Fossil Hegemony and Capitalist Realism in <i>Tropic of Orange</i>

ABSTRACT This article examines Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange (1997) through the lens of Mark Fisher's influential concept ‘capitalist realism’. Scholars of petrofiction have pointed to a political ambivalence in the representation of fossil fuels, where a better understanding of fossil capital can overwhelm as much as galvanize. This ambivalence resonates with Fisher's key claim that capitalism's demystification as an efficient, natural, or ethical system can paradoxically strengthen its grip on what is popularly understood to be politically realistic. Treating capitalist realism as a structure of feeling within fossil hegemony, I approach Yamashita's novel as a representation of how lowered expectations for political change take hold around representations of fossil capital. Focusing on the characters of Manzanar and Emi, which I treat as figures of cognitive mapping and capitalist realism, respectively, my analysis points to a ‘fossil capitalist realism’ and broadens our picture of the politics of aesthetics vis‐à‐vis fossil‐fueled environmental crisis.