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Dissertations and Theses @ UNI Student Work
2017
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Alia Afzal
University of Northern Iowa
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2017
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ECOCRITICAL POST-COLONIAL STUDIES ON
HUMANS, LAND, AND ANIMALS
An Abstract of a Thesis
Submitted
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
Alia Afzal
University of Northern Iowa
July, 2017
ABSTRACT
Ecocritical post-colonial study is a newly emerged field in literary criticism. The
theory combines the study of post-colonial environment in literary work and reveals a
relationship between literature and the environment. Before the word ‘Ecocriticism’ was
coined in the world of literature, from the beginning, writers were exclusively engaged
presenting nature as source of inspiration and a privilege to evolve their ideas and pen
them down. With the introduction of the term Ecocriticism in literary criticism by the
Association of the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) in 1993, scholars
approached the analysis of texts to highlight environmental concerns and explore the
roles of literature to bring awareness to society.
Post-colonialism, on the other hand, as a response to colonization, studies the
cultural and economic exploitation of the colonized/marginalized-- the natives and their
land. As one can see the split between the two schools of thought-- nature versus culture--
has been a trend for more than a decade. This split of thought has obliterated the fact that
the environment is an integration of nature and culture, humans and nonhumans, animate
and inanimate.
Post-colonial ecocritical studies takes the challenge to respond to these two
separate fields; post-colonial and ecocriticism, by studying the environment as a complete
body composed of humans, animals, and land. It redirects critical thinking towards the
relationship between humans (indigenous and foreign) and land and humans and
nonhumans.
My thesis, “Ecocritical Post-Colonial Studies on Humans, Animals, and Land,”
focuses on the study of the following texts: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The
Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, Remnants of the First Earth by Ray A. Young Bear, and
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. In these multicultural texts, I examine a relationship
between post-colonial land and humans and how, together, they constitute the
environment. I use secondary resources on these texts to acknowledge the values, rights,
and beliefs associated with nature and land in each culture and humans’ consequences of
devaluing them. My study also highlights the crisis of understanding between the ancient
tradition and mainstream culture, and negotiates the crisis through literary imagination.
Thus, the application of Post-colonial ecocritical scholarship in my thesis has given me
an opportunity to broaden my perspective on the treatment of land by post-colonial
indigenous communities, and humans’ role in the environment. It has allowed me to take
different approaches to peer into the texts and acknowledge the concern of a conflicting
relationship between human and nonhuman within the environment, and offer a praxis to
maintain harmony and equilibrium in the environment.
ECOCRITICAL POST-COLONIAL STUDIES ON
HUMANS, LAND, AND ANIMALS
A Thesis
Submitted
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
Alia Afzal
University of Northern Iowa
July, 2017
ii
This Study by: Alia Afzal
Entitled: Ecocritical Post-colonial Studies on Humans, Land, and Animals
has been approved as meeting the thesis requirement for the
Degree of Master of Arts
___________________ ___________________________________________________
Date Dr. Pierre Damien Mvuyekure, Chair, Thesis Committee
____________________ ____________________________________________________
Date Dr. Julie Husband, Thesis Committee Member
____________________ _____________________________________________________
Date Dr. Karen Tracey, Thesis Committee Member
___________________ _______________________________________________
_
Date Dr. Patrick Pease, Dean, Graduate College
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: ECOCRITICAL POST-COLONIAL STUDIES ON HUMANS,
LAND, AND ANIMALS……………………………………………………………….1
CHAPTER 1: CHINUA ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART AND THE
ARGUMENTATIVE AFRICAN ECOLOGY………………………………………….10
CHAPTER 2: REINCARNATING SUNDARBAN IN AMITAV GHOSH’S THE
HUNGRY TIDE……………………………………………………………………........32
CHAPTER 3: MEMORIES OF HERITAGE, LEGACY, AND LAND IN
RAY A. YOUNG BEAR’S REMNANTS OF THE FIRST EARTH……………………….53
CHAPTER 4: PRE-COLONIAL CURE TO POST-COLONIAL WORLD
THROUGH LESLIE MARMON SILKO’S CEREMONY………………………..........73
CONCLUSION: “YOU MUST GIVE TO THE RIVER A KINDNESS YOU TO ANY
WOULD GIVE OTHER BROTHER.” (Unanimous)...……………………………........92
1
INTRODUCTION
ECOCRITICAL POST-COLONIAL STUDIES ON
HUMANS, LAND, AND ANIMALS
In the modern era, Environmental literature has incited a huge debate about
environment, people, and their relationship with each other before and after colonization.
English and American writers took a common approach in Environmental study in
literature in the 1980s and 1990s. Writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries took
advantage of nature writing by creating a setting which attracts readers. The images of
environment and nature in a text are a convention which focuses specifically on nature’s
wilderness. However, today, environmental study in literature is a crucial topic to be
explored. It raises concerns about current issues and their relationships and influences
upon each other, which was not the case in the field of literature a century before.
Contemporary writers and critics have concentrated their thoughts and studies on
humans’ expression, their behavior, and their impact on the environment. Moreover, their
major concern is what type of resolution literature offers to current issues. This is the
strength of nature writing in Multicultural literature, which amalgamates society and the
environment and discusses the two concepts as a whole. Contributing to this literary field,
many scholars explore the tradition of wilderness and affirm it as a necessity of humans’
lives.
Humans, non-humans, and land are all inevitable parts of nature and environment.
However, theories like post-colonialism, because of their anthropocentric nature, study
only human behaviors and their condition as a significant subject over non-human
2
entities. Post-colonialism examines and responds to the cultural and ideological legacy of
colonialism. The theory offers intensive studies of people and the culture affected by
colonialism; certainly, literature plays a crucial role in imparting knowledge to people
about colonial and non-colonial descent. This theory celebrates the historicity of events,
sculpture, documents, music, art, and people. Post-colonialism attacks the centuries of
slavery and economic and physical exploitation of native people and their lands and
resources. It dismantles the social hierarchical structure, which is based on western
thought and epistemology and provides an agency to the colonized and the marginalized
people to speak for themselves. It creates a space where cultural, linguistic, and identity
discourse of the colonized is formed.
Contemporary studies offer a rethinking of post-colonialism. It is not true that
post-colonialism is unaware of environmental changes and recurring problems because of
people’s neglectful and oblivious attitude towards the environment. Theoretically,
environmental studies have never been the emphasis of post-colonialism. Commonwealth
literatures under post-colonial scholarships are restricted to geographical and political
conditions. Post-colonialism offers an understanding of human culture shaped by
imperial power. One cannot deny the fact that imperialism influences both people and
places simultaneously. When any region is colonized, it means the whole environment is
colonized. The environment begins to be manipulated by the dominant power. Besides,
land provides an identity to people who belong to the place. Hence, any kind of intrusion
in terms of power politics harms integrity of the culture and the environment. The
environment is inseminated with history; every trait (land, animals, plants, animals, etc.)
Description:novel, there is a murder investigation that takes place. The investigation includes some .. People of Umuofia and Animals. Achebe's description of the scene in which animals are shown as informers of . father: a coward, criminal, and a disgrace on his clan and Igbo culture. He disobeyed the land an
