A Comparative Analysis of Ecocriticism in a Passage to India and Burnt Shadows

Abstract

The study explores the place of nature in A Passage to India (1924) by E.M. Forster and Burnt Shadows (2009) by Kamila Shamsie in terms of environmental imagination (1995) by Lawrence Buell and eco-cosmopolitanism (2008) by Ursula Heise. This research explores the ways in which nature in both novels play a role larger than serving as a mere background, such that it also participates, morally and symbolically, in the plotline, the characterization, and cultural discourse. In A Passage to India, nature itself, especially the Marabar Caves, is seen as a metaphor of cultural alienation and opposition that are part of colonization process, whereas in Burnt Shadows the natural setting is combined with the trans-national repercussions of war, displacement and environmental trauma. This study discusses the way in which two novels make use of nature to criticize colonialism and what it now describes as global ecology issues and as a naturally taking place agent that seeks to challenge human’s assumptions and make them accountable towards them by ethically questioning them on their routes to the environment. A comparative ecocritical analysis will demonstrate the role played by nature as an object of rebellion and moralization of the soul in these texts and provide the sense of the human moral obligations to nature. The research is built on the theories that Buell and Heise have proposed and contribute to the postcolonial ecocriticism because it will target the links between the environmental problems we are facing all around the world and the significance of environmental awareness in literature. The study also indicates that further research may widen the scope of postcolonial ecocriticism to include the representations of nature made by other writers, especially writers whose regions of origin had most suffered because of the environmental and colonial exploitation.