Narinder Kumar,Ravi Kumar
PhD. Scholar, Department of English, University of Jammu, Jammu, J&K, India
E-mail: Narinder.jammuuniversity@gmail.com
PhD., Scholar, Department of English, University of Jammu, Jammu, J&K, India
E-mail:Rvi.shrma3@gmail.com
Corresponding author.
Narinder Kumar
E-mail address: Narinder.jammuuniversity@gmail.com
Abstract
Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing offers a powerful literary exploration of ecological consciousness that aligns closely with the principles of deep ecology. This paper explores nature as a space of contention and destabilization to mirror the fractured consciousness in the novel. The novel relies on the memory gaps and fractured consciousness through which Atwood frames a postmodern subjective narrative of psychological fragmentation, juxtaposing the ecological disruption. The paper analyses Surfacing as resistance against the contemporary narrative of anthropocentric progress through the technological invasion of non human world. It attempts to study the unchecked intrusion of tourism, technology and capital exploitation of natural resources and landscape, and unveils the inflicted violence upon animals and various unprecedented consequences of human reliance and dominance over nature. The protagonist’s finding solace in the wilderness is studied as a rejection of established cultural fixities and patriarchal fabric in society. Eventually, the paper will establish Margaret Atwood’s novel as a genre-defining work of deep ecological criticism that foregrounds the psychological and environmental consequences of technological development to reconsider the contemporary fluctuating relationships between humans and the non-human world. The narrative of the novel is framed around an unnamed narrator’s psychological and spiritual journey into the wilderness, where her immersion in the natural landscape unfolds different aspects and the rejection of anthropocentric development and modern rationality. The novel focuses to critique the exploitation of nature and natural beings through technology, consumerism, and patriarchal culture. The paper analyses through the character of the narrator a symbiotic relationship within nature and human beings; her gradual identification with animals, trees, and the landscape signals a collapse of the human-nature binary and reflects the deep ecological emphasis on biocentrism and ecological interconnectedness.
Keywords:Deep ecology, ecocriticism, biocentrism, human–nature relationship.