5. “I’ll Always Consider Myself Mechanical”: Cyborg Juliette and the Shakespeare Apocalypse in Hugh Howey’s Silo Saga

Hugh Howey’s science fiction trilogy, the Silo Saga, explores the relationship between apocalypse, trauma, and memory, invoking Shakespeare by referring to a play-within-the-novel—The Tragic Historye of Romeus and Juliette—whose title suggests that in this post-apocalyptic world, “Shakespeare” has somehow become “(not) Shakespeare.” In the fictional world of the novel, such a transformation results from the systematic loss and gradual recovery of cultural memory that occurs in the wake of traumatic events. At the same time, the novel dramatizes the coming of age of Juliette Nichols, who becomes “(not) Juliet(te)”—that is, neither Shakespeare’s Juliet nor The Tragic Historye’s Juliette—when she responds to her own personal tragedies and traumatic events by attempting to fix things and prevent future catastrophes. She revises the script that previously defined her, becoming “(not) Juliet(te)”—a tool-wielding cyborg who selects her own profession and rewrites her own prescribed identity.