Exploring Ecocritical Trajectory from Rachel Carson to Amitav Ghosh
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This paper follows the footprints of ecocriticism from Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ (1962) to Amitav Ghosh’s ‘The Great Derangement’ (2016). Carson sounds the alarm about pesticide buildup in the ecosystem and takes on the split between nature and culture, laying the groundwork for Western environmentalism (Buell, 1995). On the other hand, Ghosh addresses the issues with postcolonial perspectives in his climate fictions and non-fictions. He brings nonhuman voices to the front and casts light on the climate struggles faced by the Global South (Ghosh, 2016; Huggan & Tiffin, 2010). This paper identifies three major shifts: first, from the dangers of chemicals to the larger issue of climate change; second, from a Western perspective to an ethics of the Global South; and third, from stories that focus on humans to a more ecocentric perspective. The overall message is that literature is constantly changing the way we think about and respond to environmental issues.
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