Nexus of Man, Nature and Literature in select works of Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai and Kiran Desai
Introduction
Nature and literature have always shared a close relationship as is evidenced in the works of poets and other writers down the ages in almost all cultures of the world. Today the intimate relationship between the natural and social world is being analyzed and emphasized in all departments of knowledge and development. The literary critic tries to study how this close relationship between nature and society has been textualized by the writers in their works. In this context two terms have become very popular today – ecology and ecocriticism. India is a country with variety of ecosystems which ranges from Himalayas in the north to Plateaus of south and from the dynamic Sunderbans in the east to dry Thar of the West. With time, however, these ecosystems have been adversely affected due to increasing population and avarice of mankind. Similarly literature could not remain unaffected from this depletion.
The two components of nature, organism and their environment are not only complex and dynamic but also interdependent and interrelated. History has proved this every now and then that with every change in the civilization the relationship of animals and human beings have also changed and the effect on civilization of the changes has been so acute that sometimes it has wipes the whole civilization from the face of the earth.
Literature well known for reflecting the contemporary issues could not have remained unaffected from this theme. The world of literature throngs with works dealing with beauty and power of nature. However, the concern for ecology and the threat that the continuous misuse of our environment poses on humanity has only recently caught the attention of the writers. It is this sense of concern and its reflection in literature that has given rise to a new branch of literary theory, namely Ecocriticism.
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The word ‘ecocriticism’ first appeared in William Rueckert’s essay “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism” in 1978. Yet apparently it remained inactive in critical vocabulary until the 1989 Western Literature Association meeting (in Loeur d’ Alene), when Chreyll Glotfelty (at the time a graduate student at Cornell now Assistant Professor of Literature and Environment at the University of Navada, Rano) not only received the term but worked for its use in the critical field which hereafter had been used as ‘the study of nature writing’. Glen Love (Professor of English at the University of Oregon) too seconded the call for ‘ecocriticism’ at the same Western Literature Association meeting. Since that meeting in 1989 the usage of the term ‘ecocriticism’ has been bloomed. However, in the beginning scholars working in this field of literary theory remained marginal until the early 1990 when the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) was established in 1992 along with the Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE) in 1993. In 1996 it is said to be officially heralded by the publication of two seminal works: The Ecocriticism Reader, edited by Cheryll Gloyfelty and Harold Fromm and The Environmental Imagination by Lawrence Buell.
Despite having reached this critical level, ecocriticism had difficulty in gaining recognition as a legitimate literary theory. There have also been numerous debates on whether to include human culture in the physical world. Despite the broad scope of inquiry all ecological criticism shares the fundamental premise that human culture is connected to the physical world, affecting it and affected by it. As a theoretical discourse it negotiates different aspects between the human and the nonhuman. In the past the main stream literary criticism expresses the conceptual gap between nature and culture. An element of artificiality can be recognized in this perceived separation, for nature and culture often overlap as twinned process. Simon Schama, for instance, argues that when we imagine even the most pristine of wilderness, “the landscapes that we suppose to be most free of our culture may turn out to be, on closer inspection, its product.” (Jean Arnold, ASLE) Dr. Mark’s in this context first differentiate between ecology and environment. He says that ecology is mostly used by humanists as a metaphor for describing the natural world. In his view, ecology is a way of thinking about nature. Environment, on the other hand, he considers as a more inclusive term that describes the natural and human world. He says “I use the term ‘environmental writing’ more than ‘nature writing’ because I am interested in writers concerned with natural as well as cultural experience.” (Long, 3) The view that culture is produced by human beings and is therefore separate from nature bypasses the fact that all human culture resides in the natural world. We owe our very existence to its processes. Therefore, our every action towards the natural world is eventually an action towards oneself and towards one’s culture.
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Once this branch of criticism, ecocriticism, was established it started giving rise to different opinions regarding what should be its definition and its limitations. In the beginning it was restricted to the works related to nature or to the works concerned with the relation of man with animals. Later, however, as it gained currency in the literary world and now as it has caught the attention of almost all the critics around the world, its scope too has become large. Apart from them Rachel Azima’s theory of ecocriticism provides us with a completely new perspective of looking at this theory.
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Rachel Azima’s theory of ecocriticism might have raised the eyebrows of many writers but it indeed has led to inclusion of many novels under this branch. She has tried to close the gap between postcolonialism and ecocriticism by analyzing the texts that depicts a range of engagements with the environment and that complicates while extend the notion of place-connectedness. This analysis extends the postcolonial theory beyond its usual context of cosmopolitanism while also broadening ecocriticism beyond its rather parochial American bent. Rachel Azima has re-theorized root metaphors in relation to literary texts that calls static place-relationship into question in order to define more flexible and inclusive models of place-connectedness that can account for phenomena like displacement, hybridity and transnationalism. What is called ‘self-transplantation’ represents one such model: through self-transplantation, authors like V.S. Naipaul are able to forge relationships to their chosen places of residence via interactions with and claiming a place to which one can belong, rather than inheriting this place attachment or receiving it through an accident of history.
Literature Review
Although not many, there are a few novels in the history of Indian English literature which can be read through the lens of ecocriticism. It is true that a serious concern with ecology seems to be lacking in the earlier works, yet nature has been used as an important backdrop against which the story develops. The progress at that time was not very significant, and the writers were not scientifically aware to understand and write about something the significance of which the human society had not yet realized. So, it had to be limited to the landscape and the changes that occurred with time at the places described and in nature.
When history is examined we find Raja Rao as one of the most prominent writers of Indian English novels. His depiction of the South Indian village culture and environment setting is a true depiction of relationship between man and nature. In his novel ‘kanthapura’ he has shown how rivers and mountains play an important role in people’s lives. They have names for them. In his novel they call the mountain as Goddess Kenchamma and they consider it responsible for both – their prosperity and their adversity. Raja Rao writes about Kenchamma in the novel, “Kenchamma is our goddess. Great and bounteous is she…never has she failed us in grief. If ruins come not, you fall at her feet and say, ’Kenchamma you are not kind to us. Our field is full of younglings.”(Rao, 1-2) These first few pages of ‘Kanthapura’ reminds us of the true literal sense. Besides these few pages in the beginning we, however, there is no further discussion on it in the novel.
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R.K. Narayan wrote in the same decade and has given life to a place, Malgudi, or it can be said that he has developed a place as a character which can be seen in almost all his prose fictions bearing the same features. In other words he used landscape as an important theme and as mentioned in the earlier part this is also one of thee important considerations under ecocriticism. The traces of ecocriticism can be seen in almost all his novels. In ‘The Dark Room’ the river and the ruined temple leave a benign influence on Savitri. The flowing Sarayu, the ruined temple and the stone slabs influence Raju in ‘The Guide’, and contribute to his sainthood. It is the spirit of Malgudi that helps him to face the ordeal of fast in the right earnest. Again it is the retreat across the river that almost transforms Jagan. Thus Malgudi is a character. But when it is becoming material, then it is also becoming villain like the gutter in ‘The English Teacher’ and ‘The Financial Expert’. Professor Iyenger rightly advocates the theory that Malgudi is the real ‘hero’ of ten novels and the many short stories of Narayan and that underneath the seeming change and the human drama there is something the ‘soul’ of the place that defines or embraces all changes and is triumphantly and unalterably itself. (Saxena, 26) Therefore the works of R.K.Narayan could offer a background for research in the field of ecocriticism.
Nature has always proved to be stronger than man. It has often shown its power by contributing manpower through calamities like famine, drought, flood, earthquake etc. Man’s life and nature are so interlinked that it is not possible for human beings to separate themselves from its influence. Therefore they have no choice but to accept both nature’s bounty and adversity. This can be said to be reciprocal as nature too is the recipient of man’s action. Our irresponsible actions cause irreparable damages to nature. This is how the chain of ecosystem works in which everything is related to each other and therefore affects each other. The effect of one such natural calamity on the humanity can be seen in Bhabani Bhattacharya’s ‘So Many Hungers’. In this novel we see the true picture of Bengal famine of 1943in which at least 3,000,000 Indians died of starvation. The novel is compounded of the ingredients of sighs and tears, misery and squalor, hunger and poverty and heroic suffering and sacrifice. The Bengal famine of 1943 which crushed millions under its devastating truculence forms the major part of the novel’s plot. Fisher is right when she asserts that “In ‘So Many Hungers’ (1947) the Bengal famine is more than just a background; it is the very heart of the book”. So Many Hungers actually gives us an overview that although nature is the preserver but if will continue to go against it then it can also become destroyer and can sweep away the entire civilization.
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The other writer in whose work also we witness a reference to the Bengal famine is Kamala Markandya in her novel ‘Nectar in Sieve’. The Flood, which is taken from her novel, has very well described the control of nature over human beings. She writes “Nature is like a wild animal that you have trained to work for you. So long as you are vigilant and walk warily with thought and care, so long will it give you its aid; but look away for an instant, be heedless and forgetful, and it has you by the throat.” (Markandya, 109) Nature is shown as both the destroyer and the preserver in the story. The destructive feature of nature is seen in the pitiful condition of the villagers due to the rain and storm, “the water pitilessly found every hole of the thatched roof to come in…I saw that our coconut plant had been struck. That, too, the storm had claimed for its own…they did not show much sign of surviving.”(Markandya, 110)
The other prominent writer of this age in whose work we see the dominance of nature images which act as important part of theme is Anita Desai. Nature which includes animals, plants and birds, has a strong presence in almost all her works. Known in Indian-English fiction for ushering in the psychological novel, Desai uses external landscapes to portray interior states of mind. In ‘Cry, the Peacock’, the complexities of Maya’s inner life is effectively brought through the landscape as is her resentment against her husband for his inability to communicate with her. Maya compares herself with the peacock in the jungle. The peacocks are said to fight before they mate, living they are aware of death and dying they are in love with life. This is reflected towards the end in the novel when one day during a dust storm both husband and wife go up to the roof of their house, she pushes him off the parapet and he dies. In ‘Voices in the City’ Monisha is repeatedly compared to the encaged bird in her house who wants to be free. Her condition reflects the plight of the imprisoned bird whose need is no one’s concern and its life is for the pleasure for others. She finally commits suicide to free herself.
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Kiran Desai’s ‘The Inheritance of Loss’ straddles across continents mapping the contours of the ethno-racial and historical relationship between people from different cultures and backgrounds. The novel bounces between an insurgency in India and the immigrant experience. It presents the Azima Rachel’s concept of self-transplantation. Desai crosses international boundaries (India and USA) and shows her character from cross-cultural ecocritical perspective. The story shifts between the landscape of India and America. Biju, the son of an old cook in India, tries to transplant himself in a foreign land. Once uprooted from the origin, it is not easy to adjust in a new environment and same can be seen in Desai’s novel. In order to settle and have a sense of belonging to the foreign land Biju and many other like him face the similar problems like struggling for green cards, changing the jobs, search for a shelter. This transplantation is not easily established bit it is only after a tense period of time that these cross cultural assimilation is finally a success. Another character of the novel, Jemubhai Patel who is the retired judge living in the foothills of the Himalayas, also went through the same experience when he had gone to London, “…nobody spoke to him at all, his throat jammed with unuttered words…and elderly ladies, even the helpless- blue-haired, spotted, faces like collapsing pumpkins- moves over when he sat next to them in the bus…The young and beautiful were no kinder; girls held their noses and giggled, ‘Phew, he stinks of curry!’…” (Desai, 39)
Desai has also used the landscape in her novel to tell the changing circumstances or to describe the mood. The story in India is set in the foothills of Himalayas, Kalimpong. Kanchenjunga stands as the ultimate truth and makes its presence felt from time to time in the novel. The story stands and ends with the description of the mountain, Kanchenjunga. When Sai first arrived at Cho Oyu the mountain is described as macabre. It reflects the situation and unhappy mood of the child who has lost her parents in an accident and is sent to this unusual relative of hrs whom she has never met. Later in the novel Kanchenjunga is presented as that part of nature which pays for the brutality of humans and whose beauty is destroyed in the war for power. It is said in the novel, “India had swallowed the jewel-coloured kingdom, whose blue hills they could see in the distance.” (Desai, 292) Thus we can see that Desai’s “Inheritance of Loss” covers all the different concepts and definitions that have been put forth by various critics of ecocriticism. Her novel is rich with ecocritical reference and among the recent fictions it can be most aptly given an ecocritical reading.
The novel which has been equally accepted by all the ecocritics, without giving rise to any objection in calling it a fiction with an ecocritical approach, is Amitav Ghosh’s ‘The Hungry Tide’. It does have the elements of the earlier concept of ecocriticism, that is, the interrelationship between human, nature and animal worlds. In other words it deals with the study of nature writing. The book is about one of the most dynamic ecological systems of the world. It takes us to the Sunderbans and the hundreds of islands found and lost in a short span of time. It is about the hardships of the settlers trying to give a meaning to their lives against all the odds offered by the place. We see nature in both its full beauty and its ugliness. He presents before us the wrath of nature and fragility of the humans at the mercy of the former. This blend of the political and the social truth with its concern for nature has brought this novel of Indian English Literature under the discussion of the seminars based on ecocriticism.
The story is of an urban man Kanai and his uncle’s account in his notebook through which we are told about most of the strange and hushed political happenings in the name of conservation. Piyali, the ecologist, and Fokir, the native, also make us sense the real terror of nature. The Sunderbans abounds in animals and these animals also influence the lives of the inhabitants. In the novel we see the terror of the tigers, known for killing men and animals, among the people of islands. The main reason for this environment degradation is the increasing population and the increasing need of this ever rising population. In one of his stories Nirmal had explained how people went there for the hunger of land, they were even ready to sell themselves for a small piece of island. Amitav Ghosh creates emotional dilemma among us as to whom to support. Intellectually, it seems quite logical to encourage conservation, but on humanitarian ground we cannot stop ourselves from feeling at the helplessness of the people while they were brutally killed and evicted from the island. Ghosh in this novel tries to show the vastness and terror of the nature which is responsible for life on the earth. He brings before us the limitations of human beings. If nature thinks of revenge for our cruelties towards her the whole humanity which boasts so much of their brain will be washed away from the face of the earth. He presents the political sham that is involved in the name of protecting animals and their natural habits at the cost of innocent lives.
Research Objectives
The study of the relationship between literature and the environment has fostered human attitudes towards the environment as expressed in natural writing. In the essay “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism,” Rueckert defines ecocriticism as the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature because ecology (as a science, as a discipline, as the bases for human vision) has the greatest relevance to the present and the future of the world. Ecological criticism shares the obvious concern that human culture is inextricably linked to the physical world.
Ecocriticism has come to mean not only the application of ecology and ecological principles to the study of literature, but also the theoretical approach to the interrelationship web of natural, cultural and supernatural phenomena. It begins to explore constructions of environment in literary texts and theoretical discourse. Since literature has always conditioned our philosophical understanding of nature, of environment. Even the aesthetic categories by which our feelings for nature are understood the beautiful, the picturesque, the scenic, the sublime, the wild etc. have been defined largely by their use in literary and critical contexts. Most ecological work share a common motivation, that is, the awareness that we have reached the age of environmental limits, a time when the consequences of human actions are damaging the planet’s basic life support system. This awareness brings in us a desire to contribute to environmental restoration, not only as a hobby but as a representative of literature. Ecocritics encourage others to think seriously about the aesthetic and ethical dilemmas posed by the environmental crisis and about how nature and literature transmit values with profound ecological implications. Arthur Lovejoy’s contribution in this field is also very persistent factors in the western thought is the use of the term ‘nature’ to express the standard of human values, the identification of the good with that which is ‘natural’ or ‘according to nature’.
