Environmental Discourse: A Comparative Ecocritical Study of Pakistani and American Fiction in English

Abstract

This article is an overview of how language communicates and construes humanity’s relationship to the environment in different cultural contexts. With reference to Moth Smoke (2012), Trespassing (2005), White Noise (1999) and A Thousand Acres (1991) the study explores particularities of American and Pakistani environmental discourse. Informed by interdisciplinary approaches like ecocriticism and toxic discourse the analysis seeks to demonstrate writers’ engagement with issues and concerns on environmental degradation. The purpose of the study is to explore the plurality of perspectives that are required to address the environmental contamination taking place globally. To understand the fundamental premise of how different cultures view and frame ecological crisis especially in the form of toxicity, pollution and contamination, this article briefly examines the selected Pakistani and American writers’ representation of their society’s ecological relationship with the living and non-living world recognising the complex altering relationship between the environment and the social sphere.