land, but as the ritual evolved, a scapegoat was used instead, and a stand-in for the king became the sacrifice.
The stand-in was frequently chosen during a period of carnival, which, as Bakhtin tells us, is a period when all social hierarchies are removed and the lowest and highest mingle. The stand-in is chosen in some sort of ritualistic fashion, frequently in some sort of lottery (Shirley Jackson’s chilling story thus has ancient roots). If anyone today has a tradition of hiding a coin or other small treat in a communal food item—a coin in the Christmas plum pudding, for example—you are reenacting the choosing ceremony. The lucky winner of the contest would then be king for the duration of the carnival and would have the rights and privileges of the king, but, at the end of the carnival, the blood sacrifice was required. Thus, the social order, turned to anarchy during carnival, is reinstated, and the expiation through blood is satisfied.
What does this have to do with post-apocalyptic stories? As I said in my previous post, I think post-apocalyptic stories are reflections of religious redemption myths. When the sins of the community grow too great, they must be cleansed. Once the apocalypse strikes, there is of course a great deal of social upheaval, frequently described with dark glee, that mimics the carnivalesque anarchy of ancient blood cults. Usually there is a return of nature to a world that has been punished by technology, industrialism, and pollution, all nice, modern, secular equivalents of sin. A kingly or queenly figure rises out of the ashes of civilization to lead the survivors to a new Eden, signaling the rebirth of the dead king or queen. Also, tellingly, the initial period after the catastrophe allows a small space of complete moral clarity, where the uncertainties of the old order are briefly submerged and a Manichean world view emerges. In many stories, though, this moment of clarity fades as the shades of gray gradually seep back in.
Later, I’ll look at some specific stories and see how they fit my theory.
The Hobgoblin of Little Minds 
I’m always interested in the moral universe of the post-apocalyse story. I was wondering to what extent there was anarchy in that post-apocalyptic world in the reading you’ve done so far, Hobgoblin, and to what extent there remained an underlying rule of survival, a weird Darwinian leftover that means the good (according to the definition of good in the story) get to live and the bad must perish?
Great question, Litlove, and a tough one to answer. I think many authors like to point out that the good are not necessarily Darwin’s favorites, so there are frequently scenes showing a Hobbesian universe where brutal things happen to everyone. I’ll have to think about this more for my next post.
Very interesting theory, and apropo, as I happen to be reading I Am Legend right now. Can’t wait to read your take on specific stories.
How interesting!
There are some very big differences though between Passover and Easter even if we assume that the ancient Passover celebrations obviously differed from today’s – i.e. vis a vis animal sacrifice in the Temple. (I think it’s too easy and often misleading or incorrect to lump Judaism and Christianity into the same boat as there are very big differences in thought between the two religions – the Christian interpretation of the Tanach (the “Old Testament”) is a whole culture away from the Judaic one).
The major difference I think is about human sacrifice, which is not only not present in Judaism/ the Passover ritual, but which is anathema to Judaism, but which is the focal point of Easter (right?).
The hiding of the coin is interesting – I didn’t know about that in Christian ritual – at the Passover seder, it’s a tradition to hide a part of the Matzoh (called an Afikomen), which the kids have to find.
Yaeli–thanks for the clarification. I did sort of rush through my Easter/Passover explanation, which did, I can see, make it look like Passover is a celebration of human sacrifice or that the two are the same thing. They clearly are not, of course. I think, though, that in a celebration of escaping death (as the angel of death passes over the houses) the same primal (and here my inner Jung is coming out) archetype is at play–death is somehow cheated as the tradition is reborn. And you’re absolutely right about the differences between Judaism and Christianity–some theologians even say that the god of the OT and the god of the NT are not the same. That said, I do think that the pagan traditions that predate both religions pop up in subtle ways.
Having recently acquired an interest in post-apocalyptic fiction, I’m eagerly awaiting “Eschatology III”. Is it arriving soon?