The Girl with All the Gifts

Abstract

In a dystopian future, civilisation as it was known collapsed due to a fungus infection, with the infected referred to as “hungries”, as they started to feed on healthy humans and quickly lost their intellectual faculties. As a result, healthy humans now roam the cities as scavengers, or manage to live in guarded and secluded areas. In one of these areas – Beacon, England – a group of “child hungries” are subjected to examination, since it is found that they are able to behave normally if healthy individuals do not get too close to them, as human scent triggers their feral behaviour. Scientific research is conducted on the children and a particular substance, called an e-blocker, is developed and used to hide human scent. A particular scientist, Dr. Caroline Caldwell, insists on experimenting on these children, vivisecting them and using them as test subjects. This is frowned upon by Helen Justineau, a psychologist who considers them as humans, not different from anyone else, and teaches them various subjects. Eventually, Helen flees from Beacon with the children. Dr. Caldwell pursues her obsession, believing that she is able to find a cure for the fungus, regardless of the child sacrifices. However, she comes to the conclusion that there can be no treatment or cure for the infection, and that hungries who retain their intellectual faculties are actually second-generation ones, born to rare infected individuals who had retained some human behaviours. Melanie, one of the child hungries rescued by Helen, finalises the novel by explaining that the war between healthy humans and hungries will go on, and can only stop when all humans are infected, and the hungries from next generations are taught anew. The Girl with All the Gifts employs tropes such as the villain scientist, who does anything in their power to conduct their morally questionable scientific experiments. It also puts into perspective the ethical boundaries of science, and what may be achieved and at what cost.