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The book before you had its origins in a doctoral thesis submitted to
the Department of Anglophone Studies (Faculty of Humanities, University of Duisburg-Essen) in 2011. Parts of the thesis have been
abridged and others rewritten, reducing the introductory account of
ecocritical theory in length and drawing out the principal arguments.
Thanks are due, first of all, to my pater dissertationis, Jens Martin
Gurr, who has encouraged, supported and assisted me in every possible way and whose intellectual rigour and literary understanding continue to impress me. Thanks go as well to my second advisor, Kylie
Crane, for her critical and thorough readings of initial drafts and for
suggesting numerous improvements to the text. I would also like to
thank Ursula Renner-Hanke, who chaired the disputatio, the staff of
the Department of Anglophone Studies and the students of the PhD
colloquium for the interesting and stimulating discussions. Special
thanks go to Claudia Perner for her careful readings of the thesis,
helpful suggestions and, most importantly, supportive encouragement
when I felt the project would not come to an end.
Thanks go to Christa Stevens of Rodopi and the anonymous reviewers of the draft for accepting my book for tKHVHULHV1Dture, CulWXUHDQG/LWHUDWXUHDQGIRUthe careful editing and proofreading of the
manuscript. In particular, I am very grateful for the assistance of Axel
Goodbody, who, from an early stage onwards, encouraged me in my
work and provided helpful criticism.
I also thank my colleagues at the English Department II at the University of Cologne for supporting me and simply being amazing colleagues and friends.
There are too many to thank them all individually, but I would also
like to express my gratitude to the members of ASLE-UKI and
EASLCE for the wonderful discussions and enlightening experiences
at conferences and other meetings. In particular, I would like to thank
Hannes Bergthaller, John Parham and Greg Garrard. For stimulating
debates and for providing me with texts out of print or hard to get, I
am very grateful to Sylvia Mayer, Norbert Platz and Hubert Zapf.
Last but clearly never least, I thank Julia for being there for me
when there seemed to be nothing but work and no hope of it ever coming to a close.
This book is dedicated to Annette and Axel, for being the wonderful
parents they are.
1. Introduction
It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that the physical world is
in crisis. Discussions of eQYLURQPHQWDO GHJUDGDWLRQ WKH VL[WK PDVV
H[WLQFWLRQRIDQLPDOV (see Leakey & Lewin 1995, Heise 2010a) and
anthropogenic climate change express an awareness that particular
ways of living RIWHQ DVVRFLDWHG ZLWK :HVWHUQ PRGHUQLW\ are
threatening the continued balance of WKH ZRUOGV HFRORJLFal reality.
These ways of living seem incompatible with the limited resources of
the ecosystem. So, over the last few decades, societies have tried to
address this imbalance through technological, legal, and scientific
means. But success remains marginal, as, for instance, the warnings of
WKHSHDNRIHYHU\WKLQJVXJJHVW+HLQEHUJ. With this conflict
in mind, the humanities have begun to understand technological optimism and a purely rationalistic stance on ecology to be part of the
problem and to hold that the ecological crisis is also a FULVLV RI WKH
LPDJLQDWLRQ In The Environmental Imagination, Lawrence Buell
writes:
10
By tackling the epistemological and ethical foundations of environmental crises, the humanities and the arts are participating in the necessary effort to HQJDJH ZLWK FXUUHQW SUREOHPV LQ HFRORJ\1 One of
the most vital scholarly forms of inquiry has become known as ecocriticism. In the beginning, ecocriticism sought to trace the natural in
cultural artefactsFODLPLQJWKDWQDWXUHKDGDOPRVW been forgotten in
modernist and postmodernist times despite its pivotal role in human
life. Ecocriticism today is a diverse field but all approaches share two
main objectives: that ecocriticism constitute an active contribution to
meeting a contemporary social challenge environmental crisis and
that it provide a way of re-assessing scholarly critical practice with
regard to the role nature has been assigned in academic studies.
(FRFULWLFLVP PD\ WKXV WDNH IRUP DV D SURMHFW RI *UHHQ &XOWXUDO
6WXGLHV that takes into consideration WKH GLVFUHSDQF\ EHWZHHQ FXrUHQWHYHQWVDQGWKHSUHRFFXSDWLRQVRIWKHOLWHUDU\SURIHVVLRQ, and as a
VLJQ WKDW OLWHUDU\ VWXGLHV has EHFRPH aware of the environmental
FULVLV (Glotfelty 1996: xvi). I want to distinguish such a project of
Green Cultural Studies from an ecocriticism understood as HQYLURnmental literary FULWLFLVP (Kerridge 1998: 4; emphasis added). The
ODWWHULVDUHDFWLRQWRWKHIDFWWKDW>W@KHUHDOPDWHULDOFULVLV>@LVDOVR
a cultural crisis, a crisis of representation. The inability of political
FXOWXUHVWRDGGUHVVHQYLURQPHQWDOLVPLVLQSDUWDIDLOXUHRIQDUUDWLYH
(4). As environmental(ist) FRQFHUQVZLOOQRWEHNHSWRXWRIQDUUDWLYH
(4), environmental literary criticism must analyse the ways of
narrating these concerns, but it must also discuss the role of fictional
literature in the context of environmental crises in general. While an
DSSURDFKRI*UHHQ&XOWXUDO6WXGLHV predominantly addresses environmental issues and their representation in narrative media, a criticism
that focuses on narrative form because it has identified a failure of
narrative would have to examine aesthetics as a means of engaging
with the world and the ethical impetus behind it.
This term comes from John Passmore and has been discussed by Greg Garrard. See
Chapter 2.2 of this study.
Introduction
11
12
FODLPVWKDWWKHHYHQWRIOLWHUDWXUHHQWDLOVQHZSRVVLELOLWLHVRIPHDQLQJ
and feeling (Attridge 2004b: 59). This idea will be the starting point
for my readings in the context of EnvironMentality. EnvironMentality,
I will argue, involves radical reassessments of what we think we know
about the world. Undoubtedly, it will involve a certain level of uncertainty and ZKDW .HDWV KDV GHVFULEHG DV negative capabilit\ WKDW LV
WKH VWDWH ZKHQ PDQ LV FDSDEOH RI EHLQJ LQ XQFHUWDLQWLHV 0\VWHULHV
doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason, which he
locates mainly in poetry (Keats 2002: 41-2). That negative capability
will also be fostered by EnvironMentality will be shown by the readings in the following chapters. I will argue that rather than providing
us with insights or facts about the world, a literary engagement with
the critical condition of the world requires that we leave behind old
ways of talking about nature and opt for the unknown and uncertain
instead.
Literature does not explain or second scientific and philosophical
notions; it poses a fundamental challenge to any form of knowledge.
But how does it do so? How can ethics and narrative be connected?
How does narrative form reflect or challenge ideas of reality? And
how could this benefit ecocriticism? Before I explore possible answers
to these questions, some other questions have to be addressed. For
instance, one such question is: Why choose postcolonial literature?
And: is this study a work of postcolonial ecocriticism?
In this book, I will read wKDW , VRPHZKDW VZHHSLQJO\ FDOO postcolonial texts, but I will not claim to be engaging in postcolonial
ecocriticism. On the contrary, I think that the idea of a specific theory
of postcolonial ecocriticism is problematic. Most notably, for me,
postcolonial ecocriticism does not inevitably lead to a form of ecomaterialism, as, for instance, Pablo Mukherjee, Graham Huggan and
Helen Tiffin argue. Instead, I hold that with or without the epithet
postcoloQLDO ecocriticism has a lot to do with the emplotment of
tensions, between centre and periphery, for instance, but also between
nature and culture and even between these kinds of dichotomies and
the attempt to do away with them. Instead of arguing for a culturalist,
naturalist, relativist or essentialist perspective, ecocriticism offers
ways to deal with the problematic implications of such binary epistemologies, and the postcolonial perspective certainly adds to the caution exercised with regard to these binaries.
Binary thinking still permeates ecocritical discussions, however.
Glen A. Love has described the dismissal RIQDWXUHDVWKHJUeat blind
Introduction
13
spot of postmodernism (Love 2003: 26), arguing that any radicalconstructivist idea of literary mediation, while it raises awareness of
national, ethical, racial and gender-related issues, falls short of acNQRZOHGJLQJ WKH Rverarching context of an autonomously existing
system that we call nature (Love 2003: 26). The autonomy of nature,
it seems, constitutes a conditio sine qua non that guarantees nature to
be extra-discursive yet by ignoring linguistic representation and
ideological and social influences on the very concept of nature, we
risk another unbalanced approach to the extratextual. Nature is more
than a system outside of cultural systems; it permeates cultures and is
in turn constituted by certain epistemological traditions. In Raymond
Williams ZRUGV QDWXUH LV LQGHHG WKH PRst complex word in our
language (Williams 1976: 184).
I agree with Love that it is a PLVWDNH WR DVVXPH WKDW VRFLHW\ LV
complex while nature is simple (Love 2003: 23). However, the reversal of a wrong assumption does not necessarily create a correct one,
and postcolonial literatures offer a helpful perspective on the complexities of environments and cultures 1HLWKHU WKH VRFLDO QRU WKH
QDWXUDOFDQEHNHSWRXWRIWKHHFRFULWLFDOHTXDWLRQ Accordingly, these
seemingly conflicting poles, the existence of the natural world and its
inevitable cultural textuality, require negotiation. By virtue of the numerous conflicts of language and environment they emplot, many
texts from formerly colonised countries in fact provide for such a negotiation. It is here that we find a constant conflict between naturalising tendencies of language and textualising strategies of environmental representation. Therefore, reading postcolonial literatures ecocritically certainly sheds light on the emplotment of tensions and thus
RIIHUV QHZ SRVVLELOLWLHV RI PHDQLQJ DQG IHHOing (Attridge 2004b:
59).
While ecocriticism has led scholars to reclaim the idea of an extratextual reality as part (and backbone) of their studies, postcolonial
theory offers a number of concepts that share an awareness of the
discursivity of seemingly natural perceptions and representations.
Moreover, (post)colonial history was and is a history of profound
changes DQG PRPHQWV RI GHJUDGDWLRQ DQG VXEMXJDWLRQ RI IRUHLJQ
flora and fauna, and it tells of unique processes of discursively influencing and changing these very environments. Above all, it is in postcolonial texts that we the distiQFWLRQEHWZHHQXVDQGWKHPZLOO
of course have to be addressed in the course of this study experience
one of the most crucial and most problematic aporias of environmen-
14
Introduction
15
has constantly increased over the last few years a tension that has
EHHQ LQVXIILFLHQWO\ DGGUHVVHG :KLOH %XHOOV HWKLFDO VWDQFH KDV ILUVW
and foremost been anti-postmodern in its attempts to reclaim a paradigmatic realism questioned by postmodern scholarship, other scholars have embraced postmodernism, even, for example, tracing ecoFULWLFLVPV UKL]RPDWLF WUDMHFtory (see Oppermann 2010). Unless
FRQFHLYHGZLWKDSRVWPRGHUQDQ\WKLQJJRHVVXFKFRQWUDGLFWLRQVare
bound to be unsatisfying. Of course, I do not reject studies with a
focus different from my own on the contrary, I second Dominic
+HDG ZKR PDLQWDLQV WKDW GLIIHUHQW NLQGV RI HFRFULWLFLVP DUH QHFHsVDU\ DQG GHVLUDEOH (Head 1998: 38) but these contradictions are a
strong argument for attempts to theorise ecocritical literary analyses
more precisely. Secondly, it is %XHOOVPXFK-contested idea of realism
and mimesis, and the troubles these notions implicate, that may provide a way of dealing with the contradictions outlined above.
If studies such as this one consider texts from a number of
places, by a number of authors, and from a number of cultural contexts (and if all these differences ultimately happen to be subsumed
XQGHU WKH SUREOHPDWLF KHDGOLQH RI SRVWFRORQLDOLVP), another issue
comes to the fore: the problem of the choice of texts. Clearly, choices
have to be made, and it has not been my intention to provide a general
PDS RI SRVWFRORQLDO OLWHUDWXUH. This would wrongly imply a coherence of texts, and it would also imply that WKHSRVWFRORQLDOZRUOGis a
coherent entity that can easily be distinguished from a hegemonic
culture. Instead, and by picking texts from diverse cultural contexts
and reading them against the foil of my own cultural background and
with a focus on the respective aesthetic potentials, I exemplify a specific process of ecocritical, interpretive engagement a process of
continuous exposure to alterity by means of which reading fiction
allows us WR H[SHULHQFH WKH RWKHUQHVV RI ERWK QDWXUH DQG postcoloQLDOWH[W,WKDVEHHQDGHOLEHUDWHGHFLVLRQWRIRFXVRQYLUWXDOO\FaQRQLFDOWH[WVRISRVWFRORQLDOHFRFULWLFLVPDQGHQJDJHZLWKWKHPLQD
predominantly text-centred way in order to see whether critical opinion can either be supported or questioned on the grounds of my own
approach.
This is why I have tried to focus on the effects certain formal elements have on the reading process. I regard this interplay of the textual gestalt and the ecocritical potential of literature as the crucial aspect for what I call EnvironMentality. Taking its stance from
Gadamerian hermeneutics, EnvironMentality is firstly grounded on a
16
pre-judgment that governs the reading process of a particular interpretive community. A readerly IRre-FRQFHSWLRQ RI FRPSOHWHQHVV
again a term from Gadamer (1994: 294) then becomes empowered
by textual traces, which affect and guide the reading process further.
For me, defining and describing these traces is the primary task of this
study. On this basis, I will then start to outline the modes of negotiation by means of which a textual engagement with nature becomes
possible. EnvironMentality denotes the effect of such textual negotiDWLRQVE\LQWHUSUHWLQJDWH[WDFHUWDLQHQYLURQPHQWDODZDUHQHVVDQG
processes of understanding are both presupposed and fostered. Using
the notion of alterity, this kind of understanding will be described as a
reading experience that allows for an idea of the world and its reality
that emphasises its elusiveness and its reliance on mediation.
It is necessary to understand that the narrative structures and formal elements in the focus of my readings do not define an environmental text as such. Rather, it is the interplay between such elements
DQGWKHUHDGHUVLQWHUSUHWDWLRQDQGWKHGLDORJLFDOSURFHVVEHWZHHQWKH
artistic pole of the text and the aesthetic pole of interpretive praxis,
that I deem crucial for ecocritical readings. This reference to WolfgaQJ,VHUVFRQFHSWRIDUWLVWLFDQGDHVWKHWLFSROHVLVQRWFRLQFLGHQWDO
While I resort to formalist and structuralist theories and ultimately use
narratological concepts to describe the texts as literary works of art, I
see reception aesthetics as a necessary adjunct to any formalist reading
and, even more so, of an ecocritical hermeneutics. It is the interaction
of text and readership that results in the power of the literary in coping
with an environmental and imaginative crisis. Coping with these crises, however, will not be an individual act of strength but a challenge
that affects a whole interpretive community. Inasmuch as the concept
of the interpretive community informs my approach with regard to
postcolonial notions of cultural diversity, I owe terminology and conceptual models to Stanley Fish. I invoke his concept of the interpretive
community, but I do not altogether share his assumption that this
community fully determines our understanding of literary texts. At
least I do not think this is where EnvironMentality ends. While we
may be bound to the interpretive community we are in, the act of interpretation is, in the most idealistic sense hermeneutic critics like
Gadamer have to offer, an act of merging the horizons of person and
text, but also of nature and culture, human and animal, and environmental and cultural crises.
Introduction
17
EnvironMentality therefore manifests itself in a process that is determined by the human capacity to think beyond a given hermeneutic
situation. This process encompasses the dialectics of understanding
the other (which may be nature, nonhuman animals or VLPSO\ RXU
fellow human beings) by means of literary exegesis, and, finally, it
helps us as readers of fiction to learn from the books we read that
which can only be learned by PHDQVRIUHDGLQJWRWKLQNOLNHDPRXnWDLQ (Leopold) DQG WR NQRZ ZKDW LW LV OLNH WR EH D EDW (Nagel)
EnvironMentality.
Given this idealistic trust in the literary text, I will begin this study
with a discussion of what I perceive to be the shortcomings of the
rationalist discourse on environmentalism and ethics. In Chapter 2, I
provide a short overview of ecocriticism both chronologically and
from a theoretical angle, and I outline the influences that have shaped
ecocritical theory: philosophy, ecological science and literary theory.
,QDGGUHVVLQJWKHGLVFXVVLRQRIDQHWKLFDOUHDGLQJSUD[LVDQGRIOLtHUDU\UHDGLQJVDVDQDFWLYLW\ZLWKDQDJHQGD, I will engage with the
contradictions and aporias of ecocritical theory. In the second subchapter, I discuss the specific problem of textuality and a supposedly
QDWXUDOUHSUHVHQWDWLRQ,WZLOOEHVKRZQWKDWHFRFULWLFLVPZLOOKDYHWR
take literary modes of representation and thus, to a certain degree,
ideology into account if its practitioners want to understand how
texts that deal with nature actually work and how these texts affect the
discourse within which they are located. Finally, I will present two
existing text-oriented approaches literary ecology and the ecopoetical concept of the HQYLURQPHQWDOWH[W and discuss their relevance for my idea of EnvironMentality as a result of the interplay of
WH[WXDOdeep structure and ecocritical interpretive processes.
In Chapter 3, I will engage with postcolonial theory and explain
my choice of texts E\GHVFULELQJKRZWKHRULHVRIDSRVWFRORQLDOHFoFULWLFLVPKDYHHYROYHGRXWRIWKHDZDUHQHVVRIWKHDSRULDV,GHVFULEHG
above. I will also explain in more detail how novels in the focus of
postcolonial studies qua their cultural origin and the context of their
authors, and because of the setting and histoire that refer to formerly
colonised countries can be read as sites of negotiations: negotiations
between different forms of dwelling and, most significantly, negotiations of conflictive ecological ethics. While these conflicts may be
incapable of resolution, the texts that address them do have the power
of harmonising their antagonisms as they strive to emplot them in a
coherent narrative whole. Drawing on Jrgen Link and Hubert Zapf, I
18
Introduction
19
have to some extent made personal choices. Hence, some readers may
miss particular texts and others may think of the texts I included as
being old hat because they know a fairly substantial amount of scholarship dedicated to them already. To let oneself be guided, to a certain
extent, by individual choices, however, is more important than pretensions to objectivism because EnvironMentality necessarily starts from
an individual hermeneutical situation RQHVSHUVRQDOHQYLURQPHQWDV
it were. If, as Lawrence Buell maintains, ecocriticism must be understood as praxis, and if, as I am trying to show, this praxis for literary
scholars can only mean reading praxis, then these are the constituting
factors for its success: a certain breadth of textual material on the one
hand and individual appreciation on the other. I will therefore conclude this study by summarising and discussing the implications of
such a reading pra[LVDQGWKHDWWHPSWWRUHDGWKHZRUOG
Ultimately, EnvironMentality will, through the event of fiction that
allows us to experience the bonds between world and words, blur the
GLYLGLQJ OLQH EHWZHHQ QDWXUH RXW WKHUH DQG DQ DOOHJHGO\, radically,
distincWKXPDQFXOWXUH-RQDWKDQ%DWHPDLQWDLQVWKDWWKHUHODWLRQVKLS
between nature and culture is the key intellectual problem of the
twenty-first century (Bate 2008: xvii), and this study takes on the
problem by proposing a theory of an ecocritical reading praxis that
addresses textual form, readerly responses and the environ-mental
challenge in equal measure.
See, for instance, Buell 2008; Clark 2011; Garrard 2004, and, although focused on
German literature, for a concise yet thorough introduction to ecocriticism, Goodbody 2007. Anthologies of source texts include Adamson, Evans & Stein 2002;
&RXSH*ORWIHOW\ )URPP-RXUQDOVLQFOXGH$6/(VIODJVKLSMRXUQDO
ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment), ASLE-8.,V
Green Letters, and the European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment: Ecozon@.
22
,Q(FRFULWLFLVPDVD&RQWULEXWLRQWR&RQVLOLHQW.QRZOHGJH*DUUDUGSXVKHVWKH
point further and maintains HFRFULWLFLVPV SULPDU\ DOOHJLDQFH >is] not to phiORVRSK\HWKLFVRUOLWHUDU\WKHRU\EXWWRELRORJLFDOVFLHQFH*DUUDUGD
23
24
In choosing this book as a symbolic starting point for contemporary debates that
can be related to ecocriticism I follow the argumentation of, for instance, Garrard
2004: 1; Heise 2008: 160 & passim and Radkau 2011: 26-32.
25
26
27
28
There is good reason to include the last 200 years in a historical analysis, although
I do not have the space here to provide such an analysis. Timothy Clark has arJXHGIRUH[DPSOHWKDWZKLOH>F@RQFHUQZLWKWKHHQYLURQPHQWLQWKHEURDGVHQVH
LVQHFHVVDULO\DVROGDVKXPDQFXOWXUHRQHFDQWUDFHEDFNWKHLQLWLDOLPSHWXVRI
modern ecocriticiVP >@ LQ D EURDGO\ URPDQWLF WUDGLWLRQ RI RSSRVLWLRQ WR WKH
GHVWUXFWLYH WHQGHQFLHV RI HQOLJKWHQPHQW LGHDOV 6HH DOVR %DWH
Bate 2000; and Kroeber 1994. For a critical assessment of the connection between
Romanticism and environmentalism/ecocriticism, see Morton 2007 (especially
Chapter 2).
29
30
The works of critics such as Homi Bhabha, Mary-Louise Pratt, and Edward Said
can generally be said to be concerned with spatiality and have all influenced
postcolonial theory profoundly. For a survey of theories of space and postcolonial
theory, see Neumann 2009: 115-38. In the context of postcolonial ecocriticism,
see Nixon 2005.
31
'HVSLWH3DWULFN&XUU\VDVVHVVPHQW (2006: 81), it is easy to find important differences: Sylvan stresses the importance of wilderness as something that must
strictly be kept apart from human influence while Naess argues for the wild and
the natural to be part of human beings. Thus, destroying wilderness is, according
to Naess, problematic not EHFDXVH VRPH YDOXH RXW WKHUH LV GHVWUR\HG EXW EHFDXVH WR GHVWUR\ QDWXUH RU WR NLOO DQRWKHU FUHDWXUH LV LQ VRPH VHQVH DQ DFW RI
vioOHQFHDJDLQVWRQHVHOI(see Clark 2011: 24).
32
33
ODQJXDJHEXWWR/HRSROGVYHU\SKUDVLQJ7KHDSSURDFKRIERWKPRUDO
frameworks culminates in a literary expression that transcends, or
evades, logical deduction and empirical inspection.11 That is to say, by
concluding a systematic moral framework with a metaphor, the idea of
WKLQNLQJOLNHDPRXQWDLQEHFRPHVDNLQGRIGHFRQVWUXFWLYHMHWW\, a
means of destabilising what the systematic hierarchy seemed to suggest (see Derrida 1990: 84). With Leopold and with Sylvan, we must
ask ourselves how this rhetoric can be connected with or even thought
of as a form of praxis. Like Leopold, Sylvan resorts to metaphorical
language in his definition of an ethical community. His principal
ethical imperative thus undoubtedly points towards literary rhetoric.
8QGHUVWDQGLQJWKLVUKHWRULFDVWKHGHFRQVWUXFWLYHMHWW\ZLWKLQWKH
discourse will be the very foundation on which I build a specifically
literary approach to the conflict between anthropocentric and ecocentric thinking. Thus, I argue, the focus on literary language is not only
important because environmental discourse has become popular
PRVWO\ WKURXJK >WKH@ UHFRXUVH WR D VHW RI SRSXODU LPDJHV DQG QDUUaWLYH SDWWHUQV that connects environmentalist rhetoric and fictional
literature, as Heise reminds us (2008: 22). Even more so, an analysis
of literary language might be helpful if we want to better understand
the means of cultural imagination, both as a catalyst of environmental
crisis and its potential for changing it. The potential for cultural diagnosis, critique and, eventually, change is often negotiated in literature,
which gives fiction and its narrative engagement with aporias such as
that discussed above a particular importance (see Zapf 2001: 93-4).
$UQH 1DHVV 'HHS (FRORJ\ FDQ TXLWH HDVLO\ EH DSSURDFKHG IURP
the same perspective; and it makes sense too to consider to what extent the aesthetic dimension of Deep Ecological ethics appeals to literary critics who have embraced many RI 1DHVV FODLPV HJ 3ODW]
2000). While literary scholars have been attracted by the radicalism
and vigour of the bio-egalitarian vision of Deep Ecology, philosophers
and social-ecologists strongly refute the same aspects as being misanthropic, or as relying too much on hollow, New Age rhetoric, presuming human identity to be restricted to the natural environment (see
Garrard 2004: 22-3). Deep Ecology dismisses strictly analytical
11
In the literature that I have consulted for this study, only Joachim Radkau explicitly mentions the context of ecological stewardship while in many other studies,
WKLQNLQJ OLNH D PRXQWDLQ LV PHDQW DV D PHWDSKRULF ZD\ RI FODLPLQJ D JHQHUDO
ecocentric empathy in humans.
34
35
Deep Ecology tries to establish a new metaphysics rather than a pragmatist approach. But how can a metaphysical approach be ecocentric
and not presuppose human distinctiveness? The impasse of anthropocentric and ecocentric thinking, and the problems of accounting for
the environment by means of a moral system, are thus not resolved but
reinforced. As Soper points out, DOORXUHFRORJLFDOLQMXQFWLRQV>@DUH
FOHDUO\URRWHGLQWKHLGHDRIKXPDQGLVWLQFWLYHQHVVDnd any division
between humanity and nature cannot be overcome by metaphysical
discourse (Soper 1995: 40).
7KLV PL[WXUH RI PLVWUXVW WRZDUGV VRFLDOO\ RUJDQLVHG DFWLRQ UHaVRQDEOH WKLQNLQJ DQG DQ LGHDOLVDWLRQ RI SUHPRGHUQLW\ using concepts of noble savagery, as well as an esoteric blending of East-Asian
philosophy and American Beat Poetry (see Devall 1980) makes it
difficult to picture the claims of Deep Ecology as social practice. The
radicalism of its principles understandably excites the literary imagination as well as the practice of literary criticism. This is because it
leads to visions of radically different, possible worlds and narrative
DFFRXQWVRIWKHHQGRIKXPDQLW\VVXSUHPDF\*HQHUDOO\VSHDNLQJLW
poses a challenge to the empathic imagination per se. Any attempt at
integration into an ethical discourse, however, must turn out to be
problematic.
Murray Bookchin is one of the strongest critics of the notions proposed by Naess and Sessions. He sees himself as a Social Ecologist,
DQGE\LQWURGXFLQJWKHVRFLDOWRWKHGHEDWHRQHFRORJ\KHUHGHILQHV
ecology as a concept concerned with the social environment and natural HFRORJ\+HVWDUWVIURPWKHLGHDWKDWHFRORJ\KDVVKRZQ>@WKDW
EDODQFH LQ QDWXUH LV DFKLHYHG E\ RUJDQLF YDULDWLRQ DQG FRPSOH[LW\
(Bookchin 2004a: 8). This leads him to thinking about anarchist, leftist utopias that thrive on the liberating power of spontaneity DUeGLVFRYHU\QRXULVKHGE\HFRORJ\)RU%RRNFKLQWKHVRFLDOZRUOG
is part of the ecological environment. In a way, this view helps to
criticise the idea of radical ecocentrism. Marina Fischer-Kowalski
GHVFULEHV 6RFLDO (FRORJ\ DV D VFKRODUO\ SHUVSHFWLYHWKDW UHJDUGVVocieties and their environments as biophysically linked systems, and
she maintains that Social Ecology attempts to describe ecological
questions with regard to their capitalist and economic dimensions
(quoted in Buell 2008: 146). Thus, Bookchin tries to bring the idea of
human distinctiveness back into a discussion that has been perceived
E\ PDQ\ DV D EODFN KROH RI KDOI-digested and ill-IRUPHG LGHDV
(Bookchin 2004b: 266) and that arrogantly and sometimes cynically
36
37
LQ VXFK D ZD\ DV WR LGHQWLI\ FRQFHUQ IRU RQHV RZQ KDELWDW DQG WKH
local environment with the national socialist ideology of Blut und
Boden (blood and soil). It is particularly from the postcolonial perspective on place and displacement that such a stance must be reassessed critically.
Thus hovering between merely smirking statemeQWVVXFKDV'HHS
(FRORJ\ LV WKH IDVW IRRG RI TXDVLUDGLFDO HQYLURQPHQWDOLVWV 272) as
the concluding statement after a discussion of the obscure and fuzzy
thinking underlying some of its theoretical concepts, and a fierce disPLVVDORIWKRVHFRQFHSWVDVHco-EDEEOHLQJHQHUDO%RRNFKLQVVFDWhing tone does not help his argument at all. By dismissing the Deep
(FRORJLVW FRQFHSW RI WKH 6HOI DVVHOI-in-Self where WKH 6HOI VWDQGV
for wholeness (Bookchin 2004b: 269), KLV WKHVLV WKDW >W@KH 3DOHolithic shaman [...] is the predecessor of the Pharaoh, the Buddha, and,
LQPRUHUHFHQWWLPHVRI+LWOHU6WDOLQDQG0XVVROLQL (269) is a good
example of how Bookchin belies his own critique by excessively simplifying historical development, mistaking scathing critique for plausible argument. However, the problems are not merely rhetorical. Most
importantly, his refutation of ecocentric thinking does not solve the
initial ethical question: what is the role and place of the human?
Even this brief comparison of concepts has shown that ideas of Social and Deep Ecology seem to be diametrically opposed, and that the
conflict between an anthropocentric and an ecocentric worldview is a
complex matter that is not likely to be resolved easily. As argued
above, Soper shows that our ecological ethics, disregarding whether
WKH\GHPDQGRIXVWRVDFULILFHRXURZQLQWHUHVWVWRWKRVHRIQDWXUHRU
WRSUHVHUYHQDWXUHLQWKHLQWHUHVWRIRXUIXWXUHZHOOEHLQJare rooted
in the idea of human distinctiveness (Soper 1995: 40). Even Deep
Ecology cannot step outside its philosophical and, thus, anthropogenic
context. Instead of dismissing it, Soper suggests that environmental
ethics should focus less on the means to obscure the dividing line between eco- and anthropocentrism and pDVV RQ WR GHEDWH WKH ZD\ LQ
which it is to be drawn, and [...] whether it is conceptualized as one of
kind or degree (40). In contemporary discourses, however, such an
assessment relies heavily on concepts of (scientific) ecology and risks
a naturalist reductionism many ecocritics hope to oppose at the same
WLPH :KLOH 6RSHU UHPLQGV XV WKDW >L@I QDWXUH GRHV JHQXLQHO\ KDYH
value independently of human estimation of it, then, strictly speaking,
we cannot know what it is, nor, a fortiori, applaud or condemn it
38
(255); and indeed, the question of the status of nature, and the status
of the human as well, remains unassured.
(FRFULWLFLVPKDVVKLIWHGWKHIRFXVIURPDQRWLRQRIQDWXUHWRRQH
RI HFRORJ\ simultaneously more scientific and systematic. However, Ursula Heise points to the fact that any environmental ethics that
relies on an extension and redefinition of ethical concerns must, first
and fRUHPRVWEHFXOWXUDOO\LPDJLQHG (2008: 36). ,WWKHUHIRUHUHVWV
entirely on the hope that such a cultural reimagination beyond existing
boundaries is possible (36). On the other hand, however, Heise
argues that the over-simplisWLF VORJDQV RI EDFN-to-QDWXUH and rejections of modernity as the era of alienation too easily gloss over the
fact that our holistic grasp of planet Earth has been made possible only
E\DODUJHVHWRIFXOWXUDOPHGLWDWLRQVDEVWUDFWNQRZOHGge, and technological apparatus (Heise 2008: 37). I agree with Heise, who mainWDLQVWKDWWKHWKHRUHWLFDOGHEDWHKDVDUULYHGDWDFRQFHSWXDOLPpasse
(7), and a brief discussion of the scientific influence on ecocriticism
will help us to understand the conflict arising from the enmeshment
with, and concurrent criticism of, scientific logic that this relation
entails.
12
39
Instead of being a clear-cut scientific discipline that provides terminology, ideas and, most importantly, forms of privileged wisdom, the
very nature of scientific ecology has been and still is subject to debate
in the context of the natural sciences. That is to say, ecological concepts and models are still regarded as being fuzzy and metaphorical.
For literary scholars, the most important aspect of ecology has
been, so far, its focus on ostensive wholeness, its balance, and its being a counterweight to the tendency of science towards mechanistic
reduction (from Cartesian thinking up to contemporary debates on the
genetic determination of free will). This view ascribes to ecology a
stance that it does not have any more: ecological scientists today regard ideas of a natural balance and the problematic concept of the
climax state as wishful thinking DV 3KLOOLSV UHPDUNV .
Thus, uncritically using ecological concepts for literary criticism interested in the harmony of nature is no longer appropriate (Phillips
2003: 51; Reichholf 2008). Phillips maintains that
[m]ore or less out of necessity, many ecologists have become quite sophisticated
about the theoretical and philosophical difficulties with which their discipline is
40
41
42
(FRORJ\DQGWKHHQYLURQPHQWFDQEHXQGHUVWRRGZLWKUHJDUGWR
their adaptability in terms of a cultural project of environmental criticism or, as Curry writeVLQ WHUPV RI D FRPPRQ XQGHUVWDQGLQJ RI D
metaphysical and/or political philosophy centred on nature (2006: 4).
0RUHLPSRUWDQWO\WKHHQYLURQPHQWFDQEHVHHQDVDFRQFHSWIRURQHV
hermeneutic situation. What needs to be achieved in both cases, however, is the sublation of the impasse of scientific influence outlined
above: to recognise that, on thH RQH KDQG VFLHQFH SOD\V D PDVVLYH
part in our awareness of the fact of ecocrisis; it supplies many of the
indicators outside of our personal experience, and virtually all of the
quantifiable and statistical ones (Curry 2006: 19; see also Heise
2008: 31, 37) and, on the other hand, that scientific objectivism often
leads to the mechanistic reductionism of modernity that ecocritics
object to. However, if literary studies seek to shed light on this dialectical relationship, and if literature is to have an effect as an aesthetic
discourse, it seems advisable not to rely too literally on scientific notions or the concept of scientific ecology at all. Ecocriticism might in
IDFWIDUHEHWWHUZLWKDFRQFHSWRIQDWXUHZLWKRXWHFRORJ\ a concept
which leaves behind the aporias inherent in the scientific grasp of the
environment.
43
+XEHUW =DSI FRPHV WR D VLPLODU FRQFOXVLRQ DQG OLNHZLVH DUJXHV WKDW WKH OHJLWLmate critique of the self-sufficient abstractions of some theoretical approaches
VKRXOGQRWOHDGWRDQHJDWLRQRIWKHRU\DVVXFK=DSIE)RUDGLVFXVsion of the problematic idea to deduce ethics by reading realist texts, see Bergthaller 2006.
44
45
VRXJKWWRUHVFXHOLWHUDWXUHDQGWKHOLWHUDU\H[SHULHQFHIURPZKDWZDV
seen as a disproportionate influence of theory (6). Buell describes how
WKH LGHD RI DQH[SHULHQWLDO LPPHUVLRQLQWROLWHUDWXUH KDd thus been
PDLQWDLQHGE\FODLPLQJWKHHIILFDF\RISUDFWLFHRYHUDJDLQVWWKHDuWKRULW\ RI WKHRU\ LQ WHUPV RI IRU LQVWDQFH DQ RXWGRRU practicum
[...] in situ (6-7). This belief in the didactical potency of text forms
such as nature writing has led critics of ecocriticism to question this
UHOLDQFH RQ SODLQ HFRORJLFDO UHDOLVP as Axel Goodbody points out
(1998: 13). Thus, and while nature writing and wilderness have
PDUNHGHFRFULWLFLVPVILUVW-wave appearance, Buell identifies a second
wave of ecocritical scholarship which met the challenges the first
ZDYHKDGLJQRUHG+DYLQJXQGHUVWRRGWKDWWKHZKRWKDWHQJDJHVLQ
ecocritical work is neither as individuated nor as extricated from social institutions as one might wish to think, HFRFULWLFLVP RI WKH VHcond wave grappled with poststructuralist theory as well as with a
JUHDW QXPEHU RI RWKHU WKHRUHWLFDO QRWLRQV DQG WKXV DEVRUEHG >WKH@
sociocentric perspective to a greater degree (Buell 2008: 8).
Remarkably, Catrin Gersdorf and Sylvia Mayer tell the story of
ecocriticism in slightly different terms. Although they likewise maintain a shift from ideas of wilderness and a focus on nature writing
towards a more global perspective of the relation between human
beings and their environment, they begin their historiography with
WilliDP5XHFNHUWVDQG-RVHSK0HHNHUVZRUNs (Gersdorf and Mayer
2006b: 17). Contrary to the suggestion that it was the second wave of
ecocriticism that broadened the scope of interdisciplinary methods,
WKH\ SRLQW WR WKH IDFW WKDW 5XHFNHUW ZKR FRLQHG WKH WHUP HFRFULWiFLVPDVHDUO\DVDQG0HHNHUZKRproposed literature as a potential cultural-ecological force, both used terminology and concepts
of ecological science (13-4). According to this view, ecocriticism has
from its very beginnings EHHQXQLTXHDPRQJVWFRQWHPSRUDU\OLWHUDU\
and cultural theories because of its close relationship with the science
of ecology, as Greg Garrard claims (2004: 5). Garrard tells the history of ecocriticism along the same lines as Gersdorf and Mayer, and
he likewise stresses that ecocriticism has grown to become a project of
cultural rather than literary studies:
Many early works of ecocriticism were characterised by an exclusive interest in
Romantic poetry, wilderness narrative and nature writing, but in the last few years
ASLE [the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment] has
turned towards a more general cultural ecocriticism. (Garrard 2004: 4)
46
It is thus possible to claim that the early works of Leo Marx and
Raymond Williams, for example, display an ecocritical impetus since
Marx and Williams tried to account for human alienation from nature
by addressing the potential of literature to change consciousness
(Garrard 2007). But ecocriticism can also be seen as grounded on
VFLHQWLILFQRWLRQVRIOLWHUDU\'DUZLQLVP&DUUROO 2004), which works
with the idea of literature DVDUHVXOWRIWKHDGDSWHGPLQG%RWKKLVtoriographic versions, however, agree that ecocriticism has developed
LQWR D FXOWXUDO FULWLTXH WKDW GLVFXVVHV WKH PHDQLQJ RI QDWXUH ZLWKLQ
human culture and it often does so from a scientific or quasiscientific perspective. In doing so, ecocriticism tries to (re)unite the
life and natural sciences and literary studies, even if sometimes only
via the respective technical terms.14
On the one hand, scholars like Glen Love called for scientific literacy among scholars of the humanities but ecocriticism in its beginQLQJVDOVRWULHGWRSURYLGHIRUDUHVFXLQJRIOLWHUDWXUHDV%XHOOVD\V
E\ SUDLVLQJ UHDOLVP DQG QDWXUDO UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ LQVWHDG RI DEVWUDFW
VXSSRVHGO\WKHRUHWLFDOUHDGLQJV and representations. This disposition
towards VFLHQFHWRJHWKHUZLWKDGLVPLVVDORIFODVVLFDOOLWHUDU\VFKRlarship is a strange combination. IWLVSUREOHPDWLFWRWKHRUHWLFDOO\UHO\
on the sciences, on the one hand, and dismiss anything that could
stand between a pure reading experience and the self, on the other. In
other words: it is paradoxical that the hostility towards the abstraction
and theoretisation of literary scholarship is part of the ecocritical DNA
while at the same time the reliance on scientific theories, arguably no
less abstract or hypothetical, should be exempt from such critique. The
critical distance to literary theory is of course neither unmotivated nor
pointless, as I will argue below. But in embracing scientific instead of
literary theory, ecocriticism is hopelessly stuck between a rock and the
hard place of hard science.
Describing this conflict-ridden relationship of literary and scientific theory iQWHUPVRIDKLVWRU\RIZDYHV moreover, ignores another
existential problem. It has been noted repeatedly that such a history
excludes important branches such as ecofeminism because they do not
fit into the respective PRGHOVWHOHRORJ\IURPQDWXUH writing to ficWLRQ RU IURP UHDOLVP WR SRVWPRGHUQ WKHRU\ :KDW VHHPV PRUH
14
47
problematic to me, however, is that by deconstructing these teleologies, and by employing more and more theoretical approaches, ecocritics risk losing sight of an essential ecocritical concern. It is true
that WKHVXSSRVHGO\QDwYHUHOLDQFHRn a universalist idea of ethics and
WKH OLNHZLVH QDwYH IRFXV on mimetic texts such as nature writing
have by now been replaced by more sophisticated or simply more
abstract approaches: deconstruction and discourse analysis, poststructuralist thinking and postmodern theory in general. By describing this
shift as an improvement in theoretical sophistication, however, ecocriticism glosses over and quietly lets go of a difficulty earlier ecocriticism tried to (re)VROYHWKHGLIILFXOW\RIDFFRXQWLQJIRUWKHUHDO
The real is what early ecocritics thought had been ignored by sophisticated and self-recursive theory, and they hoped for the literary text to
provide experiences of the real hence the reliance on mimesis, repreVHQWDWLRQ DQG XQWKHRUHWLFDO UHDGLQJV In applying all kinds of contemporary theory to ecocriticism, scholars therefore ignore the fact
that ecocriticism had emerged as a counter-reaction to these very approaches. Rejecting these theoretical influences is not necessarily a
matter of navet; on the contrary, those ecocritics who did so were
convinced that a particular way of theorising was part of the crisis
ecocriticism needed to address.
This is not supposed to suggest that we should return to the realist
paradigm, however. That would only reify the missing distinction
between immediate experience and the mediated response of cultural
artefacts criticised above. Rather, I think that it is crucial to see that
WKHproblem of reality'LDPRQG has not been resolved yet and that
it cannot be addressed unless we come to terms with literary ways of
aestheticising this reality in fiction. As fiction provides ways of dealing with reality that are different from the reality of empiricism, these
ways have to be theorised. However, refuting the realist paradigm for
the sake of scientific notions (a merging of ecocriticism and quantum
theory, for instance see Oppermann 2003), is just as nave as a belief
in nature ZULWLQJVFDSDELOLW\RIWUXHUHSUHVHQWDWLRQEHFDXVHLWDVFULEHV
to the sciences the same universalistic qualities that early American
ecocriticism saw in mimesis and its alleged ethical and aesthetic potential. And suggesting postmodern theory as a means to sophisticate
ecocriticism conceals the fact that ecocriticism wanted to get beyond
this theoretical gesture because it understood this form of scholarship
to be a part of the problem rather than a possible solution. If this is
overlooked, ecocriticism risks losing sight of the concept of WKHUHDO
48
16
Buell, however, reminds us not to forget that these metaphors have a history
RI WKHLU RZQ LQ FULWLFDO WKHRU\ GDWLQJ EDFN WKURXJK QHZ FULWLFDO IRUPDOLVP
to Romanticism, which in turn has much older roots in the mystical idea of the
world as text, the liber mundi(Buell 2008: 19).
, XVH WKH WHUP ZRUOG OLWHUDWXUH LQ D WZRIROG VHQVH Iirst, with regard to postcolonial perspectives and in contrast to the Euro- and Americentric bias of ecocriticism; and secondly, because it points to the questions of literary quality that I
think is relevant for ecocriticism as well (see Chapter 7.2 of this study).
49
DWWHPSWWRGLVFRYHUWKHUHDOEHKLQGWKHWH[W,KROGWKDWDIRFXV on the
aesthetics of fiction will suggest a way out of this.
Ecocriticism has to face its own theoretical challenges. With regard
to postcolonial literatures, it is especially the realisation of the fact that
OLWHUDWXUH-and-environment studies must develRS D VRFLDO HFRFULWiFLVP WKDW WDNHV XUEDQ DQG GHJUDGHG ODQGVFDSHV MXVW DV VHULRXVO\ DV
QDWXUDO ODQGVFDSHV, that is of utmost importance (Buell 2008: 22).
However, the attempt tR DFFRPPRGDWH WKH FODLPV RI HQYLURQPHQWDO
MXVWLFH(22) and address issues VXFKDVDQHQYLURQPHQWDOLVPRIWKH
SRRU 0DUWtQH]-Alier 2002) must not lead to a purely historicalmaterialist reading of texts. It is rather the specific aesthetic potential
of literature that LVFDSDEOHRIRYHUFRPLQJFDWHJRULHVVXFKDVSURWHVW
literaWXUHRUWKHLGHDRIILFWLRQDOWH[WVDVGRFXPHQWVRIHQYLURQPHQWDO
history. Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin likewise maintain that, by
virtue of its aesthetic force, ZULWLQJLVDOZD\VOLNHO\WRWUDQVFHQGLWV
FDWHJRUL]DWLRQ DV SURWHVW OLWHUDWXUH but still, the\ DUJXH IRU WKH
need for a broadly materialist understanding of the relationship between people, animals and environment(2010: 12; 14). I will critically assess this assumption in Chapter 3.
Generally, it is essential to outline and negotiate the potential of
fictional writing in order to address what is widely thought of as the
imaginative crisis that underlies environmental crises. Refining his
notion of mimesis, Buell no longer claims that literary language
should be strictly referential. Rather, hHVWDWHVWKDW>O@DQJXDJHQHYHU
replicates extratextual landscapes, but it can be bent toward or away
IURPWKHP (2008: 33). Is that what he means when he comments on a
WH[WV HQYLURQPHQWDOLW\ (25)? If it is, the concept of textual environmentality may prove exceedingly fruitful when discussed in terms
of literary theory rather than from the perspective of environmentalism, science, and literary realism or ecomimesis. Notably, the idea of
language being bent towards the world points to the question of the
UHDODQG%XHOOVHHPVWHOOLQJO\LQVHFXUHabout whether to address this
question via the mimetic potential of fiction. Originally, Buell offered
the image of language bending towards or away from the world in
UHVSRQVH WR 3KLOOLSV FULWLTue of his concepts of representation and
literary realism. However, iWVYDJXHQHVVDQGLWVSRLQWLQJWRZDUGVWKH
UHDORIIHUDXVHIXOVWDUWLQJSRLQWIRUP\LQYHVWLJDWLRQ
50
In an ecocritical context, it is especially Zapf (1996; 2006b) who comes to a similar conclusion. Phillips (2003) traces the conflict from the history of the so-called
6FLHQFH:DUVEDFNWRWKHELWter disagreements about the nature of reality that
DURVHGXULQJWKH5HQDLVVDQFHVHHDOVRFor a thorough engagement with
RXUFRQWHPSRUDU\GHVLUHIRUHYLGHQFHVHH+DUUDVVHUHWDO
51
thing that may lead away from the world rather than offering ways to
better understand our textual engagement with nature or as an infinite
supply of fashionable theoretical models. Before I explain why I see
fiction as a means to encounter reality, and even as a potentially ethical way of doing so, some remarks on the dangers of this stance are
due. These dangers have been identified and discussed by other
scholars before, of course, and I therefore want to concentrate on the
general tendencies of what, following Morton, I call HFRFULWLTXHWKH
VHOI-FULWLFDOSHUVSHFWLYHRQRQHVRZQFULWLcism (Morton 2007: 13).18
%HVLGHV 0RUWRQV DSSURDFK WZR RWKHU DSSURDFKHV Wry to account
for the necessity of self critique, or have been refined in order to do
so, by either incorporating new aspects or by shifting the theoretical
IRFXV%XHOOVFRQFHSWRIWKHenvironmental text DQG=DSIVPRGHO
of literary ecology. I will discuss these approaches and point to their
problematic aspects in order to then outline how postcolonial and
hermeneutical perspectives can help dissolve some of these problems.
By eventually arguing for the importance of experiences of alterity, I
will outline and demonstrate my own approach of EnvironMentality as
a means of accounting for the conflicts and tensions discussed above.
The question of how to deal with scientific influences is answered
differently by the various branches of ecocriticism. However, all ecocritical thinking, either with regard to an awareness of the material
conditions of its own discursivity or in terms of a biologically inIRUPHGHPSLULFR-SKLORVRSKLFDOFULWLTXH*DUUDUG 2010a: 5), relies on
materialist notions and moral objectives, which govern the interpretive
foci.19 However, ecocriticism often still only circumvents the question
and conundrum of reality. Although ecocritical thought relies on science, a mysterious notion of immediacy, which is unknown to science,
18
19
Morton takes this term from Timothy Luke. However, LQ/XNHVEcocritique, the
FRQFHSWGHQRWHVIRUPVRIOHIWHFRORJLFDOFULWLFLVPVHH0RUWRQ/XNH
1997: xi-xiii).
In doing so, ecocriticism becomes a project that Derek Attridge would claim to be
LQVWUXPHQWDOLVW DVLWFRPSULVHVWKHWUHDWLQJRIDWH[WRURWKHUFXOWXUDODUWLIDFW
DV D PHDQV WR D SUHGHWHUPLQHG HQG E %\ FRQWUDVW $WWULGJH WULHV WR
FRQcHLYHRIOLWHUDWXUH>@DV>@GHILQHGE\LWVresistance to such thinking, but
he is well aware of the problems that such an approach ascribes to aesthetic autonomy (7). For a detailed account of the question, history and problems of
DHVWKHWLFautoQRP\DQGRUJDQLFIRUPKLJKO\UHOHYDQWIRUHFRFULWLFDODHVWKHWLFV
see Loesberg 2005. For a discussion RIWKHUROHRIVFLHQFHRULHQWDWLRQLQHFRFULticism, see Buell 1999: 703.
52
This tone is also characteristic of nature writing and can be found, for example, in
%LOO 0F.LEEHQV The End of Nature. Although McKibben aims at presenting
53
LV D WKRURXJKO\ FXOWXUDO HQWHUSULVH 7KH GHVLUH WR OLYH LQ KDUPRQ\
with nature (whatever that may mean exactly), or to live sustainably
(again, the meaning of this would have to be clarified: see Bergthaller
2007) exist beyond and despite scientific notions.
This is why Garrard, following John Passmore, maintains the cultural perspective of ecolRJLFDO SUREOHPV DV RSSRVHG WR SUREOHPV LQ
HFRORJ\7RGHVFULEHVRPHWKLQJDVDQHFRORJLFDOSUREOHPLVWRPDNH
a normative claim about how we wish things to be, and while this
arises out of the claims of ecological scientists, it is not defined by
WKHP 2004: 5). Accordingly, the environmental crisis that ecocriticism speaks of may be conceived as an ecological problem rather than
a problem in ecology (although both concepts are surely interrelated),
and this crisis can therefore indeed be described, as Lawrence Buell
has done, as first and foremost DFULVLVRIWKHLPDJLQDWLRQ (1995: 2).
Such a crisis cannot be measured by science. But what does this mean
IRUWKHDWWHPSWWRFRPHWRWHUPVZLWKWKHUHDO"
Although approaches that differentiate between scientific and cultural ecology exist, scientifically oriented ways of scholarship the
second way of dealing with science in ecocriticism are also of little
help. Scholars who refer to literature in the context of an evolutionary,
cultural ecology (Finke 2006; Zapf 2001) or, more generally, in the
VHQVH RI DQ HFRORJ\ RI PLQG %DWHVRQ 1972) do not in fact discuss
ecology within literature, but literature as ecology. At least for a study
that understands the texts under scrutiny as aesthetic discourses and
addresses them as literature, an integration of works of art into the
framework of evolutionary notions would necessarily be reductive.
The objective of literary studies, as Wolfgang Iser points out, is not to
>PDNH@ SUHGLFtions [but] is an attempt at mapping (2007: 5). Iser
maintains that compared to scientific WKHRU\ WKHRU\ LQ WKH KXPDQLWLHV LV DOPRVW WKH UHYHUVH $UW DQG OLWHUDWXUH FDQEH DVVHVVHG EXW
not predicted, and one cannot even anticipate the multiple relationships they contain. Prediction aims ultimately at mastering something,
whereas mapping VWULYHVWRGLVFHUQVRPHWKLQJ7KXVKHSRLQts to
the fact that the idea behind science is considerably different from the
scientific fact, he cannot define the nature he deems to be lost scientifically.
Instead, he falls back on PRUDO DQG DHVWKHWLF SDUDPHWHUV ZH feel the need for
SULVWLQHSODFHV>@WKH\matter WRXVDQG2XUsadness [about the end of nature]
is almost an aesthetic response appropriate because have we marred a great,
mad, profligate work of art, taken a hammer to the most perfectly proportioned of
VFXOSWXUHV0F.LEEHQHPSKDVHV added).
54
idea behind the humanities, and ecocriticism, with its critical stance
WRZDUGVPDVWHU\would do well to mind this difference. In this study,
I will therefore try to map instances where literature allows for a
negotiation of questions of the natural world and our ethical commitment to it, I am not interested in the incorporation of cultural practices
into a scientific framework.
This strict focus on the aesthetic properties of texts underlines how
necessary it is to keep ethical and scientific claims apart, and to disWLQJXLVKWKHLUDFFHVVWRUHDOLW\IURPILFWLRQDOZD\VRIGHDOLQJZLWKWKH
UHDO 1DWXUDOO\ WKHVH DVSHFWV DUH interrelated but, for the sake of
analysis, it is advisable to keep them separate in order to see, for example, KRZQDWXUHLVVHWXSDVDWUDQVFHQGHQWDOXQLILHGLQGHSHQGHQW
category (Morton 2009: 13).
In The Chicago Gangster Theory of Life, Andrew Ross criticises
forms of environmental thinking and activism that unconsciously or
deliberately neglect the social dimensions of hybridised scientificnormative discourses. Ross warns that such forms of activism, if they
uncritically hail natural laws as moral guidelines, deny the linguistic
and discursive means of shaping our social habitat. Thus, they run the
risk of unwillingly becoming the mouthpiece for new waves of radicalisms namely radical economism as embodied, for instance, by
new social Darwinistic ideas. While many happily welcome the return
RIQDWXUHWRWKHDJHQGDDVDFRXQWHUEODVWWRWKHGHVWUXFWLYHDUURJDQFH
RI KXPDQLVP, those who take into account the social dimension of
SROLF\PDNLQJDQGHWKLFDOGHEDWHPD\ZHOOIHDUWKDWWKHDXWKRULW\RI
QDWXUH >@ ZLOO EHFRPH D GHVSRWLF YHKLFOH IRU FXUWDLOLQJ ULJKWV DQG
liberties (Ross 1994: 13). As it were, this would be a model case of
the naturalistic fallacy as discussed in Chapter 2.1, and it hints at the
possible dangers of an uncritical reliance on ecocentrism in general.
Does this mean that social constructivism should be the name of
the game after all? I do not think that it will solve the problem of WKH
UHDO but I do think that it is necessary to accept its relevance as an
aspect of our conceptions of nature. By the same token, nature can be
seen as something RWKHUthat is encountered within a particular hermeneutic horizon in the endeavour to understand the world. Such a
cautious, hermeneutic position may help to avert green-washing
mechanisms and a general environmental rhetoric of consumerism, 21
21
It is especially the indebtedness of Romantic thinking to the emerging consumerist society that Timothy Morton dis cusses in his Ecology without Nature. He
55
and foreclose both a scientific and moral instrumentalisation of literature. In his critique, Ross shows that we actually cannot distinguish
neatly between deep and social branches of ecological thinking. I
DJUHHWKDWZKHQLGHDVWKDWGUDZXSRQWKHDXWKRULW\RIQDWXUHFDQEH
VDLG WR QHDUO\ DOZD\V KDYH WKHLr origin in ideas about society, the
unquestioned authority of ecology is very doubtful (Ross 1994: 15).
:KHWKHU RQH EHOLHYHV LQ WKH H[LVWHQFH RI ODZV RI QDWXUH 5RVV
writes,
or whether one believes WKDW ODZV >@ UHDOO\ RQO\ H[LVW in human society, I
would argue: (a) that both of these views of nature are full of social theory, and
(b) that in so subordinating ourselves we risk forfeiting any independent or alternative response to perhaps the most consequential debates of our times [i.e.
the ecological crisis]. (Ross 1994: 261)
This leads back to the aporias of anthropocentric and ecocentric thinkLQJ , RXWOLQHG DERYH DQG VXJJHVWV DFFHSWLQJ QDWXUHV RWKHUQHVV DV D
hermeneutic challenge instead.
Similarly, when Dana Phillips (1999; 2003) problematises the
WUXWKRIHFRORJ\ZLWKUHJDUGWRan ecocritical appraisal of science in
lieu of literary theory, I believe he criticises scholars who claim to be
VSHDNLQJQRWRQEHKDOIRIWUDGLWLRQ>OLWHUDU\WUDGLWLRQDQGLQWKLVFRntext, the neoconservative rhetoric in the US that Phillips sees parallels
to], of which they are often critical, but on behalf of nature (1999:
578). Phillips originally focuses on what he sees as reactionary tendencies within a political context. However, when he identifies a
prevailing dislike of theory among ecocritics [as an] expression of
impatience not only with theory but with any intellectual activity entailing traffic in abstractions, which is to say any intellectual activity
ZLWKVRPHELWHDQGIRUFHthis criticism seems to be aimed at a
devotion to a questionable concept of science at the expense of schol-
56
This impasse will be avoided if ecocriticism deals with the environment in ways that do not rely on other discourses of nature in the first
place WKLVLVZK\0RUWRQDUJXHVIRUDQHFRORJ\ZLWKRXWQDWXUHWKDW
LV DV &ODUN SXWV LW D ZD\ RI WKLQNLQJ HFRORJLFDOO\ ZLWKRXW QDWXUH
[...] as a touchstone of intellectual certainty and moral purity or guidance (Clark 2011: 70).
As argued above, ecology has long since moved beyond the ecoFULWLFVPRVWGHDULGHDVRIVWDELOLW\DQGKDUPRQ\, for example, towards
PRGHOVRISDWFKHVFRQWLQXDOO\FKDQging and far from stable a deYHORSPHQW WKDW 3KLOOLSV LGHQWLILHV DV EHLQJ PRUH OLNH SRVWVWUXFWXUDlism and less like the sort of value-rich, restorative, and recuperative
GLVFRXUVH HFRFULWLFV KDYH LPDJLQHG LW WR EH (Phillips 1999: 580). If
ecocriticism hDV EHFRPH DV 0RUWRQFODLPV WRR HQPHVKHGLQ LGHRlogy that churns out stereotypical ideas of nature to be of any use,
what is needed is an approach that is bRWK FULWLFDO DQG VHOI-critical
(Morton 2007: 13). 0RUWRQVXJJHVWVWKHFRQFHSWRIHFRFULWLTXHas a
QHFHVVDU\VXSSOHPHQWIRURXUGHDOLQJZLWKQDWXUHDQGmost notably,
he likewise maintains the importance of aesthetic form for this enterprise.
In a comparably critical comment on the conditions that made ecocriticism possible as an academic field of inquiry, Robert P. Marzec
reminds us that, just like all other means of linguistic representation,
environmental representation cannot claim a privileged lucidity, otherwise its
struggle for politicization may end up supporting the unchecked movement of
capital as we saw with the turning of underrepresented struggles into marketable
identity politics with the institutionalization of multiculturalism. (Marzec 2009:
420)
57
58
It is often overlooked that Zapf does not uncritically believe in literary ecology as
D VFLHQWLILF OLWHUDU\ WKHRU\. Rather he differentiates between various directions
HFRFULWLFDOLQWHUHVWVPLJKWWDNH$%DWHVRQLDQHFRORJ\RIPLQGLVVXFKDQinterest EXW KH OLNHZLVH GLVFXVVHV WKH aesthetic and imaginative dimension of literatureDQGWKHIXQFWLRQ>RI@WKH fictional mode of literary communication, which
is characterized not by direct imitation but by the defamiliarization and symbolic
transfRUPDWLRQ RI UHDOLW\ DQG QDWXUH =DSI WKXVGLUHFWO\ OLQNV DVSHFWV RI OLWHrary anthropology with formalist vocabulary, and he addresses the impasse
of mimesis too. See Zapf (2006b: 53; emphasis orig.).
59
60
61
think that they are also crucial for the interpretation of literary works
EHWKHVHZRUNVHQYLURQPHQWDORUQRW
7KXVRQHRIWKHNH\SUREOHPVZLWK%XHOOVQRWLRQRIDQHQYLURnmeQWDOWH[WLVWKHYHU\LGHDRIbeing bent away from the world: to
dismiss the narrative potential and aesthetic dimension of fiction in the
FRQWH[WRIKXPDQLW\Vcrisis of imagination (as Buell himself puts it)
risks overlooking the fact that mimetic aspects of literature work
PDLQO\ DV DQ DXWKHQWLFDWLQJ device, as Morton points out (2007:
33).23 Believing in such an authenticity reinforces predetermined, materialist notions of nature, and it forecloses irritation and interpretive
negotiation. Ultimately, it keeps up the illusion of having a grasp on
QDWXUH DQG JORVVHV RYHU WKH SUREOHP WKDW QDWXUH DOZD\V VOLSV RXt of
reach in the very act of grasping it (Morton 2007: 19).
In his latest publication, Buell accordingly puts his ideas into perVSHFWLYH DQG H[SODLQV , SUHIHU >$QJXV@ )OHWFKHUV PRGHO >RI WKH
environment-poem] to my own more circumscribed definition of the
HQYLURQPHQWDO WH[W (Buell 2008: 71; see also Fletcher 2004, esp.
122-8). This is interesting because Buell acknowledges in hindsight
WKDWLWZRXOGKDYHEHHQQHFHVVDU\WRWKLQNDERXWWKHUHFLSURFLW\Eetween text and environment: as rhetoric, as performance, and as
world-making (Buell 2008: 45; see also Gifford 2008: 16). Notably,
E\UHIHUULQJWR)OHWFKHUVPRGHO%XHOOVKLIWVKLVHPSKDVLVWRZDUGVDQ
idea of aesthetic experience that is not bound to mimetic representation.
%\VHFRQGLQJ)OHWFKHUV idea that poetry, instead of employing the
HQYLURQPHQW DV SDUW RI LWV WKHPH DQG PHDQLQJ DFWXDOO\ JHWV WKH
UHDGHUWRHQWHULQWRWKLVSRHPDVLILWZHUHWKHUHDGHUVHQYLURQPHnt of
living (Fletcher 2004: 122), Buell accounts for the special potential
of aesthetic and imaginative experiences that literature holds. I think
this idea is remarkable. After all, the conviction that a poem (or a fictional text, for that matter) can be seen as an organic thing because it
LV DQ H[SHULHQFH UDWKHU WKDQ DQ\ PHUH VWDWHPHQW DERXW H[SHULHQFH
comes directly from New-Critical and Formalist discourses (Brooks
1947: 194).24 As argued above, these literary-theoretical schools, or
the focus on formalist literary theory in general, seem to be diametriFDOO\ RSSRVHG WR HFRFULWLFLVPV WKHRUHWLFDO VFRSH $IWHU DOO LW ZDV
23
24
62
Lawrence BXHOO ZKR SXW IRUZDUG WKH LGHD RI disciplined extrospecWLRQ and the deliberate connection of language and world
DJDLQVW WKH YHU\ WHQGHQFLHV WRZDUGV IRUPDOLVP LQ literary theory,
as Clark remarks (2011: 47). How do these notions go together, then?
'DQD3KLOOLSVQRWLFHVWKHVHSDUDOOHOVWRRDQGKHVXJJHVWVWKDWHFocriticism needs to be given a strong dose of formalism (2003: 168).
Phillips also looks for ways in which ecocriticism can deal with the
WUXWKRILWVPDWHULDODOWKRXJKKHYHKHPHQWO\REMHFWVto the dogmatic
belief in mimesis and representation. To understand the significance
of literature as an aesthetic discourse read: to account for its specific
form has increasingly come to the fore of ecocriticism. However, the
work of Phillips and others has shown that aesthetic renderings of
the world have to be read cautiously. This is even more the case in the
context of postcolonialism. I agree with Attridge ZKRVWDWHVWKDWWKH
QRWLRQ RI IRUP KDV a lengthy and troubled history, and who conFOXGHVWKDWDWWKHEHJLQQLQJRIWKHWZHQW\-first century it is not possible to make a straightforward appeal to such a notion (2004b: 11).
ArJXLQJIRUDIRFXVRQform without formalism he therefore
maintains that
[w]hat is needed [...] is a mode of attention to the specificity and singularity of literary writing as it manifests itself through the deployment of form [...] that at the
same time fully acknowledges the problematic status of all claims to universality,
self-presence, and historical transcendence. (13)
63
$FFRUGLQJ WR KLV DVVXPSWLRQ WKDW OLWHUDWXUH DFWV OLNH DQ HFRORJLFDO
force within WKH ODUJHU FXOWXUDO V\VWHP (Zapf 2001: 85, emphasis
orig.), Zapf criticises Buell and other scholars concerned with the
environment for reducing literary texts to sites where ecological
NQRZOHGJHFRPHVWREHDSSOLHG. As soon as literary critics start tending toward reading HFRORJLFDO FRUUHFWQHVV DORQH (see Zapf 2008b:
17), WKHVSHFLILFSRWHQWLDODQGFXOWXUDOIXQFWLRQVRIWH[WVDUHREVFXUHG
rather than illuminated (2001: 86). In opposition to this, he stresses
WKH GHSUDJPDWLVLQJ SRVVLELOLWLHV RI OLWHUDU\ WH[WV DV G\QDPLF SDrticipants in a constantly self-transforming historical environment
(Kroeber quoted in Zapf 2001: 91).
64
=DSIVPRGHOKHUHSRLQts to a truly interesting idea: first of all, literature and world influence each other by means of the fictional text itself. Secondly, the whole process can indeed be vaguely described as
HYROXWLRQDU\ but without falling prey to the naturalistic fallacy. It
is not a survival of the fittest (book?) that is envisioned but the under25
This phrase is taken from Lyotard (1993: 105), who, interestingly, originally used
it to describe ecology as such a discourse.
65
This is of course very much in line with other literary theoretical scholarship. See,
for example, Attridge (2004b)ZKROLNHZLVHFODLPVWKDW>L@WLVRQO\WKURXJKWKH
accumulation of individual acts of reading and responding, in fact, that large
cultural shifts occur(79). By adding the question of response, however, Attridge
focuses on a very important aspect that is overlooked in the model as proposed by
Zapf. I will therefore integrate it into my approach, which will be discussed in
Chapter 4.
66
67
ment. This event is grounded RQWKHWH[WVIRUPDOUHQGHULQJLWVUHFHption-aesthetic potential, and its functionality as an imaginative challenge.
0OOHU VXJJHVWV QRW applying WKH WULDGLF PRGHO >=DSIV FXOWXUDO
HFRORJ\ model] to the structures of condensation, but rather to the
text as a whole, understood as a narrative act that can be grasped narratologically (Mller 2008: 60; my translation). He tries such an application by describing what he sees DVFOHDUDQDORJLHVEHWZHHQ=DSIV
discursive triad and Grard *HQHWWHV VWUXFWXUDOLVW-narratological notions of histoire, rcit, and narration. The argument that is elaborated
upon in his thesis is interesting insofar as Mller tries to find a way of
UHILQLQJ =DSIV PRGHO E\ PHDQV RI WKH PRUH REMHFWLYH UDWLRQDOH RI
narratology, but ultimately the conflation of literary ecology and narratology remains unsatisfactory. For instance, he claims that since the
potential for cultural critique is often realised on a level beyond the
actual plot, the diegetic world provides the critical metadiscourse.
Thus, histoire connects with metadiscourse, rcit with counterdiscourse, and narration with reintegrative interdiscourse. Mller concedes that, ultimately, a clear correlation is hard to maintain (2008:
61) and indeed, one may ask why narrative techniques, for instance,
should not likewise be able to fulfil counterdiscursive functions. In
establishing the links between narratological categories and literary
functions, Mller overlooks the fact that cultural-ecological potential
cannot be bound logically to any descriptive typology.27
So, while a narratological approach to literature does play a pivotal
role in this study too, I will establish my narratological framework
differently. Instead of assumed parallels between narratology and ecocritical posits, my approach will account for the questions I outlined
above, namely the actual discursive (i.e. philosophical, epistemological) problems that trouble ecocriticism. Moreover, it will consider
other, similarly effective means of narrative harmonisation that do not
lie in a text, understood as a stable cultural artefact, but rather in the
interpretive processes of its readership.
Although Mller directs the attention towards the fact that the
function of a reintegrative interdiscourse is established in the play of
meta- and counterdiscourse, just as narration means the realisation of
histoire and rcit in the act of narrating, his notions of an extratextual
27
Mller is of course aware of these problems, and he has by now refined his approach significantly (see Mller 2011).
68
dimension of the function of literature do not take into full consideration the act of interpretation. It is not primarily the act of narrating that
renders the harmonisation possible; harmonisation is achieved in the
realisation of the work of art in the virtual space of understanding. Of
course, literary texts reintegrate various discourses within their textual
gestalt, but a harmonising and ethical function arguably assumes an
interpretive instance that allows the text to affect the readerly world.
So even if it may be tempting to stress the theoretical parallels and to
attempt a conflation of structuralistic narratology and ecocritical notions, the challenge of interpretation has to be part of a form-oriented
UHDGLQJRIOLWHUDWXUH2QO\WKHQFDQZHWDONRIDQDFWRIQDUUDWLRQ[...]
that transgresses the diegetic frame of reference and creates a link to
WKHUHDGHU (Mller 2008: 61; my translation).
So I would indeed second the claim that the questions and aporias I
have tried to outline above may be addressed on the level of narrative
strategies rather than a limited set of symbols and motifs. As the
novels route to reality is engendered particularly by their reliance on
IRUPDO LQQRYDWLRQ DQG QHJRWLDWLRQV RI UHDOLVP P\ DSSURDFK ZLOO
have to be flexible and hermeneutic rather than systematic. None of
the concepts employed OLWHUDWXUH QDWXUH FXOWXUH UHDOLVP
and so on can be understood in an ontological sense and must be
approached cautiously and with a self-UHIOH[LYH DZDUHQHVV RI RQHV
interpretive situation. As will be shown, what seems to be imprecision
at best and a catastrophic hindrance at worst will help to outline some
of the pivotal advantages of reading fiction in terms of EnvironMentality. In the next chapter, I will show that the demythologising
work of scholars like Fish, Rorty, and Eagleton, who question the idea
that literature has an ontological essence and argue for a communal
and conventional concept instead, proves particularly helpful when
reading postcolonial literature. The connection between aesthetics and
HWKLFV DQG WKH QHFHVVDU\ HQJDJHPHQW ZLWK RQHV RZQ UHDGHUO\ Hmbeddedness in an interpretive community thus point to the potential of
literature as well as to its restrictions. I will, in the following chapters,
outline my approach to addressing these tensions in literary readings.
This, I will argue, is how alterity and the experience of otherness can
enter a cultural sphere through the individual reading experience (see
Attridge 2004b: 19). The hermeneutic perspective suggested before
will prove to be an almost radical, yet extremely fruitful, epistemological challenge to the enterprise of (postcolonial) ecocriticism.
3RVWFRORQLDO7H[WVDQGWKH(YHQWRI)LFWLRQ
That aesthetics is closely linked to ethics is not a new insight (for a
recent discussion, see Middeke 2011; Harpham 2010). In the context
of the crisis of the imagination and environmental crisis, one may
focus, for instance, on what Terry Eagleton has said about the utopian
potential of fiction and the relevance of literary form. He writes that
OLWHUDU\ ZRUNV DFKLHYH LQ WKHLU IRUP ZKDW WKH\ RIWHQ HQRXJK IDLO Wo
DWWDLQLQWKHLUFRQWHQW>@ ,QWKHXWRSLDQDVSHFWRILWVIRUPOLWHUDU\
DUWVHHNVWRFRPSHQVDWHIRUWKHSDWKRVRILWVFRQWHQWEagleton 2012:
198-9). Notably, Eagleton sees this compensation realised in the very
paradox of literary writing and symbolic thought that VHHNWRUHVWRUH
unity to a world torn between Nature and Culture. This is a paradoxical operation, since the very means by which such unity may be
restored thought, language, symbol, are themselves the product of
WKLVILVVXUH/LNH Attridge, Eagleton conceptualises this narrative harmoniVDWLRQ LQ WHUPV RI DQ HYHQW DQG IROORZV KHUPHQHXWLF
scholars such as Iser and Gadamer as well as the semiotician Umberto
(FR ZKHQ KH FODLPV WKDW >W@H[WXDO PHVVDJHV DUH QRW VLPSO\ WR EH
read off from codes; they are events or semiotic acts irreducible to the
FRGHVZKLFKJHQHUDWHWKHP6RZKLOHDIRFXVRQIRUPLPSOLHVD
prior separation of form and content, we have to be aware, as Attridge
UHPLQGVXVWKDWWKHLGHDRIWKHDFW-HYHQWRIILFWion (Attridge 2004b:
58-62) calls for an eventual unification of both categories.
But the act-event of fiction is not made up out of thin air. In fact,
the expectations and the ability to act in terms of a particular readerly
performance are necessary. Richard M. Rorty stresses this point when
he claims that if we accept, sensu Gadamer, that human experience is
HVVHQWLDOO\OLQJXLVWLF*DGDPHUZHDOVRKDYHWRHPEUDFH
the idea that language is not a tool helping us to get hold of reality out
there but a convention by means of which a community negotiates
experiences and ideas of the real (see Rorty 1996: 25). In fact, by thus
disposing of objectivism and metaphysical beliefs at the same time,
5RUW\PDLQWDLQVWKHLPSRUWDQFHRIDFHUWDLQJURXSVFRnventions in a
language game to grapple with the real. A similar argument is made
70
3RVWFRORQLDO7H[WVDQGWKH(YHQWRI)LFWLRQ71
7KLVLQWHUSOD\RIWH[WXDOIRUPDQGUHDGHUO\DFWXDOLVDWLRQRUFRQFUHWLVDWLRQKDV
been described by both Roman Ingarden and Wolfgang Iser,WLV,VHUVidea of the
virtuality of the literary work that I will refer to in this study. Iser maintains that
>W@KHJHVWDOWRIDWH[WQRUPDOO\WDNHVRQRUUDWKHULVJLYHQ>D@IL[HGRUGHILQDble outline [...] but on the other hand, if reading were to consist of nothing but an
uninterrupted building up of illusions, it would be a suspect, if not downright
dangerous, process: instead of bringing us into contact with reality, it would wean
us away from realities (1974: 284).
72
3RVWFRORQLDO7H[WVDQGWKH(YHQWRI)LFWLRQ73
colonially or not, but they are not postcolonial in essence (see also
Mukherjee 2010: 5). Nevertheless, I have to account for the fact that
the texts I focus on are all set in non-European or non-US-American
environments and thus they often depict both the FRQWDFW ]RQHV
(Pratt 1992) and dividing lines between Western and non-Western
cultures. Thus, a keen awareness of difference already informs most of
the texts in a very broad sense, and in reading these texts, I have to be
open to this sense of difference. I account for this interpretive situation
E\ FDOOLQJ WKH WH[WV SRVWFRORQLDO not because this description is
particularly precise but because it suffices as shorthand. As it were,
the distance between my LQGLYLGXDOKHUPHQHXWLFKRUL]RQDQGWKHWH[WV
cultural and environmental contexts poses a particular interpretive
cKDOOHQJH3RVWFRORQLDOWH[WVQRWRQO\TXHVWLRQWKHVXVWDLQHGH[SORLWation [...] by [...] metropolitan European/north American elites (Mukherjee 2010: 5), but they require, as Erhard Reckwitz puts it, a close
hermeneutic engagement since, GXH WR WKHLU FXltural distance, the
alterity of the texts increases (Reckwitz 2000: 18; my translation). A
similar point is made by Derek Attridge (2004b: 50-3), and, following
Gadamer, it can be said that the process of understanding literary fiction seeks to understand differently by fusing two horizons (1994: 297,
306). Without essentialising the spatial distances, the heterogeneity of
FXOWXUDOIRUPDWLRQVDGGVWRWKHKHUPHQHXWLFFKDOOHQJHRIUHDGLQJWKH
HQYLURQPHQW 7UXWK LV QRW HYHU\ZKHUH WKH VDPH 5LFKDUG 5RUW\
ZULWHV EHFDXVH ODQJXDJH LV QRW HYHU\ZKHUH WKH VDPH 6: 30).
Nevertheless, in fusing horizons in the act of readerly interpretation,
the deterministic tone of the interpretive community is repeatedly
challenged.
Needless to say, VXFKDIRFXVRQSRVWFRORQLDOWH[WVGRHVQRWLPSO\
that by addressing postcolonial engagements with the environment,
QDWLRQDO ZD\V RI GHDOLQJ ZLWK QDWXUH FDQ EH IRXQG $UJXDEO\ WKH
idea to describe, via literature, a South-African, Australian or Canadian way of being-in-the-world would be both essentialist and an illconceived model of the role of national states in postcolonial communities FI%XUQHWW ZD.DQJHWKH)DXOVWLFK.DOXSDKDQD
1986). Defining postcolonial literatures as distinct, national literatures,
which in turn provide us with specific local knowledge about nature or
the mentalities behind environmentalist concerns, would therefore be
doomed to fail. As Frank Schulze-Engler and Sissy Helff have remarked, it is indeed a dated, essentialist view that postcolonial literatures can be understood as a
74
mosaic of more or less discrete (usually national) cultures characterized by an inKHUHQWGLIIHUHQFHIURP%ULWDLQDQGWKH86$7RGD\WKHILHOGRIWKH1HZ/LWHUaWXUHVKDVFRPHWREHseen as a world-wide network of Anglophone literatures and
cultures with increasingly fuzzy edges. (Schulze-Engler & Helff 2009: x)
Schulze-Engler and Helff point to the fact that any attempt to locate
FXOWXUHDQGOLWHUDWXUHH[FOXVLYHO\LQWKHFRQWH[W of ethnicities or naWLRQVLVUDSLGO\ORVLQJSODXVLELOLW\ (x), and it surely seems appropriate
to extend this claim to the representations of nature as well.
I have argued that ecocriticism struggles with a number of aporias,
and I have claimed that it is through these conflicts that literature
comes into its own. The particular challenge lies in the aesthetic
analysis of the literary texts in question, and I agree that thinking
about postcolonial criticism and ecocriticism together is a promising
attempt in this respect.2 Mukherjee sees numerous points of convergence and maintains that any one-sided perspective is bound to miss
crucial aspects that the other perspectives may provide. He concludes
WKDW DQ\ ILHOG SXUSRUWLQJ WKH JOREDO FRQGLWLRQV RI FRORQLDOLsm and
imperialism [...] cannot but consider the complex interplay of environmental categories, ZKLOH RQ WKH RWKHU KDQG DQ\ ILHOG SXUSRUWLQJ
to attach interpretative importance to environment [...] must be able to
trace the social, historical and materLDOFRRUGLQDWHVRILWVIRFDOSRLQW
(2006: 144). For Mukherjee, the joining of both perspectives leads to a
IRUPRIHFR-PDWHULDOLVP
I disagree with that conclusion, however. The necessity for ecomaterialism is grounded RQ WKH EHOLHI WKDW QDWXUHV PDWHULDOLW\ SUoYLGHVSULYLOHJHGDFFHVVWRWKHUHDODQGWKDWWKHPDWHULDOGLPHQVLRQ
of nature justifies or requires a PDWHULDOLVW UHDGLQJ %XW LW GRHV
not; neither does the materiality of nature require materialism, nor can
discourses about nature provide a direct ZD\ RI JHWWLQJ KROG RI WKH
UHDO, as I have shown above. As yet, however, nature has been con2
Malcolm Sen, who repeatedly called for such a convergence, writes that respectLYHZRUNVRIOLWHUDWXUH>FKDOOHQJH@WKHHIILFDcy of discussing postcolonial environmentalism in isolation from the developmental policies being enacted in the
6XQGDUEDQV6LQFH6HQXVHVThe Hungry Tide as a case study (hence
the reference to the Sundarbans), his contextualising of developmentalist issues is
particularly interesting for this study. His closing statement about the novel is
WKDWLWPD\EHUHDGDVDOLWHUDU\ZRUNLQZKLFKWKHLGHRORJLFDOIRUFHLVHFRFULWLFDO
but in which the moral and philosophical foundation rests on a post-national
PLQGVHW
3RVWFRORQLDO7H[WVDQGWKH(YHQWRI)LFWLRQ75
76
stands as a clear example of such a conflict that forecloses the possibility of a clear-cut way out of this dualism. It is apparent that we can
neither opt for the natural rights of all elements of the environment nor
for the very poor, the weak and the powerless by means of playing the
one off against the other (see Roy 1999 for a detailed discussion of
this impasse). In the very same vein, Huggan and Tiffin describe as
one of the problems of such a postcolonial-HFRFULWLFDOSURMHFWWKHXnproblematized division between people (on the postcolonial side) and
nature (on the ecocritical one) (Huggan and Tiffin 2010: 3. See also
Mukherjee 2010: 46 and Nixon 2005).
This impasse informs the texts that I will be discussing in the following chapters and I second MukherjeeVGLDJQRVLV that postcolonial
OLWHUDWXUH RIIHU>V@ D FULWLTXH RI LWV VWDWXV >@ E\ UHJLVWHULQJ HQYLURnPHQWVLPXOWDQHRXVO\DWWKHOHYHORIWKHPHDQGIRUP (2010: 10). In the
FRQWH[W RI 0XNKHUMHHV QRWLRQ RI HFR-materialism, this means that
HFR-/environmentalism should be able to materialize postcolonial
criticism, while postcolonialism should be able to historize eco/environmentalism (18). Although a reciprocal emphasis on the respective theoretical blind spots is undoubtedly necessary, MukherjeeV
notion of eco-materialism cannot resolve the quandaries it identifies.
His claim is persuasive by virtue of its rhetorical appeal, not because
such balance can actually be achieved. As argued above, the material
reality of the environment does not require materialist readings. Only
LIZHDVVLJQHGQDWXUHDVWDWXVPRUHUHDOWKDQWKHRWKHUQDWXUDOLVations postcolonial studies have criticised could we take the natural
ZRUOGDVWKH\DUGVWLFNE\PHDQVRIZKLFKDQHFR-PDWHULDOLVWYLHwpoint can be determined.3
On the level of the literary text and its exegesis, this conflict is
most visible with regard to realist writing DQGWKHUHIHUHQWLDODVSHFWV
of literature. %XHOOV FHOHEUDWLRQ RI WKH UHSUHVHQWDWLRQDO IXQFWLRQ RI
literature seems particularly absurd in the context of postcolonial writing. Stephen Greenblatt is only one of many scholars who point out
WKDW (XURSHDQV GHSOR\HG D OXPEHULQJ MHUU\-built, but immensely
3
Bergthaller (2006) also criticises the supposed ethical force of texts that refer to
WKH PDWHULDOLW\ RI QDWXUH DUJXLQJ DJDLQVW WKH QRWLRQ WKDW QDWXUH SURFHVVHV D
NLQGRILQWULQVLFQRUPDWLYLW\7KHFODLPKHVD\VWKDWWKH ethical force of a
text is directly related to its capacity for accurate representation rests on the tacit
DVVXPSWLRQ WKDW WKH NQRZOHGJH RI QDWXUHV PDWHULDOLW\ DQG VWUXFWXUH LV LQ LWVHOI
sufficient to ground claims as to what constituteV SURSHU EHKDYLRU WRZDUGV LW
(159).
3RVWFRORQLDO7H[WVDQGWKH(YHQWRI)LFWLRQ77
5HFNZLW] FLWHV 0DUJDUHW 5RVHV FRQFHSW RI WKH SDURGLF HSLVWHPH DQG
PDLQWDLQVWKDWWKHUHDOLVWQRYHOKDVEHFRPHDSRVWPRGHUQDQGSRVWFRORQLDOWDUJHW
IRUSDURGLFHSLVWHPH; my translation).
In tKHLU DWWHPSW DW EULGJLQJ WKH GLYLGH (OL]DEHWK 'H/RXJKUH\ DQG *HRUJH %
Handley (2011) QDPH IRXU LPSRUWDQW DUHDV RI RYHUODS DQ DZDUHQHVV RI WKH
relation between geography and colonialism, the critique of Enlightenment dualisms, a critical stance toward anthropocentrism and the interest in subaltern agency (20-5).
78
Huggan (2009: 9n1) SURYLGHVDQHODERUDWHFRPPHQWRQWKHSRVWFRORQLDO definiWLRQLQGXVWU\, the subtleties of which are negligible in my discussion of postcolonial ecocriticism.
See Reckwitz (2000) for a comprehensive overview of the theoretical field and, as
examples of the latter positions, Parry (2004) and Ahmad (2008). The problem
WKDWSRVWFRORQLDOLW\DVDQDFDGHPLF ILHOGKDVEHFRPHD comprador intelligent-
3RVWFRORQLDO7H[WVDQGWKH(YHQWRI)LFWLRQ79
80
3RVWFRORQLDO7H[WVDQGWKH(YHQWRI)LFWLRQ81
EnvironMentality is concerned with this challenge of reading alterity and the question of how an engagement with nature in literature
FDQEHGHVFULEHGDVDZD\RIGHDOLQJZLWKRWKHUQHVV$WWULGJHDUJXHV
that a literary engagement with otherness LV D KDQGOLQJ RI ODQJXDJH
ZKHUHE\ VRPHWKLQJ ZH PLJKW FDOO RWKHUQHVV RU DOWHULW\ RU WKH
otheULVPDGHRUDOORZHGWRLPSDFWXSRQH[LVWLQJFRQILJXUDWLRQVRI
an indiYLGXDOV PHQWDO ZRUOG (2004b: 19). Literature is capable of
making accessible the conflicts outlined above as an imaginary chalOHQJHE\DFWLQJSRZHUIXOO\WRKROGWKHSROLWLFDODQGthe ethical up for
scrutiny by momentarily dissociating them from their usual pressing
context, performing the ethical decision and the political gesture
(119-20, emphasis orig.). Attridge describes this potential, which is
YHU\FORVHWR=DSIVGHSUDJmatised action-by-proxy (Zapf 2001: 867; my translation), as a singularity that fictional literature alone is able
to create. Reading fiction thus becomes an ethical act in its own right:
LWV GLIIHUHQFH IURP RWKHU NLQGV RI ZULWLQJ DQG RWKHU NLQGV RI UHDdiQJ admittedly VROYHV no problems and saves no souls, but it is,
QHYHUWKHOHVVeffective, even if its effects are not predictable enough
to serve a political or moral program (Attridge 2004b: 4; emphasis
orig.). Contrary to the objectives of a predeteUPLQHGDJHQGDUHDGLQJ
postcolonial texts ecocritically thus becomes an ethical act that constitutes itself through the qualities of literature and not by an application
of moral concepts to a text; the ethical quality of such a reading practice emerges as an opening up of imaginative spaces to be explored.
TKLVLVZKDW$WWULGJHFDOOVWKHliterary eventE-62. See also
Attridge 2004a: 9).10
10
>@DQGLWVRWKHUQHVVLVUHJLVWHUHGLQWKHDGMXVWPHQWV,KDYHWRPDNHLQRUGHUWR
acknowledge it (2004b: 30).
$WWULGJHVFRQFHSWRIWKHOLWHUDU\HYHQWis grounded largely in Derridean thinking.
'HUULGDGHILQHGWKHHYHQWDVDUHYROXWLRQDU\LQVWDQWWKDWEHORQJVWRQRKLVWRULFDO
WHPSRUDOFRQWLQXXP and relies on being doubled by a code (Derrida 1992a: 41.
See also Derrida 1992b). More specifically, conflicts such as the one between
Deep and Social Ecology can be addressed. This is in line with ecocritical objecttives, ZKLFKXQGHUVWDQGWKHWZREUDQFKHVRIHQYLURQPHQWDOWKLQNLQJDVGLYHUJHQW
sometimes antipathetic philosophies, that are hard to unify on a purely discursive level (Parham 2010: 23). 1HYHUWKHOHVVWKHQHHGIRUWKHWZRDSSURDFKHVWREH
reconciledLVFOHDUO\WKHUH,WLVDV-RKQ3DUKDPDUJXHVRQHRIWKHFUXFLDO
WDVNV RI D PRGHUQ HQYLURQPHQWDO HWKLFV 3DUKDPV PRYH WRZDUGV D KXPDQLVW
HFRFULWLFLVP WULHV WR DFFRXQW IRU ERWK DQ HFRORJLFDO XQGHUVWDQGLQJ RI WKH ZRUOG
and the merits of a humanist tradition that has, amongst other things, cultivated
literary discourse and thus allowed literary texts to unfold their potential for con-
82
The experience of such an event of literature does not lead to predetermined ends, but it can foster an imaginative exploration of the
contradictions of environmental thinking and the place of the human
in the world as literary negotiations and imaginative solutions are
H[SHULHQFHGE\WKHUHDGHU>@as an event, an event which opens new
possibilities of meaning and feeling (Attridge 2004b: 59; emphasis
orig.). As far as the concepts of aesthetic value are concerned, the
tension between a (somewhat) realist orientation of ecocriticism (understood as an interest in the mimetic qualities of texts) and the discursive foci in interpretation that play a role in postcolonial criticism
may moreover HQJHQGHUDVHQVHRIWKHHVVHQWLDOXQLW\RIKXPDQVDQG
environment, of history and nature (Mukherjee 2010: 63). Huggan
and Tiffin argue in a similar vein when they suggest that
postcolonialism is well positioned to offer insight [into the relation and tension
between man and animal as well as the power and subjugation of both nature and
WKH RWKHU@ 3RVWFRORQLDOLVPV PDMRU WKHRUHWLcal concerns: otherness, racism and
miscegenation, language, translation, the trope of cannibalism, voice and the problems of speaking of and for others [...] offer immediate entry points for a retheorising of the place of animals in relation to human societies. (Huggan & Tiffin
2010: 135)
3RVWFRORQLDO7H[WVDQGWKH(YHQWRI)LFWLRQ83
VLPSOHU that is, more utopian and thus more escapist process. Nor
LVLWDVROXWLRQInstead, harmonisation refers to the dialogical potential of fiction that calls for a closer look at the different layers of a
narrative. It is structural rather than strictly semantic. This is why it
will not suffice to simply detect traces of ecological thought in works
of literature (cf. Barker 2010: 17), but is necessary to outline methods
of a literary close reading that take the functioning of a text into focus
just as they keep WUDFNRIWKHWH[WVHFRORJLFDOFRQWH[W
John Parham has demonstrated a comparable approach in his study
of the works of Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Parham argues for the aural quality3DUKDP of poetry ZKLFKRIIHUV
a mode of writing juxtaposed to other descriptive, representational
or rhetorical modes all of which attempt to enframe nature (38).
Just as (Victorian) poetry can offer an aural quality, I maintain that
postcolonial novels have a similar potential, namely a dialogical quality by virtue of which they succeed in their depiction and emplotment
of multiple truths and complex relational realities. This is far from
those forms of ecocriticism influenced by deep-ecological tendencies
that praise radical ecocentrism in literary fiction. On the contrary, a
GLDORJLFDOXQGHUVWDQGLQJHQDEOHVDQDO\VHVWKDWIRFXVRQWKHWH[WV literary aspects from narrative strategies to intertextuality, generic
motifs and modes of emplotment to follow, in Michael J. McDowHOOV ZRUGV WKe Bakhtinian road to ecological insight (1996: 371)
Human presence is not relinquished in this process, but it is reconceptualised in connection to its environment. Imagining this connection is
the crucial challenge.
Finally, and by taking into account these complexities, I will address what Dominic Head (1998) has described as the (im)possibility
of ecocriticism. In his work, Head also elaborates on the conflict
between postcolonial and ecocritical epistemology and different ways
of dealing with the form of fiction. Ecocritical theory, he argues, conVLVWV RI D SDUDGR[LFDO FRPELQDWLRQ RI GHFHQWULQJ DQG recentring
EHFDXVHGLVUHJDUGLQJLWVLPSHWXVWRZDUGVWKHZRUOGLWLVSUHGLFDWHG
on a typically postmodern deprivileging of the human subject (Head
2008: 235, emphasis orig.). Head convincingly argues that the novel
needs to be theoretically incorporated into the critical field by means
of an adequate theoretical model: LIHFRFULWLFLVPLVWRUHDOL]HLWVIXOO
potential, it will need to find a way of appropriating novelistic form
(236). This is the ultimate objective of EnvironMentality: while on the
one hand, both human and environmental aspects in fiction merge and
84
HHDGIRFXVHVRQ%XHOOVSUREOHPDWLFUHOLDQFHRQUHDOLW\DQGPLPHVLV
DQGKHFRXQWHUV%XHOOVSUHIHUHQFHIRUQDWXUHZULWLQJE\FODLPLQJWKDW
WKH PRUH VHOI-conscious and artificial the text is, the more effort is
UHTXLUHGLQLWVLQWHUSUHWDWLRQ (238). He also points to the role of interSUHWDWLRQ LQ WKH FRQWH[W RI UHDGLQJ UHDOLW\ DQG , DJUHH WKDW DV WKH
involvement with the reality of the reader will be more challenging,
XOWLPDWHO\ WKH HIIHFW RQ WKH UHDGHUV LPDJLQDWLRQ LV OLNHO\ WR EH
greater. Head refers WR5LFXUVPRGHORIPLPHVLV, which I will also
focus on below, and uses it as a starting point for a hermeneutic description of such engagements with reality.
Within such a conception, human consciousness and a focus on
human perception as pivotal for tKHQRYHOQHHGQRWEHVHHQDVLQGLFHV
of an unregenerated anthropomorphism, but rather a literary route for
FKDQJLQJFRQVFLRXVQHVV (238). I will show in the following chapters
that the novel is an ever-FKDQJLQJDWWHPSWWRFRPHWRWHUPVZLWKUHDlLW\ DQG this function lends itself to being applied in the context of
SRVWFRORQLDOHFRFULWLFLVPLQVWHDGRIFRQILQLQJLWVHOIWRDQXQUHDOL]HG
utopia (240), postcolonial-ecocritical literature and theory need to be
conceptualised in terms of a hermeneutic project whose aim is an
acute awareness of alterity. This alterity concerns both the elusiveness
of nature and the complexities of different realities. Literary interpretation will have to answer the question of how nature is established
discursively and aesthetically, and what such a representation means
ZLWKUHJDUGWRDQLQWHUHVWLQUHDOLW\%ut it will also have to address
the question of the individual reading praxis not as political activism
but rather as a process of trying to understand otherness through the
experience of reading. Not unlike 6SLYDNV Can the Subaltern
6SHDN"WKHTXHVWLRQ&DQQature sSHDN"ZLOOXOWLPDWHO\KDYHWREH
answered in the negative, but it is within literature that human ideas
about an imaginary dialogue can be expressed. The fact that the voice
3RVWFRORQLDO7H[WVDQGWKH(YHQWRI)LFWLRQ85
JLYHQWRQDWXUHZLOOEHWKHUHDGHUVRZQWKHUHIRUHFDOOVIRUDWKRXJKtIXOUHIOHFWLRQRQWKHOLWHUDU\WH[WDQGRQRQHVRZQKHUPHQHXWLFVLWXation.
SiQFHDOOQDWXUDOWH[WVPXVWHYHQWXDOO\EHXQGHUVWRRGDVXQQDWXUDO
(just as postcolonial texts are frequently KDUGO\ VXEDOWHUQ LW LV E\
virtue of narration and narrative voice that these texts establish a possible bridge over these gaps. Taking the example of animal narratives,
Martha Nussbaum claims that
[a]lthough we inevitably lack first-person reports in the animal case, we can come
as close to that as possible by focussing on a detailed narrative account of the
emotions of particular animals, made by the observer who has unusual empathy
and unusual awareness of the specific capacities of the animals in questions.
(Nussbaum 2001: 92)
For that task, theoretical positions from the field of postcolonial studies and from ecocriticism may well complement each other. In other
ZRUGVWKHTXHVWLRQRISRVWFRORQLDOHFRFULWLFLVPVKRXOGEH,ISK\Vical nature is always culturally mediated, does it not matter how this is
GRQH" (5). For the present study, this means that cultural mediation is
not understood as something that leads away from nature and human
engagement with it on ethical and practical levels; instead, these ways
of mediation are seen as an important cultural practice of coming to
terms with our environment. By turning a narrative mediation of nature and reality into an event of fiction, literature engenders an experience of alterity that is necessary for a literary harmonisation of existing aporias. Thus, the specific processes and strategies of narrative
production are in need of closer analysis.
88
harmonises these positions.1 Is there a way, then, to connect this narrative harmonisation described by the structuralists with the harmonisation I am looking for with regard to EnvironMentality? Would this be
DQHFRFULWLFDOVSHFLILFDWLRQRIZKDW$WWULGJHFDOOVHIIHFWLYHQHVVWKDW
LVWKHFRPLQJLQWREHLQJRIWKHZKROO\QHZ (2004b: 24) that opens
up new ways of thinking and feeling? Clearly, the experience of nature, or of RQHV environment, is fundamental to our making sense of
the world, particularly in the context of the imaginative crisis I described above. A formalist-structuralist focus on narrative discourse
and narrative grammar therefore seems well capable of explaining
how the representation of nature is connected to human systems of
meaning, and how, sensu Zapf, the harmonising function of literature
relates to the harmonising aspects of narrativisation.
Given that the cultural-ecological idea of harmonisation can be
discussed in terms of formalist-structuralist stances of narrative harmonisation, it is the literary discourse WKHKRZRIQDUUDWLYHPHGLation that needs to be understood as a crucial element of EnvironMentality. Attridge claims that the effectiveness of narrative form is
FORVHO\FRQQHFWHGWRWKHSKHQRPHQRQRIOLWHUDU\VLQJXODULW\DQG, as
stated above, he maintains that it is this singularity that distinguishes
literary texts from other forms of writing. At the same time, however,
he points to the problematic VWDWXVRIWKHQRWLRQRIIRUP and asserts
that
[u]nless we can rescue literary discourse from [the opposition of form and content], form will continue to be treated as something of an embarrassment to be encountered, and if possible evaded, on the way to a consideration of semantic, and
thus historical, political and ideological, concerns. (Attridge 2004b: 108)
However, if the effectiveness of literature in the postcolonialecocritical context is related to its harmonising function, its singularity
1
,Q KLV QDUUDWLYH JUDPPDU *UHLPDV FDOOV WKLV DFWLQJ RXW mise en branle 6HH
Greimas (1970: 164; see also Greimas 1987). See also Lotman 1977; Todorov
1977. Jens Martin Gurr argues for the topicality of these notions with regard to a
history of literary functions and maintains that studying the narrative ways of
dealing with the binaries identified by the structuralists can fulfill a function of
cultural diagnosis. In a lucidly argued essay, KH VKRZV KRZ QDUUDWLYH>V@ PD\
partly dissolve paradigmDWLFRSSRVLWLRQVE\>@WHPSRUDOL]LQJWKHPE\SURMHFWing them into a narrative sequence (Gurr 2012: n.p.). Tellingly, one of the examSOHVLQKLVHVVD\LV*KRVKVThe Hungry Tide, and I want to emphasise the significance of these notions with regard to (postcolonial) ecocriticism in this chapter.
89
90
KDV DUJXHG IRU DQ HFRFULWLFDO FRQVLGHUDWLRQ RI WKH OLWHUDU\ WH[WV DV D
ZKROH,DPLQWHUHVWHGLQWKHDHVWKHWLFIRUFHRIQDUUDWLYHHPSORWPHQWV
not in isolated motifs and metaphors. I aim to show how readings
based on the notion of the literary event as a moment of harmonisation
can grapple with various concepts (postcolonial) ecocriticism might
find necessary to consider: from the nature/culture-divide and the
question of the animal to postnatural environments and the more abstract notions of posthumanism.
In doing so, some important and complex questions must be addressed: how exactly can narrative form be connected with any ecoORJLFDO RU HWKLFDO RULHQWDWLRQ" +RZ IXUWKHUPRUH GRHV IRUP UHIOHFW
the problem of reality and mimesis, especially since, following TimoWK\ &ODUN %XHOOV DUJXPHQW >IRU DQ HFRFULWLFDO LQWHUHVW LQ PLPHWLF
texts] was also directed against tendencies towards IRUPDOLVP LQ
literary theory (Clark 2011: 47)? And how could such a focus, ultimately, be brought to bear on the idea of harmonising the conflicts
and aporias of ecocritical and postcolonial approaches?
My dealing with these questions will be determined, first of all, by
the conviction that it is reasonable to theorise through literature rather
than to describe theoretical a priori notions, which then have to be
applied to the texts in a second step. In that, I follow Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan who in Narrative Fiction (2002) PDGHWKHVXJJHVWLRQto
XVH QRYHOVDVLQ VRPH VHQVH WKH VRXUFHRI WKHRU\ This does
not mean, however, that I argue IRU XQWKHRUHWLFDO UHDGLQJV and I
agree with Christoph %RGHWKDWDWH[WFDQRQO\DQVZHUWKHTXHVWLons
WKDW KDYH EHHQ SXW WR LW (1996: 89) nevertheless, it is in literary
theory that I will be looking for those questions rather than in extraliterary discourses. My readings will therefore not be framed by ecology or environmental philosophy, but by theories of literary form and
narrative discourse. With specific regard to reading literary form ecoFULWLFDOO\-RVHSK0HHNHUPDLQWDLQVWKDW>O@LWHUDU\IRUPPXVWEHUHconciled if possible with the forms and structures of nature [...], for
both are related to human perceptions of beauty and balance (1997:
7). 0HHNHUVIRFXVKRZHYHULVRQIRUPVDQGVWUXFWXUHVRIQDWXUHDV
they are defined by scientific ecologists (7). While Meeker seems to
be looking for formal representations of what he has identified as ecological phenomena, to understand literature as an aesthetic discourse
demands a treatment in terms of literary theory rather than a restriction to scientific forms of meaning (as regards ecology and other concepts ecocriticism embraces). I have tried to show in the chapters
91
7KXVRXUHQFRXQWHUVZLWKWKHUHDOLW\RIQDWXUHLQILFWLRQFDQQRW
EH GHWHUPLQHG E\ SRVLWLYLVW NQRZOHGJH DERXW UHDO QDWXUH RXW WKHUH
but they are connected to the truth (or the value, feeling, praxis or a
3
92
,QVWULFWO\OLWHUDU\WHUPVWKLVLGHDFDQEHGLUHFWO\FRQQHFWHGWR:RRGVVXJJHVWLRQ
WRUHSODFHWKHDOZD\VSUREOHPDWLFZRUGUHDOLVPZLWKWKHPXFKPRUHSUREOHPDWic wRUGWUXWK, discussed in Chapters 2.2, 10 and 11 of this study. See J. Wood
(2009: 180).
93
94
,QVWHDG RI ORRNLQJ IRU DQ\ perfect fit of form and content, and instead of thus making claims about the artistic autonomy or quality of
OLWHUDWXUH,DPLQWHUHVWHGLQWKHVSHFLILcity and singularity of literary
writing as it manifests itself through the deployment of form (13).
That means that if form and content are separated for heuristic reasons, it is in the act of interpretation that their interrelation is acknowledged as it constitutes literary meaning. This is the event of
fiction.
95
Gurr has convincingly argued for a dialectical relationship of formal elements and aspects of content, and he has shown how narrative
form enables emplotments, which can be read as a means of structuring human experience:
A close narrative engagement with an ecosystem may structure the text in such a
way that fundamental topographical features of an ecosystem are structurally replicated in the surface structure of the text. (Gurr 2010a: 73-4)
,ZLOORXWOLQHWKLVLGHDZLWKUHJDUGWRWKHVWUXFWXUHRI$PLWDY*KRVKV
2004 novel The Hungry Tide, but I will also go beyond the claim that
WRSRJUDSKLFDOIHDWXUHVDUHUHSOLFDWHGE\SODFLQJWKHLGHDRIDUHSOiFDWLYHVXUIDFHVWUXFWXUHLQWKHFRQWH[WRIa larger interpretive process
that negotiates narrative deep structure and modes of emplotment.
Therefore, I will read The Hungry Tide firstly with regard to such
structural connections and then engage with a discussion of how they
can be interpreted with regard to the question of literary harmonisation
and the hermeneutics of EnvironMentality.
96
A rhetorical device that has, however, been lucidly elaborated upon in the form
RI DUJXPHQW DQG HYHQWXDOO\ D SURPLVLQJ DSSURDFK RI KXPDQLVW HFRFULWLFLVP
See Parham 2010, 23; 29; 42-52. For a discussion of Heideggerian influences in
ecocriticism, see Garrard 1998 and 2010b.
In the following referred to as THT.
97
WKHPORVHVKLVGLDU\DQGWKXVKLVXQFOHVZULWWHQOHJDF\LQWKHURDring flood.
On another level, the novel stages the Sundarbans as a natural
enviURQPHQW 6XQGDUEDQV PHDQV beautiful forest in English, and it
constitutes WKHZRUOGVODUJHVWDUHDRIPDQJURYHIRUHVWDQGPDUVKODQG
If known to people in the West at all, however, the Sundarbans are
QRWHG DV WKH ODVW UHIXJH Rf the Bengal tiger (see Huggan & Tiffin
2010: 186; see also Jalais 2005), which makes them a desirable target
for Western preservationist organisations, including NGOs such as the
World Wildlife Fund (WWF). With the particularity of the environment and its appeal for Western preservationist efforts, one easily
forgets that the Sundarbans are an area of human settlement as well.
By connecting a narrative about the environment and issues of postcolonial politics, however, the novel complicates any clear nature/culture distinction, mixing the idea of wilderness preservation
(the Sundarbans as a tiger reserve) and the idea of human settlement
(the Sundarbans as a place for mostly poor Indian peasants and Bangladesh refugees).
The conflict between settlers and the protected tiger population is
reinforced by both Western NGOs and the Indian government. The socalled Morichjhapi incident of 1979, which is also represented in the
novel, marks the bloodiest episode of this conflict to date (see Jalais
2005; Mukherjee 2010: 111). The Indian government had banned
migratory movement and settlement in Morichjhapi in 1979, allegedly
LQ DFFRUGDQFH ZLWK HQYLURQPHQWDO ODZ DQG WKH RUGHUV RI 3URMHFW
7LJHU DQG WKH )RUHVW 3UHVHUYDWLRQ $FW *UHDW QXPEHUV RI %DQJOadeshi refugees who already lived in Morichjhapi were detained and
eventually raped and/or killed by paramilitary forces estimated
numbers exceed fifteen thousands. By narrating this as well as other
conflicts, the novel constantly engages with the antagonism between
concerns for the nonhuman environment and the people living in this
environment. In doing so, it demonstrates the clash of Social and Deep
Ecology. This aporia therefore spurs the hermeneutics of EnvironMentality, and my reading will look for the literary power and effectiveness in negotiating this impasse.
Weik argues that the dichotomy of Deep and Social Ecology (that
is, the conflict between a concern for the environment and its nonhuman population on the one hand and a concern for the settlers as
well a criticism of the political enmeshment that comes along with
preservationist politics in the Sundarbans on the other) is a false one:
98
$Q HFRORJLFDO FRQVFLHQFH WKDW >@ VLPSO\ DFFHSWV D GLFKRWRP\ Eetween human and animal welfare is, as environmental justice advocates have often pointed out, highly problematic (Weik 2006-7: 132).
It remains to be seen, therefore, how the novel engages with this problematic dichotomy on the level of its form. The tension of the dichotomy, I will argue, is not only described and exemplified within the
WH[W EXW LV VXFFHVVIXOO\ QHJRWLDWHG E\ WKH WH[WV QDUUDWLYH GLVFRXUVH
The text does so by different means and on different levels, some of
which will be discussed on the following pages.
In the larger context of EnvironMentality, it is remarkable that this
QDUUDWLYHLQIDFWWKHHQWLUHSORW [...] literally grows out of the fundamental characteristics of the landscape (Gurr 2010a: 70). The landscape not only represents a structural basis for the plot but is depicted
as an environmental-textual agency in itself since its changing form
significantly governs the form of the narrative. Indeed, the whole narrative is organised around the movement of the tide, with one section
FDOOHG(EEDQGWKHRWKHU)ORRGDQGZLWKDIRFDOLVDWLRQWKDWliterally
VZD\VEHWZHHQ3L\DDQG.DQDLDQGUHSUHVHQWDWLRQVRIODQGDQGZater (74-5)*XUUSRLQWVWRWKHIDFWWKDWHYHQWKHSURWDJRQLVWVDUHVXbordinated to the structuring principle of ebb and floodDQGWKDWKuman beings [in The Hungry Tide] function as an illustration of features
of the ecosystem rather than the other way round (74).7 By means of
its narrative design, The Hungry Tide emplots the tidal rhythm of the
ecosystem and at the same time narrates different human lives as attuned to this rhythm in different ways. Weik claims WKDWRQLWVEURDdest level, [The Hungry Tide] is a story about the Sundarbans themselves (Weik 2006-+RZHYHU,DUJXHWKDWLWLVQRWabout the
Sundarbans because they are part of the setting; rather, the formal
staging of the novel integrates the landscape into the narrative whole
and creates a sense of environmental agency in itself (a similar point is
made by Grewe-Volpp (2006), DQGERWKP\RZQDQG*XUUVIRFXVRQ
narrative strategies underline her argument).
The novel stDQGVDVDQRWDEOHH[DPSOHRIDwriting of wetlands
as William Howarth describes it. Howarth remarks on the importance
of space in narratives and focuses on the wetlands as a particular narrative challenge. He points to the fDFW WKDW >Z@KLOH WKH ZD\V WKDW
7
99
places look, smell, and baffle have long intrigued writers, they are of
less apparent interest to critical readers (Howarth 1999: 512). A concern for spatiality bears some long overlooked influence on textual
composition, aVLVVKRZQLQ+RZDUWKVDFFRXQWRIQDUUDWLYHVIURPWKH
Early Modern Period up to today and, most importantly in this conWH[WLQKLVFRQWHQWLRQWKDW>Z@HFDQQRWHVVHQWLDOL]HZHWODQGVEHFDXVH
they are hybrid and multivalent [...]. In rhetorical terms they are not
syntax but parataxis (Howarth 1999: 520). This hybridity and multivalence can be shown to be a pivotal trope in The Hungry Tide. But
+RZDUWKVUHPDUNDOVRUHODWHVWRFRQFHSWVRIOLWHUDU\WKHRU\+LVFODLP
that the rhetoric of wetODQGVLVnot syntax but parataxis points to the
toolkit of structuralist interpretation and to the idea of narrative
grammar. It is with this focus that I now discuss the deep structure of
The Hungry Tide in more detail. By focussing on the structural composition of the novel, I will thus account for the emergence of EnvironMentality as an encounter with the world through narrative. This
encounter is possible because, in structuralist terms, narratives do not
simply transform concepts into pictures, into sensuous-concrete artefacts [...]; rather, relationships between sensuous-concrete units are
XVHGWRPDNHUHODWLRQVEHWZHHQDEVWUDFWXQLWVSUHVHQWDEOHLQWKHILUVW
place (Galles 1972: xxi; my translation). What does this mean in the
context of postcolonial-ecocritical readings of form?
The Sundarbans are described in The Hungry Tide DVWKHWUDLOLQJ
WKUHDGV RI ,QGLDVIDEULF WKHUDJJHG IULQJH RI KHU VDULWKH mFKRO WKDW
follows her, half-wetted by the sea (THT 6). Not only does this passage employ a remarkable sequence of cultural metaphors in order to
narrate the place, it is also directly connected to its cultural being-read
in terms of a merging of landscape mapping and the description of
clothing: the wetlands are described as homologous to human clothing. This homology of nature and culture, and of living in and reading
an environment, constitutes a starting point from which I want to explore a possible analogy between world and text. Such a narrative
analogy can indeed effect a harmonisation and, as will be shown, it
exemplifies how far formalist-structuralist methods can help to describe this form of harmonisation. The analogy of world and text is
staged by narrative strategies that underline the significance of the
specific environment. The idea that the environment structures the
narrative encourages readers to interpretively engage with the place
with which the novel is concerned. Moreover, it hints at the interconnection of environment and narrative engagement in terms of the
100
DQWKURSRORJLFDOLPSOLFDWLRQVRIVWDJLQJDVDPHDQVRIPDNLQJVHQVH
of reality (see Iser 1993: 79-86). Since through its narrative design,
The Hungry Tide stages place in close connection to the stories that
come from there and to meaning in general, the strategies of perspective and focalisation in particular suggest that nature be read as an
active force, an agent rather than a mere object. Instead of the passive
UROHDWWULEXWHGWRVHWWLQJLQPDQ\FULWLFDOZRUNVWKHUROHRIWKHQDWural environment is thus an active one that transcends the notion of a
mere setting.
The most remarkable and readily identifiable device consists of a
constant oscillation of focalisation. Kanai and Piya are the focalisers,
DQG IRU PRVW RI WKH WLPH WKH QDUUDWLYH PRRG LV DIIHFWHG E\ .DQDLV
DQG 3L\DV H[SHULHQFHV DQG WKHLU FRQVFLRXVQHVVHV ZLWK 3L\D EHLQJ D
female scientist, socialised in the USA and coming from the middle
class, and Kanai being a male translator, trained in the humanities,
living an upper-class Indian urban life). Thus, the environment is perceived through the eyes of two strangers, but, more importantly, by
means of focalisation, the narrative recreates the fundamental spatial
experience of the tidal rhythm of the Sundarbans. On the one hand,
this form of swaying focalisation re-enacts the tidal movement, which
is described as a crucial and ubiquitous local experience. However, the
narrativisation of the tidal movement also correlates with a female/marine biologist/Western and a male/philologist/Indian perspective. It seems that the whole narrative as such evolves from the tension
between these binary pairs of opposites.8
Staging the environment this way blurs any clear-cut boundary between nature and culture because by virtue of the environmental emplotment, the text presents both a narrative formed by natural rhythm
and LW VKRZV KRZ FXOWXUDO PRGHOV DQG FRQFHSWV VKDSH UHDOLWLHV and
the perception of the world (Gurr 2010a: 75). This both/and con8
By the same token, Gurr (2012) DUJXHV WKDW WKH WH[W OLWHUDOL]HV WKH QRWLRQ WKDW
narrative originates from the tension between binary opposites, and his examples
trace the binary oppositions doZQ WR QXPHURXV GHWDLOV >,@W LV KDUGO\ LQFLGHQWDO
that Piya is not doing research on fish or on land animals, but specifically on
dolphins, mammals living in water but breathing air, a species also embodying the
being caught between both. In a very literal sense, the dualism of land and water
is precisely what motivates the entire narrative, even in the disastrous storm which
occurs at the climax of the novel. This storm very directly grows out of the unique
climate developing in this area which is so fundamentally both land and water
(n.p.).
101
102
103
then the narrativisation of the ever-transformative Sundarban ecosystem successfully augments the development of EnvironMentality.
Both the idea of a world-as-text and the idea of an evertransformative life find application in an ethical context: the transformative character of life is described as a vital balance of being, and
since the discursive level reflects this idea, it emplots the idea of a
postmodern ecology that is, an ecology that has let go of hopes for
climax states IRUWKHVDNHRIdiscordant harmoniesVHH%RWNLQ
and also Phillips 2003: 51; Reichholf 2008: 101). On a rational level,
we may still struggle with the implications of a nature that is bereft of
idealistic truths and, thus, has stopped making sense DVDPRGHOWKDW
would guide us (Lodge & Hamlin 2006: 7), but the novel stages a
form of harmony that successfully incorporates diverging voices and
disasters alike.
Part of the success of such a staging of discordant harmony relies
on textual gaps and tensions that must be filled by readerly interpretation, and I will discuss these in the next section in the larger context of
a dialogism of narrative structures. This chapter has so far been mostly
concerned with the ways in which the focalisation technique becomes
environmentally meaningful, but the instances that Timo Mller calls
moments of condensation0OOHU that is, symbols and
metaphoric meaning do exist as well, of course. Some examples of
how both go together will complement my reading of the world-astext.
One of the strongest motifs is text that is capable of bringing nature
to life: 1LUPDOV GLDU\, for instance, has a strong effect RQ .DQDLV
conscience and enables him to understand the Sundarbans. This text
thus conveys a sense of specific natural phenomena because nature
FDQ EH UHDG DV D FRGH[ WKDW KDG EHHQ DXWKRUHG E\ WKH HDUWK LWself
(THT 269).9 In one of the crucial passages that depict these analogies,
9
,Q WKLV SDVVDJH .DQDL UHDOLVHV WKDW 3L\DV VWXGLHV RI ZDWHU HFRORJ\ DQG PDULQH
fauna correspond to his own interest in literary texts and translation, and the novel
thus elegantly comments on the analogies between both forms of making sense:
>3L\D@ZDVEDFNLQSRVLWLRQZLWKKHUELQRFXODUVIL[HGWRKHUH\HVZDWFKLQJWKH
water with a closeness of attention that reminded Kanai of a textual scholar poring
over a yet-undeciphered manuscript: it was as though she were puzzling over a
codex that had been authored by the earth itself. [...] [H]e too had peered into the
unknown as if through an eyeglass [...] And he remembered too the obstacles, the
frustration, the sense that he would never be able to [...] put sentences together in
>@DZD\WKDWVHHPHGWRFDOOIRUDUHFDVWLQJRIWKHXVXDORUGHURIWKLQJV
104
Kanai unwraps the diary his uncle has left for him: Kanai has to unwrap the covering, layer by layer, thinking of youthful memories
while at the same time leaving behind the artificial OD\HUVRISODVWLF
The packet was wrapped in layers of plastic that had been pasted together with
some kind of crude industrial glue. On top was a piece of paper that looked as if it
KDGEHHQWRUQIURPDQRWHERRNDQGZULWWHQXSRQLWLQKLVXQFOHVKDQGZHUH.aQDLVQDPHDQGKLVDGGUHVVRIWZHQW\\HDUVEHIRUH.DQai squeezed the packet behind his fingers but could not make out exactly what lay inside. [...] Looking
around him, he saw half a razor blade lying on the window sill. He picked up the
sharp-edged sliver of metal [...]. After cutting a few layers, he saw, lying inside,
like an egg in his nest, a small cardboard-covered notebook [...]. [H]e had been
expecting lose sheets poems, essays anything but a single notebook. He
IOLSSHGLWRSHQDQGVDZWKDWLWZDVFRYHUHGLQ>@1LUPDOVKDQG>@'HVSLWHWKH
many layers of plastic, the paper was covered with damp spots. (THT 67)
:HNQRZWKHQRWHERRNLQTXHVWLRQWREH.DQDLVJDWHZD\WRDQXQGHrstanding of both nature and other people but, for the moment, the text
LVRQO\FRQFHUQHGZLWK.DQDLVH[SHULHQFHRIOaying bare the precious
content, which to him resembles an egg, a natural symbol deeply connected to cultural ideas of proliferation, fruitfulness and fragility. Notably, this is contrasted by the crude industrial glue$JDLQWKHWH[W
engages with the binary logic of nature and culture, and again, it presents a moment of transgressing this logical division.
By cutting open the packet, Kanai gets rid of more and more of the
artificial plastic sheets only to find a single book. Later, the reader
learns how the inclusiveness of the text contained within (incorporating local myth as well as canonical Western poetry) becomes connected with the idea of ecology. It also becomes clear that it was NirPDOV GHOLEHUDWHDLP WR QDUUDWH WKHWLGDOHQYLURQPHQWDQG WKH H[SHUiences of the KXPDQV WKDW OLYH LQ WKLV HQYLURQPHQW DV 5LONHV OLQH
6SHDNDQGWHVWLI\WXUQVLQWRDPHssage written for [his] eyes only,
ILOOHGZLWKKLGGHQPHDQLQJ; THT 275). Thus.DQDLVHQFRXQWHUZLWK
the notebook functions as a prolepsis that IRUHVKDGRZV1LUPDOVeventual success in writing the environment in ways that Kanai is able to
grasp: the notebook literally contains traces of the ubiquitous tide
country as the paper was covered with damp spots.
105
Such cooperative moments are of course not restricted to humananimal encounters, but are likewise possible between Piya and Fokir,
between the Western scientist and the illiterate local fisherman. When
3L\D ZDQWV WR PHDVXUH WKH GROSKLQV VSDWLDO PRYHPHQW VKH QHHGHG
[Fokir] to row the boat in parallel lines over a quadrant shaped
roughly like a triangle, with its apex almost WRXFKLQJ WKH IDU VKRUH
DQGWRKHUVXUSULVH)RNLULVHQWKXVLDVWLFDERXWWKLVLGHD(YLGHQWO\
he wanted to use the opportunity to do some fishing (139-40). Not
RQO\ GRHV VKH UHDOLVH WKDW )RNLUV LQWHQWLRQV can be harmonised with
her own, moreover, she LV DPD]HG WR OHDUQ WKDW )RNLUV FDWFK JUHZ
steadily with each successive run (141).
While it stages an inextricable connection of nature and culture by
means of its narrative design, The Hungry Tide also employs ideas of
transcultural and even transspecies community. This effort at overt
harmonisation, however, comes at the cost of a somewhat plain happy
ending: despite the death of Fokir and the dramatic climax of the
10
1RWH DOVR WKDW 3L\D KDV WKXV PRYHG IURP WKH LGHD RI D VFLHQWLILF K\SRWKHVLV RI
VWXQQLQJHOHJDQFHDQGHFRQRP\WRZDUGVDPD]HPHQWZRQGHUDQGPRVWLPSRUtantly, awe (see THT 169).
106
VWRUPWKHODVWFKDSWHUWHOOVRI3L\DVGHFLVLRQWRPRYHWRWKH6XQGDrbans and of her inclusion into the social structures of the local population. In the following section, I will comment on this somewhat too
slick harmony that includes a superficial depiction and eventual unifiFDWLRQ RI VXEDOWHUQ DQG :HVWHUQ QHHGV LQ IDFW ERWK WKH neat distinction EHWZHHQ:HVWHUQDQGLQGLJHQRXVLGHQWLWLHVDQGWKHKDUPonising strategy employed will be shown to constitute a gap in the interpretation of the narrative deep structure, which has to be addressed.
That the novel stages diverse forms of harmonisation therefore marks
only a first step for EnvironMentality.
107
12
On this idea, see also Hannes Bergthaller (2006), who in a discussion of the role
of mimesis in the ecocritical debate argues that the idea of an ethics of ecomimetic
literature LVEDVHGRQDPLVFRQFHSWLRQRIWKHUROHRIPLPHVLVLWLV QRWWKHUHIHUHQWLDOGLPHQVLRQ which lends a text its ethical force, but rather narrative form
(156).
There are of course numerous examples, from Fielding to Austen and to Dickens,
ZKHUH VKLIWLQJ IRFDOLVDWLRQ LV QRW HQYLURQPHQWDO DW DOO ,Q HDFh case, however,
the particular focalising technique has an effect on readerly interpretation.
108
and dominate many of the events. The idea of stable identities and
environments are thus similarly put into question. The characters do
not represent a nationality, ethnicity or identity without at the same
time deconstructing the essentialism innate to such notions. Moreover,
the environment in which these characters live and act has been foreign to most of them (and it remains strange because it changes constantly). Pablo Mukherjee describes this strangeness with regard to the
characters, FODLPLQJ WKDW 3L\DV DQGURJ\QRXV SK\VLFDOLW\ PDUNV Ker
RXW DV DQ H[RWLF IRUHLJQHU, ZKLOH .DQDL >OLNHZLVH HPERGLHV@ D
metro/cosmopolitan separation from the environs of suburban Calcutta
and rural Bengal (2006: 150). Nirmal is a refugee from Dhaka, and
Nilima belongs to a wealthy family from Calcutta. Even Fokir is, as
MukheUMHH SXWV LW DQ DOLHQ son of Kusum, who herself came to
the Sundarbans as a Bangladeshi refugee (150; emphasis orig.). The
motifs of being uprootHG DQG QHZ IRUPV RI EHORQJLQJ, Mukherjee
concludes, are a constant presence in the text on various levels (150).
What interests me here, however, is not so much the vision of (rural)
cosmopolitanism that can be deduced from the figural ensemble (cf.
Johansen 2008) but the fact that it is the environment that integrates
such differences of origin and provenance by structurLQJQHZIRUPV
RI EHORQJLQJ The individual socio-political histories of the characters are brought into play with the overall environment.
This connection, however, DOVRSRLQWVWRWKHHQYLURQPHQWVVRFLRSROLWLFDO GLPHQVLRQ 7KH DUHD, Frank Schulze-(QJOHU ZULWHV LV Dlmost totally under the control of the Forestry Department, which as
Piya realizes soon after her arrival rules over the local population in
the manner of an occupying army (2009: 179). It is impossible to
read the text strictly in terms of a nature/culture divide or in the context of an encounter with a pristine natural ecosystem. On the contrary, the enmeshment of social and natural realities constantly affects
WKH H[SHULHQFHV RI WKH FKDUDFWHUV 3L\D DQG WKH UHDGHUV RI WKH WH[W
increasingly become aware that her scientific research forms a part of
DODUJHUQHWZRUNLQZKLFKSROLWLFVFXOWXUHDQGQDWXUHEHFRPHLQHxtricably intertwined (180).13 The entanglement of world and text does
13
109
110
111
which are the basis of any hermeneutic understanding, EnvironMentality transcends these very dichotomies and engenders a sense of
interrelation. My reading of The Hungry Tide (as well as the readings
in the following chapters) is accordingly concerned with describing
and interpreting the various experiences of interrelation without overlooking the fact that tensions are part of this experience. With this is
mind, %XHOOVFRQFHSWRIPLPHVLVFDQEHUHDVVHVVHG7KHHWKLFDOIRUFH
of literature does not lie in its vraisemblance but emerges through
readerly engagement with narrative form, the gaps that any interpretation has to deal with, and the diegetic leap (Bergthaller) that interpretation encompasses.
%RWK +HDG DQG %HUJWKDOOHU GLVFXVV %XHOOV FRQFHSWV DQG DGGUHVV
KLV PLVFRQFHSWLRQ RI PLPHVLV E\ UHIHUULQJ WR 3DXO 5LFXU (see
Bergthaller 2006: 170; Head 2008: 237-8)5LFXUV notion of mimesis as a threefold concept explains the mimetic quality of texts in
terms of a process of configuration, and not with regard to imitation. It
is with this model of three-IROG PLPHVLV PLPHVLV1 PLPHVLV2
PLPHVLV3 that
our worldly experience of time and action [is emplotted]. [It thus] traces how
these elements of preunderstanding are drawn on in the composition of a text, and
stresses a return to the world of the reader in the active process of reception and
interpretation. And the more self-conscious and artificial the text is, the more effort is required in its interpretation, and so (if it is successful) the greater its impact will be at the level of mimesis 3. (Head 2008: 238)
112
113
comments on this too, and the textual commentary can again be found
LQWKHVWUXFWXUDOSDWWHUQ,GHVFULEHGLQWKHODVWFKDSWHUWKHWKUHHQHVV
of the main characters is a rupture in an otherwise extremely dualistic
narrative. On the one hand, this antagonism expresses an exclusion of
human beings from an otherwise dualistically structured environment.
Human estrangement from nature, by these means, finds expression,
and the tragic ending in particular underscores such a reading. On the
other hand, there are numerous narrative instances when two of the
characters melt into one, thus temporarily abolishing this tension. KaQDL IRU LQVWDQFH PHUJHV ZLWK KLV JUDQGIDWKHU QRW RQO\ ZKHQ KH
quotes Rilke in his letter to Piya (thus pointing to the possibility of
literary negotiations of understanding Nirmal had hoped for);14 moreover, his reading the diary enables him to access the mindset of his
grandfather so as to understand one of the most important natureorientated emotions: fear.
The motif of fear permeates the whole narrative and indicates the
unspeakable: the presence of a tiger. Fokir shows his alertness by
pointing to his goose bumps (see THT 322), and Nirmal, too, is confronted with the power of fear when Horen takes him to Garjantola:
'R \RX IHHO WKH IHDU" 7KH IHDU" , VDLG >@ :K\ VKRXOG , EH
DIUDLG" >@ %HFDXVH LWV WKH IHDU WKDW SURWHFWV \RX 6DDU LWV ZKDW
keeps you alive (244). Kanai reads these lines later on, and it is remarkable that here, fear is actually communicated through literature.
The dialogue is repeated by Fokir and Kanai when they embark for
*DUMDQWROD ,W VHHPV WKDW E\ UHDGLQJ 1LUPDOV GLDU\ .DQDL had prepared to understand his own fear when he came to Garjantola. The
actual experience of the mangrove forest is as important as the quesWLRQ&DQ\RXIHHOWKHIHDU" (322), EHFDXVH>DW@WKDWPRPHQWQRWhing existed for him but language, the pure structure of sound that had
IRUPHG)RNLUVTXHVWLRQ (322).
His not feeling the fear at first leads to the argument between Fokir
DQG.DQDLDVZHOODVWR.DQDLVHSLSKDQ\when he encounters a tiger
on the island. The text thus balances textual mediation and language
and the equally important nature-FXOWXUDO HQYLURQPHQW RI WKe mangrove forest, the water, the boat (322). Again, and this time via Kanai, the text implies the necessary enmeshment of natural and cultural
aspects: wKLOH D FHUWDLQ NLQG RI QDWXUDO LQVWLQFW VHHPV FUXFLDO DOO
14
6HH*KRVKZKHUH.DQDLHQGVKLVOHWWHUE\TXRWLQJIURP5LONHV1LQWK
Elegy.
114
QDWXUDO LQVWLQFWV GLVDSSHDU IURP .DQDLV FRQVFLRXVQHVV ZKHQ FRnIURQWHG ZLWK WKH TXHVWLRQ IURP )RNLUV PRXWK )RU WKH GLVFRXUVHoriented Kanai, linguistic mediation seems a necessary preparation for
the environmental experience, and by staging the connectedness of
nature and linguistic representation, the novel again suggests that a
mutual connection between world and text is indeed possible.
PL\DDQG.DQDLVGLDORJXHWKHGD\DIWHUWKHJURXSZLWQHVVWKHYLolent killing of a captured tiger is another example of such a form of
merging. This instance elegantly shows the narrative capability to
GLVVROYH SDUDGLJPDWLF RSSRVLWLRQV E\ >@ WHPSRUDOL]LQJ WKHP E\
SURMHFWLQJ WKHP LQWR D QDUUDWLYH VHTXHQFH, as Gurr claims (2012:
n.p.). In this scene, Kanai tries to console the shocked Piya. She says,
, IHHO ,OO QHYHU EH DEOH WR JHW P\ PLQG DURXQG WKH --- .DQDL
SURPSWHGDVVKHIDOWHUHG7KHKRUURU"7KHKRUURU\HV>@ (THT
300). In this dialogue, the narrative refers intertextually to Joseph
&RQUDGVThe Heart of Darkness (1899). But unlike .XUW]s words in
&RQUDGVQRYHOKHUHWZRVHQWHQFH-fragments constitute a single dialogic utterance. The intertextual reference thus transcends the initial
literary motif of unspeakability and the incapability of language that
&RQUDGVQRYHOQHJRWLDWHG:KLOHLQ&RQUDGVQRYHOWKHODVWZRUGVRI
Kurtz seek to acknowledge the horrors of the Congo, in The Hungry
Tide, Piya and Kanai both effectively formulate, via language, a way
RI GHDOLQJ ZLWK WKHLU H[SHULHQFH WKH\ LQYRNH &RQUDGV 7KH KRUURU
the horror!GLDORJLFDOO\DQGWKXVVKDUHWKHH[SHULHQFHRIWKHXQVSHDkable.
The most striking example of merging, however, is given by Piya
and Fokir. When Fokir shields Piya in the storm at the end of the narrative, the text suggests that the two eventually become one single
RUJDQLVP6RRQKHUOXQJVDGDSWHGWRWKHUK\WKPRIKLVGLDSKUDJPDV
it pumped in and out of the declivity of her lower back. Everywhere
WKHLUERGLHVPHWWKHLUVNLQZDVMRLQHGE\DWKLQPHPEUDQHRIVZHDW
2EYLRXVO\ WKH membrane of sweat has erotic connotations
)RNLUV VZHDWLVD UHFXUULQJ PRWLILQ WKH SDVVDJHVZKHUH 3L\D LVWKH
focaliser) while the storm can be read as signifying death. In this climax of love and death, as it were, Fokir turns into a shield for Piya,
his body preventing WKHIO\LQJREMHFWVIURPKLWWLQJKHUDQGLWZDVDV
if the storm had given them what life could not; it had fused them
together and made them one (390).
Notably, the structural motif of merging into one is anticipated by
the narrative structure of focalisation. This scene is narrated by an
115
116
+XJJDQDQG7LIILQDUHVXUHO\ULJKWLQWKHLUFODLPWKDWWKHGROSKLQ
VROXWLRQ PLJKW FRPH DW WRR ORZ D FRVW DQG GRHV QRW DFFRXQW IRUWKH
PRUHSUHVVLQJLVVXHVRIWKHWRUWXUHGWLJHUDQGWKH3URMHFW7LJHU policy in general. The tiger as a stand-in for the politics of preservation
DJDLQVWWKHQHHGVRIORFDOSHRSOHHQGVDVDVDFULILFLDOV\PERORIYLoOHQFH LWVHOI DQGDFFRUGLQJO\ UHPDLQV RXWVLGH ERWK WKH YDULRXV Oocal) human communities in the novel and the environmental ethic its
author apparently seeks to propose (189; see also Bhattacharya
2007). However, this study is not concerned with the ethics that a
QRYHOVDXWKRUPLJKWVHHPWRbe proposing. Instead, it asks about the
interpretive potential a given narrative composition encompasses. This
focus allows for readings that hermeneutically engage with RQHVpersonal prejudgePHQWVDQGWKHWH[WVIRUPDOFRPSRVLWLRQDOLNHas I will
show in my reading of the tiger motif.
The unresolved tension of the tiger scene is remarked on close to
the end, when another tiger becomes a victim of the storm and struggles for survival face to face with Piya and Fokir. In contrast to the
brutal account of torture and the cruel practice of blinding the tiger,
this second encounter is established around the idea of personal recognition and seeing.16 The first human-animal contact in this scene is
Piya touching an exhausted bird that had evidently been following the
VWRUPVH\H LWZDVWUHPEOLQJDQGVKHFRXOGIHHOWKHIOXWWHULQJRILWV
heart (THT 389). This encounter is followed by Fokir
pointing into the distance to another thicket of trees. Following his finger, [Piya]
saw a tiger pulling itself out of the water and into a tree on the far side of the island. It seemed to have been following the storPV H\H OLNH WKH ELUGV UHVWLQJ
16
$PRQJRWKHUWKLQJV/HYLQDVZRUNRQWKHHWKLFVRIWKHJD]HDQG'HUULGDVGHFRQVWUXFWLRQRIWKHDQLPRWresonate here. For a study on the animal gaze in a postcolonial context, see Woodward 2009.
117
whenever it could. It became aware of their presence at exactly the same moment
they spotted it [...]. Without blinking, the tiger watched them for several minutes
[...]. She could imagine that if she had been able to put a hand on its coat, she
would have been able to feel the pounding of its heart. (THT 389)
ClearO\+XJJDQDQG7LIILQVREVHUYDWLRQWKDWWKHWLJHULVH[FOXGHGLV
not altogether correct, for the tiger in this scene does share a moment
of reciprocal perception with the human beings. The scene even counterweighs the motif of blinding by maintaining a reciprocal gaze in the
VWRUPV eye. Remarkably, this scene constitutes an unreal moment of
silence during the storm where all living animals (humans included)
VKDUH WKH VDPH IDWH DQG VHHP WR XQGHUVWDQG WKH RWKHUV YXOQHUDELOLW\
EHIRUHWDNLQJDGHHSEUHDWKDVWKHURDURIWKe wind filled their heads
again (THT 389).
Before addressing the intriguing structural conception of the two
encounters with tigers, both set at crucial moments of the narrative, it
is important to understand that the introduction of the tiger constitutes
a powerful narrative moment with the tiger functioning as a gap in
itself, inviting all kinds of reactions and speculations IURPWKHQRYHOV
readers. Reaction and speculation, however, are bound to different
hermeneutic prejudgements, some of which I will engage with now.
Huggan and Tiffin suggest that the tiger can be read as a symbol of
national politics and power relations.17 Even more, the text suggests,
the tiger must be understood as a large creature capable of suffering.
In the first scene, this suffering is inflicted by humans, and the readerresponse will be one of unresolved tension with regard to the inability
to act. The question of readerly response is crucial here with regard to
issues of alterity, translation and compassion. It thus contributes significantly to the interpretive challenge of the novel.
Nandini Bhattacharya understands the tiger as a symbol that is
closely related to WKH SUREOHP RI WKH LPDJLQHG QDWLRQ (2007: 224)
and to the literary tradition of Bengal. She claims that what The Hungry Tide H[SORUHVLVQRWMXVWWKHKLVWRULFDO3DUWLWLRQRI%HQJDOEXWDOVR
the subsequeQWSDUWLWLRQRI%HQJDOVSV\FKH (224). Accordingly, and
17
For an insightful engagement with this argument, see Bhattacharya (2007). Bhattacharya explains the conflict of the Sundarbans settlements as a class struggle
dominated by the bhadralok (upper class), who argue ecologically mainly in order
to ensure their ongoing hegemony over the poor nimnoborgo/nimnobritto population, and she maintains that the tiger is a symbol RI %engali culture as well as
%HQJDOL>@QDWLRQDOLVP
118
complementing +XJJDQ DQG 7LIILQV DUJXPHQW %KDWWDFKDU\D XQGHrstands the tiger motif as semantically charged in different ways. Not
only is it a symbol of national power and violence, but it is, just like
post-pDUWLWLRQ %HQJDO OLWHUDOO\ IUDFWXUHG.18 ,Q WKH %HQJDOL SV\FKH
%KDWWDFKDU\DJRHVRQWRDUJXHWKHWLJHUZDVQHYHUMXVWDQRWKHUDQiPDOEXWFHOHEUDWHGLQLWVYDULHGFXOWXUDOUHSUHVHQWDWLRQV (Bhattacharya
2007: 225). This means that while the semantic potential of this motif
is rich with regard to what Bhattacharya in a somewhat essentialistic
concluVLRQ FDOOV WKH Bengali psyche, it may be lost to the great
number of readers who are not familiar with this semantic significance.
(VSHFLDOO\VLQFHWKHQRYHOLVDV0XNKHUMHHSRLQWVRXWSODFHd and
consumed in the contemporary global market (2010: 9), many readHUVZLOOPLVVWKHWLJHUVVLJQLILFDQFHDVDQDSSURSULDWHV\PERORIWKH
%HQJDOLVORVWJORU\SULGHDQGSRWHQF\MXVWDVPXFKDVLWVUROHDVD
quasi-divine figure, meting out retribution to both the oppressive British ruler, as well as his treacherous Indian ally (Bhattacharya 2007:
226; 227). If at all, these roles are conferred on the animal by the
characters and not by the text as such, and this makes the semantics of
the tiger motif part of the negotiation of meaning in general. Bhattacharya writes from the perspective of a cultural insider. The Hungry
Tide, being directed towards an international readership and relying on
heterodiegetic meta-cultural comment and character speech, does not
presuppose such insider knowledge.
Obioma Nnaemeka discusses WKHUROHRILQVLGHUVDQGRXWVLGHUV
of cultural knowledge and argues that in postcolonial criticism, there
H[LVWV D GLFKRWRP\ EHWZHHQ WKH LQVLGHU WKDW EULQJV FXOWXUDO XQGHrstanding and the outsider that brings the theoretical expertise to critical analysis (Nnaemeka 1995: 81). She goes on to argue that it is
possiEOHWREHFRPHDQinoutsider, WKDWLVVRPHRQHZKRSD\VHTXDO
attention to cultural contexts and critical theory (81). Becoming an
LQRXWVLGHUKRZHYHUUHTXLUHVDORWRIKDUGZRUNDQGDKLJKGRVHRI
humility (86). Despite the call for humility, her statement has a
18
By virtue of its focalising technique, the text supports the impression that different
FKDUDFWHUVUHDGWKHDQLPDOLQGLVWLQFWO\GLIIHUHQWZD\VWKXVoccluding the animal
DV VXFK &I %KDWWDFKDU\D, ZKR SRLQWV WR WKH IDFW WKDW >L@Q The Hungry Tide
perceptions towards the tiger seem to be strangely fractured(2007: 229). According to my reading, this strange fracturing is not coincidental but marks the gap
from which interpretive momentum gathers.
119
20
21
For a discussion of this, see Perner (2011: 5). On the problem of insider and outsider positions and the knowledge production in postcolonial studies, see Chakrabarty (2000).
One must be careful not to over-emphasise compassion without reflecting on the
cultural contingencies of such emotions. Certainly, compassion may be affected
by ethical tradition and the semantics of anthropomorphism, for instance (see
Chapter 7 for a discussion of these aspects). However, and more importantly,
instead of reducing the alleged insider perspective to symbolism, it is necessary to
understand that the reading proposed by the local population is indebted to the
IDFWWKDWWKHVHSHRSOHDFWXDOO\VKDUHDQHQYLURQPHQWZLWKWLJHUVZKLOHWKH:HVWHUQSHUVSHFWLYHRIFRPSDVVLRQis not grounded on such experiences the danger
of armchair preservationism shows in the practice of reading, too.
7KHDVVXPSWLRQWKDWD:HVWHUQUHDGHUH[LVWVDQGWKDWLWLVSRVVLEOHWR set up an
opposition between DQ ,QGLDQ DQG D :HVWHUQ way of reading is of course extremely problematic. This clumsy dichotomy is meant to express the opposition
between cultural-relativist readings, which WU\WRDGRSWDQDWLYHVWDQFHWRZDUGV
the tiger, and the hermeneutic position which accepts that my horizon of understanding is also determined by my HPRWLRQDO UHDFWLRQ WR DQ DQLPDOV VXIIHULQJ
7KHQHFHVVLW\WRUHIOHFWRQHVKHUPHQHXWLFVLWXDWLRQFRQQHFWVZLWKZKDW+DUDZD\
GHVFULEHV DV VLWXDWHG NQRZOHGJH DQG HYHQ VKDUHV DVSHFWV RI ZKDW 6FRWW 6ORYLF
FDOOVQDUUDWLYHVFKRODUVKLS6HH5\OH
120
That is of course not to say that an individual appraisal is not bound by cultural
contexts and socialisation. In fact, bringing oneself into a text requires an awareQHVVRIVXFKFRQWH[WVDQG,NQRZWKDWP\LQGLYLGXDODVVHVVPHQWLVERXQGWRDQG
shaped by a long history of discourses concerned with animals, the other and
compassion. However, the point is not to argue against the possibility of discourse
analysis but to bring in the individual hermeneutic situation, and to understand its
share in the production of meaning.
121
The text emplots the tension a symbolic reading of an empathetic encounter with the tiger entails. Thus, it allows for a reflexion of
postcolonial and hermeneutic epistemologies. In combination, a formoriented way of reading and an interpretation that relies on the indiYLGXDOVKDUHLQWKHSURGXFWLRQRIPHDQLQJFDQGHDOZLWKWKHVLOHQFH
around [the literary text] in the enabling matrix of what is commonly
FRQVLGHUHG D PXWH ODQG EXW LV DFWXDOO\ IXOO RI YRLFHV if we attune
ourselves to them (Westling 2006: 39). That a formalist-structuralist
reading can effectively and fruitfully be located in the larger context
of reader reception and understanding and, ultimately, also in the context of an ethically influenced project such as ecocritical interpretation, can thus easily be shown.23
23
Thus, the alleged conflict between formal analyses and hermeneutics can be left
behind 'DYLG +HUPDQ IRU LQVWDQFH VXJJHVWV WKDW LQVWHDG RI VHHLQJ VWUXFWXUDO
DQDO\VLV DV WKH KDQGPDLGHQ WR LQWHUSUHWDWLRQ : 30), postclassical reassessments contextualise narrative strategies successfully. Approaches of New Formalism argue in a similar vein (see Levinson 2007).
122
If we read the ensemble of characters (animals included) as a structural pattern of corresponding figural and actational means within the
narrative, the gap that emerges around the tiger would be significant in
several ways. While Gadamer maintains the necessity of a temporal
distance between text and actualisation because >W@HPSRUDO GLVWDQFH
[...] lets the true meaning of the object emerge fully*DGDPHU
298), here, with regard to postcolonial literature, it is the spatial and/or
cultural distance (exemplified by the conflict between supposed Western and Non-Western perspectives, or the individual focus and a culWXUDOLQRXWVLGHU-position) that forms an important gap. By the same
token, we can UHDVVHVV$WWULGJHVFODLPWKDW>H@YHQLIWKHSXUSRVHRI
reading a work is to reconstruct historical meaning [...] the words as
we read them produce their effects in the present (Attridge 2004b:
104; emphasis orig.). Attridge suggests that other interpretive stances
are possible, and so is an approach that reconstructs the tiger in terms
RIDIUDFWXUHG%HQJDOLSV\FKHsensu Bhattacharya. In the context of
EnvironMentality, however, this is not the decisive point. What needs
consideration here is that by reading across the different horizons, we
can use the literary potential of the text to transform the encounter of
RWKHUQHVV WKDW LW VWDJHV 'HVSLWH WKH WLJHUV VLOHQFH ZH UHDOLVH WKDW
>W@KHUH LV QR DEVROXWH RWKHU >@ ,I WKH RWKHU LV DOZD\V DQG RQO\
other to me [...], I am already in some relation to it (29; emphasis
orig.).
As an object of hermeneutic inquiry, the text exemplifies the conflict of Deep versus Social Ecology qua its figural setting and the
meaning conferred on the tiger. Just as Piya struggles to account for
WKHUROHRIWKHWLJHUDQGXOWLPDWHO\GRHVQRWDFFHSW.DQDLVVXJJHsWLRQWRUHDGWKHWLJHUIURPDQLQRXWVLGHUVSHUVSHFWLYHDVDPHUHWDUJHW
of revenge and instead imagines feeling its heartbeat), the implied
(Western) reader also struggles with the brutality against the animal.
7KLVUHDFWLRQVWDQGVDVDQH[DPSOHRIWKHGLHJHWLFOHDS(Bergthaller)
referred to above. A conflict on the level of the plot transcends
diegetic boundaries and is enacted extratextually and through readerresponses, following the same logic of tension that exists between
Deep and Social Ecologies. For a hypothetical :HVWHUQ UHDGHU WKH
QRYHOVVWDWXVDVDSRVWFRORQLDOWH[WWKXVSURYLGHVWKHYHU\VSDWLDOGLstance needed for the emergence of meaning, if ZHEURDGHQ*DGDPHUV
concept accordingly so as to engage with spatial as well as temporal
distances (see Reckwitz 2000: 19 for a similar argument).
123
With regard to the structural pattern as such, the tiger literally constitutes a fictional singularity, and its narrativisation is marked by an
H[WUDRUGLQDU\RQH-QHVVthat sets it apart both from the natural environment that it shares with humans and the human constellations which
are marked by a dichotomous and tripartite structure. In the first case,
the tiger motif hints at the cultural significance of the unspeakable
threat it stands for in the context of local human culture. In the second
case, the animal other is marked by a significant individualism which
forsakes any interpretation in terms of stereotype or stand-in function.
While the characters can be reduced to a specific function in the narrative, the tiger remains singled out, individual and opposed to a symbolic appropriation.
The tiger thus engenders a tension that stems from the idea of silence and his physical presence at the same time. The realistic description of the animal and its meaning in the context of the story as a
threat to people living in the Sundarbans does not exhaust the meaning
RI WKH FKDUDFWHU 7KH WLJHU LV QRW WKH V\PERO RI Sower relation and
SROLWLFVEXWDEUHDWKLQJVHQVLWLYHEHLQJZLWKDKHDUWEHDW%RWK3L\D
and Kanai from the beginning of the book appear as mouthpieces
rather than round characters. In fact, they can be read as metonymic
functions in the structural composition of the novel, standing first and
foremost for dualistic elements7KDWWKH WLJHULV WKHRQO\ FKDUDFWHU
resisting such a dualistic reading makes him important as a being as
such and renders a purely symbolic reading impossible. Since the tiger
does not speak and never becomes a focaliser, his significance is a
daring and subtle moment of ecocentrism. This ecocentric moment
depends on tensions rather than on the idea of undisputed harmony,
XQGHUVWDQGLQJ RU EHFRPLQJ ,QVWHDG RI realistically staging perceptions, the text establishes the tiger as something that is real as the
mute centre of the textual construction.
Read with a special focus on its structure, the narrative enables a
sense of environmental justice to emerge from the interpretive analysis of textual form. While human beings at least partially also function
as semantic stand-ins, it is the animal character the tiger who resists such an instrumentalisation. The focXV RQ D WH[WV FRQVWUXFWHdness unfolds this significance and its epistemological value in the
reading and making sense of the text. Negotiating the meaning of form
thus becomes a necessary aspect of the text, which in turn is concerned with negotiations on the level of its plot. The establishment of
literary, environmental justice and avenues for reading the animal
124
other rely on the interplay of structural construction and readerly interpretation. The interplay of narratological observation (how is the
text constructed?) and the focus of reception(s) (how does the text
affect its readers?) results in forms of understanding that directly relate to experiences of alterity.
This hermeneutic relation of self and other in the case of ecocriticism, expressed by the connection of world and individual perception
can EHOLQNHGWR5LFXUVQRWLRQRIHPSORWPHQW,QKLVPRQXPHQWDO
Time and Narrative5LFXUGHVFULEHVWKHUHODWLRQEHWZHHQWKHDFWLvity of narrating a story and the temporal character of human experience (1983: 52). 8QOLNH%XHOO5LFXUGHVFULEHVPLPHVLVLQWHUPVRI
the emplotment of experience and thereby turns his back on any idea
RI D UHDO OLWHUDO PLPHVLV IRU WKH VDNH RI D UHILQHG DFFRXQW RI WKH
imaginary interaction of world and individual experience with narraWLYHV+HDUJXHVWKDWWKHFRPSRVLWLRQRIWKHSORWLVJURXQGHGLQDSUHunderstanding of the world in action, its meaningful structures, its
symbolic resources, and its temporal character (54). :KLOH 5LFXU
maintains that the elements of such emplotting devices are structural,
symbolic and temporal, from an ecocritical perspective it is important
to add the spatial category and to point towards newer studies on spatial poetics and the negotiation of place and emplacement via narrative
patterns (see Hallet & Neumann 2009; Heise 2008).
)RU 5LFXU WKH V\PEROLFDOO\ SUHILJXUHG PLPHVLV1 is complemented by the configured world of mimesis2. In The Hungry Tide, this
world is narrated via the focalising technique I described above, and
WKXV QDWXUH FDQ EH understood not only as a narrative principle or
device but also as an active presence within the narrated world. It is
important to note that, although prefiguration already takes place in
mimesis1, it is on the level of mimesis2 that emplotment is established
as a PHGLDWLQJ RSHUDWLRQ WKDW GUDZVD FRQILJXUDWLRQRXW RID VLPSOH
succession (65). Mimesis2 WKXVPHGLDWHVLQ5LFXUVZRUGVEHWZHHQ
ZKDWSUHFHGHVILFWLRQDQGZKDWIROORZVLW (65) that is, world and
PLQG 5LFXU QRW RQO\ GHVFULEHV ZKDW ,VHU FDOOs WKH YLUWXDO GLPHnVLRQRIWKHWH[W (Iser 1974: 280), he also denies any simple referentiality for the sake of a dynamism that
lies in the fact that a plot already exercises, within its own textual field, an integrating and [...] a mediating function, which allows to bring about [...] a mediation
of a larger amplitude between the preunderstanding and, if I may dare to put it this
way, the postunderstanding of the order of action and its temporal features.
5LFXU
125
,Q GHVFULELQJ WKLV G\QDPLVP 5LFXU KHUH VHHPV WR GHVFULEH ZKDW ,
call, with regard to the ecocritical orientation of my study, the phenomenon of EnvironMentality, and I am convinced that not only can
the temporal dimension be addressed by narratives (although the character of plot surely helps us to understand why analyses have favoured
this element), but that the spatial dimension (or even a broader conception of being-in-the-world) is equally relevant.
This processual configuration of meaning is also at work in other
instances in The Hungry Tide, and I want to conclude the discussion
RI JDSV DQG WHQVLRQV E\ HQJDJLQJ ZLWK WKH RYHUWO\ VOLFN DQG KDSS\
HQGLQJWKDWDQXPEHr of reviewers have remarked on, as Gurr recounts (2010a: 75). Indeed, both from a perspective that focuses on
plausibility and with regard to the structural logic explained above, the
HQGLQJ LV SUREOHPDWLF 3L\DV EHKDYLRXU DSSHDUV WRR WKRURXJKO\
changed and ecologically FRUUHFW to be credible. What is more, if a
purely form-oriented reading practice has already helped to realise
what I call WKHWH[WVPRUDOHWKHVZD\LQJEHWZHHQRQHSROHDQGWKH
RWKHU DQG WKH IDFW WKDW OLIH LV OLYHG LQ WUDQVIRUPDWLRQ then this
forced closure on the level of the plot is at the least unnecessary, if not
GRZQULJKWIODW,ZDQWWRDUJXHKRZHYHUWKDWWKHQRYHOVHQGLQJMXVW
like the tiger encounter, can be read as a significant hermeneutic challenge with regard to the reader response, which in this case does not
revolve around shock and compassion as in the tiger scene. Instead,
the challenge lies in making sense of this form of closure. On the one
hand, readers might expect such a form of closure; the ending would
then be a concession to the market and the expectations of the readerVKLS 7KH FULWLFDO UHPDUNV RQ WKH IODZHG HQGLQJ VXJJHVW KRZHYHU
that the readership might not have welcomed this denouement. In both
cases, it is impossible to read the ending as the resolution of the numerous tensions and conflicts the text had addressed before rather, it
is necessary to juxtapose different possible readings.
The most obvious reading is that the text finally exemplifies its
thesis of understanding nature by having Piya adapt herself as well as
her life to the new task she had already envisioned when she first met
ZLWK WKH K\EULG GROSKLQV WKH ZRUN IRU D OLIHWLPH DQG DQ DOLEL IRU
OLIH (THT 125; 126). But another focus may be more productive: a
IRFXV RQ WKH VXJJHVWLYH IDOOLQJ DSDUW RI WKH OLWHUDU\ FRPSRVLWLRQ
(Gurr 2010a: 75) could take into account the unresolved tensions of
WKH VROXWLRQ SUHVHQWHG LQ WKH WH[W )URP WKDW SRLQW RI YLHZ D
126
127
128
129
This is because focalisers are less distant from the reader than a character represented in dialogue. While Nirmal is present through his
diary, his wife is only being narrated throughout the novel which is
LQVWDUNFRQWUDVWWRKHUFKDUDFWHU,QFRQWUDVWWR1LUPDOVGLVPLVVDORI
KLV ZLIH DV D SHUVRQ ZLWKRXW SRHWLF YLVLRQ KRZHYHU LW LV 1LOLPDV
pragmatism that stands for an effective, local, social-ecological engagement. Due to the narrative construction that puts her in the position of only being narrated, the tensions her perspective evokes are
unresolved for example, when she dismisses KanaiV argument that
the killings by tigers are caused by human population. She argues that
in the nineteenth century, equally large numbers of people were killed,
and she establishes her own narrative of the animals that have reacted
to their environment:
[T]KH WLGH FRXQWU\V WLJHUV ZHUH GLIIHUHQW IURP WKRVH HOVHZKHUH >] [T]his propensity came from the peculiar conditions of the tidal ecology, in which large
parts of the forest were subjected to daily submersions. The theory went that this
UDLVHGWKHDQLPDOVWKUHVKROGRIDJJUHVVLRQE\ZDVKLQJDZD\WKHLUVFHQWPDUNLQJV
and confusing their territorial instincts. (THT 241)
Her concerns for human beings remain pragmatic but at the same
time, she is keenly aware of the reductionist and inadequate nature of
scientific solutions for the dilemma. This is shown by her critical remarks on the scientific theories that tried to resolve the moral diOHPPDWKHWURXEOHZDVWKDWHYHQif it was true, there was nothing that
FRXOGEHGRQHDERXWLW, DQG>Z@LWKHYHU\IHZ\HDUVFDPHVRPHQHZ
theory and some yet more ingenious solution (241). She goes on to
criticise a theory by virtue of which it was decided to provide the tiJHUV ZLWK H[WUD ZDWHU Just imagine that! [...] In a place where nobody thinks twice aERXWKXPDQEHLQJVJRLQJWKLUVW\ (241). Despite
her emphatic criticism and the importance of her argument, all she
has, it seems, are the moments of speech that are given to her in the
sections where Kanai functions as the focaliser and that are staged as
scenic dialogue.
However, it is Nilima who has shaped the human settlement and
most of the SHRSOHVOLYHVLQ/XVLEDUL7KDWWKHQRYHOUHZDUGVWKLVZLWK
130
25
131
6KH DOVR SRLQWV WR WKH IDFW WKDW QDWXUH DQG WKH QDWXUDO UHTXLUH the
most insistent signification by means of (artificial) signifiers just as
the supposedly mimetic representation of direct discourse is constituted by a maximum of artificial markers of alterity (4). 1DWXUDO
elements of narrative can, accordingly, be identified and deconstructed
quite easily and, I would like to add, so can narratives about nature.26
7KDWWKHWLJHUVVHQWLHQFHFDQEHGLVFXVVHGIRUH[DPSOHHYHQWKRXJK
it is not staged HFRPLPHWLFDOO\, and despite the fact that the tiger is
never the focaliser, is due to the importance of interpretive movement.
It underlines the value of a hermeneutical engagement with the worldas-text. This is why the narrative can sharpen an awareness of the
significance of perception in the process of establishing meaning. The
WLJHUV VLOHQFH DQG WKH FRPSOHWH DEVHQFH RI SHUVSHFWLYH EHFRPH VLgnificant in this context. The most elegant comment that the text makes
about nature is the admission of rigorous muteness. It means that
nature is assigned a double status, quite in accordance with what has
been said about double-FRGLQJ LW LV QDWXUH RXW WKHUH EXW LW LV DOVR
formed by semiotic processes, and it thus constitutes a narrative principle but remains an elusive presence within the text. Thus, nature
becomes the unspeakable centre around which plot, narrative and
meaning evolve.
%XHOOVUDWKHUYDJXHFODLPRIDWH[WVHQYLURQPHQWDOLW\FDQQRZ
be substantiated. The claim WKDWVSHFLILFHQYLURQPHQWDO, textual traits
exist must be reformulated as it is the awareness of an interplay
26
relationship between the sender and the receiver. It goes without saying, for example that the same text can be received by one reader as intensely mimetic and
by another as an onl\VOLJKWO\H[SUHVVLYHDFFRXQW: 165). Unlike Genette,
I do not explain this divergence historically but contextualise these different
perceptions with regard to EnvironMentality: not only do different readers perceive differently, different readings let the same reader perceive things differently
by virtue of the hermeneutical process I am describing.
$Q H[DPSOH RI VXFK D GHFRQVWUXFWLRQ RI VXSSRVHGO\ QDWXUDO QDUUDWLYHV FDQ EH
IRXQGLQ0RUWRQVGLVFXVVLRQRIHFRPLPHVLVDVIDQWDV\6HH0RUWRQ(2009: 637).
132
EHWZHHQWKHWH[WVGHHSDQGVXUIDFHVWUXFWXUHs and the meaning realised by its readers that lead to the effect pointed to by diverse concepts
VXFKDVGHFHQWULQJUHFHQWULQJ+HDGDQGWKHH[SHULHQFHRIDOWHULW\
(Attridge). Moreover, it is not a moral lesson or factual knowledge
that can be derived from reading ecocritically; in fact, it is not even
possible, ultimately, WRUHOLHYHWKHVLOHQFHWKDW:HVWOLQJGHVFULEHVDV
WKH PXWH ODQG WKDW HQYHORSV OLWHUDWXUH (2006: 39). On the contrary,
literature helps us to experience this silence so that in the postcolonialecocritical context, reading the world-as-text points to the necessity of
D PRUH FRQWLQJHQW >@ DQG FDXWLRXV KHUPHQHXWLFV, as DeLoughrey
and Handley claim (2011b: 29). Since no definite features that qualify
DVJHQXLQHPDUNHUVRIHQYLURQPHQWDOLW\FDQEHLGHQWLILHGWKHidea of
HQYLURQPHQWDO textual traits must therefore be reconceptualised:
reading ecocritically does not rely on textual environmentality
rather, the meaning we are looking for emerges in the hermeneutic
process of EnvironMentality.
133
134
which these ends are pursued can be found in the ubiquitous hints to
translation and intertextual references.
Following both Sandra Meyer (forthcoming) and Christopher Rollason (2005) , VHH WKH WURSH RI WUDQVODWLRQ DQG WKH QRYHOV FRQVWDQW
concern for transcultural communication as an intertextual and
metanDUUDWLYH GHYLFH WR DFFRXQW IRU WKH SUREOHP RI WUDQVODWLRQ LQ D
hybrid society (Meyer: n.p.). In her description of the ways the novel
LQWHJUDWHV5DLQHU0DULD5LONHVDuino Elegies on the one hand and the
local myth of Bon Bibi on the other, Sandra Meyer describes these
two textual elePHQWVDVGLDPHWULFDOO\RSSRVHG, but states:
:KHUHDV 5LONHV WH[W LV WUDQVQDWLRQDOO\ DFFODLPHG DQG KDV EHHQ WUDQVODWHG LQWR
various languages, the local story is primarily passed on orally from one generation to the other. >@+RZHYHULWEHFRPHVFOHDULQWKHHQGLQJRIWKHQRYHOWKDW
this clear distinction between the two intertexts is no longer valid. (n.p.)
Not only is this distinction rendered invalid; in fact, the very engagement with these two types of literature creates a number of interpretive challenges that question, for example, the idea of Western
canonical literature (Rilke), and that maintain the role of heteroglot
textuality.
The inclusion of Rilke in particular adds significant semiotic power
in the context of The Hungry Tide as an Indian novel in English beFDXVH5LONHFDQEHUHDGDVD:HVWHUQFDQRQLFal writer but also in the
sense of a postcolonial, ecological conscience. Ramachandra Guha,
for instance, describes Rilke in Environmentalism: A Global History
(1999) as one of the patron saints of German environmental thinking,
which lead the historian Joachim Radkau, author of the German pendant Die ra der kologie (7KH (UD RI (FRORJ\), to express his
DPD]HPHQWDERXWWKLVEROGEXWDUELWUDU\FKRLFHWKDWLncludes poetry
and leaves out Greenpeace altogether (Radkau 2011: 12; my translation). *XKDV FKRLFH RI 5LONH VXJJHVWV WKDW 5LONHV SRHWU\ PD\ KDYH
been re-appropriated into the context of environmentalist thinking in
India, and its appearance LQ*KRVKVQRYHOoffers an interpretive challenge as to ZKHWKHU WR UHDG LW DV DQ LQVWDQFH RI :HVWHUQ FDQRQLFal
hegemony or as a form of shared literary meaning. This tension has
been discussed in Chapter 4.2, and it underlines the significance of the
reDGHUVKHUPHQHXWLFVLWXDWLRQ
7KDW VXFK DQ DZDUHQHVV RI RQHVLQGLYLGXDO KHUPHQHXWLF VLWXDWLRQ
is crucial is emphasised by the characters, too. Being an interpreter by
profession, Kanai embodies the motif of translation and the dangers of
135
136
hybrid (THT 247).27 This is how Nirmal describes the myth of Bon
Bibi,28 and the closeness to the above descriptions of the landscape is
VWULNLQJVLQFHWKHPXGEDQNVRIWKHWLGHFRXQWU\DUHVKDSHGQRWRQO\
by rivers of silt, but also by rLYHUV RI ODQJXDJH; THT 247). By describing discursive hybridity not only as a postcolonial phenomenon
but in terms of environmental emplotment, the narrative connects this
idea of hybridised story-WHOOLQJ ZLWK WKH HQYLURQPHQWV SDOLPSVHVWLF
texture. Robert Young writes that, as it suggests a careful engagement
with meaning, literary hybridity RIIHUV FKDOOHQJHV UDWKHU WKDQ VROutions [...] and allows its audiences themselves to interpret its new
spaces with relevant meanings of their own (2003: 74). These spaces
can be understood as semiotic ones, but they can also stand for actual
places, such as Garjantola or the tidal environment of the Sundarbans
in general. Thus, the narrative on various levels redraws or blurs the
conceptual and spatial borders with which it engages.
3RVWFRORQLDOK\EULGLW\DQGHYHQIRUPVRIZULWLQJEDFNcan be reconfigured in terms of the larger scope of narrating the environment.
While constantly shifting borders in an environment that changes form
rapidly and continually, nature seems to be the only constant. Not only
is this idea staged by means of the tidal rhythm, but it appears on various levels. For example, the invisible but nevertheless crucial dividing
line between the area of human settlement and the realm of Dokhin
Rah remains an important boundary that structures the whole
27
28
137
29
For the notion of the semiosphere and the idea that the narrative dynamics depends to a large extent on the tension within a binary structure of spatial organisation, see Lotman (1990: 121-214) and Lotman (1977).
138
7KHUHLVPRUHHYLGHQFHIRUWKHK\SRWKHVLVWKDW3L\DVHPSDWK\DFWXDOO\KHOSVKHU
to learn about and understand the ecosystem. Watching the sleeping Fokir and
7XWXOVKHUHDOLVHVWKDWWKHUK\WKPRIWKHLUEUHDWKLQJUHPLQGHGKHURIWKHSDLURI
GROSKLQVVKHKDGEHHQZDWFKLQJHDUOLHUTHT 138) and the motif of breathing is
later echoed when Piya is confronted with both the heavily breathing bird and the
tiger in the storm.
139
32
33
Arguably, this distinction between a feeling female character and a logocentristically verbalising male character could be criticised from an ecofeminist position.
It must be noted, however, that this constellation is opposed with 3L\DDQG)RNLUV
relationship: here, it is Piya who represents a logocentric, scientific and Western
V\VWHP ZKLOH )RNLU FRXOG EH VHHQ DV VWDQGLQJ IRU WKH QDWXUDO ZRUOG DQG QREOH
VDYDJHU\ 7KHUHIRUH WKH FRnstant shifting between these dualist representations
effectively questions the very dualisms.
This reading also questions the cosmopolitan optimism that prevails in the critiFLVP RI 3L\DV FKDUDFWHU DQG LW FRQVLGHUV 7LPRWK\ %UHQQDQV (1997) critical assessment of cosmopolitanism as an ideological weapon of Western cultural elites.
Again, this tension can be felt extratextually as well. For readers familiar with the
German version of the Elegies, it is remarkable that the English translation is
inaccurate at a point that directly hints at the ambivalences of interpretation: the
140
141
But the text makes quite clear that no more than a glimpse of this is
possible.
Ultimately, the numerous perspectives and the different narrative
directions all seem to be silenced in this moment of oneness. It is in
this moment of closest contact with the centre of nature and, thus, life,
that the narrative confronts us with its visions of mutual understanding. At the same time, it presents the image of a mute centre from
which the transformations that affect the land, and that are invoked
UHSHDWHGO\ DUH HQJHQGHUHG )RNLU DQG 3L\D EHFRPH RQH DV HYHUywhere their bodies met, their skin was joined by a thin membrane of
VZHDW (THT 383) and so do Piya and the animals around her the
bird that she is able to touch and, most importantly, the tiger that she
is able to empathise with. On the level of the narrative perspective,
however, it is remarkable that the alternating focalisation between
Piya and Kanai is working perfectly again; just as the merging of perspectives did not accompany but rather prefigured the storm, the storm
seems to have brought the narrative back into its original balance. On
a narrative level, this structure reflects once more the textual moralH
WKDWWUDQVformation is the rule of life (224). This idea is translated in
many ways: LQWR WKH ODQJXDJH RI QDWXUH IRU H[DPSOH DQG Lnto the
narrative structure of the novel.
By virtue of the tension between mutual understanding and the
ambiguous role of translation, The Hungry Tide emplots the contingency and dangers of an interpretation in terms of transcultural, cosmopolitan and environmental knowledge. It thus engenders a sense of
WKH QHHG IRU D FDXWLRXV KHUPHQHXWLFV WKDW FRQVLGHUV D WHQVLRQ >@
EHWZHHQ WKH >@ WH[WV VWUDQJHQHVV DQG IDPLOLDUity (Gadamer 1994:
295),34 and readers are made aware of their hermeneutic situation as a
VWDQGSRLQW WKDW Oimits the possibility of vision (302). In addressing
these limitations and the gaps discussed in my interpretation as a hermeneutic challenge, EnvironMentality can be defined as a negotiation
of textual form and meaning demarcated by an individual horizon. It is
essential now to broaden this horizon.
34
4XLWHLQOLQHZLWK3L\DVH[SHULHQFHDQGP\UHDGLQJRI The Hungry Tide, GadaPHU VWDWHV WKDW the true locus of hermeneutics is this in-between 1994: 295;
emphasis orig.).
5. Facets of EnvironMentality
As Wolfgang Iser maintains, with literary theory, readers can discern
literar\PHDQLQJE\ YLUWXHRIPDSSLQJ (see Iser 2006: 5). The preceding chapter has indeed sought to map sources of what Buell deVFULEHV DV WH[WXDO environmentality %XHOO . Instead of
WKLQNLQJ RIHQYLURQPHQWDOLW\DVDWH[WXDO JLYHQ KRZHYHU my reading of The Hungry Tide has delineated a process of engaging with the
form and content of literature via interpretation and described the interpretive negotiations of gaps and tensions in terms of a hermeneutic
process. The result of this process, which acNQRZOHGJHVWKHliterary
event as an encounter with alterity, I have termed EnvironMentality.
That is to say, EnvironMentality emerges as a result of negotiations:
the aporias of reading nature, the tensions of reality and the challenge
of talking about truth in the plural all constitute the experience of
reading environmental texts. I have argued that in our dealing with
nature, and with postcolonial environments in particular, the concept
of alterity can help to discuss the singularity of literature as well as the
world-as-text. Accordingly, and rather than providing for an exhaustive reading, the last chapter has opened up several avenues for interSUHWDWLRQ$QGLQVWHDGRISURYLGLQJDXQLYRFDOGHILQLWLRQRIWKHHQYLURQPHQWDOWH[WLWKDVH[SORUHGWKHFRQFHSWRIEnvironMentality in the
process of reading.
What has EHFRPH FOHDU WRR LV WKDW WKH rescuing of literary disFRXUVH$WWULGJHE argued for at the beginning of Chapter
4 can only work to a postcolonial-ecocritical advantage if emplotment
is understood as a means to move beyond the distinctLRQRIIRUPDQG
FRQWHQW $OWKRXJK VXFK D GLVWLQFWLRQ PDNHV VHQVH IRU KHXULVWLF UHasons, it cannot be maintained. Accordingly, by looking for EnvironMentality, I have been approachLQJDVWXG\RIform without formalism (119). By the same token, Mikhail %DNKWLQFODLPVWKDWWKHVWXG\
of verbal art can and must overcome the divorce between an abstract
IRUPDO DSSURDFK DQG DQ HTXDOO\ DEVWUDFW LGHRORJLFDO DSSURDFK
)RUPDQGFRQWHQWLQGLVFRXUVHDre one (Bakhtin 1981: 258).
144
By taking into account the sSHFLILF VRFLDO WRQH RI WKH QRYHO
%DNKWLQ GHVFULEHV LW DV D SKHQRPHQRQ PXOWLIRUP LQ VW\OH DQG YDUiform in speech and voice (Bakhtin 1981: 258; 261). He furthermore
writes that by means of a new poetics of the novel we can understand
KRZ >H@YHU\ QRYHO >@ LV DQ LQWHQWLRQDO DQG FRQVFLRXV K\EULG RI
different layers of language and meaning, which interact dialogically
(366) %DNKWLQV QRWLRQ RI KHWHURJORW QRYHOLVWLF VSHHFK LQGHHG FRUUesponds to the tone of The Hungry Tide. In my reading, I have connected the intertextual DOOXVLRQV DQG WKH QRYHOV heteroglossia to the
RYHUDUFKLQJHQYLURQPHQWDORULHQWDWLRQRIWKHQDUUDWLYH%DNKWLQVLGHD
RIWKHFDUQLYDOLVDWLRQRIOLWHUDU\VSHHFKFDQWKXVEHUH-assessed in the
context of this study (see also Murphy 2011). It shares aspects and
IXQFWLRQV ZLWK ZKDW =DSI FDOOV WKH HFRORJLFDO IXQFWLRQ RI OLWHUDWXUH
(or, for that matter, what postcolonial studies describes as the discurVLYH SRWHQWLDO GHULYHG IURP DPELYDOHQFH PLPLFU\ DQG K\EULGLW\.1
By incorporating various linguistic and discursive elements into the
QRYHOLVWLFZKROHWKHQRYHOVWDQGVDVDSDURG\RIWKHOD\HUVRIPHDnLQJRQWKHRQHKDQGDQGDVDUHSUHVHQWDWLRQRILPDJHVRIODQJXDJHV
DVWKH\HQWHUWKHJUHDWDQd diverse world of verbal forms (Bakhtin
1981: 52), on the other.2
In my reading of The Hungry Tide, I have identified a number of
narrative strategies that VXSSOHPHQWHGRULQVWLJDWHGDQHQYLURQPHQWDO
reading experience. My findings will now serve as the starting point
for further readings: the emplotment of the natural environment and its
staging through narrative situations and focalisation, the dialogic nature of fiction and its negotiation of the muteness of non-human
nature, and the role of intertextual references, for instance. MukherMHHV FODLP WKDW The Hungry Tide H[DJJHUDWHGO\ SHUIRUPV LWV RZQ
fictionality by borrowing idioms, rhythms and cadences from allied art
IRUPVWKDWFRQVWLWXWHWKHFXOWXUDOPDWUL[ (2010: 12) serves as an important impulse%\ZKDWPHDQVGRHVOLWHUDWXUHperform its own fictionality and how does this relate to EnvironMentality? According to
1
Facets of EnvironMentality
145
Bakhtin, the dialogical alliance with other works of art is one of the
most effective characteristics of novelistic heteroglossia in general.
For the difficulty of reality, and for the elusiveness of nature, this
PHDQVWKDWDQRYHOVGLVFXUVLYHQHJRWLDWLRQVFRQVWLWXWHDYLDEOHZD\RI
coming to terms with some of the complexities that nature and postcolonial environments entail.
In the preceding chapter, I commented on the motif and trope of
translation in The Hungry Tide. On the surface level of the text, translation appears as an element of the plot, and it is primarily represented
by one character, Kanai. In the course of the interpretive process,
however, it becomes a trope whose narrative staging clearly connects
to the environmental concerns discerned in my interpretation of the
text. It could be argued that the trope of translation that informs my
reading in general clashes with the role translation plays as an aspect
RI.DQDLVFKDUDFWHUQDPHO\DVSDUWRIKLVXUEDQHEDFNJURXQGDQG
almost arrogant, language-focused stance, which contrasts strikingly
ZLWK 3L\DV FKDUDFWHU +RZHYHU LQ P\ KHUPHQHXWLF DFFRXQW RI The
Hungry Tide, the trope of translation is not read this way; instead it
DGGVWRWKHLGHDWKDWWKHPDQ\-layered problem of translation [is] the
model for the linguisticality of all human behaviour in the world
(Gadamer 1976: 19). Gadamer points out that every interpretation is
always also a moment of translation, and he thus emphasises that the
subjective interpretation of art opens ways of understanding a shared
PHDQLQJ EHWZHHQ >..] strangeness and familiarity (Gadamer 1994:
295).
%\WKHVDPHWRNHQ*DGDPHUFODLPVWKDWWKHVKDULQJLQFRPPRQ
PHDQLQJ (292) GHSHQGVRQWKHRSHQQHVVWRWKHPHDQLQJRIWKHRWKHU
SHUVRQ RU WH[W WKLV RSHQQHVV DOZD\V LQFOXGHV RXU VLWXDWLQJ WKH
other meaning in relation to the whole of our meanings or ourselves in
relation to it (268). This focus on otherness clearly resonates with
$WWULGJHVQRWLRQ of the otherness of literature and helps to see that a
hermeneutic reflection of prejudices with its ethical implications can
easily be distinguished IURP +XJJDQV concept of otherness as the
raw material of what he calls the DOWHULW\LQGXVWU\:
7KHRWKHUQHVVRUDOWHULW\RIOLWHUDWXUHLVSUHFLVHO\not the sense in which the term
is used by Huggan, because it is not amenable to the domestication gesture of
exoticism, resists commodification, and always exists as a disruptive excess in relation to existing cultural norms. (Mukherjee 2010: 10)
146
Facets of EnvironMentality
147
148
focuses on textual form does not lead away from content or meaning
at all, although critics have claimed this. In fact, formalist-structuralist
WKHRU\KDVQHYHUH[FOXVLYHO\EHHQFRQFHUQHGZLWKIRUPDWWKHFRVWRI
FRQWHQW
There is no denying that formalist practice included such affinities and dangers [to
exclude questions of all nonverbal aspects of literature]. [...] [But] in the formalist
method, it was only the direction of the question that was determined; the catalogue of questions was not. In this respect, it also allows for an inclusion of sociological, psychological, philosophical and other problems, given that the overall direction of the inquiry remains literature as such, which means that the special
function of all these factors within the system of the literary work or of literature
is scrutinised and not turned into material for other approaches with different and
specific research questions. (Striedter 1971b: xix; my translation)
This balance is exactly what I am looking for, and postclassical approaches in narratology and New-Formalism stand as examples of the
necessity of reconciling content and form in literary studies (see
Heinen & Sommer 2009; Levinson 2007).
In this context, it is also important that the focus on how a text
ZRUNVLQWHUPVRIDHVWKHWLFIXQFWLRQDOLW\DOORZVXVWRWUDQVFHQGSHrsonal (authorial) ideology. When Bakhtin points out the general dialogicity of a text, which cannot be reduced to the actual dialogues of
characters, for instance, this dialogicity has to be understood as an
intertextual struggle of voices and meanings within the written word
(see Bakhtin 1990)$FFRUGLQJO\NORYVNy GHVFULEHVKRZWKHLQKHrHQWODZVRIWKHZRUNVVWUXFWXUHDQGWKHDUWLVWLFSUDFWLces [result in an]
ability to compete with the [...] ideological position or thematic conception of the author as such (Striedter 1971b: xxxiv; my translation). %DNKWLQDQGNORYVNy describe a tension inherent in every literary text but this tension becomes particularly relevant with regard to
environmental texts: if dialogicity is a constituent of every text, literatuUH FDQ LQGHHG FRQWULEXWH LQ VLJQLILFDQW ZD\V WR >WKH@ WUDQVGLVFLSOiQDU\GLDORJXH(Zapf 2009: 847) of ethics and ecology without being
overly or exclusively concerned with ecological questions or mimetic
representations of nature. In a postcolonial context, this dialogical
potential is pivotal (see Barker 2010: 25). If the benefit of formalist
literary studies lies in its focus on the very literary elements (rather
than a concentration on purely ethical discourses as can be found
in philosophical debates), it must be possible to show that it is this
Facets of EnvironMentality
149
$FFRUGLQJ WR =DSI WKLV OHDGV WR D UHVLVWDQFH to moralistic storytelling (854), and such a form of resistance may be engendered by narUDWLYHSURSHUWLHVVXFKDVWKHLQWHUSOD\RIDVWRU\VVXSSRVHG moralV
and the closer analysis of its form. Reading texts raises the awareness
for gaps of meaning. It is the tension between what Iser, following
,QJDUGHQ FDOOV LQWHQWLRQDO VHQWHQFH FRUUHODWLYHV DQG WKH UHDOLVDWLRQ
of meaning by the reader that allows for a critical reading praxis that
can be called ethical (see Iser 1974: 276).
Reading ecocritically is therefore inextricably connected with interpretation. Interpretation, in turn, does not simply mean the prejudgement that Heidegger and Gadamer have shown to always also
H[LVWLQDQ\VXSSRVHGO\LQQRFHQWUHDGLQJRIDWH[WLWPHDQVDQDFWLYH
negotiation of the tension arising both from an individual interpretive
moment and, as both Fish and Rorty have shown, the relevance of
RQHVLQWHUSUHWLYHFRPPXQLW\Such negotiations in The Hungry Tide
take place with regard to the conflict between Deep Ecology and Social Ecology, for instance, which is acted out on various levels of the
narrative. It is not only a structural element of the plot, it also configures the reading experience. The interpretive process thus exposes a
third SODFH 5 beyond the either/or categories the conflict between
'HHS DQG 6RFLDO (FRORJ\ SUHVXSSRVHV E\ WDNLQJ WKH GLHJHWLF OHDS
$OWKRXJKWKHFORVHQHVVWR%KDEKDVWHUPLQRORJ\LVDQ\WKLQJE\FRLQFLGHQWDO,DP
here referring to Kramsch (1993).
150
(Bergthaller) as the reader, in a specific cultural environment, negotiates and harmonises individual, interpretive choices.
It is therefore particularly the concern for the postcolonial context
of the works under scrutiny that has helped to emphasise the importance of the interpretive subject. Notably the spatial and, thus, the
epistemological and cultural differences have had a crucial impact on
the reading presented above. This distance, I have argued, becomes a
source of meaning, and it refutes ideas of becoming one with the other
and argues for an acknowledgement of difference instead (for a disFXVVLRQRIGLIIHUHQFHLQHFRFULWLFLVPVHH&ODYLH]. Moreover,
my interpretation of The Hungry Tide has shown that reading the environment does not mean coming to terms with the world as an empirical reality. Rather, I have pointed to a challenge with regard to
postcolonial readings. When I dismiss a cultural-materialist interpretation (an Indian, a Bengali or a subaltern way of reading), I take full
advantage of the idea that an Indian text in English can be taken as a
ORFXVRIDVKDULQJLQFRPPRQPHDQLQJ (Gadamer 1994: 292) where
interpretation always reflects back on the personal identity of the
reader. While the novelistic discourse is thoroughly heteroglot, the
interpretation of the text has shown the configured world, and the
identity related to it, coming into being as a personal encounter. Instead of an empirical world and cultural knowledge, EnvironMentality
leads to the awareness that the self is connected to the world in an act
of individual readerly realisation.
Thus, the idea of an ethics of reading and the hermeneutic project
RI QDUUDWLYH LGHQWLW\ 5LFXU DUH FRQQHFWHG and the conception of
EnvironMentality links to literary anthropology. While I have referred
WR =DSIV PRGHO RI OLWHUDU\ HFRORJ\, which is grounded directly on
theories of cultural ecology and literary anthropology (thus connecting
to the writing of Iser, amongst others), I maintain a cautious distance
to the metaphor of ecology. I agree with Zapf who argues that to unGHUVWDQG WKH aesthetic and imaginative dimensions of literature
(Zapf 2006: 53; emphasis orig.) is one of the numerous aims of ecocritical scholarship. I also follow his claim that we need to ask for the
function the fictional mode of literary communication, which is characterized not
by direct imitation but by the defamiliarization and symbolic transformation of
UHDOLW\DQGQDWXUHcan have within the larger system of cultural institutions and
discourses. (53)
Facets of EnvironMentality
151
However, I do not think that ecology is necessarily the right metaphor or analogy for these processes. Although Zapf employs formalistic vocabulary and shows the same acute awareness of the peculiarity
of fictional discourse that I have argued for above, his analogy to
ecology accentuates a pattern of organicism and autonomy. However,
dialogical literary discourses and their interpretation nolens volens
deconstruct these notions of organicism and autonomy. Following
Iser, I therefore interrogate notions of organic wholeness in literature
and the metaphoricity of cultural-ecological notions:
Artistic communication is guided by the principle of constructing a pattern out of
what interrupts patterns. Thus literature [...] appears as if it were a totality, because it is a concatenation of levels and processes that are similar to those at work
in an autonomous system. Therefore the literary text has been likened to the structure of an organism, which is the paradigm of an autonomous system. This autonomy, however, is artificial and incomplete [...]. Instead, it has to be processed by
the reader, who makes this artificial autonomy function in a context larger than
the text itself. The noise ensuing from such a coupling may have different origins.
[...] [W]hat appears to be noise on one level of the text may not only make meaning on another, but may also enhance the semantic complexity of the information
conveyed. (Iser 1996: 17)
I quote this passage at length because it highlights a number of important concerns. Firstly, it criticises the assumptions that literature is
autonomous or organic. By maintaining that neither is the case, Iser
argues for two important stances on literature: he dismisses the organic metaphoricity that can be found in models of cultural ecology as
these metaphors tend to overlook the aesthetic (human, artificial, configurative) aspects of the literary text; but he also illuminates the function of such metaphoricity in the history of narratological interest, for
the organic metaphor has been understood as the paradigm of the
DXWRQRPRXVV\VWHP An ecocritical narratology must therefore learn
to distinguish between the ideological vocabulary of earlier formoriented works and its own understanding of nature, organicism and
ecological systems. This critique could apply WR OLWHUDU\ HFRORJ\ DV
well.
This is why I employ notions of emplotment, configurative mimesis and narratologically informed interpretation, which consider the
reader as well. In the preceding chapter, I described how formal elements guide the reading process and ultimately become part of the
meaning of any literary experience. Engaging with form is thus the
first step in the interpretive process since narrative strategies and other
152
DVSHFWV RI IRUP FDQQRW EH GHVFULEHG DV HQYLURQPHQWDO DV VXFK
instead, it is the interplay with the readerly interpretive agency that
equips the visible structures of form with significant meaning by
merging natural experiences and textual orientation (see Fish 1980: 2).
Following Stanley Fish in his judgement that readerly activities cannot
EHPHUHO\LQVWUXPHQWDORUPHFKDQLFDOEXWWKDWWKH\DUHHVVHQWLDO
(2-3), an ecocritical theory of EnvironMentality would be grounded on
WKHDVVXPSWLRQWKDWWKHUHDGHUVUHVSRQVHLVQRWto the meaning; it is
the meaning (3; emphasis orig.). Since any formal device taken out
of context becomes an empty variable, it is both in the context of a
textual whole and in connection to readerly interpretive activity that
the elements I described above dialogicity, emplotment of nature in
the context of tripartite mimesis JDLQVLJQLILFDQFH,Q)LVKVZRUGV
the value of those features [can] only be determined by determining their function
in the developing experience of the reader. Linguistic facts [...] do have meaning
but the explanation for that meaning is not the capacity of syntax to express it but
the ability of a reader to confer it. (8)
The emphasis here should not only EH RQ WKH UHDGHUV DELOLW\ WR
confer meaning in general but also on the fact that readerly experience
develops in the act of reading. In hermeneutic terms, this means that
WKHUHVXOWRIUHDGLQJDFHUWDLQWH[WKDVLQWXUQWREHXQGHUVWRRGDVWKH
basis for future ecocritical readings, which are already informed by,
but also collide with, the environmental significance of former readings. In this study, the first reading was concerned with the emplotment of nature and it will be the basis for subsequent readings that, for
instance, focus on the animal. It is from there that I will go on to
discuss notions of posthumanism and the idea of a postnatural world
not as different discourses but as discourses that are entangled with
the idea of the natural environment and animality, and to be understood on the basis of the heuristic value of previous readings.
I am not proposing a way to gain philosophical insights, however.
What I am proposing is a literary way of learning to read the world.
This is why it would EH LPSRVVLEOH WR DWWULEXWH DQ\ LQGHSHQGHQW
PHDQLQJWRWKHOLWHUDU\IDFW this would, as Fish argues, have been
preselected (77). Instead, ecocritical reading means negotiation, and a
refusal of simplified concepts of referentiality for the sake oIVRPeWKLQJDFTXLUHGLQWKHFRQWH[WRIDQDFWLYLW\ (89) namely, to read the
world in an ethical context. As early as 1997, Joseph Meeker argued
for form to be taken into ecocritical account, and his ecocritical work
Facets of EnvironMentality
153
on literary genre is still largely stimulating.6 In the context of hermeQHXWLFV KRZHYHU 0HHNHUV FODLPV PXVW EH UHDVVHVVHG. Meeker dePDQGHGWKDW>V@\QWD[PXVW>@FKDQJHDQGZHZLOOKDYHWRUHWKLQN
the meanings of subject, predicate, object, noun, and verb. Rhythms of
language need to observe the pulses of fluids and the subtleties of
daily and seasonal time (1988: 5). Rather than thus stressing the referential function of literature, I see environmental meaning in fiction
as reliant on their configurative potential. That is to say, literary potential is engendered via interpretation the making sense of strucWXUDO IHDWXUHV GLDORJLF QDUUDWLYLVDWLRQ DQG RWKHU IRUPDO GLVWLQFWLRQV
[that do not] possess meaning (as a consequence of a built-in relationship between formal features and cognitive capacities) [but that] acquire it [...] by virtue of their position in a structure of experience
(Fish 1980: 91).
By virtue of being a singular event of meaning, literature can formulate a utopian, harmonising potential that at the same time resists
any totalising moral implications (see Eagleton 2011: 198-9). For the
reader, the negotiation of such a quasi-ethical discourse, which refuses
DQ\WLPHOHVVVSDFHOHVVVXEMHFWOHVVFRQGLWLRQDVLWSXUVXHVLWVORJLF,
provides for an experience of otherneVVE\YLUWXHRIWKHWH[WVVWDJLQJ
of the fundamental processes whereby language works upon us and
upon the world (Attridge 2004b: 198; 130). The literary text makes
possible a way of thinking beyond the boundaries of ordinary thought.
EnvironMentality does nRWUHTXLUHOLWHUDWXUHWREHHFRPLPHWLF and
LWHPEUDFHVDQRYHOVDUWLVWLFSRWHQWLDO7KXVLWQHJRWLDWHVWKHFRQILJurative potential and the environmental meaning fostered by creative
DQGOLWHUDU\HQFRXQWHUVZLWKUHDOLW\ In the words of Iser,
the novel deals with social and historical norms, [but] this does not mean that it
simply reproduces contemporary values. The mere fact that not all norms can possibly be included in the novel shows that there must be a process of selection [...].
Norms are social regulations, and when they are transposed into the novel they are
automatically deprived of their pragmatic nature. (1974: xii)
154
PRPHQWWKH\DUHGHSULYHGRIWKHLUSUDJPDWLFQDWXUH.=DSIOLNHZLVH
VWUHVVHVWKHDVSHFWRIGHSUDJPDWLVDWLRQDQGFODLPV that through
the suspension of direct referentiality and immediate purpose, [fiction] enables the
aestheticising distancing of real-world experiences and at the same time makes
possible their imaginative explorations. (Zapf 2001: 87)
One may therefore lRRN DW SRVVLEOH HYHQWV RI D WUDQVILJXUHG ZRUOG
that has been moulded by our interaction with the literary text. This
realisation can be described in terms of a reading praxis that is not
unlike what Fish described in his work on WKH interpretive communityVHH)LVK-74). With the idea of EnvironMentality, it is
possible to analyse the tension arising between such communities,
which almost arbitrarily label forms of writing as meaningful literaWXUH DQG WKH QDWXUH RI ILFWLRQDO WH[WV DV HYHQW RU semiotic acts irreGXFLEOHWRWKHFRGHVZKLFKJHQHUDWHWKHP(DJOHWRQ
Wolfgang Iser traces these negotiations and describes the history of
the novel as a KLVWRU\ RI discovery of esthetic pleasure (Iser 1974:
xiii). In a brief historical overview introducing his studies on reader
participation in the English novel, Iser claims that
[a]t the end of the seventeenth century, discovery was a process offering reassurances as regards the certitude salutis, thus relieving the distress caused by the
Calvinist doctrine of predestination. In the eighteenth century men were concerned with discovering that which the prevailing philosophy of empiricism was
unable to determine: namely, what human nature consists of [...]. In the nineteenth
FHQWXU\ WKH DWWHQWLRQ RI WKH GLVFRYHUHUV ZDV WXUQHG WR VXEMHFWLYLW\ first to its
social role and then to its overall structure. (xiii)
Facets of EnvironMentality
155
1974: xiii) emphasises the hermeneutic and ethical value of these discoveries. EnvironMentality thereby also exemplifies the formalist idea
of an evolutionary break with tradition with regard to certain reading
practices the examples are numerous.7
In the postcolonial-ecocritical context, where dichotomies and biQDU\WKLQNLQJDUHSUREOHPDWLVHGWKHDHVWKHWLFH[SHULHQFHRIDVWDWHRI
in-EHWZHHQ SURYLGHV IRU D VWLPXODWLQJ QHZ SHUVSHFWLYH8 7KH WH[WV
fictionality makes it SRVVLEOH WKDW ZH DUH >@ ERWK RXUVHOYHV DQG
VRPHRQHHOVHDWWKHVDPHWLPH (Fluck 2002: 263), but it also echoes
the tension of identity and difference pointed to in Gadamerian herPHQHXWLFV :LWK UHJDUG WR RXU WDVN RI WKLQNLQJ OLNH D PRXQWDLQ RU
NQRZLQJZKDWLWLVOLNHWREHDEDWWKHDHVWKHWLFSRWHQWLDORIOLWHUature engenders the very realisation of this claim IRU>W@KHILFWLRQDO
WH[WDOORZVXVWRHQWHUDFKDUDFWHUVSHUVSHFWLYHDnd perhaps even his
or her body (263).
To conclude: Reading D WH[WVIRUP GRHV FRQWULEXWH WR the understanding of it from an ecocritical perspective. Moreover, it strikes me
as odd that, by and large, formalist-structuralist approaches have been
overlooked by ecocriticism, since concepts of literary evolution and
means of aesthetic estrangement readily lend themselves to ecocritical
discussion. Reading texts as aesthetic discourses makes it possible to
describe the reading experience and the literary text as the prime locus
for ecocritical engagement. Rather than tKH PXFK FRQWHVWHG HFRFRUUHFWQHVV RU ad hoc claims for realism, the aesthetic rendering of
WKH ZRUOG DOORZV IRU D FRPSOH[ QHJRWLDWLRQ RI UHDOLW\ EHFDXVH DV
Phillips rightly argueV>L@QRWKHUIRUPVRIH[SUHVVLRQWKHSXUVXLWRI
realism in the depiction of nature has produced a surfeit of kitsch
(Phillips 2003: 164). EnvironMentality in contrast resolves the problems of realism and referentiality by regarding both as poetic modes
that have to be redefined as artistic conventions change. Realism is
certainly not the only way to express and configure experiences of
nature; rather, narratives of nature may take on various forms and still
succeed in engendering EnvironMentality. Since the experience of
7
156
alterity allows for a negotiation of conflicts such as that of Deep versus Social Ecology, or the idea of a postmodern ecology, non-realist
texts might even be more effective as a challenge to our imaginative
routines. Thus, literature could help us to grasp complexities and conflicts that other discourses fail to account for.
For EnvironMentality, the elusive status of nature out there is as
important as the awareness of the discursive character of our notions
of the environment. By describing instances of double-coding, or by
identifying intertextual functionalities, this twofold direction can be
accounted for. A reading that incorporates this theoretical orientation
FDQWKHUHIRUHULJKWO\EHFDOOHGDIRUPRIHFRFULWLFDOSUD[LVLIRQO\a
UHDGLQJSUD[LVThus, literary studies can foster an understanding of
possible ways of dealing with the human crisis of imagination.
It must be repeated that the hermeneutic orientation of the process
that engenders EnvironMentality is grounded on the fact that any extension of the human understanding of others does not imply becoming them. Hermeneutics rather entails a process of the merging of
horizons, which ultimately takes effect on the self. This tension of
sameness and selfness LQ 5LFXUV ZRUGV WKH WHQVLRQ Eetween the ipse and the idem between which narrative identities are
negotiated becomes pivotal for the ethical engagement of literature
because these tensions become temporarily harmonised and can be
experienced. Not only do we tell stories to understand the world, QDrUDWLYLW\, 5LFXU PDLQWDLQV RIIHUV DQ DOWHUQDWLYH VROXWLRQ >@ E\
which we ordinarily speak of life as a story (77). 7KLV QDUUDWLYH
idenWLW\ needs to be re-assessed in the context of EnvironMentality
because it helps to situate the individual experience of living in the
context of the natural world. Fish may be right when he states that we
cannot leave our interpretive community, but unlike in )LVKVFRQFHSW
the idea of EnvironMentality presupposes an interpreting community.
As a result, there is always the possibility of reassessment (of the
world and of RQHVplace in it), evolving around the reading individual
who maps his or her own environment under expanding horizons.
*****
My reading of The Hungry Tide has been concerned with the ways the
QRYHOV QDUUDWLYH IRUP FRQWULEXWHV WR WKH KHUPHQHXWLFV RI WKH ZRUOGas-text. In the course of my argument, I have concentrated on the
means of narrating the environment and the place of human beings
Facets of EnvironMentality
157
Following Laura Wright, I argue for an attempt WR SRVLWLRQ WKH GLscourse about postcolonialism and environmentalism within the realm
of the imaginary (1). Unlike Wright, however, my focus is both narratological and, ultimately, hermeneutic. It is in the context of postcolonial literature that I want to reassess hermeneutical concepts, such
DVWKH merging of horizons Gadamer has described, and to propose
EnvironMentality as an effect of the singularity of fiction.
,QVWHDGRI*DGDPHUVDVVHUWLRQWKDWLWLVWKHWHPSRUDOGLVWDQFHthat
allows for an empathetic bridging of difference that fosters understanding, I argued in the preceding chapter that postcolonial literature
provides the hypothetical :HVWHUQUHDGHUZLWKDQHPSORWWHG spatial
distance. This distance has to be bridged in the process of reading.
Taking this distance as the starting point for hermeneutic processes of
understanding puts postcolonial literature in an important place. When
understanding is made possible by imaginative acts that bridge a distance, we need no longer, as Gadamer has argued, refer to temporally
distant texts. Instead, we may bring into play our interpretive activity
with regard to texts that in one way or another deal with distance or
periphery and allow for an experience of alterity. At the same time,
WKHVHWH[WVPDNHH[RWLFLVPELWHEDFNDV0XNKHUMHHVD\V (2010: 8).9
It is in line with postcolonial theory that such a bridging of gaps, or
PHUJLQJ RI KRUL]RQV GRHV QRW HQWDLO EHFRPLQJ WKH RWKHU ZKLFK
9
By this logic, I am not suggesting WKDW RQO\ :HVWHUQ UHDGHUV FDQ UHDG SRVWFRlonial literatures KHUPHQHXWLFDOO\ $WWULGJH UHPLQGV XV WKDW WKHUH LV DOZD\V WKH
danger that cross-cultural appreciation may be based on superficial similarities,
while at the same time, the idea of otherness tends to be imbued with notions of
H[RWLFLVDWLRQ7KLVLVZK\KHVXJJHVWVWKDWZHVKRXOGQRW>@PDNHDQDEVROXWH
GLVWLQFWLRQ >@ EHWZHHQ >WKH DUWZRUN@ RI D JHRJUDSKLFDO DQG FXOWXUDO KHUH DQG
WKHUH $WWULGJH b: 51; 52). This tension reinforces my argument for a
FDXWLRXVKHUPHQHXWLFVLQDJOREDODQGSRVWFRORQLDOOLWHUDU\FRQWH[Wdiscussions
DERXW UHDGHU UHVSRQVHV FDQQRW DVVXPH D XQLYHUVDO LPSOLHG UHDGHU EXW have to
acknowledge that reading the other is a way of finding out about its relation to me.
158
7KHUHGHILQLWLRQRIWKHHQYLURQPHQWLQWHUPVRID PXOWLWXGHRIHQYLURQPHQWV
umwelten goes back to Jakob von Uexkll and links with contemporary biosemiotic research. In tracing semiotic ambivalences, which result in an experience
of environments, EnvironMentality adds to these findings by means of literary
DQDO\VHV,QWKLVFRQWH[WVHHDOVR/RWPDQVFRQFHSWRIWKHVHPLRVSKHUH
Facets of EnvironMentality
159
I have argued above that the rediscovery of place and space in narrative is central to ecocritical studies but that postcolonial criticism
has likewise been concerned with these categories too. From a formoriented angle, however, it is important to understand time and space
as related narrative phenomena. Despite 5LFXUVFODLPWKDWWHPSorality [is] the structure of existence that reaches language in narrativity (1981: 165), it can be shown that in narratives, both time and
space are emplotted in close relation to each other. It is also true,
however, that in narUDWRORJLFDO DQDO\VHV WLPH KDV EHHQ JUDQWHG D
PRUHSURPLQHQWSRVLWLRQ,QIDFWHYHQ*HQHWWHVH[KDXVWLYHVWXG\RQ
the numerous aspects of narrative composition devotes most of its
interest to temporal aspects and thus reduces space to a mere metaphoric device (see Genette 1980: 34). I agree with Friedman, who, in
reviewing the different ways that poetics have so far dealt with space,
FRQFOXGHVWKDW%DNKWLQVVHQVHRIWKHPXWXDOO\FRQVWLWXWLYHDQGLQWHractive nature of space and time in narrative has largely dropped out of
narrative poetics (Friedman 2005: 194). And while my reading of
The Hungry Tide has maintained the relevance of spatial emplotment
IRU SRVWFRORQLDO HFRFULWLFLVP )ULHGPDQV DUJXPHQW IRU D
topochronic narrative poetics suggests that the mutual interrelation
of time and space needs to come back into focus, not only for narrative analyses in general, but particularly in the context of postcolonial
ecocriticism and EnvironMentality.11
Moving on and broadening the scope of my criticism thus renders
this study an example of the hermeneutic orientation it proposes.
:KLOH UHDGLQJ =DNHV 0GDV The Heart of Redness will complement
my former reading by analysing emplotment in terms of a narrative
chronotope, it will also underscore a critique of notions of interculWXUDO XQGHUVWDQGLQJ DQG EHFRPLQJ 7KH QRYHOV FKURQRWRSH ZLOO EH
shown to effectively contradict the ideology of development suggested
on the narrative surface level. In doing so, the novel emplots the tension that is inherent in environmentalist concepts of development.
11
160
162
its story consists of several layers that at first sight seem to be easily
assignable to the different cultural-ecological functions Zapf describes. One level presents the story of Camagu, visitor to the rural
village Qolorha-by-Sea, who is torn between two women: Xoliswa is
oriented towards a Western lifestyle and believes in the necessity of
development; and Qukezwa, who, on the other hand, is described as
being bound to the traditional ways of the amaXhosa. The narrative is
moreover pervaded by the conflicts between WKH %HOLHYHUV DQG WKH
8QEHOLHYHUV, two groups who also propagate traditionalism and development, respectively, and whose quarrels inform this second level.
Both groups inhabit the village Qolorha-by-Sea, and their conflicts
over social and environmental policy affect the ways of local government, belief, and cultural practice in general. The triadic relationship
between Camagu, Xoliswa and Qukezwa and the social conflicts between Believers and Unbelievers are connected to a third narrative
strand concerned with the amaXhosaV colonial past, and with the
KLVWRULFDO HYHQW NQRZQ DV WKH ;KRVD &DWWOH-.LOOLQJ RI (for a
detailed account of these events, see Peires 1989).2 This event, during
which the amaXhosa sacrificed almost all of their cattle due to the
prophecy of a girl named Nonqkawuse, is represented as a struggle
between colonial and missionary influences from the British Empire
and traditional Xhosa belief systems, and the links to the two storylines set in contemporary times are remarkable in several ways. Most
important is the connection between the arrival of Camagu and the
colonial invasion of the nineteenth century, and in what follows, I will
try to account for this relation.
When Camagu appears in Qolorha-By-Sea, it seems that he is able
to negotiate the conflicts that inform the plot. As he is immersed in the
local culture, and thus his own cultural past, he begins to understand
the problems of the villagers and suggests a compromise that seems to
2
In his dedication, Mda acknowledges that he has read this book, and he calls
3HLUHV UHVHDUFK ZRQGHUIXOO\ UHFRUGHG THR 'HGLFDWLRQ $QGUHZ 2IIHQEXUJHU FODLPV WKDW LQVWHDG RI D PHUH LQIRUPLQJ 0GDV ERRN VKRZV DQ
DEXVH RI WH[WXDO ERUURZLQJV ZKLFK VLJQLILFDQWO\ >XQGHUPLQHs@ WKH QRYHOV OLWHUDU\YDOXH0GDUHVSRQGed E\PDLQWDLQLQJWKDWLWZDVDFRQVFLRXV
and overt decisLRQ>@WRUHSURGXFHKLVWRU\DVUHFRUGHGE\-HII3HLUHV WKLVLV
what LQWHUWH[WXDOLW\LVDOODERXW7KHUHIHUHQFHWRLQWHUWH[WXDOLW\LVSDUWLFXlarly interesting with regard to the concept of EnvironMentality and I will come
back to the idea in the next chapter and ask whether this is really everything intertextuality is about
163
164
165
166
OHDYHVDGHHSDQGLUUDGLFDEOHPDUNRQWKHPDQKLPVHOIDVZHOODVRQ
his entire life (Bakhtin 1981: 115-6; emphasis orig.), it moreover
illustrates a possible motive of Camagu that betrays the superficiality
RIPRVWJUHHQUHDGLQJV&DPDJXGRHVQRWVWDQGIRUVXVWDLQDEility and
intercultural understanding; he represents a neocolonising influence.
As mentioned above, one narrative strand is concerned with the
events of the late 1850s and deals, among other things, with the arrival
RI WKH FRORQLDO SRZHUV DUP\ in Qolorha-by-Sea. The plotline set in
the present introduces Camagu as a communication specialist who
returns to post-DSDUWKHLG6RXWK$IULFDRQO\WROHDUQWKDWDSDUWKHLGKDV
EHHQ UHSODFHG E\ D V\VWHP RI FRUUXSWLRQ DQG QHSRWLVP, as Jana
Gohrisch remarks (2006: 240). He is frustrated and decides to go back
to the USA, where he had earned a PhD degree that only seems to bar
KLPIURPDIXWXUHLQ6RXWK$IULFDVLQFHWKHFRUSRUDWHZRUOGGLGQRW
want qualified blacks. They preferred the inexperienced ones who
were only too happy to be placed in some glass affirmative action
office where they were displaced as some paragons of empowerment
(THoR 33). Neither the USA nor South Africa seems WREH&DPDJXV
home and, as Michael Titlestad and Mike Kissack (2003) claim, his
situation can clearly be related to larger issues of post-apartheid development and the role of intellectuals in DSRVW-anti-DSDUWKHLGVRFiety.
Instead of actually leaving the country, however, Camagu searches
for a girl whom he heard singing the night before his planned departure and whom he instantly felt attracted to. It is this search that brings
him to Qolorha-by-Sea. His movement is significant because it is a
movement from the urban towards the rural a more natural environment and travelling to Qolorha-by-Sea IRU&DPDJXPHDQVDJoLQJ EDFN WR WKH URRWV ERWK with regard to the natural South African
environment and with regard to a social vision of traditional ways of
living. Accordingly, it is here that Camagu is confronted with his cultural past and with ostensibly traditional ways of dealing with nature.
But until he familiarises himself with his new social and natural enviURQPHQW &DPDJXV FRVPRSROLWDQLVP PHDQV HVWUDQJHPHQW DQG LVROation. It is only slowly that Camagu rediscovers his own past. Notably,
WKH G\QDPLFV RI WKLV GHYHORSPHQW DUH LQ -XULM /RWPDQV WHUPV IRstered by a crossing of borders LQWKLVFDVH&DPDJXVPRYLQJIURP
the city to Qolorha-by-Sea and his shift of focus from the present to
the past. This crossing of borders and the spatiotemporal implications
of this experience are closely related to the narrative strand set in the
167
168
169
170
new, HGXFDWHG HOLWH WKDW ZDV DOLHQDWHG IURP >LWV@ WUDGLWLRQV E\ WKHLU
Western education (Garuba 2003: 268). It seems likely that he has a
desire to re-traditionalise his personal habitus.
)URP WKDW SHUVSHFWLYH &DPDJXV HQFRXQWHU ZLWK 0DMROD KLV Wotem-snake, appears less an epiphany of reconciliation with his past
than a classic example of deliberate re-traditionalisation as described
by Garuba:
7KDW EULQJV PH WR WKLV WKLQJ DERXW 0DMROD VD\V ;ROLVZD ;LPL\D ,YH EHHQ
ZDQWLQJWRWDONWR\RXDERXWLWIRUPRQWKV
0\WRWHPVQDNH\RXPHDQ:KDWDERXWLW"
'RQW\RXWKLQN\RXDUHUHLQIRUFLQJEDUEDULVPLQWKLVYLOODJH"
7KHQ,
PDEDUEDULDQEHFDXVH,EHOLHYHLQ0DMRODLQWKHVDPHZD\What my parents before me believed in him. [...] And by the way, I have noticed that I have
gained more respect from these people you call peasants since they saw that I respect my customs (THoR 150)
The last sentence shows the instrumental value of &DPDJXVFKDQJHof-mind and sheds new light on his environmental concerns. He is
QHLWKHU FRVPRSROLWDQ QRU D SRVWFRORQLDO K\EULG FKDUDFWHU KH LV
PHUHO\FDOFXODWLQJ,KDYHJDLQHGPRUHUHVSHFW>@VLQFHWKH\VDZ,
UHVSHFWP\FXVWRPV:KLOHKLVVRFLDl existence in the USA remains
obscure and is not narrated at all, his existence in South Africa is
marked by alienation and the complex strategies to cope with this
alienation. Instead of emphasising the subversive potential of hybridity, the narrative depicts Camagu in a more ambivalent manner: he
comes to the amaXhosa village looking for a girl that he feels sexually
attracted to. His arrogant disregard for the fact that she may be married and his erotic fantasies, which overshadow any interest in her
actual life in the village, make him appear closer to the coloniser than
anything else. And so does his initial lie when Camagu introduces
himself as her ex-HPSOR\HUZKRLVORRNLQJIRUKLVSDVVSRUWLQDGYHrWHQWO\WDNHQE\WKHJLUO$WWKHEHJLQQLQJRIWKHQarrative, Camagu is
presented as a sexually insatiable character:
His unquenchable desire for flesh is well known. [...] He has done things with his
maid a frumpy country woman who has come to the city of gold to pick up a
few pennies by cleaning up [...] that he would be ashamed to tell anyone. Yet he
did these things with his humble servant again and again. There is something
DERXWVHUYLWXGHWKDWVHHPVWRVHWWKHFURWFKHVRIPHQRI&DPDJXVLONRQILUH,W
must have been the same urge that drove the slave-master [...] from his mansion to
a night of wild passion with the slave girl in the slave quarters or in the fields. Of
course it was wild passion only on his side. To the slave girl, consent was through
171
FRHUFLRQ,WZDVUDSH,Q&DPDJXVFDVHLWZDs not rape, or so he comforted himself when shame confronted him, for the servant encouraged it. She saw it as a
chance of making more money from the master. (THoR 28)
0\UHDGLQJWKXVUHIXVHVWRVHH &DPDJXDVWKHFDWDO\VWLQWKHGHFRQVWUXFWLRQRI
ERWK FRORQLDOLVP DQG QHRFRORQLDOLVP 6HZODOO 5H-traditionalisation
has so far mostly been claimed for the Unbelievers who have to invent their own
dance for lacNRIUHDOWUDGLWLRQVHH:ULJKWEXWWKLVGRHVQRWDFFRXQW
for the ambiguous role of Camagu.
172
173
&DPDJXFDQQRWWUXO\EHLQVLGHDQ\FXOWXUDOV\VWHPGXHWRa hybridity
that excludes him from both the American and the African communities. However, while the text suggests that the narrative voice represents a cultural inside, the language it adopts is problematic because
the way that this voice has been formed by colonial influences belies
its ostensible insider perspective.
The narrative strategy here is free indirect discourse (see Hawthorn
1990; Sewlall 2003: 335). Harry Sewlall maintains that by virtue of
this device, the debate on culture and nature, but also issues of colonisation and cultivation, are QHJRWLDWHG E\ UHSUHVHQWLQJ WKH XOWLPDWH
contingency that baffles understanding (Sewlall 2003: 335). Through
LWVDUUD\RISHUVRQDHZKRHPERG\DSRO\SKRQ\RIYRLFHVDQGYLHwpoints (335), and by having a narrative voice that interacts with this
polyphony, The Heart of Redness stages various instances of such
hybrid polyphony. When Bhonco thinks about his nkamnkam, his
pension, in the first chapter, the narrative voice takes on his thoughts
by commenting,
:K\ZRQWWKHJRYHUQPHQWJLYHKLPQNDPQNDPOLNHall the old men and women
of South Africa who are on old-age pensions today? Is it fair that now, even
though ravines of maturity run wild on his face, he should still not receive any
nkamnkam? (THoR 10)
That the narration is not delivered by a heterodiegetic, internally focalised narraWLYH LQVWDQFH RU )UDQ] . 6WDQ]HOV figural narrative situation), however, is
VKRZQLQPRUHDXWKRULDOPRPHQWVZKHQWKHQDUUDWRUOHDYHVKLVFRYHUWVWDWXVWR
LQIRUPWKHUHDGHU:KLQLQJDQGZKLQJHULQJLVWKHSDVWLPe of this new democratic
society, thinks Camagu, not recognizing the fact that he was doing exactly the
same thing for the greater part of the wake(THoR 32).
The link between phrenology and cannibalism is discussed by Sewlall 2003.
174
witchcraft of the white man (THoR 20). The narrative voice does not
follow Dalton and his explanation but reflects upon it and contextualises it in an alleged Xhosa mindset.
In the context of feminist narratology, Susan Lanser has described
such a narrative voice that is neither authorial nor strictly figural as
FRPPXQDO -79). 8 I am convinced that this term can be
adapted to the context of postcolonial, re-traditionalising narrative
techniques. Here, the communal voice integrates various perceptions
and situates them in a larger, communal, context. This perceptive instance, the voice of the community, is not even restricted by time; the
narrative and its voice transcend the different time-lines and thus provide further orientation for the reader.9
However, the assumption that WKHUHLVDFRPPXQDOYRLFHWKDWLntegrates and orchestrates different individual voices implies a homogeneity that is problematic. In fact, a claim for the homogeneity of the
FRPPXQDO YRLFH LV the QDUUDWLYH HTXLYDOHQW WR &DPDJXV UHtraditionalisation because it ostensibly claims to be the WUXH Xhosa
voice that transcends individuality and overlooks the events past and
present without being affected by them. This, however, is not the
case. 7KHUHPLJKWVLPSO\QRWH[LVWDQRXWVLGHIURPZKLFKWRJDXge a
KRPRJHQRXVFXOWXUDOLQVLGH7KHUHIRUH, the communal voice itself is
affected by colonial discourses and the influence of the colonisers.
This can be seen, for example, by the role Christianity plays in the
text. Christian influences clash with ideas of homogeneity and, thus,
with the concept of a precolonial, PDJLFDO narrative tradition.
The third chapter of The Heart of Redness, for example, deals with
the missionary zeal of white people coming to Qolorha. In a descripWLRQ WKDW VHHPV WR KLQW GLUHFWO\ DW +RPL %KDEKDV GHVFULSWLRQ RI WKH
175
appropriations of religious rituals and gestus (see Bhabha 1994: 8592), the text states that
[t]he gospel men provided much entertainment everywhere they went. Whenever
they came to thHWZLQVYLOODJHWKHUHZDVJUHDWPHUULPHQWDQGSHRSOHNQHZWKDW
they were going to laugh until their ribs were painful. (THoR 48)
In the chronology of the story, the Middle Generations are the generations between the first instance of conflict between Twin and Twin-Twin and the presentday struggles between Zim and Bhonco. They are never explained in more detail
and thus illustrate the effect of colonialism on the communal identity of both
%HOLHYHUVDQG8QEHOLHYHUV1RWDEO\KRZHYer, the conflict had persisted during
the time of the Middle Generations.
176
12
It is apparent that this narrative hybridity is of a different kind than the alleged
hybridity of cosmopolitan intellectual elites that I have discussed above with
regard to processes of re-traditionalisation. The tension between these two concepts of hybridity underscores my reading of the text as an experience of friction.
,WPXVWEHQRWHGWKDW4XNH]ZDVILJKWDJDLQVWLQYDVLYHSODQWVFRUUHVSRQGVWo this
hybrid narrative voice and the desire to undo colonial influence. But she misses
WKHSRLQWWKDWUHPRYLQJDOOLQYDVLYHSODQWVSHFLHVQRWRQO\EHZRXOG>VLF@LPSRVVible, but also such an action can only operate on a metaphoric level (Wright
2010: 51).
177
14
This neoloJLVP REYLRXVO\ UHIHUV WR +DUDZD\V QDWXUHFXOWXUH DQG ERWK WKH
ZRUOG-as-WH[WDQGWKHLGHDRIDSDVWSUHVHQWKLQWDWWKHSDUDOOHOVWKHVHFRQFHSWV
sharHLQOD\HUVRIKLVWRU\OD\HUVRIELRORJ\OD\HUVRIQDWXUHFXOWXUHVFRPSOH[LW\
is the name of ouUJDPH+DUDZD\,EHOLHYHWKDWSDUWRIWKHSRWHQWLDO
of fiction is to narrate these complexities, and I will discuss this in more detail and
ZLWK UHVSHFW WR +DUDZD\V QRWLRQV LQ WKH QH[W FKDSWHU ZKHQ , HQJDJH ZLWK WKH
FRPSOH[LWLHVRIWKHDQLPDO
:ULJKW SRLQWV WR WKH IDFW WKDW WKH UHDGHU FDQQRW PDNH RQH-to-one correlations
EHWZHHQ RU GUDZ RSSRVLWLRQDO DVVXPSWLRQV DERXW LGHQWLFDOO\ QDPHG FKDUDFWHUV
(47) because time is so heavily fragmented. This adds to my argument of the
readerly share in the meaning of the temporal narration.
178
discourse time (i.e. the time needed to read through roughly 300
pages) remains the same, but the story time is drastically reduced because the cyclical form of emplotment suggests that both story lines
can be understood as a single one. Understanding the two strands of
time to be inextricably interrelated thus also necessitates reassessing
WKH FRQFHSW RIWLPH LQWKHSURFHVV RI UHDGLQJ 7KHSDVWSUHVHQW DVD
concept of cultural otherness becomes feasible whereas the logic of
progress loses plausibility.15 $V:ULJKWPDLQWDLQVDOLQHDUQRWLRQRI
time is disrupted and the mythic becomes the present reality. [...] The
narrative ends both in the past and the present (Wright 2010: 47).
Basically, The Heart of Redness thus stages a topochronic version of
WKH HFRORJLFDO PRWWR WKDW HYHU\WKLQJ LV FRQQHFWHG ZLWK HYHU\WKLQJ
HOVH
7KLV SDVWSUHVHQW LQWHUFRQQHFWHGQHVV GHFRQVWUXFWV WKH YDULRXV
dualities within the narrative, for instance, the conflict between Zim
and Bhonco, and the conflict between Believers and Unbelievers. It is,
PRUHRYHU DW WKH VDPH WLPH HFRORJLFDO DQG FDUQLYDOLVWLF WKH GLscourses that create the heteroglossia of the text have their counterparts
in the textual composition, which is palimpsestic (nineteenth century
versus contemporary events) and diglot (English narrative and Xhosa
vocabulary) (see Wright 2010: 43). The friction produced by this
struggle for meaning is an important interpretive challenge and links
to =DSIV GLVFXUVLYH IRFXV DQG %DNKWLQV QRWLRQ RI KRZ WH[WXDO GLaORJLFLW\ WUDQVFHQGV LGHRORJ\ 0RUHRYHU WKURXJK LWV PHWRQ\PLF Gimensions [as the] equivalent of backwardness and the absence of
enlightenment (Sewlall 2003: 338), WKHKHDUWRIUHGQHVVHSLWomises
WKH QRYHOV HQJDJHPHQW ZLWK WKH GLOHPPD RI QRW XQGHUVWDQGLQJ ,W
does not stand for the colonial myth of bestiality any more but is a
self-LQIOLFWHG GHURJDWLRQ WKDW OLQNV ZLWK WKH LGHRORJ\ RI XQGHUGHYHlRSPHQWDQGSURFHVVHVRIQHR-colonialism. It thus re-writes the trope
established in Heart of Darkness and complements its colonial metacommentary with a comment on neo-colonial, retraditionalising discourses in post-Apartheid South Africa.
The clash of spatial or temporal perception and conflicts between
developmentalism and cosmopolitanism connects my reading of The
Heart of Redness with my reading of The Hungry Tide. In both interpretations, I have sought to explore the means of narrating the
15
The achronic narration adds to this since it is the reader who has to order and
FRQVWUXFWWKHWH[WVFKURQRORJ\.
179
17
.DXUSRLQWVWR-DPHV+XWWRQDQG&KDUOHV/\HOOZKHQKHGLVFXVVHVGHHSWLPHDV
DQ HYRFDWLYH FRQFHSW LQ JHRORJ\ WKDW FDQ SURYLGH LQVLJKWV LQWR UH-YLVLRQLQJ
sociopolitical events and their enmeshment with the environments in which they
are situated (126). With regard to The Hungry Tide, he argues that the novel
HYRNHVDWRQFHERWh the trans-KLVWRULFDOYLVWDVRIGHHSWLPHDQGWKHPXWDELOLW\
RIQDWXUHWKURXJKLWVLQVSLUHGFKRLFHRIWKH6XQGDUEDQVDVWKHORFDOHRIWKHQRYHO
(126). For the relevance of concepts of geological deep time with regard to the
SRVVLELOLW\WRKDYHSORW ZLWKRXWPDQ, see Beer (2009: 17 and passim).
In the following referred to as TWC.
180
topochronic readings to some aspects of becoming-animal (and a critique thereof). Before moving on, however, I need to draw attention to
the commentary The Heart of Redness provides on human-animal
relations (for this, see also Feldbrgge 2010; Woodward 2003). After
all, the crucial event that divides Believers and Unbelievers in the first
place is the cattle killing. In the course of the events that follow NonTNDZXVHV SURSKHF\ WKH DPD;KRVD KDYH GLVUXSWHG WKH WUDGLWLRQDO
relationship with their animals as well as the chain of cultural significance that had linked these animals to their cultural practices. Besides,
WKHFKDUDFWHUVUHDFWLRQVWRWKHGHDWKRISDUWLFXODUDQLPDOVDUHUHPDUkable textual events. However, these accounts must also be read in the
context of temSRUDOQDUUDWLYHVWDJLQJ,QIDFW1RQTNDZXVHVSURSKHF\
and the subsequent events gain significance through their connection
with the postcolonial/neo-colonial narrative of post-apartheid South
Africa, and this connection suggests a more materialist reading instead
of a reading that focuses on mythic and traditional aspects of humananimal relations.
2Q WKH RQH KDQG 1RQTNDZXVHV DQG 0NODND]DV SROLWLFDO Hnmeshment with, for example, King Sarhili shows that the cattle killing
events are less a story of religious belief let alone an animal narrative than a socio-political history that connects to aspects of ideology (see THoR 76-9). On the other hand, the second crucial event in
the history of the amaXhosa the lungsickness that befalls the animals, among them Twin-7ZLQV EHORYHG KRUVH *[DJ[D is also diUHFWO\FRQQHFWHGWRFRORQLDOKLVWRU\:KLWHSHRSOHNQHZRIOXQJVLFkness because it came from their country. [...] It was brought to the land
of the amaXhosa nation by Friesland bulls that came in a Dutch ship
two years earlier (50). Despite their significance for the individual
GHYHORSPHQW RI WKH QRYHOV FKDUDFWHUV HVSHFLDOO\ &DPDJX WKH DQimals in The Heart of Redness serve to second postcolonial commentary, and with regard to double-coding, they function as symbols of
and references to socio-political issues.18
18
A different stance is maintained by Woodward (2003) who argues that the animals
in The Heart of Redness are more important than my reading suggests. Locating
the DQLPDOUROHEHWZHHQWKH'HUULGHDQLGHDRIWKHDQLPDODVWKHZKROO\RWKHUDQG
a questioning of a seemingly bucolic, precolonial form of ecological living, she
UHDGV0GDVQDUUDWLYHVRIKXPDQDQLPDOHQFRXQWHUDVRQHZD\RIPDLQWDLQLQJWKH
ERRNVPRUDOV(FRORJLFDOHWKLFVOLQNHGZLWKVRXQGHFRQRPLFV0GDVXJJHVWV
is the only way forward for the villagers of Qolorha (294). However, my somewhat more critical reading of the idea of development brings into light the instru-
181
19
mental value of imagined kinship with animals in the way proposed by Woodward. However, her argument that the significance of animals can be understood
by juxtaposing the socio-cultural and individual meanings conferred upon three
classes of animals namely, bulls, horses and birds is very convincing. Especially WKHQXPHURXVUHIHUHQFHVWRELUGVRQJDQG=LPVOLYLQJPRVWO\EHQHDWKDWUHH
inhabited by birds are noteworthy in this regard.
Deleuze and Guattari would probably argue that it is not necessary to outline this
concept that way. As Baker (2002) PDLQWDLQV>W@KHUHDOUDGLFDOLVPRIWKHFRQFHSW
lies not in its reframing of the question of living subjects and their identities, but
rather in its charting the possibilities for experiencing an uncompromising sweeping-away of identities (67-8). If, however, becoming-DQLPDOLVOLWWOHPRUHWKDQD
means of undoing identity, I prefer the vocabulary introduced above to theirs
EHFDXVH WKH FRQFHSWV RI WKH HYHQW RI ILFWLRQ DQG DUWV VLQJXODULW\ GR VXJJest the
same without instrumentalising notions of animality for the sake of art criticism.
182
183
Caller forcing his ideas of love and attachment onto the animal, Sharisha loses her life, Saluni her sight, and the Whale Caller his dwelling
place.
As in the other texts discussed so far, the interrelations and demarcations of the characters, both among themselves and with regard to
their environments, are manifold and complex. Both Saluni and the
Whale Caller, for instance, share an almost addictive affection for
something outside their relationship with each other: the Whale Caller
yearns for Sharisha, and Saluni needs to visit the Bored Twins regularly and sing or play with them. Also, both have links to religious
belief; not only by confessing to the mock-Christian idol Mr Yodd but
also because Saluni practices magic to manipulate the Whale Caller
and 6KDULVKDDQGEHFDXVHRIWKH:KDOH&DOOHUVYHU\RZQSUDFWLFHRI
EORZLQJ WKH KRUQ GHYHORSHG IURP KLV VHUYLFH IRU WKH &KXUFK RI WKH
6DFUHG .HOS +RUQ VHH TWC 7-12). Moreover, the sensual experiences of both characters are connected: while the Whale Caller relies
on his olfactory sense after all, he falls for Saluni because of her
PRXOG\\HWVZHHWVPHOOWKDWLVHYHQVWURQJHUWKDQWKHIRUFHRIHnHUJ\ JHQHUDWHG E\ WKH URFNV 6DOXQLV SHUFHSWLRQ LV SULPDULO\
visual, as her fear of darkness and the episode of her temporary blindness underline. It is during her blindness, when the Whale Caller and
Saluni take a long, nomadic walk that their perceptive habits change
DQG WKXV VXJJHVW D IRUP RI PXWXDO FRPSOHWLRQ 6DOXQL smells the
ocean and the Whale Caller sees it down below extending for kilometres LQWRWKHKRUL]RQHPSKDVHs added). However, this reciprocal understanding does not last long, and the tragic catastrophe at
hand belies this romantic turn of events.
It is important to look at SharisKDVUROHLQWKLVFRQWH[W6KDULVKDV
main sense is auditive, which shows most obviously when she reacts
WR WKH :KDOH &DOOHUV VRQJ E\ GDQFLQJ DQG exuberantly approaching
the coast. However, the forms of cross-species communication as well
as the mutual understanding between the Whale Caller and Saluni
waver between the absurd and the tragic. Saluni introduces the Whale
&DOOHUILUVWWRZLQGRZ-VKRSSLQJDQGODWHUHYHQWRZLQGRZ-GLQLQJ,
a visual spectacle that he does not comprehend. Moreover, the text
states that in the moments of shared joy, they become sick of each
RWKHU (YHQ PRUH ULGLFXORXV DUH WKH :KDOH &DOOHUV DWWHPSWV WR Dpproach Sharisha: after exhausting dances for Sharisha in his ironed
WX[HGRDVWKHQDUUDWLYHYRLFHSXWVLWDPDWLQJULWXDODfter which the
:KDOH&DOOHULVGUHQFKHGLQVZHDWDVKLVKRUQHMDFXODWHVVRXQGVWR
184
ZKLFK6KDULVKDHPLWVDYHU\GHHSKROORZVRXQGTWC 41), he actually ejaculates (TWC 66). On another occasion, he witnesses the copulation of Sharisha with another whale IRU KLP LW LV UDSH DQG KH
ZDONV DURXQG FU\LQJ 7KH\ KDYH UDYDJHG 6KDULVKD RQO\ WR UHDOLVH
ODWHUWKDWKHZDVWKHUHDW>WKHFDOIV@FRQFHSWLRQ+HZDVDSDUWLFLSDQW
ZLWKKLVKRUQ+HIHHOVOLNHDIDWKHUDOUHDG\1RWRQO\DUHWKRVH
moments of imagined sexual contact between human and animal described as ludicrous and grotesque, the text ridicules the very metaphors the Whale Caller employs the Kelp horn as a phallus, his song
as semen as the shallow literary devices they are, for example by
having the sea birds literalO\ VKLW RQ KLV PRFN-5RPDQWLF ILWV WKH
grey doves with black wings and the white seagulls with grey wings
[...] share his excitement by hovering over him, and defecating on his
KHDG
Another instance of a vain attempt to romanticise and eventually
cross the species boundary is presented when the Whale Caller tries to
FRXUW6KDULVKDZLWKWKHPDWLQJULWXDORIGLQLQJ
He rents a small round table and a chair from the marketplace stallholders. He
bribes a waiter from the restaurant that juts into the sea on stilts to lend him the
best silver and crystal just for a few hours. [...] He lays a table of seafood and the
best of Cape Chardonnay [...]. He is in black tie. [...] He lights a candle. (137)
7KLVLVGRQHEHFDXVH>K@HKRSHVWKDWE\>@PDNLQJDSXEOLFGLVSOD\
RISXEOLFHDWLQJ6KDULVKDZLOOEHDURXVHGWRDFWLRQRQFHPRUH
The rituals the Whale Caller tries to transform for his own purposes
betray the vanity of such attempts of becoming-animal and maybe hint
DW WKH IDFWWKDW WKH PRVWSURIRXQG WUDJHG\ LQ WKH VWRU\ LV WKHODFN
>@RIDQLQGLJHQRXVHFRORJLFDOWUDGLWLRQWKDWFDQVDYHHDUWKRWKHUV
as Woodward presumes (2007: 300).
That these border crossings and the tragicomic effects on which
they rely call into question both the very act of becoming as well as
the binary logic on which this attempt is based can be shown in the
various deconstructions of dichotomies that the text represents: the
parallel of touristic exploitation (the Whale Crier) and allegedly true
love (the Whale Caller), for instance, or the parody of religions and
myth (the Church of the Sacred Kelp Horn as well as Mr Yodd) and
the problems of greed and despiritualised behaviour (the poacher who
wants more money and Saluni who wants more love).
185
,QGHHGWKHQRYHOSUHVHQWVQRVLPSOHIRUPXODIRUKDUPRQ\DPRQJ
WKRVH RI ODQG DQG VHD DV 6WHLQZDQG REVHUYHV DQG E\
EOXUULQJWKHERXQGDULHVEHWZHHQURXWLQHDQGULWXDOWKHZLOGDQGWKH
tame, the sublime and the ULGLFXORXV Steinwand 2011: 190), the
novel destabilises such concepts as understanding, compassion or
UHVSRQVLELOLW\DVLWVS\KRSVXVZKDOH-watching readers with its satirical and ironic twists [...] to unsettle our comfortable complicity in
postcoloniDO DQG HQYLURQPHQWDO MXVWLFH 'HVSLWH WKH IHZ Uemarks on environmental ethics or the sociocultural problems of animal
rights, this unsettling is indeed mainly achieved through its textual
form, which combines parallelisms and, most importantly, an unstable
WUDJLFRPLF WRQH WKDW FRQVWDQWO\ TXHVWLRQV WKH QRYHOV LQWHUHVW LQ Poments of becoming-animal. The most fatal transgression of all is of
FRXUVH 6KDULVKDV DFWXDO OHDYLQJ RI KHU HQYLURQPHQW ZKLFK OHDGV WR
her suffering and eventual death. The Whale Caller has indulged so
much in becoming-DQLPDO DQG XQGRLQJ LGHQWLW\ %DNHU
that he no longer perceives any difference between human and animal,
DQG UHDOLW\ DQG ILFWLRQ %\ VKHHU IRUFH RI KLV LPDJLQDWLRQ KH ZLOO
bring Sharisha into being right LQIURQWRIKLPKHDVVHUWVDWWKHHQG
of the novel (TWC +LVH\HVDUHVRWLJKWO\FORVHGWKHWH[WJRHV
on, that
he is not aware that Sharisha herself has come to save him [...] As he blows the
horn furiously and uncontrollably she comes swimming just as furiously. [...] She
is too mesmerised to realise that she has recklessly crossed the line that separates
the blue depth from the green shallows. [...] At first he thinks he has conjured her
up in his imagination. But when he hears the deep bellows that send tremors to the
muddy peninsula he knows she is all too real. [...] She has beached herself. (216)
186
Hermanus for one year do not allow us or the Whale Caller to understand her, ultimately; WKH:KDOH&DOOHUVLQWHUSUHWDWLRQV rather emphasise the constructedness of understanding. The fact that he wrongly
assumes her to have given birth to a calf that she might have lost in an
accident with a ship further underscores the limits of understanding
(see TWC 129; 138-9).
However, the passage quoted above is one of the few passages in
which this limit of understanding is transcendeG 6KDULVKD LV WRR
PHVPHULVHGWRUHDOLVHWKDWVKH KDVUHFNOHVVO\ FURVVHGWKHOLQH (THC
216) this sentence features focalisation through Sharisha. And just
DV LQ WKH VFHQH ZKHUH 6DOXQL PRRQV WKH ZKDOH OHDYLQJ WKH SRRU
whale looking scandalised. The calf is oblivious of ZKDWLVKDSSHQLQJ
(155), this almost direct access to the animal mind comes with a moment of transgression or becoming-animal on the part of the human
FKDUDFWHUV ZKR WRJHWKHU ZLWK 6KDULVKD IRUP WKH HWHUQDO WULDQJOH
PDQ ZRPDQ DQG ZKDOH %XW WKLV GLUHFW DFFHVV LV WRR FORVH D
form of contact. When the Whale Caller realises this, it is already too
late for SharisKD%XWLWLVQRWWRRODWHIRUKHUFDOIRXWWKHUHLQWKHVHD
KHFDQVHH6KDULVKDV\RXQJRQHVDLOLQJVORZO\WRZDUGVKLPPDNLQJ
ripples to the rhythm of his horn. He stops playing. He must not enVODYHWKH\RXQJRQHZLWKKLVNHOSKRUQ7KXVKHWXUQs into the
+HUPDQXV SHQLWHQW EHUHIW RI KXPDQ DV ZHOO DV DQLPDO ORYH
and even his belief in the mythic Mr Yodd.
A last binary construction is important from a form-oriented angle:
In Hermanus, whale watching has turned into a touristic spectacle
whereas once, it used to be a religious event. As the first chapter tells
XVEHIRUHWKHUHZHUHERDWVDQGILVKHUPHQDQGZKDOHUVWKH.KRLNKRL
RI ROG ZRXOG GDQFH DURXQG D EHDFKHG ZKDOH 'DQFLQJ WKHLU
thanks to Tsiqua, He Who Tells His Stories in Heaven, for the bountiful food he occasionally provides for his children by allowing whales
WRVWUDQGWKHPVHOYHV7KLVDFFRXQWRIDQDOPRVWSUHODSVDULDQVWDWH
when humans and animals existed side-by-side and the nostalgia with
which the Whale Caller imagines these times link animality and sacrifice. It is their god who presents a whale as a gift to his people, but if
WRR PDQ\ ZKDOHV DUH VWUDQGHG WKH HFVWDWLF GDQFH IUHH]HV DQG WKH
ODXJKWHULQWKHH\HVRIWKHGDQFHUVPHOWVLQWRWHDUV7KHVHWLPHV
are now long gone and mourned by the Whale Caller. It is the reader,
in another moment of the diegetic leap discussed above, who understands that these times are anything but over. But it is no longer a god
:KR7HOOV+LV6WRULHVQRZLWLVWKHZULWHURIILFtion who, through
187
his fiction, creates and maps the world. It is the writer, too, who nourishes his people through tradition, re-traditionalisation and by creatLQJ QHZ QDUUDWLYHV DQG PHWDSKRUV WR OLYH E\ $QG OLNH WKH JRGV RI
old, the writer has to strand a whale to nourish the readers and leave
WKHPVDGGHUDQGZLVHULQ6WHLQZDQGVZRUGV7KLVKDV
nothing to do with a moment of ecstatic becoming-animal; on the contrary, the ecstasy and exuberance of this very stance is shown to lead
to nowhere in the end. If border crossings and moments of becoming
are possible, as the novel suggests, then they might well have led to
6KDULVKDVGHDWK%XWWKH:KDOH&DOOHULVQRWWKHRQO\RQHWREODPH
We, as readers, desperately seek to understand the animals in fiction
as well and grapple, as it were, with moments of becoming-animal.
And so does the narrator. The one who tells stories beaches a whale in
fiction, and in understanding the tragic complicity of well-meant attempts at becoming-animal, indeed ouU H[XEHUDQFH IUHH]HV DQG WKH
ODXJKWHU>@PHOWVLQWRWHDUV
Famously, Derrida has called into question the view WKDW WKH DQLPDO FDQ EH
VSRNHQ RI LQ WKH JHQHUDO VLQJXODU DQG GHFODUHV LW SHUKDSV RQH RI WKH JUHDWHVW
and most symptomatic asinanities of those who call themselves human(Derrida
2008: 41; emphasis orig.).
190
equation relies on various forms of worlding and othering. For postcolonial ecocriticism, this is a fundamental impasse. This impasse
bears resemblance to the aporia of anthropocentric versus ecocentric
thinking because it also struggles with a subjective and human perspective and the attempt to appropriate the perspective of the other.
So, while an engagement with the idea of a community of humans and
animals seems to be necessary from an ecocritical point of view, objections from postcolonial criticism reveal the dangers of both zoomorphism and anthropomorphism by linking their rhetoric with the critique of the colonial practice of othering.
It is with this potential conflict in mind that the aesthetic rendering
of empathy and community in fiction will be scrutinised in the following. In the preceding chapters, my critical discussion of notions of
becoming-animal has called claims for similarity into question, and I
DJUHH ZLWK &RUD 'LDPRQG WKDW >W@KH PRUDO H[SHFWDWLRQV RI RWKHU
KXPDQ EHLQJV GHPDQG VRPHWKLQJ RI PH DV RWKHU WKDQ DQ DQLPDO
(1978: 478) tension-ridden as such an assertion may be. The Heart
of Redness and The Whale Caller juxtaposed ideas of becoming and
narratives of development through their narrative structure and the
emplotment of various borders and border-drossings. The Bakhtinian
idea of topochronic poetics and the problem of transgressing semiospheres and umwelten were introduced to the concept of EnvironMentality and linked to form-oriented readings and avenues of
readerly interpretation. This chapter is concerned with processes
of readerly empathy too, and it will describe the processes that lead to
EnvironMentality with regard to the idea of an expanded sense of family, that is, with regard to the idea of human-animal communities in
fiction.
This does not mean that this chapter is solely concerned with fictional examples of such communities; rather, it will present fictional
ways of rendering a communal sense tangible in the act of reading.
Thus, this chapter ties in with and complements my other readings.
The Hungry Tide successfully negotiates the human place within nature, and it does so by discursively merging deep ecological and social
ecological aspects and presenting them in a narrative form that renders
WKHHQYLURQPHQWWH[WXDO7KXVLWKHOSV us to understand the inextricability of nature DQG FXOWXUH DQG DOORZV IRU D OLWHUDO UHDGLQJ RI
place. However, I have questioned the concept of human culture as a
universalism by taking into account different cultural settings and by
criticising notions of intercultural, ecological visions. After all, this
191
VWXG\VHHNVWRHODERUDWHRQWKHKHUPHQHXWLFLGHDRIPHUJLQJWKHKRUi]RQV LQ D SRVWFRORQLDO-ecocritical context. This means that an engagement with nature and culture is only possible if the concepts of
WKHQDWXUDODQGWKHFXOWXUDODUHVXEMHFt to hermeneutic scrutiny as
ZHOO&XOWXUHLVQRWthe monolithic opposite of a likewise monolithic
entity of nature; both concepts have to be understood as a product of
constant negotiation and individual as well as communal perception
and performances. These complexities are epitomised in the depiction
of spatiotemporal relations in The Heart of Redness, for example. As a
consequence, it appears sensible to apply topochronic poetics to postcolonial ecocriticism and EnvironMentality. In discussing The Heart
of Redness from that perspective, I have commented on the idea of
different cultural settings and their representation (via communal narrative voice as well as by describing the temporal anomalies of the
story). By the same token, I have demonstrated the importance of textual gaps and tensions in order to differentiate between a negotiation of
FRPPRQ PHDQLQJ (Gadamer 1994: 292) and the idea of ecocosmopolitan appropriation and becoming.
In what follows, I want to further explore ways of narrating that do
not rely on such forms of appropriation or the concept of becoming as
criticised in my reading of The Whale Caller. I will discuss narratives
that critically question their own status as fiction and that are thus
capable of both evoking a sense of human-animal community and
formulating a critique of the attempts at doing so. This will be
achieved through an experience of KXPDQLPDOity dwelling on the
fuzzy borders of species membership and grounded on the transgressive power of the imagination. The first text I will read from that perVSHFWLYH LV <DQQ 0DUWHOV Life of Pi.2 In this text, the human-animal
boundary is questioned and eventually deconstructed, and understanding the ways in which this is done constitutes an important step in the
task of developing EnvironMentality. The chain of association that
links animal beings with savagery will be rent and delinked, and I will
show the textual environment to be pivotal for the idea of a humanDQLPDOFRPPXQLW\%\DGGLQJVHOHFWHGSDVVDJHVIURP0DUWHOVODWHVW
novel, Beatrice and Virgil,3 I will provide further examples of how the
2
3
192
7KLV WHUP LV +DUDZD\V DQG +DUDZD\ DUJXHV WKDW VHHLQJ DQLPDOVDV FRPSDQLRQ
species because of a constant, reciprocal genetic, emotive and even cultural exFKDQJHPD\VHUYHDVDSRLQWHUWRDQRQJRLQJEHFRPLQJ-ZLWK+DUDZD\
18). Literature is capable of emplotting this stance, as will be shown in the first
half of this chapter. However, such literary appropriations are not without dangers, as the second half of the chapter argues.
193
Even from the scientific side, this divide can be effectively questioned, as Donna
Haraway demonstrates. However, she sharply and vehemently criticises Deleuze
and *XDWWDULV LQWHUSUHWDWLRQ RI EHFRPLQJ VHH +DUDZD\ DQG 30).
+DUDZD\VXQGerstanding of autre-mondalisation follows Beatriz Preciado. AutreMondialisation is understood as an alternative to the economic forms of globalisation DQG LV FRQFHUQHG ZLWK QXUWXULQJ D PRUH MXVW DQG SHDFHIXO RWKHU-globaOL]DWLRQ+DUDZD\3-4 n1).
194
195
Notably, when Huggan and Tiffin (2010: 135-7) describe the idea of othering with
regard to the zoocritical concerns of their analyses, they give four examples which
DOO H[FOXGH WKH LGHD RI WKH DQLPDO DV VXFK WKH\ GHVFULEH UKHWRULF DQG VRFLal
praxes of treating humans like animals; they name the human-animal competition
for decreasing resources; they discuss the special status of animals as a social
VKLEEROHWK RU DQLPDO-OLQNHG UDFLDOLVDWLRQ WKH GRJ-HDWLQJ &KLQHVH LV DQ
example of such a stereotyping based on alleged concerns for animals; and they
name the human-animal competition for empathic attention (for example, as
shown in the argument that we must not care too much for animals as long as
there are starving children in the world).
196
However, we do not have to forsake the idea of fictional humananimal communities and the imaginative potential of anthropomorphism. Instead of trying to describe such a community by talking
DERXWWKHDQLPDOWKRXJK,SURSRVHWRIRFXV instead on the human,
that is, the various cultural spheres of human literature. By looking at
the literary emplotment of animals as well as fictional ways of establishing human-animal communities, we can focus on the textual potential for staging instances of human-animal communities beyond
any essentialist or speciesist borders. Hence, I am interested in narrative ways that allow for moments RIKXPDQLPDOH[SHULHQFHLQDOLtHUDU\ HQYLURQPHQW RI KXPDQ DQG QRQKXPDQ FKDUDFWHUV 7KHVH KuPDQLPDOK\EULGVLQnarratives are QRWDOORZHG to existDV+XJJDQ
and Tiffin claim (2010: 163), because they destabilise the boundary
between animal and human beings, and they shift the focus of attention to the communal aspects rather than the ontological differences
between humans and animals. The animal thus becomes part of the
human community by virtue of its entering (and maybe contesting)
canonical narrative traditions; and as human-animal communities enter the cultural sphere of literature, they help us to think beyond
strictly anthropocentric notions.
In <DQQ0DUWHOV Life of Pi, the dichotomy of humans and animals
is destabilised by the idea of a joint shipwreck of humans and animals.
3LVMRLQLQJDQDQLPDOFRPPXQLW\LVWKXVDFDVHLQSRLQWIRUWKHLGHD
that a narrative negotiation of anthropomorphism adds to the hermeneutic process towards EnvironMentality. The experience of a temporary relief from the violent hierarchy of the human-animal divide and
WKHVWDJLQJRIDKXPDQLPDOLGHQWLW\DQGFRPPXQLW\LVDIXQGDPHQWDO
ethical challenge. Moreover, I will argue, it engenders one of the most
effective strategems of postcolonial literature: the turning-back of the
LPSHULDl gaze [...] upon the colonizer (Childs et al. 2006: 227-36;
see also Pratt 1992). I will show how this is done by means of textual
form, and the gaps and tensions through which interpretation negotiates the imaginative potential of the narratives.
,QWHUHVWLQJO\ 5XVNLQV QRWLRQ RI WKH SDWKHWLF IDOODF\ FDQ DOVR EH
read as a comment on the question of such gaps. Ruskin holds that the
silence of the natural world initiated all kinds of reactions, from religious awe to the Romantic idea of the sublime:
[T]he modern writer, by his admission of the tinge of fallacy, has given an idea of
something in the action of the wave [which Keats describes in his Endymion]
197
which Homer could not [...]. [T]here appears to be a degree of sympathy and feeling in the one writer, which there is not in the other; and as it has been received
for the first principle that writers are great in proportion to the intensity of their
feelings, and Homer seems to have no feelings about the sea but that it is black
and deep, surely in this respect also the modern writer is the greater? Stay a moment. Homer had some feeling about the sea; a faith in the animation of it much
stronger than .HDWV%XWDOOWKLVVHQVHRIVRPHWKLQJOLYLQJLQLWKHVHSDUDWHs in
his mind into a great abstract image of a Sea Power. He never says the waves
rage, or the waves are idle. But he says there is something in, and greater than, the
waves, which rages, and is idle, and that he calls a god. (Ruskin 2005: 179; emphasis orig.)
Ruskin here dismisses the way the Romantics related literary value to
a surplus of emotive response, and he maintains the importance of
silence, instead: Homer has to refer to a god, who represents utter
unspeakability, in order to express his conviction that the waves do
QRWUDJHDQGDUHQRWLGOH,GHVFULEHGFRPSDUDEOHSKHQRPHQDLQP\
discussion of The Hungry Tide when I claimed that both the tiger motif and the role of the natural world evolve around the idea of unspeakability. With this idea in mind, and in refuting the attempt at
VLPSO\ WKLQNLQJ ZLWK RU EHFRPLQJ WKH UHDO DQLPDO , understand
Life of Pi as a fictional account of silence, the animal gaze and the
unspeakability of both, and the power of fiction to narrate them nonetheless.
Life of Pi tells the story of a young Indian boy, Piscine Molitor
Patel, the son of a zoo-keeper. Pi, as he is called, and his family are
about to leave India for political reasons, but their migration to Canada ends in disaster when their ship sinks, leaving Pi in the desolate
and grotesque situation of being stranded on a lifeboat with a fullgrown Bengal tiger for 227 days. In the beginning, the two are accompanied by a wounded zebra, a hyena and an orang-utan, who all die
one after the other. The sinking of the ship throws Pi into a surreal
situation that blurs the boundaries between truth and belief, and fact
and fiction. In this context, numerous critics have commented on the
IDFW WKDW 3L DQG WKHWLJHUV VLWXDWLRQ OLWHUDOO\ VWDJHV WKH LGHD RI EHLQJ
LQ WKHVDPHERDW7KHQRYHOSUHVHQWVD'DUZLQLVWLFVWUXJJOHIRUVXrvival (the tiger subsequently kills the other, weaker animals) and
comments on ethology and animal behaviour studies (Pi has to learn
how to train the tiger in order to prevent it from killing him), but it
also expounds an interesting human-animal community. Most notably,
this community unsettles the division between animals and humans
because, LQ QHJRWLDWLQJ WKH DFWXDO DQG PHWDSKRULFDO FRPSOH[LWLHV RI
198
At this point, the readers are completely unaware that the Richard
Parker Pi is calling out to is in fact the tiger who will later pose a lethal threat to him; and instead of disclosing this information to the
reader, Pi, the second-order autodiegetic narrator, uses vocabulary that
VXJJHVWV D KXPDQ EHLQJ QRVH DQGPRXWKLQVWHDGRIVQRXW) and,
by virtue of short and emphatic sentences, invokes a passionate sense
of empathy with a fellow creature struggling for survival.8
Only after he has saved Richard Parker does Pi realise that he has
endangered himself by this action and he realises it together with the
UHDGHU7UXO\,ZDVWREHWKHQH[WJRDW,KDGDZHWWUHPEOLQJKDOIdrowned, heaving and coughing three-year-old Bengal tiger in my
lifeboat (130). This insight, however, comes too late in several ways:
not only was Richard Parker RQ ERDUGDOUHDG\ 3LV LQLWLDO HPRWLRQDO
response had also created a sense of community with the anthropomorphised animal that can no longer be dismissed. In that context,
6WHZDUW &ROH FODLPV WKDW E\ WKH WLPH >5LFKDUG 3DUNHUV@ ELRORJLFDO
8
,WPXVWEHQRWHGKRZHYHUWKDWE\UHIHUULQJWRWKHWLJHUDV5LFKDUG3DUNHUWKH
novel does not suggest a real human being but a literary representation, namely
WKHFKDUDFWHUIURP3RHVNarrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. I will comment on this
below.
199
Apart from the references discussed on the following pages, the most obvious but
OLNHZLVH PRVW RYHUORRNHG LQWHUWH[WXDO UHIHUHQFH LV WR 0RDF\U 6FOLDUV Max es os
Felinos 0DUWHODFNQRZOHGJHV6FOLDULQWKH$XWKRUV1RWHZKLFKIUDPHV
the story of Pi, DVWKHVSDUNRIOLIHDQGWKXV points to the intertextual embeddedness of the novel as such (LoP xvi).
200
Thus invoking narratives of colonialism and conquest, then incorporating pastoral imagery and the literary archetype of loss and expulsion, Genesis, Life of Pi establishes another intertextual reference that
FKDQJHV WKH IRFXV IURP PDQV RULJLQDO VLQ WR WKH LGHD RI D WKUHDW
shared by (subaltern) human and animal. The fruit turns out to be a
mass of leaves that he has to unwrap, and at the core of the fruit, Pi
finds a human tooth. At the core of the forbidden fruit are the remains
of a human being who had been devoured by the gigantic island itself
which turns out to be a living carnivorous organism made of algae.
7KH LVODQG LV WKHUHIRUH QRW VR PXFK DQ DOOHJRU\ RIELRGLYHUsity, as
Armstrong (2008: 165) claims, but a place that Pi realises to be thoroughly hostile to humans and animals alike. He thereupon tries to
escape from the island together with Richard Parker. The island
turns out to be an anti-(GHQLF SODFH ZKHUH WKH VHUSHQW LV QRWKLQJ
other than the voracity of human consumption itself (Huggan & Tiffin 2010: 174). Yet this voracity endangers both Pi and Richard Parker
ultimately, they embark on their lifeboat together and return to their
human-animal companionship. The numerous intertextual allusions do
not suggest a single interpretive direction, however; their great number creates the sense of a cultural context that humans and animals
experience side by side.
The most remarkable intertextual reference in the novel is the name
5LFKDUG 3DUNHU 5LFKDUG 3DUNHU LV D FKDUDFWHU IURP (GJDU $OODQ
201
Note also that before Pi and Richard Parker reach the island, they encounter a
whale and an albatross, thus linking their oceanic journey even more tightly to
literary sea journeys.
202
BXWWKLVLVRQO\SDUWRIWKHWUXWK7KLVDVVXPSWLRQLJQRUHV3LVQXPHrous comments on apartness and species differences, but more importantly, it misunderstands the novel as a pamphlet commenting on
environmentalist thought instead of seeing it first and foremost as
DILFWLRQDOGLVFRXUVHLQLWVRZQULJKW$FFRUGLQJO\$UPVWURQJVFRn-
203
clusion seems rather odd: as stated above, he sneers WKDW the environmentalist veneer of Life of Pi proves UDWKHUWKLQArmstrong 2008:
177). +HWKHQVFUXWLQLVHV3LVH[SODQDWLRQV about zoos, animal keeping
and animal training and concludes that
DOWKRXJK LW SRVHV DV WKH VLPSOH VWRU\ RI D VLPSOH ,QGLDQ ER\ 0DUWHOV QRYHO Uefuses the particularities of location and floats free of historical, geopolitical context, and in so doing offers a rhapsody to the power of the (touristic, allconsuming, privileged, globalized, Western) human spirit. (179)
Armstrong mixes his assessment of Martel as the author with a misUHDGLQJRI3LDVDPRUDOYRLFH0DUWHOValleged SHUFHSWLRQRIJOREDO
PRELOLW\ DV IXQGDPHQWDO WR KXPDQ QDWXUH OHDGV Armstrong to conFOXGHWKDW3LVVHQVLELOLW\LVPRUHWKDQDQ\WKLQJHOVHWKDWRIWKHWRXrist, for example (179). What is more, he claims that the whole novel
expresses this sensibility. By conflating author, character and text like
this, Armstrong misses the point that Pi, as a fictional character, cannot be taken to be reliable in any realist (or environmentalist) sense. Pi
is not only metonymically marked by colonial culture, he is first and
foremost a child who has been instructed by his father, a zoo-keeper,
about animal behaviour. His voyage on the lifeboat can also be read as
a coming-of-age narrative in the course of which he grows up and, at
the same time, realises the reciprocal dependence of human and animal beings. In the end, the question of unreliability constitutes a gap
to be filled by the reader.
This is highlighted at the end of the novel when, in a surprising
twist of readerly expectation and by means of metafictional comment,
the fictional discourse of the novel becomes the central theme. This
development is supported by the very construction of the narrative
itself, which can be divided into three main sections: the first section
WHOOV3LVOLIHEHIRUHWKHYR\DJHDQGKLVVWUXJJOHZLWKUHOLJLRXVEHOLHI11
the second section deals with his being on the lifeboat; and the remarkably short third section, after Pi has been saved, when the story is
retold to two Japanese investigators who interrogate Pi for insurance
UHDVRQV7KH\GRQRWEHOLHYH3LVQDUUDWLYH7KLVOHDGV3LWRILUVWGefend it WLJHUVH[LVWOLIHERDWVH[LVWRFHDQVH[LVW%HFDXVHWKHWKUHH
have never come together in your narrow experience, you refuse
to believe WKDW WKH\ PLJKW (LoP 299) then to rephrase the story
11
Note the inclusion of religious discourse, which historically links to the trope of
anthropomorphism, as argued above.
204
:HLQWKLVFRQWH[WKDV RIFRXUVHUDWKHUWREHXQGHUVWRRGDVDQ,7KDWLVWRVD\
I approach the text from my own hermeneutical situation and, as argued in
CKDSWHUDVVXPHWKDWWKLVLVZKDWWKHLPSOLHGUHDGHUGRHV
205
3LV ILUVW VWRU\ 5LFKDUG 3DUNHU KRZHYHU Uesists this inverse anthropomorphisation and quietly vanishes from the narrative he has no
human counterpart. Without Richard Parker, the text tells us, Pi would
not have been able to survive his 227 days on the lifeboat the gap
therefore leaves us in want of an answer as to how to read this animal.
Was it a kind of zoomorphic, spiritual guidance, an element of the
WUXHDFFRXQWRIWKHVWRU\WKDWFDQQRWEHWUDQVODWHGLQWRdry, yeastless
factuDOLW\" OU FDQ ZH XQGHUVWDQG LW DV 3LV UHDOLVDWLRQ RI KLV Rwn
animal self that had been evoked in the narrative journey on the lifeboat? However understood, by this last narrative twist, the animal
vanishes from sight, unspeakable again in the context of the familiar
realm of reliability. But it is still a vivid memory, not least of all because the part of the narrative that features animals is granted much
PRUHVSDFHLQWKHQRYHO3LVODVWZRUGVIRUKLPZKHQ5LFKDUG3DUNHU
rushes off into the jungle, are:
I wish you all the best with [your freedom]. Watch out for Man. He is not your
friend. But I hope that you will remember me as a friend. I will never forget you,
that is certain. You will always be with me, in my heart. (LoP 384)
All of these binaries, however, are deconstructed by means of the narrative devices I outlined above in particular, 3LV XQUHOLDELOLW\ DQG
the numerous intertextual allusions. In the end, Pi is cosmopolitan
rather than nationally bound that is, he has overcome the imagined
community of a nation state for the sake of an imaginary community
206
of living creatures; during the narrative, he eats meat and even rejects
the distinction between (animal) carnivory and (human/bestial) cannibalism; he develops from a pantheistic eclecticism towards a global
spirituality that includes animals (and his scientific interest is surely
secular); and, finally, his oral narrative is not oral at all but narratively
staged as being an oral account within a novel. Through the various
binary constructions that it disrupts, Life of Pi allows us to view a
fictional space between anthropocentric fable and ecocentric animal
story. This space becomes a place for the humanimal. With regard to
EnvironMentality, the role of human-animal relationships in postcolonial narratives and the importance (and inescapability) of literary emplotment further support the claim for a cautious hermeneutics and
the focus on the event of fiction.
:KLOH WKH DFWXDO DQLPDOV VLOHQFH LV DFNQRZOHGJHG WKH VLOHQFH LW
leaves us with is narratively filled with the fictionalisation of literary
anthropomorphism; the EHOLHILQ*RG promised by the narrator at the
beginning RI KLV VWRU\ WKXV EHFRPHV 3LV belief in form WKDW ZH
must JLYH WKLQJV D PHDQLQJIXO VKDSH (LoP 383). This allows us to
RIIHUWKHDQLPDODSODFHLQWKHWUDQVODWHGZRUOG(Rilke), which I have
referred to as the world-as-text. It is important to note that positioning
the animal there does not mean understanding it at all. Instead, it
means a negotiation of the value of anthropomorphism as opposed to
the pathetic fallacy (without, of course, bringing it to closure). In place
of FRPSODLQWV DERXW WKH DQLPDO WKDW LQ ILFWLRQ LV OLWWOH PRUH WKDQ D
human-VFXOSWHGREMHFWLQZKLFKWKHDQLPDOVJODVVH\HPHUHO\UHflects
our own projections, we discover the imaginative space opened up by
WKHILFWLRQDOPRGHDVDIXUU\VXEMXQFWLYHFDVH DOLWHUDU\ZKDWLI
that deliberately blurs the species boundary (Daston & Mitman 2005b:
5; 9). At the same time, however, we remain aware of the fictional
character of our ways of thinking beyond the human.
In stressing the aesthetic and imaginative potential of literature, I
UHIUDLQ IURP +XJJDQ 7LIILQV DQG IURP $UPVWURQJV REMHFWLYH WR
counter representational othering by means of sociocultural or ecomaterialist analyses. Instead, I describe a communal sense between
humans and animals and an experience of humanimality that fiction
alone is able to create. If we take fiction as a place to test and imagine
the value of human-animal communities as a form of resistance
against the essentialist discourses of colonialism and speciesism, we
see that it is this faith in the imagination that Life of Pi fruitfully negoWLDWHV &ROHV GHVFULSWLRQ RI 0DUWHOV QRYHO DV DQ XQMXVW HTXDWLRQ RI
207
UHOLJLRXVEHOLHIDQGWKHEHOLHILQILFWLRQDODQLPDOQDUUDWLYHVLVWKHUeIRUH PLVOHDGLQJ 7KH EHOLHI LQ *RG WKDW 3L SURPLVes to elicit is in
fact the belief in the evocative potential of anthropomorphism. Interpreting the fictionality of anthropomorphic narratives provides us with
WKHQHFHVVDU\GLVWDQFHWRWKHLGHDRIJUDVSLQJWKHDQLPDO0RUHRYHU
it offers us a rewarding surplus of semantic echoes, which all claim
the animal as a vivid part of our cultural environment.
*****
In reading the negotiations and deconstructions of human-animal borders in Life of Pi, ,KDYHVKRZQWKDWDKXPDQLPDOVHQVHRIFRPPunity relies on an appreciation of difference and unspeakability. Instead
of looking for traces of the real animal in fiction, I have deliberately
sought humanimal hybridity, that is, points of convergence where
literary animals join the field of cultural production via intertextual
DQGDQWKURSRPRUSKLFQDUUDWLYHV,WZDVWKXVQRWDXWKHQWLFLW\RUUHDO
animals but the truth of fiction that I was looking for. In what follows,
I will elaborate on this idea. I will draw critical attention to the potential of literature to create an imaginary humanimal community and
discuss moments of problematic, literary appropriation of the motif of
animality. I will read Beatrice and Virgil 0DUWHOV IROORZ-up
novel in this context and show how the text intertextually and metafictionally engages with this danger. In the end, my reading will allow
for a self-critical deconstruction of WKHWH[WV humanimal notion without abandoning the hermeneutic orientation of EnvironMentality.
Beatrice and Virgil, I will argue, suggests a critical distance to the
motifs it employs the literary humanimal hybrid and thus ties in
with the critique of becoming I formulated in the last chapter. The text
achieves that this distance is felt as forcefully as possible by presenting dead animals and a taxidermist, among other things, and thus engaging with the provocation of the animal form. In The Animal That
Therefore I Am, Derrida talks about the conFHSWRIlimitrophy that
LVWKHTXHVWLRQQRWRQO\RIDQLPDORWKHUQHVVEXWRIZKDWVSURXWVRU
grows at the limits, around the limit, by maintaining the limit (2008:
29). This leads him to the animal figure. My reading will engage with
animal figures too, and it will show how the animal form provokes us
to think about ourselves and about otherness. Thus, it will present a
literary negotiation of what Derrida describes; seeking the animal
figure around the limit, and by maintaining the limit, of animality.
208
When we think about them, Derrida says, these animal figures PXOWiply, lunging more and more wildly in my face in proportion as my
texts seem to become autobiographical (2008: 35). Beatrice and
Virgil will help us in making sense of this.
My use of the concept of animal figures relies on ideas formulated
in different ways by Donna Haraway as well as by Derrida. My focus,
however, is not on the philosophical engagement with animals but on
literary emplotments. That is to say, I will reconfigure the concepts in
order to show how literary texts are able to effectively come to terms
with what Haraway means when she talks about humans and animals
DVchimerical visions of figuration DQGPDWHULDO-semiotic nodes or
NQRWV LQ ZKLFK GLYHUVH ERGLHV DQG PHDQLQJV FRVKDSH RQH DQRWKHU
(Haraway 2008: 4). I want to show that literature can help us understand these difficult ideas by turning abstraction into experience. With
a postcolonial stance in mind, I moreover believe that it can also address what DerULGDKDVFDOOHGWKHSUREOHPRIanthropo-theomorphic
UHDSSURSULDWLRQ &DQWKHDQLPDOVSHDN"'HUULGDVHHPV to ask, and
in ways not unlike Spivak, who asked whether the Subaltern can speak
(Spivak 1988), Derrida goes on to explicate:
Things would be too simple altogether, the anthropo-theomorphic reappropriation
would already have begun, there would even be the risk that domestication has already come into effect, if I were to give in to my own melancholy. (2008: 18)
209
we do not IRFXV RQ WKH DQLPDO RU WKH Rther in fiction but on the
chimerical constructions with which fiction challenges us encounters
with othered and commodified individuals but also encounters with an
animality that all living creatures RULQ+DUDZD\VZRUGVFULWWHUV
share.
$ERYH ,KDYHGLVFXVVHGKRZ<DQQ0DUWHOV Life of Pi negotiates
these issues, and the means by which our human communal ways with
animals are narrated by emphasising the fictionality of the textual
community. Since the novel works on two levels of fictionality, one in
which the animals are real and one in which they are symbolic standins, it forces the reader to engage with the questions I outlined above:
Do we anthropomorphise animals when we deal with them? Do we
zoomorphise humans who behave bestially? Which story do we believe and which is the better story? In having us ask these questions,
Life of Pi problematises the very distinction it seems to be concerned
with and cleverly deconstructs the tenet of separateness. By staging
the narrative as a fable that deliberately uses intertextual devices in
order to make us aware of its fictionality, Life of Pi combines the emotional aspects of human-animal communities with an acute awareness
RI WKH SUREOHPV RI DQ DOOHJHG WKLQNLQJ ZLWK DQLPDOV , KDYH VWDWHG
that it is very suggestive that the fictional coherence falls apart at the
end of the novel and that by making us choose which story to believe,
Life of Pi turns the colonising gaze back onto ourselves. By blurring
human and animal boundaries, and by complicating the distinction of
XVDQG WKHP LW EHFRPHV GLIILFXOW WR say who the coloniser is and
who the colonised; what makes the difference, the text suggests, is the
better story DQGRQHVRSHQQHVVWREHOLHYHLQLW. Paradoxically, the
belief in the better story is different from the belief in a genuine,
authentic account of the animal other because the text is overtly
marked as fictional by intertextual hints and references.
Beatrice and Virgil is a highly intertextual novel, too, and it directly engages with (and elaborates on) the issues raised in Life of Pi.
The whole novel, but especially the representation of animals, relies
KHDYLO\ RQ LQWHUWH[WXDO UHIHUHQFHV DQG DV WKH SORW DQG WKH QRYHOV
characters are built on tropes and motifs from other narratives, other
genres and other contexts from Renaissance humanism to the Holocaust the palimpsestic nature of the narrative engenders a vision of
DQLPDOLW\WKDWFDQEHXQGHUVWRRGDVFKLPHULFDODQGILJXUDWHG%\WKe
same token, the concepts of Derrida and Haraway can be experienced
as they are staged and emplotted in narrative, and this experience
210
constitutes the literary singularity of this text and, thus, its ethical effectiveness.
The narrative begins with an account of the narrator-character
+HQU\V SUHYLRXV ERRN, ZKLFK WKH WH[W UHYHDOV IHDWXUHG ZLOG DQimals, and many letters came down to questions about them (BaV 29).
This is an obvious reference to Life of Pi. In answering these letters,
+HQU\H[SODLQVWKDWWKH use of animals in his novel [...] was for reasons of craft rather than of sentiment (29). So it seems that Henry
and, by implication, Martel did not have any genuine interest in the
actual animals at all. He admits that, rather, when speaking as a
hXPDQ EHLQJ DERXW KXPDQV KH ZDV OLNHO\ surely D OLDU, while
GUHVVHGLQIXUVDQGIHDWKHUVKHEHFDPHDVhaman and spoke a greater
truth (29). Since Martel plays with the idea that the diegetic authorcharacter can be read as the actual author, Yann Martel, his remarks
on literary animals also concern the animal narrative presented in Life
of Pi. That the animals there were indeed fictional animals is made
rather clear already at the beginning of Beatrice and Virgil:
Readers [of his previous book] assumed he had training in zoology, or at the very
least a lifelong passion for the natural world. He replied that he had the same
broad affection for nature that any sensitive inhabitant of this planet has, but no
outstanding interest in animals, no abiding love for them that might be called a
character trait. (29)
+HQU\V UHDO LQWHUHVW ZH OHDUQ OLHV HOVHZKHUH +H LV DOPRVW Rbsessed with finding ways of representing the Holocaust. At the beginning of the story, we learn that Henry had just finished a new book, a
IOLSERRN DERRNZLWKWZRVHWVRIGLVWLQFWSDJHVWKDWDUHDWWDFKHG
to a common spine upside down and back-to-back to each other (6).
By this design, Henry hopes to account for the dilemma of representation concerning the Shoah, namely our inability to stage the terrible
events fictionally without using the same horrifying numbers and
facts.
That terrifying event was overwhelmingly represented by a single school: historical realism. The story, always the same story, was always framed by the same
GDWHV VHW LQ WKH VDPH SODFHV IHDWXULQJ WKH VDPH FDVW RI FKDUDFWHUV >@ $QG VR
Henry came to wonder: why this suspicion of the imagination, why the resistance
to artful metaphor? A work of art works because it is true, not because it is real.
(10)
211
By again engaging with the question of what he calls the truth of art,
Martel positions Beatrice and Virgil in a continuum with his Life of
PiDQGHYHQZLWKKLVRWKHUZRUNIRUUHDGHUVRI0DUWHOVILFWLRQZLOO
be familiar with his attempts at staging the terrible events of the Shoah
by means of fictionalising them in different contexts. 13 Notably, he
juxtaposes the truth of art and the genre of realism, and, thus, he probOHPDWLVHVUHDOLVWLFQDUUDWLYHVHDUO\RQ
In Beatrice and Virgil, the author-charDFWHUVDWWHPSWWRFRPELQHLQ
a flip book an essay on the history of the National Socialist regime
and a novel to fictionalise it, however, fails: his publisher, as well as a
small committee that has been invited to discuss the draft Henry had
worked on, dismiss it as a failure and refuse to publish it. It is only
towards the end of Beatrice and Virgil that the reader learns how MarWHOVQRYHOIXOILOVWKHWDVNVHWIRUWKHDXWKRU-character by incorporating
the Holocaust into a fictionalised narrative and by destabilising the
human-animal boundary in ways that annoyed and repelled numerous
critics. Writing for the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani calls it
HYHU\ELWDVPLVFRQFHLYHGDQGoffensive as his earlier book was fetching (Kakutani 2010, n.p.; emphasis added). And Ron Charles calls it
DQH[DPSOHRIWKHSHULOVRI+RORFDXVWFUHDWLYLW\LQKLVUHYLHZIRUWKH
Washington Post (2010, n.p.). It is remarkable that most critics miss
the relevance of intertextual negotiations, and that they treat the book
as if it expressed a moral statement about the suffering of people and
animals. As I will show, neither LV WKH FDVH 7KH VXVSLFLRQ RI WKH
LPDJLQDWLRQ (BaV 10), which Henry observes, is ubiquitous in the
reviews however, and the novel negotiates the potential and pitfalls of
WKHGXELRXVDVVXPSWLRQWKDWSHRSOHRXJKWWRWDNHPRUe poetic licence
with Holocaust, as Charles sneers (2010, n.p.).
Taking this poetic licence, the novel narrates the day on which
Henry, who frequently receives fan mail, gets a letter with a mysteriRXVUHTXHVW'HDU6LU,UHDG\RXUERRNDQGPXFKDGPLUHGLW,QHHG
\RXUKHOS (BaV 52). Apparently, one of the readers of Pi has turned
to Henry in order to ask for help with his own ventures into the realm
of literature. Together with the note, Henry receives two textual fragments. One is a short story by Gustave Flaubert in which numerous
DQLPDONLOOLQJVDUHKLJKOLJKWHGLQEULJKW\HOORZ (31) while the rest
13
His novel Self, published in 1997, for example, tried to understand rape by comparing it to the Holocaust. Kamboureli (2007) discusses the representation of the
+RORFDXVWLQ0DUWHOVSelf in detail.
212
Martel here comments on the debate about animals and animal trophies in relation
to the human gaze as it has been discussed by John Berger, Jane Desmond and
Donna Haraway. For a discussion of the role of anthropomorphism in informing
WD[LGHUP\DQGDUWWD[LGHUP\VHH.DORI& Fitzgerald (2003).
213
16
5RODQG%DUWKHVKDVGLVFXVVHGWKHUHDOLW\HIIHFWDOVRLQWHUPVRIWKHUHIHUHQWLDO
LOOXVLRQ WKDW GRHV QRW GHQRWH WKH UHDO EXW PHUHO\ VLJQLILHV LW ,W LV FHUWDLQO\ QR
coincidence that in Beatrice and Virgil such a textual device is contrasted with
)ODXEHUWV ZULWLQJ )ODXEHUW ZDV DJRQLVLngly concerned with questions of form
and formal composition, and his classification as a realist author betrays his interHVWLQWKHSRHWU\ RIWKHVHQWHQFHQRQRYHOLVW, -DPHV:RRGFODLPVSXVKHGWR
such an extreme the potential alienation of form and content (Flaubert longed to
ZULWHZKDWKHFDOOHGDERRNDERXWQRWKLQJ-:RRG
Note the relation between XQVSHDNDELOLW\DQGWKH+RUURUVZKLFKUHIHUWR&RQUDG
(and, in the context of my study, to Ghosh as well). The list is not arbitrary at all,
KRZHYHU2QHLWHPRQWKHOLVW1RZROLSNL6WUHHW, for instance, is the address
of the Ringelblum archive that sought to document the collective memory of the
Warsaw ghetto during World War II. The idea of the archive becomes even more
LQWHUHVWLQJLQLWVUHODWLRQWRWKHWHOOLQJRIVWRULHVLQJHQHUDODQGWR'HUULGDVQRWLRQ
RIWKHOLWHUDU\HYHQWLQSDUWLFXODU'HUULGDPDLQWDLQVWKDWLWLVFKDUDFWHULVWLFRID
214
as the play incorporates animal voices into the context of human artistic production, Henry the author realises that the whole narrative is
also an allegory of the Holocaust and a form of fictionalising it.
:KLOH +HQU\V ZLIH MXVW IURZQV DQG REMHFWV WKDW KH VLPSO\ VHHV WKH
Holocaust everywhere, Henry maintains that to write about the Holocaust is also to write about animal suffering, or animality,WZDVQW
WKDWKHVDZWKH+RORFDXVWLQHYHU\WKLQJ,WVWKDWKHVDZHYHU\WKLQJLQ
the Holocaust (BaV 116).
Of course, the equation of human suffering under the Nazi regime
and the suffering of animals is the most provocative and problematic
comparison possible (see Spiegel 1996; Sztybel 2006). From the perspective of the narrative construction, however, it is important that this
literary engagement with suffering expresses virtually the shared aniPDOLW\RIKXPDQVDQGDQLPDOVDVDFRPPRQVSLQHIRUWZRQDUUDWLYH
objectives. On the other hand, however, Henry (this time the other
one, and this confusion is deliberate, I should think)17 uses the animals
and the alleged realism of his work in order to avoid speaking about
the Holocaust and his own guilt we learn that the taxidermist was in
fact once a Nazi officer, now trying to speak about the Holocaust in
ways that disguise his own share in the horrors of the regime.
So while the equation of human and animal suffering does work on
a narrative level, it produces several serious tensions in the context of
finding a clear-cut meaning and moral. The mise en abyme that
merges the author-character Henry and, eventually, the other Henry,
blurs the distinction between hero and villain, and together with the
image of commodified, stuffed animals repeats the initial claim that
DQLPDOVDUHVLPSO\XVHGfor reasons of craft This time, this literary
and actual commodification causes some legitimate discomfort. Appropriating the speechlessness of the animals, which could have been
understood as a genuine interest in animal suffering from the taxiderPLVWVVLGH, turns out to be his way of atoning for or concealing his
17
singular work-HYHQW>@WKDWLWJDWKHUVERWKVLQJXODUHYHQWV>@DQGDXQLYHUVDO
UHIOHFWLRQ RI LWV RZQ SRVVLELOLW\ Asja Szafraniec has described this notion,
ZKLFK 'HUULGD FDOOV WKH HFRQRPLF-juridical character of the literary work DQG
she tellingl\ VXPPDULVHV LW DV *DWKHULQJ 6SRQJLQJ $UFKLYLQJ 6]DIUDQiec
2007: 31-5).
6SOLWWLQJWKHDXWKRUILJXUHLQWRDQDXWKRU-character Henry and a reader-character
Henry, who turns out to be an author too, points to the Janus face of literary
humanimality: it allows us to think beyond ourselves but also serves to disguise
inhumanity.
215
own past as a Nazi officer. Allegedly bearing witness to animal sufferLQJ EHFRPHV D ZD\ RI FRQFHDOLQJ RQHV RZQ JXLOW 7KH KLJKO\ LQWHrtexual and metafictional rendering of the narrative questions, this
time, the polysemous potential of humanimality in the moment of
invoking it. Unlike Life of Pi, in Beatrice and Virgil, Martel demonstrates the dangers of incorporating the animal other into the cultural
practice of literature. Nevertheless, the text remains emotionally stirring, and it does comment on animal suffering and animality. Having
identified the ostensible conflation of human and animal suffering as
the unforgivDEOHVLQRIWKHQRYHO5RQ&KDUOHVIURZQVDWWKHVWRPDFKturning scene of torture and murder that produces visceral impact by
substituting melodrama for insigKW, apparently less convinced of the
merits of realist depiction now (Charles 2010, n.p.). The fate of Beatrice and Virgil, first presented in a genuine attempt to narrate animal
suffering and suddenly turning into a stand-in literary means of washing clean +HQU\V JXLOW at being a Nazi criminal, epitomises the experience of the confusLQJ chimerical nature of the materialsemiotic nodes that are humans and other animals. While Life of Pi
could be said to argue for a literary understanding of the animal other,
Beatrice and Virgil emphasises the danger of subordinating others to
such literary meaning. Through their intertextual relations, the two
novels thus provide mutual commentary on their humanimal emplotments.
The incapability of truly accounting for the animal is thus staged as
a failure of animal narratives in which animals are (mis)appropriated
for human purposes. The novel presents othered animals, but it also
presents animals as symbols for othering. Moreover, the animals are
thoroughly commodified. On a surface level, their being stuffed
UHDOEXWVRPHKRZSUHVHUYHGPXPPLfied (BaV 59) invites reflection on WKHLUVWDWHVDVJRRGVWKDWDUHFUHDWHGE\KXPDQV7KHVSHFimen beIRUH KLP +HQU\ UHIOHFWV LQ IURQW RI D VWXIIHG RNDSL ZDV D
superlative job. [...] Here, in an otherwise comprehensively manufactured environment, was a small, brilliant patch of tropical Africa
(59). Of course, this experience is not authentic since the taxidermist
crafts, in 'RQQD +DUDZD\V ZRUGV VRPHWKLQJ ILner than the living
RUJDQLVP>@DQHZJHQHVLV (1993: 254). The realist veneer of representation is deconstructed as a worlding strategy by the motif of taxiGHUP\DQGLWOLQNVWKHWHFKQRORJLHVRIHQIRUFHGPHDQLQJ (254) with
the problems of authorial ideology. Beatrice and Virgil thus shows
the inextricability of huPDQV DQG DQLPDOV nodal characteUV DV
216
217
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH
Postnatural Survival in Oryx and Crake and
The Year of the Flood
Staging the HQYLURQPHQW DQG HPSORWWLQJ KXPDQ DQLPDO RU KXPDQiPDOLGHQWLWLHVLQILFWLRQUHOy heavily on gaps and tensions that foster
readerly negotiations of meaning. The result of these negotiations, the
literary experience of alterity, constitutes the hermeneutic basis for
EnvironMentality. By arguing for a fluid but subject-based concept of
environmental thinking, I challenge ideas of homogeneity particularly ZLWK UHJDUG WR WKH FRQFHSWV RI QDWXUH FXOWXUH DQG WKH DQiPDO6XFKDvalorisation of difference, however, has been criticised
by Greg Garrard, who associates it with a tendency in ecocritical research to NHHS QDWXUH >@ VHDOHG RII safely in hermetic scarequotes, DQG WR VKXQ DQ\ PHQWLRQ RI KXPDQ QDWXUH LQ JHQHUDO
(2010c: 224). I think that my discussion so far has provided some
arguments why a careful consideration of allegedly universal concepts
VXFK DV QDWXUH DQG KXPDQ QDWXUH PD\ UHVXOW LQ WKH XVH RI VFDUHquotes; however, I find GarrDUGVFODLPWKDWLQVRPHQRYHOV ZHFRPH
to terms wiWK'DUZLQLVPLQWKHIRUPVPRVWXVHIXOWRXV (225) to be
an interesting challenge.
Thus, I am interested in the question of how a Darwinian stance on
literature can benefit the idea of EnvironMentality. By criticising the
DVVRFLDWLRQ RI 'DUZLQLVP ZLWK ELRORJLFDO GHWHUPinism and rightwing ideologies (224), Garrard suggests a reading practice that takes
LQWR DFFRXQW ZD\V RI UHDGLQJ ERWK RXU YDULRXV FXOWXUHV and our
shared human nature, and he does so LQRUGHUWROLEHUDWHWKHKXPDQiWLHVIURPWKHEDOHIXOP\RSLDRIH[WUHPHVRFLDOFRQVWUXFWLRQLVP (240;
emphasis added). Both the intricacies of postcolonial perspectives on
ecocriticism and the necessity to envision literary truth through uncertainties rather than scientific facts suggest that this study ultimately
cannot acFHSW WKH Darwinian viewpoint Garrard proposes. Nevertheless, I think it worthwhile to consider how novels negotiate the idea
of human and animal embeddedness in a natural environment, and
220
2
3
7KH LQFUHDVH LQ WKH QXPEHU RI QHRORJLVPV VXFK DV QDWXUHFXOWXUH KXPDQLPDO
DQG QRZ WHFKQRSUHVHQWWHFKQRVFLHQFH seems to suggest that it is virtually
neologisms DOOWKHZD\ GRZQIt may be helpful to see them as attempts to express the limits of analytical language. Haraway (2008) describes our times as
PDUNHG E\ D SHFXOLDU DWWLWXGH WR KLVWRU\ DQG ZULWHV WKDW ZH WHQG WR GHVFULEH
everything as new, as revolutionary, as future oriented, as a solution to the problems of the past (135). I will try to connect this diagnosis of the present with the
dystopian vision of a possible IXWXUHLQ$WZRRGVQRYHOVDQG argue that the lanJXDJH RI WKH WHFKQRSUHVHQW is an eerily empty one. That my own language resorts to the same tone in order to account for the newness of literary experiences
is an important tension that adds to the ambivalences discussed here and in the
following chapter.
In the following referred to as OaC.
In the following referred to as TYotF.
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH221
222
The postnatural world, as it were, is a world where most of the diFKRWRPLHV RI QDWXUH DQG FXOWXUH VFLHQFH DQG HWKLFV DQG HFR DQG
HJR KDYH EHHQ DEROLVKHG but it is also a world of desolation and
loneliness for human beings. In engaging with the motif of loneliness
in connection with postnatural environments, and by addressing the
paradoxical conflict that overcoming these dichotomies entails, I will
discuss the literary experience of an otherness that affects the very
concept of humanity.
Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood tell stories of postapocalyptic survival. Notably, both novels tell the same story but
from different perspectives. While Oryx and Crake relates apocalyptic
events in a not-too-distant futuUH DIWHU WKH SURWDJRQLVWV IRUPHU EHVW
friend has extinguished almost the entire human population with the
OHWKDO%O\ssPlussSill, The Year of the Flood complements this narrative with the perspectives of other survivors.5 Two aspects are important in my reading of these dystopias: the role of time and timelessness, and the development from autodiegetic narrative to a narrative that features various perspectives and focalisers. These elements
complicate the QRYHOV FODVVLILFDWLRQ DV dystopian fiction, but they
5
7KH WURSH DQG LPDJHU\ RI VXUYLYDO QRWDEO\ OLQNV WKH QRYHOV WR $WZRRGV RWKHU
writings and to her work on Canadian identity (see Atwood 2004, and also Ingersoll 2004).
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH223
6LQFH$WZRRGVG\VWRSLDFDQEHOLQNHGWRWKHH[SHULHQFHVRIWKHUeadership, her vision implies the urgency to react the terrifying processes the novel is concerned with have already begun, and the necessity is there to react now. At the same time, the novel presents a vision
of timelessness that contradicts the message of urgency. This tension
constitutes an important effect that I will discuss below. For the assessment of the motif of the apocalypse, it is important to see that
VLQFH WKH WH[WV FRQVWDQWO\ UHIHU WR RXU SUHVHQW DQG FUHDWH OLQNDJHV
between dystopian vision and present-day experience, they develop a
utopian potential. Crane therefore describes the novel as having a
SUHFDXWLRQDU\PHVVDJHDQGFODLPVWKDWLWFDQEHUHDGDOWHUQDWLYHO\
as apocalyptic, utopian or dystopian (241). Present-day phenomena
are exaggerated or projected into the future in ways that are intended
to sharpen the awareness for dangerous developments and trends that
are already taking place. Thus, the texts create a sense of urgency (to
react before it is too late) and emplot a feeling of (postnatural) deadlock. According to theories of utopia/dystopia, this tension con-stitutes
the modern utopian genre: Edward James argues that in the twentyfirst century, 0RUHV FODVVLFDOXWRSLDKDVEHFRPHDYLFWLPWRWZHQWi6
7KH FRQFHSW RI WKH UHDGHU LV LQ OLQH ZLWK P\ QRWLRQ RI D KHUPHQHXWLFDOO\ FRQFHLYHG LPSOLHG :HVWHUQ UHDGHU VLQFH WKH G\VWRSLDQ ZRUOG RI Oryx and Crake
UHVHPEOHVWKHOLYHGUHDOLW\RID:HVWHUQWHFKQRVFLHQWLILFVRFLHW\&UDQHLVDZDUH
RIWKLVWRRDQGLQP\UHDGLQJ,ZLOOHODERUDWHRQWKLVFRQFHSWRIWKH:HVWvs the
UHVWconstruction (see also Crane 2009: 256).
224
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH225
human beings but also the role that narratives play in this process.
Thus, its apocalypticism becomes a meta-commentary on the role of
narrating the world. This LV HQJHQGHUHG E\ WKH QRYHOV WUHDWPHQW RI
WLPH DQGLGHQWLW\ %\ MX[WDSRVLQJ VORZ YLROHQFH 1L[RQDQGdeep
KLVWRULFDO WLPH +XWWRQ/\HOO ZLWK D SHUVRQDO QDUUDWLYH RI ORVV DQG
loneliness, Oryx and Crake questions its own dystopian prerequisites;
the supraindividual processes of decline as well as the temporal singularity of apocalypse.
Garrard identifies a number of serious problems of dystopian narraWLYHV WKH HPEDWWOHG PRYHPHQWV WR SDUDQRLD DQG YLROHQFH, an
H[WUHPHPRUDOGXDOLVPWKDWGLYLGHVWKHZRUOd sharply into friend and
enemy, WKHHPSKDVLVRIWKHXQYHLOLQJ>FIapo-calyptein] of transhistRULFDOWUXWK, which divides readers into believers and unbelievers;
and the proleptic pretence of the imaginative narratives (Garrard
2004: 86, emphasis orig.)$WZRRGVQRYHOVQHJRWLDWHWKHVHLVVXHVRQ
the level of the discourse and thus create a tension with their classification as dystopian fiction. By complicating the distinction between
QRZ DQG WKHQ WKH G\VWRSLDQ YLVLRQ KDV DOZD\V FUHDWHG D WHQVLRQ
between eschatology and hope. In particular, last-man narratives from
6KHOOH\V The Last Man WR %R\OHV A Friend of the Earth
WKXVFDOOLQWRTXHVWLRQWKHGLVWLQFWLRQEHWZHHQXVDQGWKHP
temporally and with regard to the question of the intended readerVKLS $WZRRGV ILFWLRQ LV QR H[HPSWLRQ ,Q WKH FRQWH[W RI EnvironMentality, these questions are productive because it is the narrative
form DQGQRWDQ\XQYHLOHGLQIRUPDWLRQWKDWEULQJVHQYLURQPHQWDOLVW
DUJXPHQWV RI XUJHQF\ DQG WKH JORRP DQG GRRP SHUVSHFWLYH RI
dystopia into fruitful tension with aspects of hope. Ultimately, this
tension renders the apocalypse a trope that engages with the role of
ILFWLRQIRUWKHDSRFDO\SVHRIWKHLPDJLQDWLRn.7
By maintaining the creatural aspects of the human, and by connectLQJ HYROXWLRQDU\ WKRXJKW DQG FXOWXUDO QHJRWLDWLRQ $WZRRGV WH[WV
VXFFHHG LQ VWDJLQJ WKH FXOWXUDlly formative power of language, as
Sylvia Mayer claims, and they show how the solitude of postnatural
HQYLURQPHQWV PXVW EH UHODWHG WR WKH ORVV RI D OLQJXLVWLF FRPPXQLW\
that guarantees the existence of a shared, communicable reality
7
*DUUDUG GHVFULEHV 0F.LEEHQV LGHD RI D SRVWQDWXUDO ZRUOG DV DQ DSRFDO\SVHRIWKHLPDJLQDWLRQ6LQFH,GLVFXVVHQYLURQPHQWDOFULVLVDVDFULVLVRI
the imagination, this connection renders the interpretation of postnatural environments an important element of EnvironMentality.
226
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH227
ment of dystopias. Its ecological and non-dualist implications have been discussed
by Heise (2010c: 123) and Korte (2008).
Notably, this distinction reiterates the nature/culture divide in a strictly artificial,
man-made setting.
228
-LPP\6QRZPDQZKRWKLQNVKLVIDWKHUEHKDYHVDVLI>KH@ZHUHDXGitioning for the role of Dad, but without much hope (OaC 52). While
Jimmy/Snowman feels uneasy about the consequences of postnatural
adaptations, his friend Glenn/Crake at least accepts these developments. The text suggests that he might in fact be better adapted to this
environment, and it underlines the evolutionary subtext by distinguishLQJ EHWZHHQ word perVRQV and numbers persons. UndoubtHGO\ WKH QXPEHUV SHUVRQV DUH ILWWHU LQ D QHROLEHUDO-biologist sense.
Glenn/Crake LV VXFK D QXPEHUV SHUVRQ DV RSSRVHG WR WKH ZRUG
SHUVRQ -LPP\/Snowman who is interested in art and other obsolete
pastimes) and KHODWHUUHIHUVWR-LPP\6QRZPDQDVQHXURW\SLFDO. To
Jimmy/Snowman, this VHHPHGWREHOLNHFDOOLQJKLPD&UR-Magnon
RUVRPHWKLQJ1H[WVWHSWKH\GEHSXWWLQJKLPLQDFDJHIHHGLQJKLP
bananas, and poking him with electropods (OaC 203). Interestingly,
Jimmy deliberately adopts this degradation after the apocalypse, referULQJ WR KLPVHOI DV WKH $ERPLQDEOH 6QRZPDQ a reference to the
Yeti, ZKRLVERWKP\WKLFDQGVXE-KXPDQ. Jayne Glover remarks that
>E@\ FDOOLQJ KLPVHOI WKH $ERPLQDEOH 6QRZPDQ >-LPP\@ UHMHFWV
&UDNHV UXOH DW 3DUDGLFH WKDW QR QDPH FRXOG EH FKRVHQ IRU ZKLFK D
SK\VLFDOHTXLYDOHQW>@FRXOGQRWEHGHPRQVWUDWHG (2009: 58). This,
she concludes, shows how for Jimmy, IDQWDV\ DQG UHDOLW\ EHFRPH
one (58). It moreover shows that becoming one and merging inform
the dystopian subtext in a way that makes it hard to discern whether
non-dualisms are part of the problem or the solution.
Snowman is not a new identity but the result of a merging of dichotomies. 10 This is why it is a mistake to read the novel with a focus
RQ WKH FOHDU GLYLVLRQ EHWZHHQ *OHQQ&UDNHV DQG -LPP\6QRZPDQV
characters or the ethical stances each character personifies. Ursula
Heise oversimplifies the matter when she claims that Crake represents
WKH VWHUHRW\SH RI D FROG GLVWDQFHG \HW LQJHQLRXV VFLHQWLVW ZKRVH
world-devastating ambitions are countered by a rather old-fashioned
10
The same can be said about Glenn/Crake who does not change but comes into his
own during the apocalypse. Jimmy/Snowman recalls that before the apocalypse,
&UDNH ZDVQW &UDNH \HW >@ KLV QDPH ZDV *OHQQ >@ 6QRZPDQ KDV WURXEOH
WKLQNLQJ RI &UDNH DV *OHQQ VR WKRURXJKO\ KDV &UDNHV ODWHU SHUVRQD EORWWHGRXW
his earlier one. The Crake side of him must have been there from the beginning,
>@ WKHUH ZDV QHYHU DQ\ UHDO *OHQQ Glenn ZDV RQO\ D GLVJXLVH OaC 70-1;
emphasis orig.1RWHWKDWERWKLGHQWLWLHVDUHPHUHO\SHUVRQDH for example, as
Elliot (2006) shows, the text suggests that the nDPH*OHQQLVDUHIHUHQFHWRWKH
pianist Glenn Gould.
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH229
230
ZKHQKHGHVFULEHVKRZHYHU\WKLQJDW0DUWKD*UDKDPKDGXWLOLWDULDQ
aims. Our Students Graduate With Employable Skills, ran the motto
underneath the original Latin motto, which was Ars Longa Vita Brevis (OaC 188, emphasis orig.). At the same time, he is unable to
change his own behaviour, either because he lacks the strength to do
so, or because in a postnatural world the ethical impetus of humanism
has become impossible. When nature and culture have become one,
WKHUHLVQRRXJKWRQO\LVHe feels disgusted when first encounterLQJ WKH KRUULEOH &KLFNLH1REV 21XEELQV D JHQHWLFDOO\ HQJLQHHUHG
chicken splice without eyes or beak that consists of edible parts only,
but he gets perfectly accustomed to eating them in the course of the
novel. His insistence on high culture, love and humanism is, moreover, constantly betrayed by his behaviour, for example by the way he
engages in a love-affairs:
+HGGUDZRXWRI>KLVJLUOIULHQGV@WKHLUVWRULHVRIKXUWKHGDSSO\KLPVHOIWRWKHP
like a poultice. But soon the process would reverse, and Jimmy would switch
from bandager to bandage. [...] But he took care never to get any less melancholy
RQDSHUPDQHQWEDVLV,IKHZHUHWRGRWKDWWKH\GH[SHFWDUHZDUGRIVRPHVRUWRU
a result at least. (OaC 190)
While Jimmy/Snowman is here presented as a rational and calculating character, parasitical on the idea of humanism rather than embodying it, Glenn/Crake shows traits of the feelings Jimmy/Snowman
only play-DFWV %HFDXVH -LPP\6QRZPDQV IRFDOisation significantly
influences the narrative, it is hard to make definite judgments about its
reliability. This makes it even more significant that the ending leaves
open whether Glenn/Crake had really cold-heartedly decided for the
extinction of mankind or whether it had all been done because
Glenn/Crake had by then learned that Jimmy/Snowman and the beautiful Oryx had cheated on him. That is to say, it is Glenn/Crake who
had been in love with Oryx:
[H]ow much did he know, when did he know it, was he spying on them all along?
[...] With so much at stake, was he afraid of failure, of being just one more incompetent nihilist? Or was he tormented by jealousy, was he addled by love, was
it revenge, did he just want Jimmy to put him out of his misery? (OaC 343)
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH231
232
By emplotting the postnatural world and, in close connection, the subsequent GHWHULRUDWLRQRIKXPDQLGHQWLW\$WZRRGVG\VWRSLDn tale transcends the confines of eco-apocalyptic alarmism. Although Atwood
incorporates this discourse and situates it in a postnatural environment, her text suggests a reading that is at the same time environmentally concerned and critical of this very stance. After all, the humanist
concept of the self, anthropocentric as it inevitably must be, seems
necessary. Its lack informs the dystopian aspects of the text. In the
QRYHO WKH difficulty of reality has become undissolvable because
reality has become hyperreality; it is sustainable and green EXW UHDO
without origin or reality, as Jean Baudrillard describes the hyperreal
(1998: 166). The novel forces its readers to think about the LUUDGLDting synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace without atmosphere (166), and about the share of ecological thinking in a process
that renders the distinctions between humanism, technoscience, nature
and culture obsolete.
*****
With regard to the role of Darwinism in literature, my reading foregrounds the view that it is Glenn/Crake who accepts the fact that we
DUHWKHUHDGLQJ WKLQNLQJIHHOLQJ QDNHG DSH DW WKH FHQWUH RI WKH Kumanistic inquiry, as Garrard puts it (2010c: 224). Much to humanLW\V GLVDGYDQWDJH KRZHYHU KH FRQFOXGHV WKDW WKH KXPDQ UDFH LV
flawed. He explains love and art as biologically determined in a quasiDarwinian manner11 and decides to abolish these things in the species
he creates the Crakers:
How much misery, [...] how much needless despair has been caused by a series of
biological mismatches, a misalignment of the hormones and pheromones? ResultLQJLQWKHIDFWWKDWWKHRQH\RXORYHVRSDVVLRQDWHO\ZRQWRUFDQWORYH\RX$VD
VSHFLHVZHUHSDWKHWLFLQWKDWZD\imperfectly monogamous. (OaC 166)
-LPP\6QRZPDQGHVSHUDWHO\DOOXGHVWRWKHPHWDSK\VLFDOTXDOLWLHVRI
art WKLQN3HWUDUFKWKLQN-RKQ'RQQHWKLQNWKHVita Nuova (167)
but Glenn/Crake explains these metaphysics of art away:
11
I am perfectly aware of the fact that this does not do justice to Darwinian thinking
DW DOO 'DUZLQLVP in this case rather stands for a radical biologism that approaches art, culture, and socLHW\IURPDQHYROXWLRQDU\SHUVSHFWLYH not unlike
CrakeDQGPD\EHQRWXQOLNHOLWHUDU\'DUZLQLVWV.
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH233
The female frog, in mating season [...] makes as much noise as it can. The females
are attracted to the male frog with the biggest, deepest voice because it suggests a
more powerful frog, one with superior genes. Small male frogs LWVEHHQGRFumented discover that if they position themselves in empty drainpipes, the pipe
acts as a voice amplifier, and the small frog appears much larger than it really is.
>@6RWKDWVZKDWDUWLVIRUWKHDUWLVW>@$QHPSW\GUDLQSLSH$QDPSOLILHU$
stab at getting laid. (OaC 168)12
So the impasse that the novel engages with is not that science dismisses human nature; in fact, science embraces the concept of a creatural, evolutionary existence. The novel engages with the dilemma
that in a technoscientific society, ecological theories are handmaidens
to new forms of Social-Darwinism (see Ross 1994: 246-73). Man is a
wolf to man especially since there are no real wolves anymore. Nor
LVWKHUHDQ\QDWXUH only genetically improved species and pools of
DNA. Scientists and the general public argue for the greater common
JRRG DQG DFFHSW WKHLU HVWUDQJHPHQW IURP QDWXUH IRU WKH VDNH RI D
QDWXUHFXOWXUHWKDWLVVLPLODUO\UHGLQWRRWKDQGFODZ7HFKQRVFLHQFH
WKHUHIRUHVXFFHVVIXOO\PHUJHVQDWXUHDQGFXOWXUHLQWRDXELTXLWRXV
singularity of human arrogance while the roles of the humanities and
the arts has been reduced to nostalgically adhering to humanist values
the standards of which its proponents cannot live up to. The human
race has evolved, and it has left behind humanism, whimpering and
RXWZRUQ :K\ DP , RQ WKLV HDUWK, Jimmy/Snowman cries after the
DSRFDO\SVH +RZ FRPH ,P DORQH" :KHUHV P\ %ULGH RI )UDQNHnVWHLQ" (OaC 169; for the role of the Frankenstein myth in this context, see Staels 2006). ,QGHHG WKH KXPDQ EHLQJ LQ WKH KXmanist
sense is an outdated, freakish remainder of the old days, and
-LPP\6QRZPDQV HVWUDQJHPHQW LV WKXV HIIHFWLYHO\ FRQWUDVWHG ZLWK
the new, posthuman hominids known as the Crakers.
12
234
The religious subtext in Oryx and Crake is remarkably strong. Even the title
can be read as a reference to WKHELEOLFDOVWRU\RI *HQHVLV$GDPDQG(YHDV
Lacie Semenovich notes (quoted in Crane 2009: 242).
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH235
15
236
The rephrasing and modification of culturally significant phrases occurs frequently in Oryx and Crake. &RQWUDU\WR-LPP\6QRZPDQVQRVWDOJLFDWWLWXGHWRZRUGV
Crake most notably on his fridge GHYHORSPHQWVODQJXDJHFRQVWDQWO\,think,
WKHUHIRUH,VSDP7KHSURSHUVWXG\RI0DQNLQGLV(YHU\WKLQJDQGODWHU
,WKLQNWKHUHIRUHDQG7RVWD\KXPDQLVWREUHDNDOLPLWDWLRQ (301).
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH237
238
DIWHUWKHDSRFDO\SVHDQG6QRZPDQZRQGHUV+RZORQJKDGLWWDNHQ
WRSLHFHKHUWRJHWKHUIURPWKHVOLYHUVRIKHUKHGJDWKHUHGDQGKRDUGHG
VRFDUHIXOO\" (114).
That Jimmy/Snowman partially makes up this idealised character,
or at least tries to urge her into narrative patterns Oryx is eager to resist, can be read in light of the eco-critical elements discussed above,
as numerous narrative parallels suggest. One example is the motif of
the watch. The slave trader who XVHG WR YLVLW 2U\[s village would
KROGKLVVKLQ\ZDWFKXSWRKLVHDUDQGLWZRXOGWHOOKLP>ZKHUHWKH
children were], because there was a little voice inside it that knew
everything (OaC 128). This strategy is remarkably close to SnowmanV ZD\ RI WDONLQJ WR WKH &UDNHUV 6QRZPDQ UHJXODUO\ FODLPV WR
VSHDN ZLWK &UDNHV DXWKRULW\ -XVW D PLQXWH ,OO DVN &UDNH +H
holds his watch up to the sky, turns it around on his wrist, then puts it
to his ear as if listening to it. They follow each motion, enthralled (9).
The text does not tell explicitly whether Snowman purposely adopted
this behaviour; in any case, the parallel of (colonial?) subjugation and
6QRZPDQVUROHDVWKHNHHSHURIDTXHVWLRQDEOHNQRZOHGJHDQGKHUitage is remarkable. Eventually, his erudite quotations and humanist
stances become intermingled and, thus, complicit with the degradations that followed the Western culture of colonial expansion. Quoting
from Kurt VonnegutV Slaughterhouse Five (without actually referencing the quotation), he thinks about his life with the Crakers:
It is the strict adherence to daily routine that tends towards the maintenance of
good morale and the preservation of sanity, he says out loud. He has the feeling
KHV TXRWLQJ IURP D ERRN VRPH REVROHWH SRQGHURXV GLUHFWLYH ZULWWHQ LQ DLG RI
European colonials running plantations of one kind or another. [...] They would
have been told to wear solar topis, dress for dinner, refrain from raping the naWLYHV,WZRXOGQWKDYHVDLGraping. Refrain from fraternizing with the female inhabitants. (5)
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH239
240
$WZRRGV The Year of the Flood further comments on this bleak vision by adding to the narrative discourse delivered by
Jimmy/Snowman a number of other voices and focalisers who also
survived the apocalyptic events. Thus, the sequel opposes
-LPP\6QRZPDQVEOHDNQDUUDWLYHRISHUVRQDOGLVVROXWLRQwith DGiversity of individual voices, artistically organized (Bakhtin 1981:
262). In that it presents a dialogical account of the apocalyptic events,
it opposes the shallowness of the forPHUQRYHOVKXPDQLVP and questions the reductive technoscientific reality of the postnatural world
where everything has a price but nothing has any value. It thus emplots a form of narrative identity that successfully reacts to environmental crisis and adapts to or controverts the uniformity it is confronted with. The same effect can already be found in Oryx and
Crake, however. Its dystopian alarmism is in fact an actual DOODUPH
a call to arms in the form of ecocritique. By means of a dystopian
visionWKHWH[WHQJHQGHUVDVHQVHRIQRW\HW while at the same time
questioning the temporal concepts underlying the idea of urgency and
negative progress.
Atwood emphatically explains in her acknowledgements in The
Year of the Flood that WKHJHQHUDOWHQGHQFLHVDQGPDQ\RIWKHGHWDLOV
[in her fiction] are alarmingly close to fact (TYotF 433). The novelistic form, she suggests, does not invent scientific visions but plays with
what is already there.17 One of the first genetically modified animals
PHQWLRQHGLQWKHWH[WLVWKH0HWKXVDODK0RXVHDQGLWLVHDV\WRDVVoFLDWH LW ZLWKWKH DOUHDG\ H[LVWLQJ NQRFNRXW-PLFH, which are already
used for experiments. One of the computer games played by
-LPP\6QRZPDQ DQG *OHQQ&UDNH LV FDOOHG .ZLNWLPH 2VDPD LQ
ZKLFK-LPP\6QRZPDQ FRXOGVRPHWLPHV ZLQ>@ DV ORQJ Ds Crake
played the Infidel side (OaC 40). Another example is that
Glenn/Crake is able to pursue his scientific research under the pretence of working on programming the human genetic sequence so as
to enable parents (or WKH FRPSDQ\ to create totally chosen babies
(OaC 304). Indeed, these images serve as a connection between a
17
$WZRRGV LQVLVWHQFH WKDW VKH GRHV QRW ZULWH ZRUNs of science-fiction but rather
QRYHOV RI VSHFXODWLYH ILFWLRQ XQGHUVFRUHV the fact that her fiction is a literary
ZKDW LI of existing technologies and knowledge and points to her interest
in realism and probabLOLW\ /LNH 7KH +DQGPDLGV 7DOH, Oryx and Crake is a
speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. >@[I]t invents nothing that we
KDYHQWDOUHDG\LQYHQWHG or DUH EHJLQQLQJ WR LQYHQW $WZRRG QS For a
critical assessment of this claim, see also LeGuin (2009) and Watts (2003).
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH241
These issues can also be related to the discourse formation that Lawrence Buell
calls WR[LF GLVFRXUVH %XHOO -45). Not unlike Hubert Zapf, who deVFULEHVOLWHUDU\HFRORJ\DVDSRVW-SRVWVWUXFWXUDOLVWDSSURDFK%XHOOVHHNVWR find a
ZD\ RI LPDJLQLQJ SK\VLFDO HQYLURQPHQts that [fuse] social constructivist with
HQYLURQPHQWDOUHVWRUDWLRQLVWSHUVSHFWLYHV%\HQJDJLQJZLWKWURSHVVXFKDV
WKH EHWUD\HG SDVWRUDO WR[LF GLVFRXUVH HQJHQGHUV WKH VHQVH RI the inextricability of world and text for which I have been arguing in the previous chapters.
6HH DOVR 3DXO )DUOH\ DQG 0LFKDHO 6\PPRQV 5REHUWV ZRUN RQ (GJHODQGV
242
At the same time, however, the novel presents a longing for the natural which has been transferred to urban environments. The pleeblands,
that is, the lower-class suburbs outside of the gated communities of
WKHFRPSRXQGVDUHGHVFULEHGDVDOPRVWVXEOLPHQDWXUDODUHDV(YHUything in the pleeblands seemed so boundless, so porous, so penetrable,
so wide-open. So subject to chance (OaC 196). Creating a tension
between a descriptive rhetoric that is informed by a longing for nature,
and the reality of fragmented identities and postnatural environments,
the novel illustrates the mismatch of a (post-)natural world under conWURODQGWKHKXPDQVWUXJJOHZLWKQDWXUHVVXEOLPLW\DQGEHDXW\
In the evening [Snowman] watches the sunset, through the narrow slit of the tower
window. How glorious it must have been when all ten of the videocam screens
were on and you could get the full panoramic view, turn up the colour brightness,
enhance the red tones. [...] As it is the screens turn their blind eyes towards him,
so he has to make do with the real thing. (OaC 276)
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH243
WLPHDQGWHOHRORJ\LWVHOI>6QRZPDQ@GRHVQWNQRZZKLFKLVZRUVHD
SDVWKHFDQWUHJDLQRUDSUHVHQWWKDWZLOOGHVWUR\KLPLIKHORRNVDWLW
WRR FOHDUO\ 7KHQ WKHUHV WKH IXWXUH 6KHHU YHUWLJR (OaC 147). It is
exactly this vertigo WKDW WKH QRYHOV XQVWDEOH WHPSRUDO FRQVWUXFWLRQ
stages so impressively. By drawing the reader into a mode of perceiving the postnatural, man-PDGH HQG RIWLPH ZKLFKLV UHSHDWHGO\ Ueflected by the motif of the useless watch and iWVEODQNIDFH>@]HUo
hour (3), Oryx and Crake enables its readers to feel with Snowman
WKHMROWVRIWHUURU>@WKLVDEVHQFHRI official time (3). Simultaneously, the absence of time is contrasted with the ongoing processes of
evolution and the natural timeframe of the seasons, and it is thus that
WKHZKDWLIRIG\VWRSLDQVSHFXODWLRQLVMX[WDSRVHGZLWKDQHFRFHQWULF
QRW-\HW The novel ends accordingly )URP KDELW >6QRZPDQ@ OLIWV
his watch; it shows him its blank face. Zero hour, Snowman thinks.
7LPHWRJR (374).
Like The Heart of Redness, Oryx and Crake creates a tension beWZHHQSURJUHVVDQGUHSHWLWLRQDQGVXJJHVWVDUHWXUQWRQDWXUHWKURXJK
the experience of natural time frames such as the seasons. Human
time, metonymically standing for the oppressive rationalism of technoscientific civilisation, must be overcome. While the novel thus repeatedly suggests forms of diversity and circular frames of perception,
it contrasts these elements with uniformity and reduction. As Garrard
notes, the ongoing rationalisation of the postnatural world is formally
presented in terms of a perceptive neoteny TKLV QHRWHQ\ EUHHGV
neologism, just as gene-splices breed compound nouns like pigoon,
UDNXQJ ZROYRJ DQG VSRDWJLGHU (Garrard 2010c: 238). While the
animal world is being renamed, so too the cultural world; reduced to
virtual reality and advertisements, it KDV EHFRPH D ZRUOG RI +DppicupSXFKLQR DQG 6R\2%R\%XUJHUV JXDUGHG E\ &RUSV(&RUSV.
Uniformity, as it were, is the name of the game of the postnatural
dystopia, and its effects on both nature and culture can be seen in the
abolishment of the very distinction between the two.19
This forced reduction towards singularity, a ruthless hybridisation
that ultimately means an end of history just as it tends towards palin19
244
dromes sXFK DV 0DGG$GGDP, echoes the uncanny universality ascribed to science and progress. By creating self-sufficient, closed systems, the cultural environment is both detached from and adjusted to
nature. While the world-as-text is presented in The Hungry Tide
through a doubling of perspectives in order to illustrate the potential
for understanding, all perspectives have been forcefully and absolutely
merged in Oryx and Crake, leaving only a fragmented and lonely
consciousness in the form of narrative voice. Even the chapter titles
present themselves to the reader as a strict reduction to WKHFKDSWHUV
respective contents WLWOHV VXFK DV 0DQJR, 7RDVW, DQG +\SoWKHWLFDOGRSUHVHQWWKHFKDSWHUVFUXFLDOPRWLIVEXWWKH\DUHE\WKHmselves incomprehensible. ,QGLYLGXDOLW\ HW\PRORJLFDOO\ WKH XQGividable, has turned out to be a nightmare in a world that is absolutely
unified, both naturally and culturally. Perhaps the bleakest instance of
such oneness, however, is staged in a passage in which
Jimmy/Snowman masturbates, thinking of Oryx. Just as all events are
described through his focalising perspective, the very idea of togetherness is denied in this scene:
6RPHWLPHVKHFDQFRQMXUHKHUXS$WILUVWVKHVSDOHDQGVKDGRZ\EXWLIKHFDQ
say her name over and RYHUWKHQPD\EHVKHOOJOLGHLQWRKLVERG\DQGEHSUHVHQW
ZLWK KLP LQ KLV IOHVK DQG KLV KDQG RQ KLPVHOI ZLOO EHFRPH KHU KDQG %XW VKHV
always been evasive, you can never pin her down. Tonight she fails to materialize
and he is left alone, whimpering ridiculously, jerking off all by himself in the
dark. (OaC 110)
All of the elements discussed above recur in this scene: the reduction
of personal contact to sexual excitement, the desire to occupy and be
RFFXSLHGE\DQRWKHUVERG\DQGWKHHYDVLYHQHVVRIWKe other, namely
Oryx.
However, this bleakness is repeatedly, though critically, balanced
E\ WKH QRYHOV FRQVWDQW QHJRWLDWLRQ RI WKH WDVN RI WHOOLQJ VWRULHV
Jimmy/Snowman realises that he is a postnatural Robinson Crusoe
DQG H[SODLQV WKDW KH LV D FDVWDZDy of sorts. He could make lists. It
could give his life some structure. But even a castaway assumes a
future reader (41). His attempts at narrating for the Crakers fail,
KRZHYHUDVWKH\DUHQRWFDSDEOHRIIROORZLQJKXPDQQDUUDWLYHDQG
this suggests that if there is any future reader, it is the reader of the
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH245
In IDFW WKH &UDNHUV DUH DOO-too-KXPDQ LQ WKHLU WUHDWPHQW RI QDUUDWLYH EHFDXVH
they instantly commodify the act of narration $VWRU\LVZKDWWKH\ZDQWLQH[change of eveU\VODXJKWHUHGILVKOaC 102).
246
Howells argues for this erosion by claiming WKDW ERWKSURWDJRQLVWV >DUH@ male,
which forecloses a hero/villain dichotomy connected with gender stereotypes, and
she states that Atwood suggests WKDW FUHDWLYH LPDJLQDWLRQ LV QRW FRQILQHG WR
artists but shared by scientists, for it is one of the qualities that distinguish human
EHLQJVb: 170). This does not resolve the stereotype of the passive female,
however.
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH247
Narrative voice and the staging of time in Oryx and Crake successfully emplot the aporias of a postnatural identity, and it is within The
Year of the Flood that these devices help the UHDGHU get the story
248
Note that the imagery employed here also points to the question of posthumanism.
0LFKHO )RXFDXOWV DVVHUWLRQ WKDW PDQ LV DQ LQYHQWLRQ RI UHFHQW GDWH $QG RQH
SHUKDSVQHDULQJLWVHQG>] [O]ne can certainly wager that man would be erased,
like a face drawn in sand at the edJHRIWKHVHDKDVEHHQTXRWHGE\&DU\:ROIHDV
one of the deciding points in the genealogy of posthumanist thinking (Foucault
E :ROIH [LL ,W LV PRUHRYHU UHPDUNDEOH WKDW )RXFDXOWV LPDJH
links the emergence of posthumanist connections with associations of extinction,
which clearly play a crucial role in Oryx and Crake. Animal and human fates are
equated through the image of a shared threat of extinction and the title of the
novel provides further commentary on that. As Howells remarkVERWK2U\[DQG
&UDNH DUH GHDG ZKHQ WKH VWRU\ EHJLQV, which can be read with regard to the
UHVSHFWLYH DQLPDOV IDWHs and with regard to the narrative construction of retrospective narration (with two of the three characters having been H[WLQJXLVKHGDW
the time the story is told). See Howells (2006b: 162).
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH249
tion in the narrative of Oryx and Crake by opposing it with the heterogeneity of voices present. The perspectives do not merge but complement each other; unlike the merging of genes, names and creatures,
they exist through narration and FDQQRWEHreduced in the same way
that raccoon and skunk have become a rakunk. They therefore stand as
a comment on the dangers and apprehensions contained in the idea of
postnatural existence; but they also engage with the role of narrative
DQG HPSORWPHQW LQWKHFRXQWHULQJ RI ZKDW FDQEH GHVFULEHG DV QHoWHQRXVVWUXFWXUDOSURFHVVHVthat eventually result in the degradation of
identity. In this respect, it is interesting to note that it is not only the
characters in the story who seem to be attuned to story-telling.
+RZHOOV ZRQGHUV ZKHWKHU WKH SULPLWLYH KXPDQ EUDLQ LV KDUG-wired
not just for dreaming and singing as Crake has discovered, but for
QDUUDWLYH DV ZHOO (Howells 2006b: 171). Notably, readers, too, can
experience the emplotment of these processes themselves: as I relate
one novel to the other, I re-create the diegetic world and its diversity.
Moreover, through this dialogic proliferation, crucial dystopian
tropes are reassessed: the problem of time and timelessness, for instance, is mentioned in The Year of the Flood, too, but now, there is an
ironic twist to it. Here, postnatural timelessness is challenged after
Toby and Ren find each other. One morning, Ren wakes up next to
Toby:
The light hits ReQGLUHFWO\DQGKHUH\HVRSHQ2Kshit, oh shit,VKHVD\V,P
late! What time is it? <RXUH QRW ODWH IRU DQ\WKLQJ says Toby, and for some
reason both of them laugh. (TYotF 383)
This scene can be read in direct contrast to the beginning of Oryx and
Crake, featuring a Jimmy/Snowman ZKRwakes before dawn who
is alone, and who slowly loses his mind because of the absence of
time. In the passage above, the two women are together, Ren is hit
directly by the light, and both laugh about the absence of time.
By adding this kind of irony to the narrative, Atwood succeeds in
VWDJLQJ WKH LURQLF LQYHUVLRQ RI G\VWRSLDQ FOLFKpV WKDW 6\OYLD 0D\HU
DUJXHV IRU LQ 7KH 5KHWRULF RI 7R[LF 'LVFRXUVH (2007): Mayer enJDJHV ZLWK 5LFKDUG .HUULGJHV ILQGLQJV WKDW FRQWHPSRUDU\ HFRWKULOOHUVDOOUHO\Rn a plot pattern and on a specific kind of character
GHYHORSPHQW WKDW XOWLPDWHO\ REIXVFDWHV WKH LVVXHV DW VWDNH EHFDXVH
WKHQRYHOVDUHIRUFHGWRZDUGVFORVXUHDQGWKHWH[WVVXJJHVWWKDWDQ\
environmental problem can be solved and that ecological collapse can
250
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH251
However, even though the ways of the Gardeners seems to be ridiculous and, at times, downright corrupt and dishonest, their belief
and their narrative engagement with the world provide comfort even
for those with a fickle belief. This shows again in the motif of time. In
stark contrasWWR-LPP\Vzero hour 7RE\UHPHPEHUV$GDP2QHV
claim:
While the Flood rages, you must count the days [...] because to everything there is
a season. On your Meditations, do not travel so far on your inner journeys that
you enter the Timeless before it is time. (TYotF 163)
Although not without problems, the belief in something (here epitoPLVHGE\QDWXUH and the refusal to accept the postmodern nihilism
predominant in the world of Oryx and Crake are shown to allow for
thinking about new ways of living. Accordingly, the chapter titles in
The Year of the Flood do not correspond to the reduced and meaningless words that are used in Oryx and Crake; instead, they are maned
ZLWKUHJDUGWRWKH*DUGHQHUVRUJDQLVDWLRQRIWKH\HDULQWHUPVRIIHstivities in honour RI HFRORJLFDOVDLQWV VXFKDV 6DLQW 'LDQ)RVVH\
Saint Edward O. Wilson and other environmentally concerned peoSOHZKRZHUHVDQFWLILHGE\WKH*DUGHQHUVWKHRORJ\7KURXJKWKHHnvironmentalist concept of history, the sequel enters a dialogue with
Oryx and Crake, where cyclical timeframes were connected to the
23
)RU LQVWDQFH *RG JDYH XQWR WKH $QLPDOV $ ZLVGRP SDVW RXU SRZHU WR VHH
(DFKNQRZVLQQDWHO\KRZWROLYH:KLFKZHPXVWOHDUQODERULRXVO\TYotF 236).
252
=HUR7LPHDQGWKH$SRFDO\SVH253
254
all our ecological injunctions whether to sacrifice our own interests to those of
nature, or to preserve nature in the interest of our future well-being, to keep our
hands off it, or to harness it in sustainable ways, to appreciate the threat we pose
to nature or to recognize our kinship with it are clearly rooted in the idea of human distinctiveness. (Soper 1995: 40)
256
257
although expected to talk about social or political issues was reading out a novella about a novelist who was talking about ethics although she was expected to be talking about her fiction. To add to the
confusion, both Coetzee and Costello placed the reading in a literary
tradition with Kafka, whose Report to an Academy is a constant
reference. The Lives of Animals thus presents itself as a hall of mirrors
that reflects, musters and refracts numerous images of fiction, language and authentic being.
&RHW]HHV Elizabeth Costello, published four years later, adds to
the confusion. TKHQRYHOIHDWXUHVHLJKWOHVVRQV ZKHWKHUWKH\DUH
lessons for the central character or for the reader is not made clear,
Lodge points out (2003: 6) and all of the lessons are lectures Coetzee had been giving via the fictional character of Costello and on
WRSLFV DV GLYHUVH DV WKH QRYHO LQ $IULFD WKH SUREOHP RI HYLO and
WKHKXPDQLWLHVLQ$IULFDThe Lives of Animals is absorbed into this
text too, and now stands as lessons three and four in the context of
&RVWHOORVJHQHUDOSUDFWLFHRIOHFWXULQJ,QWKHFRXUVHRIWKLVFKDSWHU
I will address some of the issues that this construction brings up, and I
will relate them to my approach of EnvironMentality. Before I do,
however, I want to point to the fact that by virtue of the postmodern,
metafictional poetic licence that Coetzee takes, both texts seem to be
far removed from the referential-UHDOLVW PRGHO WH[W RI %XHOOV SDUadigm.
%XHOOV FODLP of the referentiality of texts was an attempt to unearth what for him seemed to have been lost in postmodern scholarship: the connection between world and text. However, I will argue
WKDWWKHJRRGGRVHRIIRUPDOLVP (Phillips 2003: 168) that allegedly
stood between earth and literature does not prevent this connection,
but that it highlights and even engenders it. Thus, I will conclude my
argument for a formalist, hermeneutic reading praxis by reading Coet]HHV QRYHOs as environmental texts, not because of the notions of
environmental philosophy that they maintain (or incorporate into the
novelistic discourse, I should say) but because they open up ways of
WKLQNLQJ DERXW UHDOLW\ DQG WKH UHDO ZRUOG by engaging with the
FRPSOH[LW\RIRXUPRUDOIDEric (J. Wood 2009: 135).4
Wood does not talk about Coetzee here but about dilemmas in moral philosophy
DQG ILFWLRQV VKDUH LQ coming to terms with these dilemmas. As will be shown
below, this is what I believe to be WKHFDVHLQ&RHW]HHVZRUNDVZHOOUDWKHUWKDQ
258
7KHUHIRUH,ZLOOEULHIO\GHVFULEHWKHproblem of reality in its philosophical and literary context and then go on to explain what I think
is its relation to (postcolonial) ecocriticism and, more generally, to the
HWKLFVRIUHDGLQJ,ZLOOIROORZ&RUD'LDPRQGVFODLPWKat the character of Costello HPERGLHVDIRUPRIwoundedness that
expresses a posthuman condition, but I will expand the argument for
posthuman identities to a discussion of what humanism, with or withRXWWKHSRVW-, can and must mean in the age of environmental crisis
and in a multispecies world. I will conclude my argument by discussing what Sam DurUDQWKDVFDOOHGWKHlimits of the sympathetic imaginatioQ. These considerations, however, will always be tied to
the textual meaning as it emerges in the literary staging and by means
of emplotment, and I will thus complement the argument for a focus
on IRUPZLWKRXWIRUPDOLVP (Attridge 2004b: 119) in (postcolonial)
ecocriticism.
*****
7KHUH LV ILUVW RI DOO WKH SUREOHP RI RSHQLQJ QDPHO\ KRZ WR JHW XV
from where we are, which is, as yet, nowhere (EC 1). This is how
Elizabeth Costello begins, and despite the fact that the first chapter is
FDOOHGRealism readers are confronted on the following pages with
the creation, destabilisation and eventual destruction of the protagonist,5 all in a highly metafictional and deconstructive, textual environment. &KULV'DQWDFDOOVLWDPHWDILFWLRQDOVWXWWHUDQGFODLPVWKDW
rather than a story, Elizabeth Costello HPSORWVWKHGHVLUHIRUDVWRU\
[...] The opening few sentences of Elizabeth Costello leave us feeling
dislocated; neither entirely in a story, nor entirely out of one (2011:
259
The same can be said about Disgrace (1999) and its protagonist David Lurie, who
is often read as a mouthpiece for Coetzee and an ethical stance that resembles
&RVWHOORVWRDFHUWDLQH[WHQWVHH*UDKDP+HUURQ 2005).
One may wonder whether Elizabeth Costello would actually be pleased to read
such defenses. In one of her lessons, Costello thinks about the support she receives. 6KH ZRQGHUV ZKHWKHU VKH KDV EHHQ LQYLWHG WR D WDON LQ $PVWHUGDP EHcause of a talk she gave last year at a college in the United States, a talk for which
she was attacked in the pages of Commentary (belittling the Holocaust, that was
the charge) and defended by people whose support for the most part embarrassed her: covert anti-Semites, animal-ULJKWVVHQWLPHQWDOLVWVEC 156). The nonchalant fusion of anti-Semitism and animal rights advocacy, and of animal rights
advocacy with sentimentalism, is a tough move, and for me, it expresses a strong
GLVFRPIRUWZLWKEHLQJGHIHQGHG
260
SRZHURIILFWLRQWRPDNHXVIHHODVWUDQJHWHQGHUQHVVIRUDFKDUDFWHU
as we become DZDUH RI VRPHWKLQJ WKDW he [or she] does not know,
that he is not real (J. Wood 2009: 86; emphasis orig.).
,QVWHDGRIGLVFXVVLQJWKHSKLORVRSKLFDOLVVXHVDWVWDNHLQ&RHW]HHV
writing, and instead of speculating about his ethical agenda, I therefore read his texts as what they are fiction and ask for their literariness and singularity in order to account for their relevance to the
discourses they touch upon. The link between philosophy and literature, I will argue, is the access they provide, or deliberately fail to
provide, to reality, and Coetzee does foster a reflection of this link by
means of his fiction an effect that is proven by the way that readers
take his characters seriously to a point of believing that it is Coetzee
himself who is speaking. This identification takes place despite the
numerous metafictional and postmodernist reflections on writing and
fictionality, or maybe even because of them. In this way, Coetzee
emphasises the literariness of his work, but he also points to what I
KDYH GLVFXVVHG DV WKH WUXWK RI ILFWLRQ LQ WKLV VWXG\ 8OWLPDWHO\ E\
refuting realist mimesis, he provides access to the world in ways that
are more convincing and honest than any referential illusion could be.
Coetzee does not provide for easy readings. His fiction encompasses a whole array of modernist/postmodernist elements 8 and orchestrates a complex array of intertextual, metafictional and intellectual nodes. Dominic Head concludes that KLV ZRUNV FDQ PDNH DQ
instant and impressive impact on readers, who are sometimes uncertain as to how to understand, or account for that impact (2009: ix).
7KDWLVWRVD\KHLVDGLIILFXOWZULWHUDQGIRUVXUHKLVZRUNVHHPV
almost diametrically opposed to the claims of referential realism and a
VXSSRVHG HWKLFV RI PLPHVLV $QWL-PLPHWLFGHYLFHVDERXQGLQ &RHt]HHVILFWLRQ. SWUXJJOLQJZLWKDQ\ZLOOLQJVXVSHQVLRQRIGLVEHOLHIKH
provides footnotes to his narratives (The Lives of Animals), breaks
QDUUDWLYH OLQHDULW\ E\ KDYLQJ VHYHUDO OD\HUV RI QDUUDWLRQ GLVWLnguished by lines that cut the pages in thirds (Diary of a Bad Year),
numbers the paragraphs in his novel instead of dividing it into chapters (In the Heart of the Country), and plays with multiple layers of
8
Neil Lazarus (1986-7) argues that Coetzee is a modernist writer, and he locates
WKHHWKLFDOLPSDFWRIKLVZULWLQJLQLWVPDUJLQDOLW\DQGDFXWHVHOI-FRQVFLRXVQHVV
(148). David Attwell (1993), however, regards the metafictional elements as
distinctly postmodernist and wonders why postmodernist fiction should necessarily be unethical (20).
261
metafiction (Slow Man) all these postmodHUQ SDUW\ WULFNV $ttridge 2004a: 201) WKDW SRVW-SRVWPRGHUQ ecocriticism (see Zapf
2006a: 1) wanted to leave behind because it seemed like a circular
argument for the exhaustion of language, the problem of identity, and
WKH ZDULQHVV DJDLQVW JUDQG QDUUDWLYHV DQG FORVXUH 7KH QDUUDWLYH
about and around Elizabeth Costello is of course closely related to
these aspects and expresses a cautiousness about language that belies
any referentialist notion. Indeed, the novel is a mirror hall of language
and reading it means engaging with the cracks and fissures of its
mirrors (see Carstensen 2007).
This is why the devices that Coetzee uses to engage with the difficulty of reality are no mannerisms. Rather, and this makes it particularly interesting for my approach of EnvironMentality &RHW]HH UeVLVWVILFWLRQVEHLQJPDGHWRGHOLYHUXVable ethical contentas David
Attwell puts it (2006: 25). In this way, Coetzee underlines the importance of the aesthetic form of writing and the meaning and arguing
emplotted by fictional discourse. It is true that, as Attwell claims,
>W@KH PRUH FXULRXs and attentive reader [...] will want to work with
and through the difficulties of the text (2006: 26), but the narrative of
Costello, I argue, does not provide a solution for this intellectual
quest. I think that this is the specific literary effectiveness of the narrative, and I will demonstrate it by briefly commenting on the reception
of the novella and the novel.
In more blatant readings, Costello is regarded as a mouthpiece for
Coetzee, who seems unable to voice his opinion in other ways than
through fiction. Thus 3HWHU 6LQJHU REMHFWV WKDW &RHW]HHV ILFWLRQDO
device enables him to distance himself from [the arguments] (in
TLoA 91). But the text can of course be read in other ways too, and the
FRQWULEXWLRQVLQ3R\QHUVJ.M. Coetzee and the Idea of the Public Intellectual (2006) impressively illustrate how many readings and how
PDQ\ OLQNV WR LQWHOOHFWXDO DQG HWKLFDO LVVXHV DUH SRVVLEOH &RHW]HHV
texts are read as allegories about belief, embodiment or the inability to
believe in believing; it is reaG DJDLQVW WKH IRLO RI (UDVPXV WKLQNLQJ
and, of course, in the context of animal rights discourse. Laura Wright
VXPPDULVHVWKHVHUHDGLQJVDQGREVHUYHVWKHSHUYDVLYHQHHGE\PDQ\
RI &RHW]HHV FULWLFV >@ WR SRVLW &RVWHOORV ILFWLRQDOLW\ DW WKH YHU\
least to read her metaphorically (2006: 197). Costello would not have
liked that, for sure, since she neither wants WREHUHDGDVDSRVWFROoQLDO DXWKRU QRU GRHV VKH OLNH WKH FDWHJRULVLQJ JHVWXUH WKDW WXUQV
262
+HUVRQ-RKQWKLQNVWKDW>K@LVPRWKHUZLOOEHGLVDSSRLQWHG>@LIVKHOHDUQVWKDW
the Stowe Award is hers only because 1995 has been decreed to be the year of
Australasia DQG &RVWHOOR KHUVHOI UHPDUNV WKDW .DIND LV UHDG DV DQ DOOHJRU\ RI
Kafka the JHZSHUIRUPLQJ IRU*HQWLOHVZKLOHLQ IDFW>L@WPHDQV what it says. I
say what I mean (EC 8; 62).
263
&DYDOLHULVRZQYHQWure into the literary realm, published in the same volume, can
be seen as an example of this. Moral pamphlets that highjack fictional licence are
SUREDEO\WKHRSSRVLWHRIZKDWLVPHDQWE\WKHHYHQWRIILFWLRQ. 'DQLHO4XLQQV
Ishmael (1992) stands as another case in point.
264
diminished and distorted way in philosophical argumentation (Diamond 2008: 57; see also Derrida 2008; for a discussion of these questions in the work of Agamben, Levinas and others, see Wolfe 2009b).
Philosophy, with its tendency towards systematisation and coherent
argument cannot account for the intricate and contingent, chaotic and
FRQIOLFWLYH UHDOLW\ RI OLYLQJ DQG 'LDPRQG VXJgHVWV GHIOHFWLRQ a
WHUP FRLQHG E\ 6WDQOH\ &DYHOO WR GHVFULEH ZKDW KDSSHQV ZKHQ ZH
are moved from the appreciation [...] of a difficulty of reality to a philosophical or moral problem apparently in the vicinity (Diamond
2008: 57).
James Wood cites the philosopher Bernard Williams, who was
likewise discontent with the fact that moral philosophy in particular
HVVHQWLDOO\ ZURWH WKH PHVVLQHVV RI WKH VHOI RXW RI SKLORVRSKLFDO GLscussion, and who argued against this deflection of those moral diOHPPDV WKDW cannot be solved by philosophical reflection (J. Wood
2009: 133). With regard to the role of literary texts in this context,
:RRG PDLQWDLQV WKDW WKH QRYHO GRHV QRW SURYLGH SKLORVRSKLFDO DnVZHUVEXWWKDWLWJLYHVWKHEHVWDFFRXQWRIRXUPRUDOIDEULFE\ staging these dilemmas and the human condition in ways that are capable
of changing our ways of seeing the world (135). This is not unlike
'LDPRQGV DUJXPHQW ZKHUH VKH LQVWHDG RI SURFODLPLQJ OLWHUDU\ Vupremacy over philosophical speculation, attributes a specific capabilLW\RIHQJDJLQJZLWKZKDWVKHFDOOVZRXQGHGQHVVWROLWHUDU\WH[WV
In this way, the novel accounts for the problem of unthinkability as
described by Cary Wolfe in his work on posthumanism (see Wolfe
2010: 123), and it confronts us with the singularity of its meaning.
8QWLOWKLVPRPHQW:RRGSXWVLWEULOOLDQWO\RQHZDVFRPSDUDWLYHO\
inarticulate; until this moment, one had been blandly inhabiting a deSULYHGHORTXHQFH (2009: 147) but the novel finds ways of articulating the inarticulable. Fiction (and experimental fiction in particular)
thus always hints at the necessity of accepting a model of reality that
allows for contingency and for what Wolfe has called the posthumanLVWLQFUHDVHLQWKHYLJLODQFHUHVSRQVLELOLW\DQGKXPLOLW\What accompany living in a world so newly, and differently, inhabited (2010:
47). 7KLV LV ZK\ WKH cautious hermeneutics of (postcolonial) ecocriticism can engage with texts that emplot the irresolvable tensions of
posthumanist humility.
One of the crucial aspects of such a posthumanist humility is the
distrust of sophisticated, abstract, and disembodied analyses as epitoPLVHGE\1RUPDVIRUPRISKLORVRSKLFDOLQTXLU\1RUPDXQHPSOR\HG
265
266
DQ DWWHPSW E\ D PDVWHU RI OLWHUDWXUH WR SXW SKLORVRSK\ LQ TXHVtion
(Mulhall 2009: 3) a discussion of their philosophical value must fail if
their dialogicity is overlooked: they engender D GLDORJXH LQ ZKLFK
SKLORVRSK\ DQG OLWHUDWXUH SDUWLFLSDWH DV HDFK RWKHUV RWKHU as
autonomous but internally related (Mulhall 2009: 3). Thus, Attridge
claims, &RHW]HHV WH[WV DUH neither philosophical argument nor allegory but the staging of allegory (see Attridge 2004a: 61). As literature,
their power lies in the numerous nodal connections to other literary
writings, from the examples Costello gives in The Lives of Animals to
the larger textual environment of the novel Elizabeth Costello.11
And while its philosophical meaning has been debated at length,
WKHTXHVWLRQRIWKLVGLDORJXHVWH[WXDOLW\UHPDLQVXQDQVZHUHG and so
GRHV 'HUULGDV TXHVWLRQ of ZKHWKHU OLWHUDWXUH LV Vimply an example,
RQHHIIHFWRUUHJLRQDPRQJRWKHUVRIVRPHJHQHUDOWH[WXDOLW\ (1992:
70). I believe that tKH WH[WXDOLW\ RI &RHW]HHV WH[WV, their literariness
and singularity, can only be understood if the arguments they comprise are taken as representations of arguments within the overarching
structure of literary dialogicity and moments of emplotment. In these
texts, it is not the environment or some temporal relation between
identity and nature that is emplotted but the process and conflict of
rational and poetic meaning. And instead of pressing the point of this
dichotomy, I claim that by focusing on the literary discourse as a
whole, their potential becomes apparent: as a literary discourse, the
QDUUDWLYHRI&RVWHOORVOHFWXUHVKDUPRQLVHVWKHWHQVLRQV with which it
is concerned. That is to say, while Costello claims that philosophy and
poetry are absolutely divided, the text performs the very bridging its
protagonist denies. After all, it does hybridise philosophical and literary works and in so doing, it deconstructs the dichotomy on which
the discourses relies. It narrativises the ethical statements and ultimately blurs the dividing lines between discourse and speaking subjects. This does not mean, of course, that it provides for closure. It
rather WKULYHVRQWKHWHQVLRQDQGWDNHVHIIHFWDVDQDFW-HYHQW>@WKDW
is essentially temporal taking place in the performance of the reader
(Attridge 2004b: 108).
In that it deconstructs the power of argument for the benefit of
a literary arguing, it highlights what Attridge has described as the
11
Most prominently, her refutation of allegory in the last lesson can be read in these
terms, but so can KHUDWWDFNRQWKHQRYHOLVW3DXO:HVWDVLWZHUHDUHDOQRYHOLVW
and an actual book are discussed) and her discussion of realism.
267
268
In the midst of intertexual relations and metafictional deconstruction, Costello exists as a creature, and it is not realist roundness but
the depth of the character and her life-like opaqueness that deters me
from categorising her arguments and brings me to focussing on her
being instead. Sure, Costello is a female character but do we have to
read her in terms of ecofeministic academic debate? And yes, the
practices of eating, the conflicts within the family, the mother-son
UHODWLRQVKLSDQG1RUPDDQG(OL]DEHWKVTXDUUHOVGRVXJJHVWDSV\FKoanalytical reading, but the remarkably strong reluctance to apply these
approaches, mentioned above, becomes understandable. It would domesticate the difficulty of reality that the novel emplots. It would
VHHPVLFNHQLQJO\UHGXFWLYH just like reading the corpses of Coet]HHV ILFWLRQDO dogs as allegories of books, as Head claims (2006:
107).
I am of course not dismissing these approaches; it is only in the
context of EnvironMentality that the event of fiction interdicts any
translation into the codes of extraliterary theory. This, I hope, will
account for the specific, unsettling quality of the literary work and its
power to stage the tensions I am struggling to describe. In fact, this is
the moment of literariness: when language fails to describe the literary
event because there are no better words than those of the work itself.
This event, and the literary quality of such writing, is not easily domesticated and silenced. In the case oI&RHW]HHVILFWLRQLt is an unsettling realism not mimetic, but transformative that resists my attempts at categorisation and paradigmatical exegesis.12 ,H[LVWEH\RQG
12
, WDNH WKH QRWLRQ RI WUDQVIRUPDWLYH PLPHVLV IURP +HLQ] ,FNVWDGW (1998), who
describes twentieth-century American prose in terms of their negotiations of
reality.
269
WKHVH FDWHJRULHV WKH FKDUDFWHU VHHPV WR FODLP DQG for the reader,
putting Costello to the test of rational categories feels deeply wrong.
,QIDFWLWUHVHPEOHV.|KOHUVH[SHULPHQWVZLWK6XOWDQ, as discussed by
Costello.
Such a resistance to reduction that is, the power of literary charDFWHUVWRVHHPUHDOGHVSLWHWKHLUEHLQJPHWDIictionally deconstructed
FRPHV YHU\ FORVH WR WKH ZKROHQHVV DQG XQDEVWUDFWHG QDWXUH of
animal being that Costello advocates. Thus, the novel itself makes a
strong point for the fullness of being by supporting a fragmented, inconsistent character in her opposition to my interpretive reductionism
and it WKXVH[HPSOLILHV&RVWHOORV FODLPWKDWWKHUHDUHQRERXQGVWR
the sympathetic imagination (EC 80/TLoA 35). 13 As Sam Durrant
FODLPV&RHW]HHVILFWLRQGRHVQRWXOWLPDWHO\WHOOXVZKDWLWLVOLNHWR
be an ape but works simply to dislodge a particular tradition of enquiry into animal intelligence, DQGE\NHHSLQJRpen the question of
other lives, the novels consWLWXWHWKHWUXHZRUNRIWKHV\PSDthetic
imagination (2006: 127). 7KDWWKLVLQWHUSUHWLYHPDQXYUHDV'RPiQLF +HDG VKRZV SXWV >&RHW]HHV@ UHDGHUV WKURXJK WKH VDPH FRQWUadicWRU\ SURFHVV RI IRUPXODWLQJ D IRUP RI UHVLVWDQFH DJDLQVW UHDVRQ
WKDW KDV WR EH FRQGXFWHG WKURXJK D SURFHVV RI FDUHIXO UHDVRQLQJ
(2006: 111) is of course part of the game. It points to the value of a
cautious hermeneutics just as much as it extrapolates the paradoxa of
ZRXQGHGQHVV7KHUHLV, Head summarises this conflictive and, ultimateO\ HWKLFDO QHJRWLDWLRQ D ZLVGRP LQ VHHNLQJ WR FRPH WR WHUPV
with this contradiction (111).
Ultimately, the novel does VKRZDQLPDOVso like us, so unlike us
by both emplotting the discourse on the lives of animals and staging
the embodiment of a living human animal. Such humanimalLW\DOVR
comprises vulnerability and mortality. As Derrida says:
mortality resides there, as the most radical means of thinking the finitude that we
share with animals, the mortality that belongs to the very finitude of life, to the
experience of compassion. (Derrida 2008: 28)
270
not in the sense of some fantasy of transcending human embodiment (as Katherine
Hayles rightly worries in How We Became Posthuman) but rather in the sense of
returning us precisely to the thickness and finitude of human embodiment and to
human evolution as itself a specific form of animality. (Wolfe 2009b: 572)14
When Wolfe emphasises the connection of embodiment and consciousness, and by talking of posthumanism instead of the posthuman
condition, he also speaks of the specificity of moral obligations (forPHUO\NQRZQDVKXPDQLVPDQGLWVWURXEOHGFRQQHFWLRQWRDVKDUHG
animality. This connection is cleverly underlined by the place of The
Lives of Animals in the larger narrative framework of Elizabeth
Costello. As it were, it constitutes only two lectures of the novel of the
eponymous heroine, and the other lessons are concerned with sometimes radical, sometimes thoughtful considerations of the legacy of
humanism in a postcolonial-posthumanist world (see Graham 2006).
And while Elizabeth Costello HQGV ZLWK DQ HPERGLPHQW RI WKH
.DINDHVTXH (Mulhall 2009: 214-30) and a complex negotiation of
literary power, literary clichs and the role of literary writing in the
ODUJHU FRQWH[W RI WUXWK WKH HQGLQJ RI The Lives of Animals is far
PRUH PXQGDQH LW VHHPV 7KH wounded character Elizabeth breaks
down on her way to the airport, marked by the trauma of unspeakability that had been staged so impressively before, and she looks at her
VRQ,ORRNLQWR\RXUH\HV, she tells him,
DQG, see only kindness, human-kindness. Calm down, I tell myself, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. This is life. Everyone else comes to terms with
LWZK\FDQW\RX":K\FDQW\RX">@+HSXOOVWKHFDURYHUVZLWFKHVRIIWKHHngine, takes his mother in his arms. He inhales the smell of cold cream, of old
IOHVK7KHUHWKHUHKHZKLVSHUVLQKHUHDU7KHUHWKHUH,WZLOOVRRQEHRYHU
(EC 115/TLoA 69; emphasis orig.)
See also Wolfe (2010), who writes that P\ VHQVH RI SRVWKXPDQLsm does not
partake of the fantasy of the posthuman described by Katherine N. Hayles [... but]
LW UHTXLUHV XV WR DWWHQG WR WKDW WKLQJ FDOOHG WKH KXPDQ ZLWK greater specificity,
greater attention to its embodiment, embeddedness, and materiality, and how
WKHVH WKLQJV LQ WXUQ VKDSH DQG DUH VKDSHG E\ FRQVFLRXVQHVV PLQG DQG VR RQ
(120; emphasis orig.).
271
16
Attridge (2004a: 194, fn4) lists a number of mistakes in the composition of Elizabeth Costello that add to the implausibility of the character besides its metafictional and postmodern attire.
Michael Bell claims WKDW E\ SODFLQJ &RVWHOORs argument in the abyme of his
fiction, Coetzee reverses the thematic focus of the work and states that critics
ZKRGLVSXWH&RVWHOORVHWKLFVUHDGWKHWH[WDVDUHDOOHFWXUHDVLI>WKH\@ZHUHRQ
the same narrative plane DV WKH FKDUDFWHUV (175). :LWK UHJDUG WR %HUJWKDOOHUV
diegetic leap one could speak of a reversed leap into the world of fiction.
272
VD\V WKLV WDVN ZLOO RI FRXUVH LQYROYH PXFK ILFWLYH DUWLILFH DQG QRW
mere reportage (179).
*****
Talking about a historiography of the novel, for instance, in the way
Iser does in his Charting Literary Anthropology (1993), means talking
about literature in terms of an anthropological function in which aesthetic pleasure and the dealing with reality are combined. This crucial
function has also been described by Ian Watt, who, in his The Rise of
the Novel ([1957] 2000), PDLQWDLQVWKDWWKHIXQFWLRQRIWKHODQJXDJH
is much more largely referential in the novel, but who did not believe
this reference to be to the empirical world (30). Instead, once we have
accepted that it is a world of words that books are referring to, and
WKDWLWLVDOVRDZRUOGRIZRUGVWKDWZHDUHOLYLQJLQUHDOLVPbecomes
much more an effect of the novel than a certain literary period.17 Mulhall claims that, for example, Laurence Sterne in Tristram Shandy
DFKLHYHVDQHIIHFWRIUHDOLVPE\RIIHULQJDGHFRQVWUXFWLRQRIDSUeceGLQJFRQYHQWLRQIRUWKHUHSUHVHQWDWLRQRIUHDOLW\, and he argues that
[t]his reflexive or deconstructive operation is not something that began with the
modernist literary projects of Joyce and T.S. Eliot; it can be traced back through
Hardy and Dickens, Austen and Scott, to Swift and Sterne and to the origin of the
genre itself. (Mulhall 2009: 145)
That is to say, it is even necessary to conceive of realism that way instead of just
seeing it as a mode or genre because, as James Wood claims, ZKHQDVW\OHGecomposes, flattens itself down into a genre, then indeed it does become a set of
mannerisms and often pretty lifeless techniques (2009: 175). Therefore, he goes
on to argue, >F@RQYHQWLRQ>@LVQRWGHDGEXWLWLVDOZD\VG\LQJ6RWKe artist is
trying to outwit it (180). Understood WKLV ZD\ UHDOLVP EHFRPHV D QHJRWLDWLRQ
with reality, and its forms are always and continually changing.
273
Many issues are raised in this little text, from the idea of legacy to
the animal gaze both Levinas and Derrida have said a lot about but
for me, the feeling that everyone: creatures, narrator and narrated,
share thoughts and think about death together is most important.
&RPSDUHWKDWWRWKHHQGLQJRI&RHW]HHVThe Lives of Animals. These
texts evoke reality although, as Costello puts it and Mulhall adopts it,
WKH LGHDO RI WKH ZRUG-mirror has shattered irreSDUDEO\ (Mulhall
2009: 163). Despite what referentialist ecocritical convictions might
VXJJHVW&RVWHOORVLPDJHRIWKHEURNHQZRUGPLUURUGRHVQRWH[HmSOLI\ DQ LGOH QLKLOLVP DERXW PHDQLQJ (163) and neither does the
novel as a literary singularity. In WKDW&RHW]HHGHPRQVWUDWHVWKDWHYHQ
274
a tale that takes its starting point from a sheer impossibility [...] might
nevertheless count as a contribution to the project of literary realism
(Mulhall 2009: 166), he proposes a way of reading that does not focus
on mimesis and referentiality but on the readerly ability to enter the
world of words and WKLVZRUOGVembeddedness in the difficult reality
it narUDWHV7KHUHDUH, DV0XOKDOOVXPPDULVHVLWZD\VRIHQYLVLRning reality that are not inconsistent with acknowledging texts as palLPSVHVWV (164).
This readerly configuration of embedded realism and reality, and
its difficulties as staged by the text, constitute its overarching ethical
HIIHFW ZKLOH WKH SURWDJRQLVW LV ZRXQGHG DQG VXIIHUV H[HPSODULO\
from the trauma of posthumanist finitude and exposure, it is a readerly
ZHZKRVXIIHUV for the character. That is to say, the empathetic effectiveness is not grounded on sentimentality and emotional pathos,
but results from a complex negotiation of the abstract narrative forms
of novelistic discourse. As cited above, with regard to the metafictional playing with and the eventual deconstruction of characters in
postmodern literature, James Wood argues that sometimes, in great
ZULWLQJ UHDGHUV DUH H[FLWHG WR IHHl a strange tenderness for [such a
character], aware of something that he does not know, that he is not
real (2009: 86; emphasis orig.). Is this the tenderness that we feel for
Elizabeth Costello? And maybe for the absent animals too? Mulhall
remarks that
5HG3HWHU5HG6DOO\6XOWDQDQG1DJHOVEDWDUHMRLQHGE\DSDQWKHUDMDJXDURU
two, some piglets, and some horses. [Costello] takes the literary reality of each
other to be both continuous and discontinuous with that of other literary animals,
and with that of real animals; they are neither reducible to nor entirely free from
their real-life originals, and always already embedded in a range of intersecting literary genres and the specific predecessors and successors generated within them.
(Mulhall 2009, 122)
275
Experiences of uncertainty and woundedness are of course not restricted to the novels I discussed above; in fact, Coetzee seems to be a
master of staging these states. David Lurie in Disgrace (1999) embodies them, and so does Paul Rayment in Slow Man (2005). Remarkably, none of them is completely alone: they share a naturalcultural space with literary companion species, and accordingly, all these
texts could be read in the context of EnvironMentality. In so doing, the
UHDGHU ZRXOG OHDYH WKH UHDOP RI H[SOLFLWO\ HQYLURQPHQWDO SORWV DQG
motifs, but the questions of reality, animality, and ethical or empathetic duties towards others and the woundedness of being would remain.
In this chapter, these concerns have been formulated with regard to
notions of posthumanism. However, I feel myself drawn towards
+DUDZD\V VWDWHPHQW LQ ZKLFK VKH H[SODLQV: , QHYHU wanted to be
SRVWKXPDQ RU SRVWKXPDQLVW (Haraway 2008: 17). Eventually, she
claims: ,DPQRWDSRVWKXPDQLVW,DPZKR,EHFRPHZLWKFRPSDQLRQ
species, who and which make a mess out of categories in the making
of kin and kind (19). Making a mess out of categories seems a
good thing to start with in order to continue this project of hermeneutically engaging with the world, since this process constantly requires us to let go of or redraw boundaries for the sake of new uncertainties. This process relies on the negotiations I outlined in previous
chapters. These negotiations create a constant flux that unsettles and
reconstructs the meaning of an ethical commitment to the world and
it does so despite the sophisticated attempts of Wolfe to disentangle
the vDULRXV WUDGLWLRQV WKDW KDXQW WKH KXPDQLWLHV DQG WR OHW JR RI DQ
LQFRKHUHQFHRUYDJXHQHVV>that] serves to maintain a certain historically, ideologically, and intellectually specific form of subjectivity
while masking it as pluralism (Wolfe 2009b: 568).
I do not think that we can get rid of this vagueness. That is to say, I
do not believe that new distinctions and categories can help much
WKLQN RI :ROIHV QHDW GLYLVLRQV EHWZHHQ SRVWKXPDQLVW KXPDQLVP
humanist humanism SRVWKXPDQLVWSRVWKXPDQLVP DQGhumanist
posthumanism-5) but I believe that we can learn from
WKHZLOGQHVVDURXQGXVWRSHUPLWDPRGHWKDWLVDSSURSULDWHIRU>@
the apprehension of, and participation in, wondrousness (Curry 2008:
64). It is exactly this wondrousness that literature embodies, engenders and constantly refines our senses with, and EnvironMentality
276
While this book was being prepared for publication, I used some of ther arguments developed here in an essay, co-authored with Greg Garrard, on the pedagogical implications of ecocriticism. See Bartosch & Garrard 2013.
277
the impasse of anthropocentric versus ecocentric thinking to the overarching problem of rHDOLW\DQGWKHWUXWKRIILFWLRQ,WKLQNWKDW, now,
these strands can be brought together. And it is with regard to Curry,
ZKRLQIRUPXODWHGIRXUGHVLGHUDWD in literary engagements with
our environments, that I conclude my readings by responding to these
desiderata (without resolving their challenges in any way).
Curry argues firstly IRU D QRWLRQ RI >U@Hality without realism
(2008: 60). I have repeatedly engaged with this idea and argued for a
form of transformative mimesis Moreover, I have shown literary
IRUPWREHKLJKO\FDSDEOHRIOHDGLQJWRWKDWZKLFKLVWREHEHQWWowards the world, because literary meaning ties together form, reader
and world. Thus, my sense of realist writing can indeed be understood
as referring to reality EXWZLWKRXWUHTXLULQJDQ\FRQFHVVLRQVWRWKH
epistemological imperialism characteristic of modern realist essentialLVP LQFOXGLQJ LWV FRQWULEXWLRQ WR PRGHUQ HFRORJLFDO GHVWUXFWLYHQHVV
(Curry 2008: 60).
The next desideratum, writes Curry, is a sense oI>U@HDVRQZLWKRXW
rationalism (60). This idea, elaborated upon by Val Plumwood
(2002) and Martha C. Nussbaum (2001), for instance, is negotiated in
literature, too. As literary texts reintegrate various discourses and thus
engender a form of dialogicity, the paternalistic and coercive entrapments of rationalism can be successfully dodged. The negative capability of EnvironMentality allows us to accept that we may not be
able to know nature, or animals, but that we can learn how to relate to
them. The same applies to the next desideratum identified by Curry:
1DWXUHZLWKRXWQDWXUDOism (61); a similar point is made by Timothy
Morton (2007).
0RVW LQWHUHVWLQJ IRU PH KRZHYHU LV &XUU\V IRXUWK GHVLGHUDWum:
+XPDQLW\ZLWKRXt humanism (Curry 2008: 61). Conceding the need
for flashy slogans, Curry here contradicts his own argument for huPDQLVPEXWKHTXLFNO\UHYLVHVKXPDQLVPE\VWDWLQJWKDWKXPDQLVP
is, at heart, a perfectly legitimate interest [...]. The problem is, of
course, the bloated techno-humanism, so very far from humane, that
now functions as the ideology of modernity (61). And it does not
matter whether a rescue of the term is possible or not as long as we
understand the exposures literature helps us to experience and take on
the challenge of EnvironMentality. Our humane-ism WKHQ FDQ JR
ZLWKDpost- or without it. In any caseZHDUHILQDOO\DFFHGLQJWRD
thinking [...] that thinks the absence of the name as something other
than a privation (Derrida 2008: 48).
Elizabeth struggles with a direct answer and instead affirms that she
just does not want to remain silent. Although she believes that there
are no bounds to WKHV\PSDWKHWLFLPDJLQDWLRQ (80/35), her helpless
wounded affirmation that she simply wants to save her soul reveals
KHUV\PSDWKHWLFFDSDFLW\ZKLOHVLPXOtaneously exposing its intellecWXDO IODZV, as Head puts it (2009: 83) $ ODQJXDJH D IRUP RI
WKRXJKW 'LDPRQG VXPPDULVHV WKLV LPSDVVH FDQQRW ZH PD\ EH
told) get things right or wrong, fit or fail to fit reality; it can only be
more or less useful (2008: 78). $QG DOWKRXJK WKLVFRPLQJ DSDUW RI
thought and reality belongs to flesh and blood (78), one may wonder
about the power of fiction to emplot realities, and ask whether uncertainty and the challenges to understanding that I have outlined in this
study suffice as an ecocritical answer to the aporias discussed in previous chapters and to environmental crises in general.
6XVLH2%ULHQLQDGLVFXVVLRQRIWKHFRQQHFWLRQbetween literature
classes and environmentalist action, remarks on various explanations
given by prominent ecocritics. She cites Cheryll Glotfelty, who exSODLQV WKDW DV HQYLURQPHQWDO SUREOHPV FRPSRXQG ZRUN DV XVXDO
seems unconscionably frivolous (quoteG LQ 2%ULHQ VHH *ORtfelty 1996: xxi). She also refers to Glen A. Love, who mentions a
general ethical and environmentalist consciousness within the English
departments DQGDVNVKRZDUHZHWRDFFRXQWIRURXUJHQHUDOIDLOXUH
WR DSSO\ DQ\ VHQVH RI WKLV DZDUHQHVV WR RXU GDLO\ ZRUN" (quoted in
2%ULHQ VHH DOVR /RYH 227). While these scholars
280
explain their individual, PRUDO PRWLYHV 2%ULHQ LV QRW VDWLVILHG 6KH
criticises the fact WKDW/RYHOLNHRWKHUHFRFULWLFVOHDYHVXQH[SODLQHG
the precise mechanism by which the work of individual scholars, refracted through the profession of literary studies, might effect changes
on the political level 2%ULHQ %XWLVWKHUHVXFKDprecise mechaQLVP"
In considering the sometimes confusing usage of ecological vocabulary and discussing it with regard to its aesthetic FRQWH[W2%ULHQ
concludes that the ideological revamping of scientific vocabulary for
WKHVDNHRIOLWHUDU\DQDO\VHVVRXQG>V@DELWOLNHMXPSHd-up versions of
New Criticism (181). In fact, in discussing the hermeneutics of
EnvironMentality, I have referred to many theoretical notions from the
same context that the New Criticism referred to. However, in my argument, I have not spoken for the autonomy of a certain corpus of
WH[WVQRUGR,SUHVFULEHDQ\OLWHUDU\IHDWXUHVDVJRRGDWWKHFRVWRI
other forms of writing. Nevertheless, my discussion could also be
understood as one of literary quality but not in a canonical, prescriptive sense. It should rather be understood in relation with the potential
of language and literature to make us aware of the world of words in
which we live (see Bartosch 2011 and Bartosch, forthcoming). The
interpretive negotiation of this world of words, at least for us human
DQLPDOVLVWLHGWRWKHUHDOZRUOGLQPDQ\ ZD\VDQGWRVWXG\WKHVH
ways is what constitutes ecocriticism for me.
I agree with Attridge that
[t]he effects of the literariness of certain linguistic works [...] are not predictable
and do not arise from planning [...] there can be no guarantee that the alterity
brought into the world by a particular literary or other artistic work will be beneficial. (Attridge 2004b: 60)
281
This is why close readings, even if they do not make you a better
person, as Timothy Morton notes, can help in the environmental context (see Garrard 2010d; Morton 2012) :K\ QRW WU\ WR EH VORZHU
WKDQWKRXLQRUGHUWRRXWGRWKHWRUWRLVHRIFORVHUHDGLQJDQGWDNHSDUW
LQWKHDQWL-race toward DQDHVWKHWLFVWDWHRIPHGLWDWLYHFDOP (Morton
2007: 12) as long as these meditations are situated in a hermeneutic
context that ultimately seeks to engender a connection of world,
reader and text through the openness to alterity? It might lead to
EnvironMentality, and it would be an environmentally oriented versioQ RI ZKDW -DPHV :RRG FDOOV WKH GLDOHFWLFDO WXWRULQJ of reading:
/LWHUDWXUHPDNHVXVEHWWHUQRWLFHUVRIOLIHZHJHWWRSUDFWLVHRQOLIH
itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature;
which in turn makes us better readers of life (J. Wood 2009: 53).
I have argued for an interpretive attitude that focuses on general
processes of making sense of works of art just as well as the individual reading experience in particular. Now I want to try a first concluVLRQNHHSLQJ/DZUHQFH%XHOOVFODLPLQPLQGWKDWDJRRGERRN>@
should open up its subject, not shut it down. Conclusions are chronically hamstrung by the temptations to reach closure or attempt prophecy in the narroZVHQVHRISUHGLFWLRQ (Buell 2008: 128). Obviously, I
am not interested in such forms of closure since I conceive of the ecocritical approach as a hermeneutic one that can never be finished
completely, just as it can never reach a certain point of knowledge.
Instead, it is an approach that constantly questions its own assumptions, its own hermeneutic situation, and constantly reassesses its prejudgements. Instead of concluding, or finalising my outline of such an
approach, I therefore want to emphasise again that I conceive of
EnvironMentality as a SHUSHWXDO WRZDUGV 5LPPRQ-Kenan 2002:
149). So what are we waiting for?
282
7KH QRWLRQV RI mastering on the one hand, and mapSLQJ RQ
the other, notably fit both the postcolonial and the ecocritical context
RI WKLV VWXG\ 0DVWHULQJ QDWXUH DQG WKXV DOVR mastering human
QDWXUH, is something that science critique has repeatedly related to the
empirical and often mechanistic approach of science. It might be good
to get away from the objectives of mastery and prediction. Without
putting all science under general suspicion, we must however understand that any humanistic, scholarly inquiry, or mapping, as Iser so
fittingly calls it, differs from science by virtue of its underlying prinFLSOHVDQGJRDOVWKXVFUHDWLQJDYLWDOGLIIHUHQFHEHWZHHQWKHVFLHQFHV
and the humanities. [...] The former [establishes] realities, and the
latter [outlines] patterns (6). I have therefore argued, in Patrick
&XUU\V ZRUGV IRU WKH DSSUHKHQVLRQ RI DQG SDUWLFLSDWLRQ LQ ZRnGURXVQHVV E\ ZKLFK WKH QXPHURXV QDUUDWLYH SDWWHUQV EXW DOVR WKHLU
FRQQHFWLRQWRWKHWUXWKRIILFWLRQFDQEHGLVFXVVHG (2008: 64).
I have thus tried to show how the patterns that could be discerned
relate to the hermeneutic task of understanding the world around us
but also within us. I have sought to open up the discourse (or rather
contribute to it) of how we might read texts in order to learn something about the way we comprehend the world; and this is quite different from making predictions about which books might affect people in
283
284
285
I then moved on by relating postnatural environments and dystopian visions to a discussion of the role of narratives by reading MargaUHW$WZRRGVOryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. The rendering of temporal and environmental perception could be connected to
the idea of a humanimal identity that is embedded in the deep-time
processes of evolution but that is likewise bound to the linguistic
ZRUOGRIQDUUDWLYH7KXVZKLOHDSSHDULQJWREHJUHHQG\VWRSLDsWKH
texts could be shown to formulate a remarkable form of ecocritique,
that is, a self-critical questioning of their ideological context. Again,
intertextuality and sequentialisation complemented the semantics of
the text, and the utopian potential of literature could be linked to the
task of envisioning ways of monitoring and re-creating the world if
RQO\E\JDUGHQLQJ and telling stories.
Ultimately, these discussions brought me to notions of posthumanLVP,QP\UHDGLQJRI-0&RHW]HHVThe Lives of Animals and Elizabeth Costello, the question of ethics as well as the role of reality in
fiction were negotiated. From there, I came to a reassessment of
%XHOOVFODLPIRUPLPHVLV, which I still find to be a crucial analytical
concept inasmuch as it points to the necessity of incorporating the
world and its reality into our cultural practice of reading fiction. However, there are many worlds, and there are many ways of emplotting
UHDOLW\ DQG WKH DSSURDFKHV WR GRLQJ VR DUH VXEMHFW WR FRQVWDQW
change. Thus, I have arJXHGIRUDUHDGLQJSUDFWLFHRItransformative
mimesis and for the ability of seemingly avant-garde, self-referential
texts to convey to us D VHQVH RI WKH UHDO, which, ultimately, can be
integrated into the concept of EnvironMentality.
In all these readings, I have engaged with textual form in order to
read literature as an aesthetic rather than an instrumentalist discourse,
and this has ultimately helped us to understand the notion of form
without formalism form and content become one in the process of
negotiating literary meaning. This meaning always points to the world
it does not save the world but it helps us envision it with more alert
eyes.
286
to the negotiation of the world that they emplot, gains new and pivotal
relevance in the context of environmental crises. But it also unsettles
RXU LGHDV RI VROYLQJ D SUREOHP does the seemingly imperative
nature of ecological thought benefit or suffer from the slowness of
close reading? We have to ask ourselves what it means to understand
reading as a crucial activity although it is in no way certain what the
result will be. SLQFH HQYLURQPHQWDO FRQWHQW GRHV QRW JXDUDQWHH Dn
ecocritically successful reading, any reading of the world can lead to
unprecedented and un-didactical results, as Attridge claims (see
2004b: 60).
The ambiguity and uncertainty of such readings is a good argument
for ecocriticism to attend to various literary forms, concepts and artistic engagements with the world. It is also the reason why in ecocritical
research, anti-theoretical renaissances of realism and ecomimesis and
postmodern-poststructuralist contentions exist side by side in a state
WKDW 7LPRWK\ 0RUWRQ GHVFULEHV DV SRVWPRGHUQ UHWUR
happily co-existing in what one may wish to call an overly diverse
cultural ecosystem. Ursula Heise comments on this diversity when she
proposes that ecocriticism expand its range of interest further and
include studies of contemporary nature writing such as Bill McKibEHQVThe End of Nature RU7LP)ODQQHU\VThe Weather Makers, all
RI ZKLFK KDYH DUJXDEO\ JHQHUDWHG PRUH SXEOLF DWWHQWLRQ WR DQG Gebate about environmental issues than the poems of Gary Snyder or Joy
Harjo (Heise 2010b: 29). However, she does not argue for a mere
expansion of interest but describes how ecocriticism as VFKRODUO\
HQYLURQPHQWDOLVP WKDW LV VFKRODUVKLS WKDW KDV DQ DJHQGD (see
Cohen 2004: 10), should bring into its focus forms other than fictional
writing.
Although the success story of ecocriticism started in departments
of English, and thus arguably with the study of literature, ecocritical
perspectives now inform science critique, philosophy and the studies
RISRSXODUFXOWXUH+HLVHVUHFHQWDGYDQFHLQWRWKH epic realm of red
lists and biodiversity databases (2010c) stands as impressive proof of
her WKHVLVWKDWDQHFRFULWLFDOUH-engagement with biological and ecoORJLFDO VFLHQFH PD\ ZHOO FKDOOHQJH WKH FRQYHQWLRQV RI OLWHUDU\ DQG
cultural studies and remap English from the ecocritical perspective
(Heise 2010b: 32). Understood this way, the ecocritical perspective
engenders an understanding of how rhetoric and narrative are informed by scientific insights and how scientific insights are themselves influenced by narrative and rhetoric.
287
In order for this noise to be heard, however, people need to be listening. The texts that at the same time should perturb our ways of thinking and be an aesthetic pleasure must possess the potential of literary
singularity they must be able to become an event of meaning. However, I have shown in this study that the question of quality cannot be
DQVZHUHG E\ ORRNLQJ IRU WH[WXDO HQYLURQPHQWDOLW\ WKDW LV WH[WXDO
288
289
Sher explains that ostraniene is a comSRXQGRI WKH 5XVVLDQ ZRUGV IRU strange
and WRVKRYHDVLGH
290
291
This process takes time, and the outcome of it is less than clear. But
there is hardly any time to waste VROHWVUHDG
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