*Spoilers from the novel Annihilation*

The film version of Jeff Vandermeer’s novel, Annihilation, was well received when it came out.  As described by the Wikipedia page, “The story follows a group of military scientists who enter ‘The Shimmer’, a mysterious quarantined zone of mutating landscapes and transmogrifying creatures.” It’s a straightforward science fiction psychological horror film starring the great Natalie Portman as Lena, a cellular-biologist. Excluding the occasional flashback or video recording, the film happens in real time and the audience watching the film just follows Portman’s character through wild and creepy situations.

I like the film, but the novel is set up differently- and in a way, I prefer it more.

In the novel, the narrator is the Biologist. We do not know her name, but her title gives away her profession. We also know that she is headstrong and likes to think for herself. While Area X is very dangerous, we learn that she is interested in exploring it. Unlike the other women on her expedition, she doesn’t blindly follow the psychologist (of course, accidentally inhaling the spores near the beginning of the expedition did help her to resist the leader’s hypnotism). As a researcher, she is very smart, and as a Biologist, she tries to study her environment.

She is an expert at what she does, so as readers, we automatically believe that what she
is saying is the truth (“I believe I qualified because I specialized in transitional environments”-pg.11). Though, she does indicate that Area X can mess with people’s minds, so maybe not everything she says is as it happens.

From the very first pages, we learn that the narrator is the Biologist (“I was the
Biologist.”-pg. 3), and that this book is entries in a journal she is required to write in (“It was expected simply that we would keep a record, like this one, in a journal, like this one”-pg. 8). As the quote mentions, the members of the expedition were given journals to keep records of their expedition. This could be because unexplainable things happened to the very first expeditions, so each subsequent one was required to keep a record.

If something else happens to these expeditions, someone may be able to find out what
happened to them. The Biologist becomes that someone when she finds the other journals (including her husband’s) in the lighthouse.

Just following the Biologist’s daily musings gives the audience a sense of unease. We only know one part o the story, and are only learning what the Biologist is choosing to tell us. We barely know anything about the other characters, any information only coming from our narrator. We have no idea where she is leading us, and “wait in anticipation” at learning about any new developments.

By the end of the story, the Biologist tells us that she plans to do the same as the people
from the previous expeditions, and leave her journal in the lighthouse to be found.

“I have spent four long days perfecting this account you are reading, for all its faults, and
it is supplemented by a second journal that records all of my findings from the various samples taken by myself and other members of our expedition…I have bound these materials together with my husband’s journal and will leave them here, atop the pile beneath the trapdoor.” (P.193)
The Biologist chooses to explore on, leaving her records at the very top of a pile of
multiple journals to be found by someone else. That someone else is the addressee.

Just to clarify, the addressee is the audience, the people who are reading or listening to
the story. According to Peter Rabinowitz, there are about three types of audience, with the most straightforward one being the actual audience- the characters in the story who are listening to what the narrator has to say.

I believe that in Annihilation, the character(s) reading the Biologist’s journal are part of
the 13th expedition. Like before, a new expedition is sent into Area X to find out what happened to the previous expedition. The 12th expedition (in which the Biologist belonged to) never came back, so the 13th expedition was sent to investigate (this could have happened years later, as the 12th expedition was expected to remain in Area X for a long time, with no means to communicate to the outside world). Eventually, someone from this new group would find their way to the lighthouse and discover the journals. What the someone does with that information is another question.

I think the Biologist hopes that the person who reads her journal is someone like her, someone who will think for him/herself. If the government group that sends the expedition includes another hypnotist, or just uses individuals who follow directions, whoever discovers the records might not do anything about them. Someone like the Biologist will learn from the journals and try to find out more about Area X.

I mentioned earlier that Peter Rabinowitz has three different types of audience. The
second of these is the hypothetical audience- the people the author envisions will read his book. He bases his writing style and artistic choices based off this assumption. At its most simplest level, Jeff Vandermeer seemed to be writing an interesting story for fans of the science fiction/horror genres. But I also think he assumes that we as readers we do not fully trust the government or any Big Brother organization. We live in a world where secrets are kept from us, and we are being monitored almost at all time. Vandermeer hopes that we are like the Biologist, who thinks for herself, and follows what she believes is right (this will make our connection and understanding of the Biologist greater). Like the Biologist, we have learned to question things and investigate on our own.

We need to become the narrative audience- the readers who understand that the story is
an imitation of real life. As the best case scenario, we need to assume that we are the
addressee that the Biologist hopes will read the journals- the person who knows not to trust the big organization and to think for him/herself. The fictional world is an imitation of real life, and as we see that the Biologist is someone who has a very similar mindset to us in the real world, we are clued in to imitate our ideals as the actual audience in the novel. We have to believe that the character we are in the narrative thinks like us and the Biologist.

The film doesn’t make us think in this way at all. Yes, the film has different messages, and the audience is supposed to be the narrative audience who understands that those issues on screen mimic those in real life.

But without the film having Lena narrate her journal entries and the story just following her perspective, the people watching can’t assume the role of the actual audience, the people meant to find the journal.

How the audience is used in the novel as opposed to the film represents what makes an experience different from just a motion picture. I honestly do think the novel is more influential than the film, just on the basis that the latter chose to ditch the narrative aspect of the former, and ignore the possible role of the audience.