Green shadows: exploring tropes of ecophobia in jean rhys’ wide sargasso sea
E. O. Wilson commented that phobia is not innately present but acquired. The article highlights how the fear of nature shapes the cultural and social behaviours of Man. Wide Sargasso Sea, written by Jean Rhys, primarily portrayed as a postcolonial response to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, is r...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2024
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/23590/1/Gema%20Online_24_1_12.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/23590/ https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1648 |
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| Institution: | Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | E. O. Wilson commented that phobia is not innately present but acquired. The article highlights
how the fear of nature shapes the cultural and social behaviours of Man. Wide Sargasso Sea,
written by Jean Rhys, primarily portrayed as a postcolonial response to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane
Eyre, is replete with gothic imagery. Fear and anxiety of nature are commonly found as the centre
of Gothicised texts throughout literary history, wreathing concerns of ecophobia, a term used by
Simon Estok to define this irrational traumatic response to the natural. The article aims to explore
tropes of ecophobia, fear of nature, through the two main protagonists of the novel- Rochester and
Antoinette. The EcoGothic reverberations in the text highlight intersections between the biophilic
human psyche and the contrasting colonial upbringing that develop into an aversion towards
Nature and its subjects. The article draws from concepts of colonialism and Gothic shifting focus
towards EcoGothic, ensuing the ecological destruction. Further, it discusses tropes of ecophobia
which is also a trajectory of the related aversion to otherness. Ecophobic tendencies tune
themselves into destruction, manipulation and domination, hastening climate degradation. The
world in contemporary times suffers from anxiety related to the altering changes in the
environment, and the article attempts to briefly decode the reasons for this disconnect while also
putting the theories of ecophobia at the forefront in attempt to re-analyse postcolonial texts. |
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