Annihilation is the first novel of the Southern Reach Trilogy, written by Jeff VanderMeer, which follows a group of four women (known as the biologist, the psychologist, the anthropologist, and the surveyor) who are part of the 12th expedition venturing into an area referred to as Area X. The novel is narrated through the journals of the biologist, where we slowly learn more of the secrets of Area X, as well as the life of the biologist herself.
The focus of Annihilation is placed on Area X, which is a land that has undergone change from some alien source. There have been expeditions into the area in order to figure out what has occurred and is occurring. The place is different from the land outside its boundaries and that difference is often unable to be understood, but can be perceived, most of the time. Area X is an area that is undergoing a re-creation of some sort; with its borders expanding, it will eventually create a new world for all that inhabit it, not only in the external world but internally within the creatures. From being exposed to fungi, the biologist undergoes some sort of physiological change, which causes her to have a growing “brightness” within her, which affects her in numerous ways. From this brightness, she becomes more in tune with Area X, allowing her to sense things that other members of the expedition cannot, including mysterious, yet prolific, words made of fungi. These fungal words are created by a creature known as “The Crawler” and are found in what the biologist calls “The Tower”. These words say:
“Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives while from the dim-lit halls of other places forms that could never be writhe for the impatience of the few who have never seen or been seen. In the black water with the sun shining at midnight, those fruit shall come ripe and in the darkness of that which is golden shall split open to reveal the revelation of the fatal softness in the earth. The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear…”
(VanderMeer 46, 47, 50, 61)
I find that when interpreting Annihilation, it works best to focus on the symbology and imagery that occurs throughout the novel. Through the viewing of these symbols one can draw many meanings and connections to almost a limitless number of possibilities, and the truth is: it is impossible to fully understand what the novel implies. But at its core, Annihilation is a Re-creation story. The Event of the novel is quite literally re-creating the world, with most details of the recreation remaining unknown. When looking at another creation story: The Book of Genesis, there are a number of connections between the imagery and symbology of the two books.
The biologist experiences the brightness after entering The Tower, which others define as The Tunnel. This symbol is visually one of phallic-nature, alike to the symbol of the Serpent in Genesis, and both symbols create a magnetism with the protagonists, forcing them into “biting the forbidden fruit”. The biologist experiences a brightness that takes over her from the fungal words she finds in the Tower, and her experience with the Crawler gifts her knowledge she is unable to understand, but with the newfound knowledge from the bitten fruit, she is cursed with the mortality of the decay of the brightness and she now carries the flame of this newfound-humanity. And with the flame, comes the inability to understand the reasoning behind the re-creation, however, humbled in this fact, the biologist becomes a part of the re-creation of Area X, and rather than fighting against it, she is able to coexist and observe.
The goal of the expeditions is to learn and ultimately understand Area X and the changes it is making. For the biologist, our narrator, she is also trying to personally understand Area X, which she does through observations and experiences of both the external world and her internal self. The biologist, like humanity as a whole, is driven by a desire to know and understand the world. Aristotles’s Metaphysics begins with:
“All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer sight to almost everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things.” (Lear 1)
Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (Lear 1)
Along the biologist’s journey of understanding, she is ultimately drawn by humanity’s innate desire to know. This is the reason why she feels drawn to the Tower, the reason she continues to go further down and ultimately face the Crawler and the traumatic experience they share. This is the same reason why Eve ate the forbidden fruit. It is in our nature to understand the world, creation and the re-creation of it. Speaking on the natural human desire to “see God” Lonergan says: “…the human desire to know is natural, insofar as the desires of the intellect are manifested in questions for meaning, truth, and value… our desire to know is unlimited and hence wants to know everything about everything – ultimately, being itself.” (Rosenberg 5). Annihilation offers a narration of one’s journey of understanding, which of course is not fully complete. The biologist learns of the re-creation of Area X and is ultimately brought to a place of “knowing”, without truly understanding each and every facet of Area X, because it is simply impossible. Like Area X, our world is in a perpetual state of re-creation, and it is simply impossible to understand all that it encompasses, because we lack the Eye of God. We are simple humans driven by our curiosity and desires to know, which we must chase without it overtaking us completely.
Bibliography:
Lear, Jonathan. “Aristotle: The Desire to Understand.” 1988, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511570612.
VanderMeer, Jeff. Annihilation. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. Lear, Jonathan. “Aristotle.” 1988, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511570612.
Genesis. Bible.org. 21 Apr. 2019 <https://bible.org/download/netbible/ondemand/bybook/gen.pdf>.
Rosenberg, Randall “Concretely Operating Nature: Lonergan on the Natural Desire to See God.” The Givenness of Desire: Human Subjectivity and the Natural Desire to See God, by RANDALL S. ROSENBERG, University of Toronto Press, Toronto; Buffalo; London, 2017, pp. 88–115. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1whm8tp.8.
Religion in Popular Culture Lab 