{"product_id":"the-last-man-and-gothic-sympathy","title":"The Last Man and Gothic Sympathy","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis Element explores the theme of 'Gothic sympathy' as it appears in a collection of 'Last Man' novels. A liminal site of both possibility and irreconcilability, Gothic sympathy at once challenges the anthropocentric bias of traditional notions of sympathetic concern, premising compassionate relations with other beings – animal, vegetal, etc. – beyond the standard measure of the liberal-humanist subject, and at the same time acknowledges the horror that is the ineluctable and untranslatable otherness accompanying, interrupting, and shaping such a sympathetic connection. Many examples of 'Last Man' fiction explore the dialectical impasse of Gothic sympathy by dramatizing complicated relationships between a lone liberal-humanist subject and other-than-human or posthuman subjects that will persist beyond humanity's extinction. Such confrontations as they appear in Mary Shelley's The Last Man, H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, and Richard Matheson's I Am Legend will be explored.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cambridge University Press Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56668794192258,"sku":"9781009357531","price":18.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0475\/2031\/7597\/files\/9781009357531i.jpg?v=1779631965","url":"https:\/\/www.cambridgebookshop.co.uk\/products\/the-last-man-and-gothic-sympathy","provider":"Cambridge University Press Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}