It threatens universal extinction on the other”. In response to this newly emergent genre, DeLillo (1986, 285) claims that the theme of postapocalyptic fiction usually “creates an appetite for immortality on the one hand. Such literature about the end of the world proliferates in the twenty-first century. Postapocalypse refers to “a story of the catastrophe that does not culminate in revelation” ( Doyle 2015, 100). In the numerous contemporary literary genres, the plague often springs up and plays a crucial role in postapocalyptic fiction. Thus, it is worth asking what plague in literature means and how do we treat its image in fiction? It is worth noting that both Camus and Steel have pointed out that although plague seems far away from us in ordinary life, it may lie in or some possible place our cognition toward pain or disease issues. In a similar vein, Steel (1981, 88) contends that plague, “like all other human experiences, has been presented over the centuries in painting and fiction”. Camus (1991, 253) claims that “each of us has the plague with him, no one on earth is free from it”. The literary narrative of plague usually describes a chronicle of nature’s indomitability and unconsciousness. This indicates that human life has dramatically changed due to infectious diseases or viruses such as smallpox, the Black Death, and the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Plague, in the form of epidemics, pandemics or infestations, is usually associated with physical and emotional suffering. Following Marie Laure Ryan’s key concepts “accesibility relationships”, “fantasy universe”, and “private worlds” in the possible worlds narrative theory, this study then concludes that The Book of M offers readers an opportunity to observe the fictional Forgetting’s truth and status through metaphors and thus enables them to recognize the potential of plague in reality. ![]() This article first examines Ory and Max’s loss of memory before proceeding to explore the mechanisms of logical possibilities and metaphorical use of Forgetting in the story. It argues that Shepherd’s novel frames postapocalypse not as a work of pessimism but as a social and historical context to explore the logical possibilities of the plague named Forgetting in unrevealed catastrophes and to project such themes as love, hope and unquenchable search for answers that never come. ![]() This article engages with the relationship between plague and postapocalyptic genre in Peng Shepherd’s The Book of M (2018) in the conceptual system of possible worlds semantics.
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