Birnam Wood

Eleanor Catton presents contemporary technology such as smart phones, drones, and GPS as insidious and uses it to enhance the sense of danger and develop Lemoine as a character. Lemoine is analogous to malware and the insidious technology that surrounds the characters; like a computer virus that lures people with false messages, Lemoine tempts characters with the face for which they’ll fall. Like malware, once a character comes in contact with Lemoine they become infected with destructive ambition, the first symptom of which is betrayal and the last is death. Contemporary technology is a motif that contributes to the novel’s theme, The Dangerous Proliferation of Technology in Modern Life; Catton indexes this theme to Lemoine as a character.

Like a computer program, Lemoine’s decisions are logical. When he runs up against emotions, he resets, such as when Mira and Shelley disobey his order to drive straight to the farm. It takes a moment to reprogram before he contacts them with a new story. Compared to Mira’s passion, Shelley’s resentment, the love of Lady Darvish, and the righteous indignation of Tony, Lemoine has little emotion. He’s practically robotic, and hard to separate from the contemporary technology that he wields. His backstory encourages this reading since, like computer viruses, the true source of Lemoine is unreachable.