LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:5 May 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Ecocide:
A Study of Climate Change in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island

Shaveta Gupta, M.Phil., Ph.D. Scholar

Gun Island
Courtesy:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Amitav+Ghosh%E2%80%99s+Gun+Island&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

Abstract

Since the post-industrial time, science and technology has made great strides ushering in an era of capitalism, consumerism and globalization. A trend of progress has started where rapid urbanization and industrialization became the parameters of development. The consumerist culture and materialistic approach brought about revolutionary changes in the life of human beings. But on the other side, the path of industrial, technological, and scientific ‘advancement’ is at the expense of destruction of nature and it has reached a stage where the future of the planet looks bleak. The Planet’s support systems like air, water, and land are also collapsing under the pressure of ‘civilization’. Today, the destruction of ecosystems poses a threat not only to living species but also to future generations at apocalyptical level. Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island (2019) shows his sensitivity towards the increasing crisis of environmental degradation. He has made a blend of culture, myth, history and fiction to portray the ecological overtones in the novel. The novel gives us the glimpse of how the ecological crisis has resulted in the problems like global warming and climate change which ultimately has given rise to the problem of ‘displacement’ of both humans and animals all over the world. Ghosh has artistically portrayed the emotional turmoil and the pain at the sight of nature’s plight in this novel. The present paper is an attempt to study Gun Island from the perspective of Ecocide which denotes the extent of damage done to the natural environment and how it has affected the life of both the human as well as the nonhuman world. Ghosh believes that ultimately it is humans who owe the responsibility to provide the requisite care and protection to the planet earth for the survival of all types of life forms.

Keywords: Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island, Ecocide, Urbanisation, Capitalism, Consumerism, Globalization, Climate Change, Global Warming.

Introduction

Earth is a unique planet as it has ideal conditions for life to evolve and flourish. Eons of time tells us how that developing, evolving, and diversifying life reached a state of adjustment and balance with its surroundings. The history of life on earth has been the history of interaction between living things and their surroundings.

For most of human history, ecological balance played a decisive role, enabling the human race to rise and prosper. For thousands of years and into early modern times, population and economic activity grew very slowly. From around the mid-19th century with the introduction of a global culture of primarily techno-industrial type, the world has witnessed a marked change. The global effects of what we have done over the last century or so are monumentally larger than anything we might have even dreamed of before. On the one hand, human beings have reached the heights of technological and scientific development which has brought a lot of comfort in their life. But, on the other hand, for this advancement, the human race has been following an indiscriminate and unguided process of industrialization and urbanization, which is at the cost of, exploitation and destruction of nature. As a result of which the world has already been pushed in an escalating context of environmental degradation and ecological imbalance. According to Cheryll Glotfelty, “oil spills, lead and asbestos poisoning, toxic waste contamination, extinction of species at an unprecedented rate, battles over public land use, Protests over nuclear waste dumps, a growing hole in the ozone layer, predictions of global warming, acid rain, loss of topsoil, destruction of the tropical rainforest [.....] and a world population that topped five billion” (Introduction, The Ecocriticism Reader xvi) are some of the alarming signs of an imminent havoc jeopardising the very life of our planet. Glen A. Love also identifies various modes of ecological disaster that take place in the physical environment.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Shaveta Gupta, M.Phil.
Ph.D. Scholar, Lovely Professional University
Phagwara, Punjab 144411
shavetagupta44@gmail.com
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