Ecophobia from a Postcolonial Point Of View in Treasure Island and “Jack and the Beanstalk”: A Comparative Study (Published)
This study aims at analyzing the ecophobia in Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Jacobs’s “Jack and the Beanstalk” from a postcolonial point of view. Both literary works reflect how the colonizers fear the colonized’s nature due to the ideological and cultural conflicts between the colonizers and the colonized. The two works emphasize the idea that the colonizers’ ecophobia is also a result of the western negative stereotypes about the colonized people and their nature, in which the colonized are portrayed as uncivilized and frightening. The study methodology is based on the comparative close reading analysis. The study concludes that the ecophobia in both the literary works is a reaction to the negative colonial stereotypes about the colonized and to the ideological and cultural conflict between the colonizers and the colonized.
Keywords: Colonial, Ecocriticism, Ecophobia, educational purposes, ideological and cultural conflict, negative stereotypes, postcolonial, uncivilized
AN EXPLORATION OF THE HERMENEUTICAL PHASES OF ECOCRITICISM (Published)
The trajectory of ecocritical hermeneutics is calibrated into phases. The phases, labeled as “waves” is not a strict consecutive sequence of one wave after another. It is a stretch of overlapping phases in the disciplinary development of the field. The perceptions of the waves are premised on the changing dynamics of nature in relation to human activities. Works that constituted the zero wave showed ecocritical hermeneutics suspected to be literary before the word “Eco criticism” was coined in 1978. The first wave rooted in deep ecology enjoins nature preservation and protection. If advocated the static stability of nature and its dialectical relationship with man. It privileged the Universalist perception of nature and the focus on nature writing/non-fiction texts in the United States of America, which accounted for the narrowness of the phase. The perception of the environment beyond the “ natural” consequent upon technological development and urbanization, thus, broadening the re-theorising of nature to incorporate vestiges of nature in cities and texts not necessarily interested in the natural environment set forth the phase of second wave. The wave creates awareness of ecological despoilation and the disproportionate effect of environment pollution on certain races (environmental injustice); and the gendered view that it is nature as women and nature of women to be exploited and subdued (ecofeminism). In the third wave, ethnic and national literatures are considered in view of their particularities and broadening beyond their geopolitical boundaries to attain global spectrum as they explore the environmental underpinning of every facets of man’s endeavour. This paper posits that since the essence of the changing phases is to avert the apocalyptic direction of the world, scholars are to engage their literary sensitivity to locate their efforts appropriately in any of the waves of the field to engender sustained mutual constitutiveness of man and nature.
Keywords: Ecocriticism, Ecofeminism, Environmental Justice, Nature, Waves
Dis/Harmony Between Nature and Culture in Herbert De Lisser’s Jane’s Career (Published)
This article explores the broad ecocritical perspectives represented in De lisser’s Jane’s Career (1914). The study is located in the environmental and cultural histories of the Caribbean. It evocates the interrelationships between nature and culture based on the broader view of the concept of ‘environment’ by the second wave ecocritics to make the theory applicable to urban setting. It enables ecocriticism to place human culture in relation to the urban natural world as it goes beyond the nature-culture divide to the ways man and nature are harmoniously constitutive in an environment (built and unbuilt). This is, the environmental thoughts and actions of the characters are interpreted in relation to the exploitation of nature and women, and also, the harmonious coexistence of man with nature. It is discovered through the examination of the nature-culture interrelationship that environmentality is a feature of urban settlement. The analysis done using that tens touches issues of colonialism, environmental, ecofeminism and identity formation in the Caribbean
Keywords: Ecocriticism, Ecofeminism, Environment, Nature