The Drowned World

The sun is the source of all humanity’s problems in The Drowned World. The sun is distant, unknowable, and powerful. Following a “series of violent and prolonged solar storms lasting several years” (33), human society has collapsed. The sun is a symbol of the fragility of human life and of the lack of human agency over the planet. Humans may have built giant cities and invented airplanes and helicopters. They may have become the dominant species on the planet, but everything can be undone in a few generations thanks to a random fluctuation in the storms on the surface of a star millions of miles away. Compared to the power of the sun, the ingenuity of humanity means nothing. The sun is a humbling symbol of mankind’s fragility, and it is one that will not relent. The opening line of the novel establishes the sun as an ever-present force in the lives of the characters. The days are hot and getting hotter, and soon, the planet will be “too hot” (17). The sun seems passive in the sky, yet it dictates the contours of human life. The humans may—in contrast—seem busy and purposeful, but they lack any agency over the state of their own planet.