Climate Change and Environmental Justice: An Ecocritical Trajectory into Amitav Gosh’s Gun Island
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Ecocriticism is an emerging discipline within Cultural Studies that examines environmental representation and promotes environmental awareness via literary works. Amitav Ghosh, a prominent and internationally recognised figure of Indian descent in Eco- critical literature, has articulated and synthesised several global and regional environmental challenges via his groundbreaking writings. Amitav Ghosh, in his novel, highlights the necessity for multispecies, multi-ethnic, and cross-cultural collaboration in confronting the global climate problem. Ghosh's comparison of human and animal migrations highlights the novel's focus on climate justice. I analyze the traits of environmentalism that I identify in his novels, employing the phrase “planetary environmentalism.” This form of environmentalism transcends human-imposed territorial boundaries, as borders become irrelevant when the destiny of the entire world is at stake. It transcends all human-imposed geographical boundaries, since the notion of a border becomes irrelevant in global climate crisis threats. Because of climate change, Ghosh focuses on human migrations , and environmental justice. The extremes, which include superstorms, droughts, floods, and rising sea levels, are so unfathomable to modern literary fiction that very few writers choose to grapple with them. In spite of the fact that it could seem that climate change is a natural subject for the world of creative writing, more especially science fiction and fantasy, Ghosh argues that this statement is not accurate. When we look at Gun Island as a whole, we see the disastrous effects of the climatic catastrophe, which is the cause of the demise of all living things in the cosmos, including humans and animals. As a matter of fact, the result of a climatic fiction such as Gun Island, which serves as a reflection of the current world, is the development of universal consciousness.
Source: Creative Saplings
Author: Mosharaf Hossain
Institution: University of Rajshahi
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4408173094