Point of View by Margaret Atwood

The “ant” section of Anthill has been written as if ants have not only emotions but some sort of narrative memory. Do they have such things in any way that would be understandable to us if we could for a moment share them?

There have been other attempts to write from the POV of ants… I’m thinking of the Ant section in T.H. White’s The Sword In The Stone, in which the ants are used as an anti-fascist allegory…  Is it possible to write from the POV of another species, really? Is that question by its nature uanswerable?

(I have a stake in this matter, as my first novel (age 7) was about an ant.)

Religion and Nature by Margaret Atwood

In Anthill, the protagonist is almost murdered by a fanatical Christian religious group that also has an interest in turning the natural area he champions into an intensive housing development.

1.    Financial self-interest aside, is the role of religion vis a vis respect for the natural world always this negative?  (I’m thinking for instance of the Green Bible, and the many groups who view the natural world as a sacred trust or something in relation to which mankind is a “steward.”)

2.     To what can we attribute the extreme anti-nature stance taken by some religious groups?

3.     Are there not other religions for whom all life is sacred?

4.     Are we as a species hard-wired to always pick the low-hanging fruit, and thereby anti-conservationist by our very nature?

Of Ants and Men: Too Big for Our Britches? Too Ant-Like for Comfort? by Margaret Atwood

In Anthill, there is a runaway Supercolony of ants – made possible by a genetic variant that allows many queenlets, each with its own subcolony, to exist in close proximity, rather than one colony with one queen, all other claimants having been killed. This Supercolony is killing and eating every living thing within its reach. Nothing can stand against it.

Then some “gods” arrive – in reality, human beings with insecticide sprayers, tired of too many ants at their picnics – and put an end to the Supercolony.


If this deus plus machina had not arrived, would the Supercolony have perished, having expanded beyond the capacity of its environment to keep it supplied with food? Or would it just have kept expanding outward in a ring, like a mushroom, leaving a dead center? 


Wilson draws explicit parallels between ant colonies and human civilizations.  Each arises, builds itself up, fights off competitors, flourishes, goes into decline, and eventually perishes, overwhelmed by stronger invaders.  Is this parallel fully merited?

Is there an implication that human society on earth has now become a Supercolony,  devouring everything in its path and with no check to its growth?  If so, is it in danger of eating itself out of existence?  


What about the “gods” – the equivalent of the human beings with insecticide sprayers?  Are we in danger of becoming our own annihilating “gods,” and if so, what form might this act of self-extermination take?