Weathered Minds: Climate Anxiety and Emotional Geographies in Jenny Offill’s ‘Weather’ (2020)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31185/eduj.Vol62.Iss2.4802Keywords:
KEY WORDS: Anthropocene, climate anxiety, ecological crisis, emotional geography, solastalgia.Abstract
This article studies ‘Weather’ (2020) by Jenny Offill as an important work of current climate fiction that portrays the emotional and inner effects of climate anxiety. Unlike conventional climate fiction narratives of catastrophe and spectacle, ‘Weather’ depicts a soft climate aesthetic that highlights fragmented narrative, irony, and daily anxiety. Drawing on theories from ecopsychology, solastalgia, emotional geography, and affective theory, the study explores how Offill’s formally simple style echoes the confusion and unease of being in the Anthropocene. Through textual analysis, the study positions ‘Weather’ within broader ecological humanities debates, concentrating on how ambiance anxiety is internalized and moulded by cultural, social, and psychological burdens. Offill’s hero, Lizzie, represents the psychologically drained, ethically numbed matter of climate instability. By intermingling narrative form and affective analysis, this study illustrates how ‘Weather’ represents the restrained emotional geographies of ecological breakdown and exemplifies how literature can respond to environmental distress.
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