My paper focuses on the representation of cannibalism in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, the tension between being civilized or savage, and the emerging social issues revolving around consumerism—the shifting personal and social values due to the increasing influence of materialism, the aversion to aging and mortality, as well as the nonchalance and ignorance about the exploitation of natural resources. The metaphor of cannibalism can be seen as interweaving with the consumer culture and society, since the phases of purchasing, consuming, and producing waste eventually lead to the maximal depletion of resources, and as such a society can destroy its future, which can be considered as an act of gradual self-consumption.