ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SALMAN RUSHDIE’S SHALIMAR THE CLOWN AND THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

Abstract

One of the major crises that the world faces today is the environmental crisis that has prompted us to think of our responsibilities towards Mother Earth and the safer choices people have to make. Modern environmentalism can be said to begin with the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962. The work mingled ecological science with literature, bringing about a new inter-disciplinary area called as ‘Ecocriticism’. To quote Glotfelty, “… ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (xix). Though environmentalism evolved recently, a number of distinct eco-philosophies have emerged with its own understanding and approach to the environmental crisis. This research paper aims in tracing the modern environmental crisis in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown.