Decoding Cli-Fi Dynamics in Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour

Abstract

Flight Behaviouris an integration of many important issues that humanity faces today like climate change, global warming, species extinction, and the advent of the age of Anthropocene. The novel is set in rural Tennessee and it explores the reaction of a bible belt community to the arrival of millions of monarch butterflies on the mountains of their hometown. This astonishing phenomenon is branded as a miracle by the townsfolk but the arrival of a research team reveals the troubling truth behind the butterflies’ presence. They have been driven away from their usual Mexican winter grounds because of devastating mudslides and flooding that affected the area. Kingsolver, in simple words, expresses the alarming reality of how changing climate affects biodiversity and leads many species to the verge of extinction. She artfully links the monarch’s struggle for survival with the protagonist’s search for identity, independence and self-expression.