Ecocriticism

Critically reading Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, the present paper attempts to explore the impacts of colonization on indigenous subjects, plants and animals. To trace the detrimental effects of colonialism on both environment and people in Sea of Poppies, this study foregrounds the reflection of the obligatory cultivation of poppy under the rule of British colonizers in India. Sea of Poppies is indeed a portrayal of the catastrophic policies enforced in India by British colonizers in the nineteenth century. In his seminal novel Ghosh deals with the changes brought about by the lucrative cultivation of poppy in the exacerbation of the financial status of indigenous subjects. Environmental devastation and the changes in the normal behavior of animals are also dealt with. Focusing on the theoretical frameworks proposed by Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin, this paper explores the convergence of postcolonialism and ecocriticism in Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies to indicate that not only were native people impoverished during colonialism in India, but also the ecosystem was severely damaged.

This article aims at studying ecofeminism in Vladimir Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark . Nabokov’s works have been the matter of different perspectives since they have been created but this article claims that what has so far been neglected about his works is that Nabokov’s novels pay respectful attention to nature and its problems. Ecofeminism, a branch of ecocriticism, has been created and widened recently by some prominent thinkers like Susan Griffin and Elizabeth Bishop. In the context of ecofeminism, the similarities between nature and women in having two opposite sides is the site of authorship for some contemporary writers. Nature and women, according to them, are both healer and killer simultaneously. The article shows how these two sides are presented in Nabokov’s novel, and, by means of which it, tacitly, claims that Nabokov, as in his other works, worships nature and its elements.

Ecofeminist discourse is experiencing its peak importance with the rise of both feminism and ecocriticism to the summit of cultural and literary studies. Going back and revisiting authors and texts which helped shaping the current cultural forces through ecofeminist lenses may help us understand how nature and femininity both are viewed separately and together. As one of the most prominent and influential figures in horror and science fiction (and perhaps pop culture in general), Howard Phillips Lovecraft presents a thought-provoking portrait of women and femininity in his texts and since nature plays an integral role in worldview, femininity and nature almost blend into a single concept throughout his fiction. This paper intends to analyze the works of H. P. Lovecraft through Ecofeminist lenses and apply the Ecofeminist theory of Mother/Nature, developed by Catherine M. Roach, on Lovecraft’s life and fiction. The researchers intend to find a correlation between the idea of Bad Nature presented by Roach and the almost always evil representation of femininity in H. P. Lovecraft’s fiction.

Adwaita Mallabarman’s (1914-1951) Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1956), translated by Kalpana Bardhan as A River Called Titash (1993), Manik Bandyopadhyay’s (1908-1956) Padma Nadir Majhi (1936), translated by Ratan K. Chattopadhyay as A Boatman of the Padma (2012), and Syed Waliullah’s (1922-1971) Kando Nadi Kando (1968), translated by Osman Jamal as Cry, River, Cry (2015) are novels which portray the identity of the people of Bangladesh who live by the side of the rivers Titash, Padma, and Bakal. The biodiversity of these rivers was once resourceful, but they lost their flow because of the imbalance in the river ecosystems for siltation, drought, and deforestation. The lifestyles and identities of fishermen and people are greatly influenced by the change of river ecosystems. Different writers in Bengali literature have written about the changes of human life in connection with the flow of different big and small rivers. Mallabarman writes about fisherman (Malo) community who catch fish in the Titash; Bandyopadhyay portrays the identity of fishermen who catch fish in the Padma; and Waliullah writes about the farmers and the people who depend on the movement of steamers and live by the side of a tributary called Bakal. These three novelists show beautiful landscapes of Bengal in different seasons and also show how people become victims with the change of biodiversity and ecosystems. This paper explores the change of the ecosystem of the rivers Titash, Padma, and Bakal which change the lifestyle of the people who are dependent on them.