The Destruction and Reconstruction of Community: A Study of The Light Pirate from a Posthumanist Perspective

In recent years, given the increasing occurrence of extreme weather events and the growing public awareness of climate issues, climate fiction has emerged as a popular genre, and Lily Brooks-Dalton’s novel The Light Pirate serves as a quintessential example of climate fiction. In the book, Dalton presents an imagined catastrophic scenario caused by floods and hurricanes. After the disintegration of various communities, the protagonist, Wanda, remains in her fragmented hometown and goes on to create a posthumanist community. Based on the theories of community and critical posthumanism, the evolution of communities during the climate crisis is interpreted from three perspectives: how various types of communities are destroyed by climate change, why residents in the face of a dilemma adopt different coping mechanisms, and what kind of posthumanist community is reconstructed after the climate crisis. All in all, by describing the fate of the community under the climate crisis, the novel warns people to protect the environment, reveals the complex relationship between man and nature, and suggests a possible way out when faced with the threat of climate change, that is, to live in harmony with other creatures.