Towards Ecological Sustainability: Ecofeminist and Post humanist Perspectives in Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer
Dr. Jyoti T. Hermit
Assistant Professor, Department of English,
Ewing Christian College, Prayagraj
Email:jyotihermit@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
With growing ecological concerns revolving around issues like biochemical pollution, acid rain, toxic waste contamination, extinction of species and the greenhouse effect, fiction has turned polemically environmental. Eco-critics explore the dynamics of the relationship between human beings and the natural world and examine the social, cultural and historical factors which shape their relationship. Possessing nature-centered perspective and earth-centered consciousness, ecocritics and theorists determine the direct or indirect relationship between the literary text in question and the physical environment outside. The very core principle of all environmental criticism is that human culture and literature are inevitably affected by earth and specifically by nature, directly or indirectly. Eco-feminism bridges the gap between feminism and ecocriticism and asserts that liberation of women can lead to the liberation of nature. Many scholars view it as asserting the intertexuality of all aspects of life and viewing the oppression of women and exploitation of nature as being interconnected. The humanist ideals of the autonomous, rational and sovereign individual having dominion over nature is also being challenged by the posthumanist perspective, thereby accentuating the interconnectedness, entanglement, fluidity and co-evolution of the human and non-human forms of existence. The notion of anthropocentricism and speciesism calls for rejection and replacement with a new and more inclusive form of ethical diversity which encourages ethical treatment towards animals and the environment. This paper approaches Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Prodigal Summer through the framework of critical posthumanism and ecofeminism to analyse the synthesis of human and non-human suffering at the hands of exploitative patriarchal ideology and examine the role of female education in the liberation and sustenance of not only women characters but also the ecology.
Keywords: intertextuality, ecosystem, posthumanism, sustenance, speciesism, anthropocentricism.
