Representability and Realism in Cuarón’s Children of Men and Ghosh’s The Great Derangement

Abstract

In The Great Derangement (2016), Amitav Ghosh explores why literature has not been able to represent the calamities we’re facing in the Anthropocene. Arguably, this conspicuous absence is a central theme of Ghosh’s branching analysis which spans politics, the ethical responsibility of the writer, philosophical issues, class struggle, postcolonialism and literary criticism. Using the film, Children of Men (2006), directed by Alfonso Cuarón, I want to contest aspects of Ghosh's analysis. To do this, the essay will counter the obvious objection that Children of Men is a film and therefore abides by different standards than literature via what I call the central periphery.