Religion as a Hallucinogen in Dystopian Worlds

Zachary Marzulli

In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Year of the Flood, Atwood adapts ideas of God and religion from Genesis in a post-apocalyptic dystopian setting. The Year of the Flood is from the perspective of the lower classes in Atwood's dystopian society, specifically the God’s Gardeners, a religious group who believe in biblical practices and are devoted to preserving all plant and animal life. The leader of God’s Gardeners is the enigmatic Adam One, who is admired as a holy man but perceived by outsiders as a cult leader. Toward the end of the novel, Atwood describes God as having the potential to act as a drug, stating that one’s own relationship with God should be taken with moderation, “Nature’s full strength is more than we can take, Adam One used to say. It’s a potent hallucinogen, a soporific, for the untrained soul. We are no longer at home in it. We need to dilute it. We can't drink it straight. And God is the same. Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered” (Atwood 327). In Genesis Book 22, God’s influence on Abraham is like that of a drug, as Abraham is driven to nearly making the irrational decision to kill his own son just because God had ordered it. Similarly, the idea of God being too powerful for humans to handle speaks to moments in Genesis where God displays his harsher and even destructive impulses toward humanity, as is the case with Waterless Flood in Atwood’s novel being an allegory of severe punishment for humanity’s sins. These acts of destruction toward humanity highlight the temperamental nature of God, and raises the question why did God create humanity in his own image only to punish them so severely for their sins? In these instances of mass suffering such as the Waterless Flood, human beings use God and religion to rationalize their own suffering as well as supply illusions that grant them strength to carry on in a world that oppresses them. In Genesis, God resorts to destroying humanity rather than trying to change humanity from their evil ways. In this case, religion acts as a pacifier that has the potential to prevent change or revolution in an oppressive society rather than encourage change.

The character of God throughout Genesis can be described as an influencer toward those individuals he chooses to speak. God shows how persuasive he can be in making people act out his will, which is not to be taken lightly. When obeying God’s wishes, one must fully place their faith in God, no matter the act or the potential repercussions. One of the most frequently discussed stories in Genesis illustrates this test of faith, when God commands Abraham to take his first-born son Isaac to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice him. Abraham, who has absolute faith in God follows his command and draws the knife to kill his own son. At that moment, God realizes Abraham’s faith and obedience and sends an angel to stop the sacrifice. While the message of this story is supposed to encourage trust in the will of God, one cannot help but be unsettled by the visceral and brutal nature of the ordeal. The story illustrates the power God possesses over his followers as he drives Abraham to commit to killing Isaac despite the ethical consequences. It also illuminates questions regarding what good faith is. Despite Abraham’s faith in God being true and the eventual outcome, his action is an ethical rupture and almost costs him the life of his son and his own humanity.

The Abraham and Isaac story relates to Atwood’s idea of God needing to be filtered (327) in that it shows how an unfiltered responsibility toward God can lead Abraham to betray the ethics that govern how he treats other people. The act of violence that Abraham almost commits goes against the most sacred ethical relationship he has in his life. His faith in God has similar effects to a hallucinogen as Atwood mentions, in that it alters his perception of reality, causing him to not see what is right in front him, in this case, his own son. It is because of this that human beings should not be held to such a radical standard of faith and obligation toward God. Too much faith in God is comparable to a drug overdose as Atwood describes, and faith in God can shape one's actions like being under the influence of a drug. While it is his faith in God that leads Abraham to his action, Adam One describes how action comes before faith in the Gardeners’ religion, “In some religions, faith precedes action. In ours, action precedes faith. You have been acting as if you believe, dear Toby. As if - those two words are very important to us. Continue to live according to them, and belief will follow in time… we should not expect too much from faith” (Atwood 168). Adam One emphasizes the words as if to show that pretending to believe and acting accordingly can eventually lead to genuine belief over time. The fake can become real, in that in acting “as if,” one becomes what one performs. Acting “as if” also relates back to Atwood’s idea of God as a drug or hallucinogen that should be taken in moderation, rather than letting your faith shape your actions entirely. As Adam One states, the expectation of faith should not be held to such a high standard, which is different from the expectation of faith that Abraham is expected of Genesis.

The Book of Genesis illustrates many instances where humanity faces severe punishment for their sins at the hands of God. The first instances occur in Book 6 of Genesis when God regrets creating humankind and decides to wipe them out because they have become wicked and evil. Another instance comes in Book 18 when God resolves to pass judgment on the cities Sodom and Gomorrah. When God tells Abraham of his intentions, Abraham attempts to persuade God to spare the cities for the sake of the righteous men. Abraham continues to debate with God, but the cities Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed. God takes extremely drastic measures despite Abraham’s desire for him to show mercy toward the cities. These destructive tendencies show God having little mercy for humanity, and contrast with the God that appears later in Genesis who shows mercy to Hagar and her son, for example. In Atwood’s novel, the Waterless Flood is like God in that the Flood shows no mercy, it is incurable, and it spreads rapidly much like an actual flood. Toby even describes the Waterless Flood, stating that, “it travels through the air as if it had wings, it burned through cities like fire, spreading germ ridden mobs, terror, and butchery. The lights were going out everywhere, the news was sporadic: systems were failing as their keepers died” (Atwood 20). The Waterless Floods serve as an allegory for the severe punishment for the sins of humanity. Atwood states that Nature’s full strength is more than humanity can take and a filter between God and humanity is necessary (327). Such severe punishments that cripple humanity further the need for a kind of filter between God and His creations. If God had created humanity knowing that all humans are capable of sin, then destroying humanity is punishing them for the inevitable.

In The Year of the Flood, the setting of the novel takes place somewhere in the United States after the Waterless Flood has taken place. Atwood creates yet another dystopian world in her novel, a world where most of humanity has been wiped out and the rest of humanity is forced to survive under the rule of an oppressive corporation. One of the main conflicts of the novel is the individual vs. the corporation, as Toby and Ren become victims of the oppressive society. Toby works at a shady burger joint of which the owner has a reputation for sexually assaulting and murdering employees while Ren works as a prostitute at the sex club Scales and Tails. Both protagonists must break the oppressive rules set forth by the CorpSeCorp to survive. The major conflict in the novel between the characters and the corporation lends itself well to a Marxist reading of the text and becomes especially prevalent when describing how religion itself is used throughout the novel. A famous Marx quote comes mind regarding organized religion, Marx states that, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” In the dystopian world of Atwood’s novel, God’s Gardeners resort to religion as an escape from their own heartless world and soulless conditions. It also happens that the Gardeners utilizes the poppy flower in many of their home grown medicines, poppy being one of the key ingredients in the drug opium. The Gardeners also swear off eating most animal products for religious reasons. Vegetarianism has become another way for them to abstain from exploitative consumer culture. The relationship between the Gardeners and the CorpSeCorp is mostly passive, as the corporation let the Gardeners exist since they are a nonviolent religious group. While religion is used to help mitigate suffering in the world ridden with disease and tyranny, religion only offers a temporary solution to the problem. Like the drug analogy, opium only numbs the pain without curing anything. This points to the God Gardeners and the rest of the oppressed people in the Year of the Flood needing a Marxist revolution where the oppressive corporations are overthrown. Many of the characters in the novel understand that the CorpSeCorp is a corrupt organization, as Atwood writes, “the local pleebmobs paid the CorpSeCorp men to turn a blind eye. In return, the CorpSeCorp let the pleebmobs run their low level kidnappings and assassinations…” (Atwood 33). Revolution is the only way that the characters can overthrow their oppressive rulers and create a world that is run by and for the common people as the survival of humanity is at stake.

Through her novel, Atwood shows religion as a drug that needs to be filtered. The story from Genesis illustrates this need for filtration and highlights the consequences of a potential overdose of faith in God. Atwood shows how religion can numb the pain of an oppressive, dystopian world, but also how religion can prevent necessary revolutions that the characters in the novel desperately need.

Works Cited

New Revised Standard Addition. Bible Gateway. https://www.biblegateway.com/. Accessed October 3rd, 2019

Atwood, Margaret. The Year of the Flood: A Novel. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. 2009. Print