Elements of Science Fiction Prose in Works of Cormac McCarthy

Abstract

This review article examines the presence and function of sciencefictional (SF) and speculative elements in Cormac McCarthy’s prose, with particular attention to how genre signals - post-apocalyptic worldbuilding, estrangement, ecological catastrophe, and technoscientific discourse - are absorbed into a recognizably “literary” project. The analysis proceeds from the premise that McCarthy’s engagement with SF is less a matter of adopting conventional “scienceand-technology” plot mechanics than of mobilizing speculative protocols to test ethical, ontological, and epistemological limits. The article also situates McCarthy’s broader “genre turn” within contemporary literary fiction’s hybridization of popular forms and philosophical realism. The conclusion argues that SF elements in McCarthy operate as a rigorous formal instrument: a way to stage “limit-situations” where language, ethics, and worldhood are stripped to minimal conditions, and where the novel becomes an experiment in survival - biological, cultural, and semiotic.