The End We Start From

Throughout The End We Start From, the narrator’s experience with motherhood is a metaphor for the end of the world, interweaving her personal journey with the broader environmental crisis unfolding around her. The story’s opening sentence immediately draws parallels between the inevitability of childbirth and the climate crisis, suggesting that both events are surreal yet inevitable. This juxtaposition highlights the human tendency to ignore impending disasters until they become immediate and tangible, underscoring the dystopian nature of the narrator’s reality. The protagonist’s reflections on her pregnancy and impending childbirth mirror the escalating chaos of a world ravaged by flooding and ecological collapse, emphasizing the interconnectedness of the personal and planetary experience.

The narrator’s interactions with her newborn son, Z reinforce this theme. While they form a deep and loving bond, the narrator is intensely aware of how her perspective and sense of self have changed since becoming a mother. She observes that “it is only humans and monkeys who let the fetus feed from their own blood supply. Only humans and monkeys who let their young release themselves back into the mother, float themselves into her, minute explorers” (117).