Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The present conceptual research paper will discuss the interplay of environmental degradation and gender relations alongside class disparity as portrayed in modern English writing. Contextualizing the problem within the framework of the late industrial capitalism and the ecological crisis on the global level, the paper attempts to explore the ways in which the recent novels managed to reflect, resist, and reimagining the relationship between human and the world of nature, on the one hand, and human and the world of the industry, on the other hand. The paper is based on major theoretical approaches to understanding literature that ecocriticism, feminist literary criticism and Marxist literary theory are noted for and shall suggest a synthesized conceptual model that can be used to interpret literary representations of ecological disruption, socio-economic marginalization and gendered exploitation. It attributes particular attention to the role of narratives in expressing systemic problems, including climate change, digital labor, green capitalism or environmental justice through an interdisciplinary perspective highlighted by lived experiences of women and the working class. The article touches upon the industrialization process in the 21st century in terms of factory-based economies to algorithmic and extractive industries, and the reflection of the process in the modern fiction. Examples of novels (e.g., The Overstory, Weather, and The Ministry for the Future) are cited as examples of how the literary work may be a place of criticism and alternative imaginary futures of sustainable living. Construction of an impressive conceptual framework makes this paper relevant to the environmental humanities as an overall thriving field but, at the same time, creates the possibility of both a textual and empirical follow-up. Finally, it places literature as the resourceful tool of theorizing and resisting mutual crises of eco degradation, economic exploitation, and gendered exploitation in the contemporary world.
Authors: Dr. Kuldeep Pandey, Mayank Chauhan
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4412360507